In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, more people are working remotely at home than perhaps any other time in history. Contivio has always been committed to providing our clients – big and small – with a full-stack of contact center and telephony solutions, available in the cloud across all media channels, distributed globally. Our system is the easiest way to increase productivity, customer satisfaction, lead generation, and sales. Contivio can also be leveraged for at-home or remote workers and customized to meet your team’s needs during this uncertain time. 
Contivio uses Voice over IP (VoIP) technology to initiate and deliver phone calls over the internet network. As a cloud app, one of our key advantages is the flexibility of movement we offer our users. However, when working from home and/or remote sites, we need to be mindful (particularly, if this involves large portions of your workforce) that some home routers struggle to deliver VoIP correctly, resulting in no audio, one-way audio or poor audio quality. While various routers can be reconfigured to handle VoIP correctly, this may require a laborious assessment of the router’s capability, existing configuration, and other internet service provider factors.
While some home routers may work out of the box (or with some effort), it is strongly recommended customers utilize virtual private network technology to secure and traverse the home user network safely. VPNs essentially negate any exposure to differing home user router behaviors, presenting one common secure connectivity mode and in the majority of cases irrespective of the router type/model or configuration. Essentially, the VPN offers a ‘set and forget’ solution so that agents in any location connecting via any router, can best experience your enterprise’s network infrastructure.
In this blog, we’ll briefly describe three (3) VPN options, as well as the pros and cons for each. We’ve also included a fourth fail-safe mechanism just in case. Depending on your user’s location, needs, and roles, utilize one of the four options listed below to ensure your employees can safely carry on at home while practicing physical distancing.
Option 1: Corporate VPN
For customers with business-grade routers, sufficient internet bandwidth, and IT network skills, a corporate VPN option is the preferred option.
Pros:
- Contivio application usage is identical to office use.
- Users are able to access other corporate resources.
- Security policy can be tailored to individual users if required.
Cons:
- You may not wish to give the user access to corporate LAN from homes.
- Requires an IT department with knowledge of VPNs.
- Requires a suited router and sufficient internet bandwidth. Voice Traffic is double that when the user is in the office.
Option 2: In-Cloud Fully Managed VPN Service
Users can subscribe directly or via corporate account to commercial VPN service such as Express VPN. This option is suitable for companies that do not have IT expertise to provide their own VPN corporate VPN and need a simple/quick VPN service.
Pros:
- Contivio application usage is identical to office use.
- Can be activated within minutes, not requiring IT skills. Where a customer does not wish to take accountability of home user’s internet traffic, they can request that each user signs up directly.
- Uses own client software, mitigating the need to configure the user PC.
- Provides direct support, reducing the need for customer IT department involvement.
Cons:
- Does not provide fine level tuning capabilities as in customer-managed VPN server.
- It is unknown if these providers have sufficient capacity to deal with such a sudden increase in product demand.
Option 3: Cloud-Based Self-Managed VPN Server
Customers can use any VPN server/cloud provider of their choice. To simplify the customer task, Contivio has configured and made available a suitable Amazon AWS server image with full setup instructions on how to setup/use your own VPN.
Pros:
- Contivio application usage is identical to office use.
- Fast in-cloud setup does not require on-premise hardware or software.
- Customers can spin off servers in different locations.
- Customer can beef up the VPN server capacity as required.
- Customers can add shared resources (files) on the VPN server if required.
Cons:
- There are some costs associated with the server hire and traffic usage.
Option 4: Contivio PSTN Mode: Route to Legacy and Cell Phones
Users can select to sign in to Contivio as a PSTN user by providing their cell or home phone number. This will ring all inbound calls directly on the cell or home phone. Outbound calls triggered from the Contivio application and/or via the CRM (click-to-dial) will first ring the cell/home phone and subsequently the number original dialed.
Pros:
- Will operate with poor internet connectivity.
- Does not require VPN. Calls can be recorded if desired.
- Allows up to 5 parties in the call conference.
- Allows internal dialing using standard extensions.
- Allows for multiline and call transfers as per normal operation.
- Allows for screen pops, call dispositioning and notes attachment as per normal operation.
Cons:
- Call costs are higher as each call will require two lines.
- You should increase your VoIP channels to protect you from maxing out your SIP Trunks.
- Contivio application usage is slightly different where user initiated outbound calls will dial the user phone first and when answered it will dial the desired destination.
Please reach out to your Contivo case manager or our support team at support@contivio.com to learn more about which option might be best for your organization.
As always, Contivo remains committed to helping you connect with your customers in an efficient and productive way – even when normal business procedures are interrupted. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions or to set up a free demo to learn more about how Contivo can help your team serve customers remotely.
