Ohio Data Offers Rental Option for iSeries Telephony

Published: April 25, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Ohio Data Transfer on Sunday will introduce a new rent-to-own program for its DTT1000 voice response unit (VRU), which is used to access data and applications on OS/400 servers from standard telephones. Instead of making a lump sum payment to the Ohio-based company for more than $15,000, customers can reduce their risk by renting the DTT1000 on a monthly basis, and if they find the DT1000 fits their needs, the solution is theirs to keep after about 30 months of payments.

There are many industry applications for device like the DT1000. This class of device can be set up to play back pre-recorded information, such as a business' location or hours of operation, which could come in handy during off-hours when the business' customer service representatives (CSRs) are home sleeping. The devices can also perform more sophisticated functions, such as finding order-status data, and serving this dynamic data to the user through its text-to-speech (computer voice) capability.

In fact, except for making coffee, devices like the DT1000 can replicate just about any call center or CSR function. Let's face it--they are CSR killers, and while this won't make them favorites with worker's rights groups, there's no denying that they can deliver 24/7 service to key business processes and data, while saving their users a tidy little sum in the process.

Once an organization has made the decision to implement an interactive voice response (IVR) application, the fun part--solution hunting--begins. There are several computer telephony solutions for iSeries on the market, and one of the companies that has been serving this niche for some time is Ohio Data Transfer, which is based in Columbus, Ohio.

Ohio Data got its start in the midrange server marketplace 25 years ago, when it began selling I/O products, such as Twinax printers and terminals, followed by emulation cards and protocol converters, says Terry Rogers, president of Ohio Data. Soon the company found itself getting into client-server computing, and before you knew it, they were selling telephony I/O solutions, where a telephone, its 12-key keypad, and speaker provide the client interface. While the devices are marketed through Ohio Data, a subsidiary, Data Transfer Technologies, owns the DTT1000.

The DTT1000 solution is composed of hardware and software. In terms of hardware, the product uses a rack-mountable X86 frame manufactured by Dialogic (now part of Intel) to connect to the telephone lines (either digital or analog), perform text-to-speech translation, and submit queries to the OS/400 server.

Powering the DTT1000 is any flavor of 32-bit Windows operating system, and a Basic-like scripting language that's used to create a range of applications, including IVR, call center routing, voice mail, automated attendant (the familiar "press one for English") and "fax-back" systems, where the DTT1000 can automatically fax a user the required document. The DTT1000 also has the capability to e-mail documents, for an additional fee.

The DTT1000 can also be used to make outbound calls. While new laws have had a huge impact on the commercial telemarketing industry, there are still legitimate uses for this technology, such as sending pre-recorded calls to customers who may not be aware that their orders are being held up due to a credit hold, or for sending out notices via e-mail that a custom order has shipped. Automating the handling of such situations can improve customer service and provide a much-needed boost to a company's bottom-line.

In addition to its role in collections and customer service, the DTT1000 can also be a force on the front-line of AR by integrating credit card processing into IVR applications. Ohio Data partners with Curbstone, which develops a native OS/400 product called the Curbstone Card, for such capability. In fact, integration between these two products has been the topic of an ongoing series of stories in Ohio Data's newsletters this spring.

Ohio Data says its scripting language is easy for non-programmers to use, and most applications can be created in a matter of hours. To get customers started, Ohio Data throws in one day of free professional development and customization services with licenses for the product. While most (about 95 percent, according to the company) of Ohio Data customers use the DTT1000 to create front-ends for iSeries servers, the devices can support practically any server and database through ODBC.

A single DTT1000 can support from two to 92 phone lines. Traditional pricing for the basic two-line unit costs $15,500. This increases to $33,000 for the 16-line unit, and $53,000 for the 32-line unit.

Under the new rent-to-own program the company plans to announce Sunday, the customer is only required to make a deposit and pay the first month's rent before taking delivery of the unit. A minimum of three months rent is required, and the customer can cancel the agreement at any time after that. Once the customer has enough equity in the rental contract (rental equity is calculated as the combination of the deposit and 80 percent of the rental payments), then the equipment and software belongs to the lessee.

On the entry-level unit, this will take about 30 months, which translates into about $1 per hour--much less than you would have to pay a CSR.