ZONE Telecom has been recognized by APAC CIOOutlook Magazine as the recipient of “Top Unified Communication Technology companies in APAC,” based on our proprietary methodology, reflecting its position in the industry. This profile has been developed by the APAC CIOOutlook research and editorial team based on insights from an interview with Peter Ong.

ZONE Telecom
Redefining Telecommunications in SMEs

Peter Ong, Managing Director

Having started out as a long-distance call service provider, Singapore-based ZONE Telecom Pte Ltd—a firm specialising in telecoms solutions—now offers a comprehensive suite of business solutions covering voice, data, broadband, cloud hosting services and workflow management. Having served multinational corporations, government agencies and SMEs for their telecommunications needs for the last 18 years, ZONE with all its experiences is now focued on helping SMEs, which comprise 99 percent of businesses in Singapore, with their business digitalisation needs. Peter Ong, the managing director of the company, describes the quandary of small businesses, “Like any other big firm, SMEs need new technologies and solutions to be more efficient. However, SMEs usually channel resources to revenue-generating activities, instead of IT systems and solutions that will improve business operations, reduce cost and also increase sales revenue.” This is where ZONE comes in with its consultative approach and handholds them in their digitalisation journey. As such, while ZONE continues to offer the essential voice communication services, it also integrates such services with customers’ other business applications for a more complete business workflow. ZONE is transforming itself and innovating to remain relevant in the face of business operations digitalisation.

ZONE’s telephony solution, ZONE ZENTREX is a cloud-based PBX, with unified communications, contact centre capabilities and business workflow integration. ZONE ZENTREX is a state-of-the art cloud hosted IP PBX that is up there with the best that the industry has to offer. It runs on open SIP protocol to ensure broad interoperability with different SIP devices. It has POPs in major cities in South-East Asia like Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and of course Singapore, all inter-connected with local telcos via SS7 to offer best-in-class voice quality and develop innovative services. “While Singapore is our home base, we have established our regional presence to service our customers as they expand regionally. We have also set up a POP in Hong Kong and we are now looking at establishing our service in China”, added Peter.

Beyond PBX functionalities, the standout value proposition of ZONE ZENTREX is that it comprises multitudes of fully integrated applications that SMEs can add on seamlessly at anytime. It is pretty much like the LEGO brick concept where SMEs can start with a few extensions and continue to add on different applications to facilitate business workflow. For instance a SME can simply add on an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) function at any time to manage call flows and also provide options for customers to request for a sales call at any preferred time.

The key advantage of ZONE ZENTREX is that it is a multi-function telephone solution customizable to different business workflows

They can also automate the calling of customers to remind them of contract renewals, new service launch or even to manage accounts receivable. With a comprehensive array of features, it allows users to easily mix and match the various communication solutions and applications to fit their needs, scale, and transform their business interactions effortlessly in as quickly as 30 minutes or less. Peter explains, “In case of unique requirements, we are able to customise solutions that can be integrated with the customers’ in-house or third-party applications. For instance, ZONE ZENTREX’s contact centre solution is customisable to the clients’ business workflow, allowing for seamless integration with their database or third party CRM applications like Zendesk for a tighter workflow”.

Many enterprise customers have benefited from ZONE ZENTREX. Besides cost savings, it has provided employees with greater mobility that has helped them stay in contact with the office and customers. Leveraging ZONE ZENTREX, companies are able to support a mobile workforce to improve productivity, and most of all augment customer engagement that translates to better customer satisfaction and sales.

With ZONE ZENTREX, the company staff can route calls directly to wherever they are. “So, if your customer calls your office and the sales manager is not present, the call can be routed to wherever he/she is. This ensures that your sales staff attends to all important sales leads, and your company appears more professional even with a small team”, underscores Peter.

Further illustrating the benefits of ZONE ZENTREX, Peter mentions a client in the insurance industry who had replaced their on-premise Avaya call centre solution with ZONE’s platform. Not only did ZONE ZENTREX meet their complex contact centre workflow requirements, the customers also deployed new capabilities that helped to increase their call centre performance by 12-15 percent. They implemented a feature that allows callers to place a call back instead of waiting on the IVR, without losing their queue priority. It also improved call distribution with better call analytics and routing algorithm.

In another instance, a small business in the car trade sector deployed the Call Tracking function as part of ZONE ZENTREX's offering. ZONE was able to provide integration of call records with Google Analytics that provided visibility into the correlation between sales call and its search engine marketing initiatives. This gave the client a better picture of their marketing ROI.

Another workflow integration involves real-time automatic validation with the Do Not Call (DNC) registry central database. Unlike other solutions that pre-scrubs, a call centre’s call list against the DNC registry, ZONE ZENTREX performs real-time check against the data base or the call centre’s internal database and offers additional call management options to the caller. This workflow solution facilitates the call centre manager to enforce tight compliance with the regulatory requirements or to offer flexibility to the call centre agents. ZONE ZENTREX also provided the necessary tools needed by the company’s PDPA compliance officer.

For the impending years, ZONE plans to help companies reimagine the way they use their IP telephone system and reap benefits beyond just a phone system. Peter concludes, “We want to empower organisations with our solution to bring forth better communication, collaborations and interactions between the firms and their customers”.