TeleMate Case Studies

TeleMate Helps Gardner Webb University Control and Allocate Fixed and Mobile Telecommunications Expenses

In the dynamic environment of higher education, an effective telecommunications network can foster a sense of community and help drive the academic mission. Founded in 1905, Gardner Webb University is an NCAA DIVISION I school serving 4000 students in 45 areas of study. Gardner Webb's 200 acre North Carolina campus is served by an Avaya phone system with 2000 extensions, supplemented by mobile service for approximately 150 staff users.

The Challenge

The University initially pursued telephone call accounting to help address emergency response and investigative requirements. "On a college campus sometimes you have people using the phone for harassment and we needed to know who called and when." The University also needed to control and allocate telecommunications expenses, especially with regard to cellular use. "Much of our business now is done by mobile phone, and we spend $6000 a month on cellular communications for 150 people. That's $40 per person, per month. In contrast, we spend $2000 a month to serve 2000 users with traditional voice coverage, including PRI and long-distance. That's only a $1 per person per month. In the current economy, we're looking to eliminate wasted expense wherever we can. If we spend $40 a month on a cell phone that's idle or is mostly used for personal calls, then we'd like to cut off that account."

The TeleMate Solution

Gardner Webb selected the TeleMate Unified Call Accounting software to address its reporting, billing and expense management needs. TeleMate Unified Call Accounting helps enterprises minimize voice communication costs, simplify capacity planning and monitor employee productivity. TeleMate provides seamless, centralized collection and reporting of call data from legacy phone systems, IP PBXs, call managers, voice managers, voice gateways, and IVR systems. Additionally, TeleMate measures resource utilization and provides reports for internal departmental charge-back.

Benefits

Benefit: Reduced Mobile Telecom Costs

The University uses TeleMate to control and allocate rising mobile telecommunications expenses. "TeleMate provided an immediate ROI in our mobile cost savings effort. We anticipate we'll ultimately cut about 35-40% off our $6000 a month cellular costs", said Wayne Johnson, Associate Vice President of Operations. "TeleMate has played an important role by providing accurate information about our cellular usage. We also use TeleMate to reconcile our actual cellular use versus our carrier subscription and identify unusual or excessive calling patterns, like 411 charges."

"Initially, cost allocation was not that important to us -- we had free LATA calls and mostly fixed long-distance expense. However, when the University changed to a per-minute plan, TeleMate instantly provided the needed billing resources."

"We also bill for mobile calls, using an SQL file of monthly call detail records acquired via download and CD from our service provider. The data automatically feeds the TeleMate system to create an integrated bill with our switched call records. For each user, we have a bill that includes switched calls, recurring cellular costs and cellular call detail. The beauty of this is it's a completely automated process -- TeleMate prints a bill and the information goes into our comptroller's general ledger system. All we have to do is keep the database in shape."

"We've also used TeleMate to replace a third-party provider for our student telephone billing, though at this point most students rely on their cell phones."

Benefit: More Effective Emergency Response

TeleMate maintains a complete record of campus phone activity and facilitates both real-time and forensic investigations. "On campus emergencies happen quite often. TeleMate makes it easy to track the source and destination of calls, which helps ensure university staff and emergency personnel can respond appropriately."

Benefit: Better Capacity Planning

Gardner Webb uses TeleMate to reconcile actual versus expected mobile telecom use. "Our mobile phone users access a shared pool of cellular minutes, which we manage internally. We project how many minutes each user will consume and size the shared pool accordingly. At the end of the month, if we excessively go over or under our expected minutes, that's a bad thing. It means we either had expensive overtime charges or we bought mobile airtime we didn't need."

Benefit: Improved Productivity

TeleMate call reports measure inbound and outbound calling patterns and serve as a productivity tool for the Admissions Department. "Our Admissions group is a statistics-driven organization. We use TeleMate to help ensure our people are making enough calls to meet recruiting goals."

Benefit: Enhanced Ease-Of-Use

TeleMate makes life easier for the Gardner Webb telecom team by providing out-of-the-box solutions and automated processes. "For the most part, TeleMate is a set and forget system", said Jamee Miller, Director of Telecommunications. "Once something like a report is scheduled, we don't have to do anything more. The reports are automatically e-mailed out to our managers. We really like the reporting. Typically if there is anything I need, there already is a standard report that TeleMate offers."

Benefit: Good Value

"One of the things I like best about TeleMate is the corporate philosophy and relationship" said Johnson. "The people at TeleMate always find a way to help us get more value out of the system. With specialized software, you often have to spend a lot of money on professional services to make the system work. With TeleMate, I get a good balance of flexibility and power. I like that I can do things myself but the professional services and customization options are available if I need them."

Summary

"If you need call accounting, TeleMate is a no-brainer. There is no more economical way to manage telecommunications than TeleMate. It's extremely reliable software."