Plum is one of few vendors that provide onsite, premise-based IVR and hosted IVR services. Plum has offered both options for more than 10 years because businesses need deployment options. Over the years, we’ve seen many companies start their IVR programs with hosted IVR, then move to an on premise solution once they are comfortable with their call volume and port capacity requirements. Likewise, some companies start with an onsite IVR system, then move to a hosted option if their call patterns spike or if they need additional on-demand call capacity. Because Plum offers phone numbers in 65 countries, many businesses will run their IVR application on a premise based solution here in the US and use Plum’s hosted network to implement applications in countries where they do not have operations or support staff. This setup helps businesses lower costs by keeping telco rates down in the US and by having Plum support international applications.
In addition to supporting customers who have local system deployments and international hosting accounts, Plum also recommends a hosted/on premise hybrid model for businesses that have mission critical IVR applications or need rollover capacity. Many companies have seasonal call volumes. Their call traffic is level for most of the year, but during the holidays (or other busy seasons), they require excess capacity. Companies in this situation do not want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on additional hardware, software, and telco that only gets used a few months out of the year. So, businesses in this situation deploy onsite IVR systems to handle regular call volumes and use Plum’s hosted infrastructure during high call volume seasons to manage call spikes and process a high volume of calls. The same applications that run onsite can run on Plum’s hosted network, without the developer having to alter VoiceXML code. Developers simply need to associate their application URLs with phone numbers that are configured on their IVR systems and in Plum’s hosted administrative UI. These will allow calls to rollover from one site to another. This model works well for businesses that need a high level of redundancy as well. Plum’s hosted IVR platform acts as a disaster recovery system for many businesses that have onsite systems.
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