Owner: Virtual Observations - The CSI Call Center Blog URL:http://call-center-stories.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:07:14 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This blog is published by the marketing department of Coordinated Systems, Inc. (CSI). This blog features many CSI news stories and also assembles tips for improving the call center agent performance and helping teams evolve into world class call centers. Site statistics:Click here
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The benefits of screen capture for training 2007-08-06 14:30:41 Most of the time, when we implement our enhanced screencapture
functionality for a customer, it's not intended to catch occasional ebay surfing or other nefarious internet activity. The main benefit of capturing screen activity is to evaluate how agents are using your company's various applications.Are they efficiently looking up customer information in the crm?Do they know how to search the support knowledgebase?Do your agents know when and how to add notes from a customer call?Are they presenting correct information?Are they utilizing the correct applications?Recording the agents on the phone is only part of the story. Being able to watch the synchronized screen and phone interaction completes the picture.Note: we are pleased to announce that we are able to record dual-monitor screen activity for agents who use two monitors in their contact center.
Updated List of CRM Companies 2007-08-03 09:34:16 We posted a list of CRM companies that came up in Google searches in 2005 and we are now updating that list in order to include the new landscape of Web 2.0 companies as well. This list is in alphabetical order:absoluteBUSYabsoluteBUSY’s fast and simple services allow employees to effectively share a database, while always being up-to-date.Aplicor Being the most awarded hosted CRM software, Aplicor’s services focus on the ease of use and the fact that they have the highest user count in the country.AtalvoCreated for small and medium businesses, Atalvo’s CRM service is easy to use, install, and their quickly responsive team is a positive.Auric TechnologyOffering a free IT service, Auric’s CRM service is housed and maintained by them and is incredibly easy to utilize.BizAutomationFit for big business automation, this program has a low cost for a lot. It is integrated with Microsoft Outlook, OWA, Exchange, and Quickbooks. Using a single user sign-on, BizAutomation includes CRM and Read more:Companies
Most frequently searched keywords for call center job seekers 2007-08-01 13:31:23 If your company has a call center and you're always looking to fill seats, consider optimizing the careers web page on your corporate website. If you optimize your pages for these terms, and back it up with good quality content and links, you'll be sure to get a boost in your organic (free!) search engine traffic. These were the keywords most relevant to a call center job seeker, in order of search volume for last month:call center agent call center headsets call center work at home call center jobscall center agents call center application call center applications call center attrition call center career call center careers call center certificationcall center cubicles call center employees call center employment call center furniture call center headset call center job description call center managers call center positions call center representative call center resume call center salary call center school call center staffingcall center turnover inbound call cen Read more:seekers
VoIP telecom provider implements Virtual Observer 2007-07-31 13:27:58 We recently completed an implementation for a Cisco VoIP service provider. The company handles approximately 70,000 calls a day. They can now provide call recording capabilities, evaluation capabilities, and possibly screen capture capabilities to their portfolio of Cisco VoIP customers.The two days of training went well, going over all of the included features and also discussing how VO can be presented to their customer base. They were very excited with Virtual Observer
's scalability.Virtual Observer is a perfect recording option for hosted telecom service providers. The return on investment with VO is already best in the industry, but it becomes exponentially greater when you consider our value added features can be extended to your customer base.
6 Pownce invitations to give out 2007-07-30 10:49:27 This isn't really call center-related, but I thought it was news worthy enough to post. Pownce is a new turbo-IM/forum tool that alerts you to news from your friends in social networks. For example, if everyone in your LinkedIn contact list used Pownce to make announcements, change status, or to let people know where they were, you would automatically be pinged with the messgae. Like Twitter, the thought is you'll use these tools as kind of a hyper-blog, where you update it with every single activity.Another example would be if all of your call center agents had Pownce, and they posted every time they finished a call, and they were all in your Pownce network, you could be notified with each change in status.It's a strecth to see this as a business implementation, but it's still kind of a cool technology. Entirely web-based, you need to be invited to use it. I have six invitations, so comment below and I'll send you one if available.
