What the heck do we use the phone for?Michael Roth, Senior Systems Engineer, BT

A Taxonomy of Telephony

Focus on Function

• Three Varieties of Dial-Tone• Knowledge Worker• Location Based• High Value

• Background• Thinking developed while VP for Telecommunications at Wells Fargo

Bank• Merger with First Interstate Bank

• One state (CA) to multiple states• One Vendor (NT) to multiple vendors

• Needed a quick way to qualify designs and solutions

Knowledge Worker

• Wanting to talk to somebody specific• You are calling to talk to me

• Functionality• Single button access to features (easy to navigate)• Voicemail (with message indication)• Two lines• Display

• What it looks like• One phone number/One person• Mobile phone• Fixed-Mobile Convergence

Location Based

• Don’t care who you talk to• Pizza Shop• Just answer the phone, please

• Functionality• Few features (they are getting calls)• No Voicemail• As many lines as you have callers• Multiple phones with same line appearances

• What it looks like• Squared Key system• Any one can/will answer the phone

High Value

• Don’t care who you talk to• More than answer the phone• More Important

• Who is calling• What are they calling about

• Functionality• Ability to ID caller/subject of call• Basic decision

• Cheapest way to deal with customer• Best way to deal with customer

• What it looks like• Call Center• Trading Turret

Why Bother?

• Nice Academic Exercise

• Where we get into trouble

• Technology follows function

An eComm 2008 presentation – http://eCommMedia.com for more