CSI seeks to add new members to technology sales team 2007-07-27 11:48:50 Our call center solutions firm is growing and we are looking for some dynamic individuals who will not only pound the pavement for our solutions but who will add to our team chemistry.The right candidate should have a high comfort level with technology and be proficient in conveying value in a solution selling environment. This person has to WANT to be our team's MVP. Candidates who arew seeking long term stability and consistent earnings growth will be very pleased with their decision to apply. Must also be well organized and process-driven. For more information about this position, please visit our career center.
Quicklist of tips for call center agents 2007-07-26 10:31:07 * Maintain a positive, pleasant tone, but if you are over-the-top cheery, a caller who is disgruntled may be annoyed by your vibe.* Ask your call center supervisors for training materials you can review during any down time. They will appreciate the initiative.* Keep track of your own stats. # of calls handled/made, # of saves/upgrades, # cancellations, # of customers helped, # of times you needed help, etc...give yourself a reward when you break weekly records. Perhaps a Starbucks Frappucino?* Make yourself available as a "go-to" person in your center for other agents, especially new ones, who are looking for help. Don't obnoxiously offer advice when they don't ask for it, but treat each co-worker as if they were a valued customer.* If your center hasn't yet adopted any of the available call center technologies (quality monitoring, crm, workforce management) to improve performance, offer it as a suggestion to your immediate supervisor. Don't go over their head or they'll think yo
More "Art of War" applied to the call center 2007-07-25 12:42:16 This is the second in a series where we examine "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, the oldest strategy book in the world, containing many lessons which can be reimagined for the contact center. Today, let's examine rule # 12:"12. Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison."Here we can perceive that using a comparitive analysis of military conditions would be similar to the calibration of contact center benchmarks. Calibration is used in many world class call centers in order to evaluate the evaluators. Calibration can be used to identify scoring trends which may be unusual or anomalies. Adjustments can then be made to the evaluation process.The call center translation for #14:"Use benchmarks and calibration in order to improve your evaluation processes"
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What phone systems do most of our call recording prospects have? 2007-07-24 10:02:51 In the last few months, we've been getting a lot of Nortel inquiries. We're not sure why we're seeing this more frequently - but we are compatible with many different models of Nortel, so it's a good fit.Our bread and butter compatibility has always been with Avaya phone
systems - analog, digital and VoIP. We've got some tremendous success stories recently:- Harry & David Avaya Success Story- Results-Tel Avaya Success Story- Crutchfield Electronics Avaya Success Story- DayTimers Avaya Success StoryWe're developing a good reputable customer base of Cisco and 3com as well. We've published a 3com success story you can check out.We also have a good history working with Siemens and Mitel.There are a ton of good references for each model phone systems, which our sales team will be glad to share within our sales process.As many companies are moving to VoIP or considering switching to VoIP in the near future, in most scenarios, the transition to VoIP call recording can be a seamless one
New Call Center Openings this week 2007-07-23 08:47:02 XM Radio to Open New Call Center
in the Lonestar StateEl Paso, Texas is the site where XM will open their eighth call center by November. The facility will be comprised of approximately three hundred new employees that will take calls from XM subscribers and auto dealerships incorporating the radios in cars. The center is run by GC Services in Houston.Debt-Collection Agency Incoporates Center in JacksonvilleThe Enhanced Recovery Corporation has its eyes fixated on opening a new call center in Ware County early 2008. The organization, founded in 1999, recovers unpaid debts for those with credit cards, teleco. firms, and retailers. Initially, ERC plans on hiring 150 employees, but later expanding to a little over 300. The area is welcoming them with open arms, especially because of the 4.5 unemplyoment rate. This is the third center for ERC, who already has two in Jacksonville and the Caribbean.Empereon Marketing Works $1.1 Million Call Center ProjectOver the next three years, close to 4
In the call recording marketplace, competitve replacement programs aren’t always what they seem to be 2007-07-20 09:05:03 Are you facing an upgrade of your call recording software?Every call recording software vendor offers some form of discount on the next upgrade of their software. The upgrade, typically a major new release with added features and often an overhaul of the user interface, varies greatly in their pricing models.Some vendors charge a reasonable upgrade fee, around 10-15% of the original purchase price. Some of the larger companies charge upwards of 50%. At that point, the customer is locked in and forced into what basically amounts to a re-buy situation.Some creative vendors have crafted “competitive replacement
programs” which basically reward a new customer with a "credit" toward the new purchase.CSI's own upgrade pricing model, already part of the industry’s lowest cost of ownership, does not include any “competitive replacement programs”.We don't see a need to extend any special discounts or sale prices, as our prices are already very competitive. It's a unique position to Read more:always
Use SMDR integration to gain additional insights 2007-07-18 09:08:15 There are two main reasons you might integrate your phone system's SMDR feed with your call recording system.1) Many of our call recording projects utilize random sample recording to obtain a number of recordings per agent per month. Random sample recording is typically more affordable than 100% call logging in that less recording channels and servers are needed. Random sample recording yields enough recorded interactions to satisfy the quality assurance initiative.In the past, random sample recordings were scheduled as a block of time recording. Block of time recordings can end up containing multiple calls, or can end up missing the starts and stops of some calls, or even dead air. Block of time will get the job done, but you gain a tremendous amount of efficiencies when you begin recording call-by-call.Most phone systems have a Station Message Detail Recording(SMDR) feed which can be tapped to yield the start and stop of calls. Using SMDR, your company can record entire calls from s Read more:integration
Harry & David scale up their call quality monitoring for the holidays 2007-07-16 10:55:09 In 1910 Samuel Rosenberg traded the luxurious Hotel Sorrento for 240 prime acres of pears in Southern Oregon's Rogue River Valley and named them Bear Creek Orchards after the nearby waterway. His sons Harry
and David
began one of the nation's premier direct marketing and e-commerce companies (Harry & David).In order to support the thriving mail order business, Harry & David set up a customer service contact center. The contact center has changed significantly over the years, especially in terms of technology.“We’ve implemented technology that was able to better utilize our workforce and increase the effectiveness of the interaction with the customer,” said Jason Phillipson, Director of Planning for Customer Operations.“The biggest advantage new technology has is that it allowed us to hold our labor needs static. Advances in our online stores, sales & service applications, knowledgebase, telemarketing, call monitoring
, and training systems have kept pace and often exceede
A search for the environment friendly call center, part one 2007-07-13 09:40:15 Although many in the media have claimed that the energy bill and transportation costs for putting on a concert the scale of Live Earth outweighs any potential global change, I have to admit the concert and it's many interwoven global warming short films have made an impression - on at least a personal level. That's where it starts.10 million people watched the concert on the Internet, the largest internet streaming event ever - and if 5% of viewers were impacted the same way, the exponential effects should be great. Here are some additional resources relative to climate change:Measure your personal impact on climate changeClimateProtect.org100% Solar Powered Data CenterAre there any solar powered call centers out there?What can be done to make your call center more environmentally effective?We will search the internet for any sign of green call centers and report back here with the results. We'll also compile a list of things call centers can do to become more environmentally friend
Excerpts from "The Art Of War"...applied to call centers 2007-07-13 09:15:08 "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu is a classic Chinese military book which is often reinvisioned for business. It may be the oldest strategy book in the world. As each lesson can be intrepreted for the business world, my thought is it could also be reimagined for the call center.Today we'll examine rule # 14:"14. By means of these seven considerations I can forecast victory or defeat."This one is easy as it can apply to using your statistical analysis to make projections:- will we meet our goals?- will we fail miserably?Using evaluation tools, call centers can define their own criteria for success. Scoring the performance of each agent can result in identifying a trend which may be altered for improvement. The call center translation for #14:"With this performance criteria we can forecast success and where we need to make improvements"
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Home agent field growing rapidly 2007-07-12 09:20:41 As opposed to outsourcing call center operations to international companies, many companies are now "homeshoring" to united states-based firms. If you extend this trend to the emerging South American and Latin American call center market, you can see industry analysts claiming there's a revolution occuring.Spurring this trend to homeshoring, or "homesourcing" is the availability of technology to properly train, network and manage home-based agents. This allows the outsourced call center to rapidly expand operations, and the number of agents used, while maintaining low overhead costs. In a story on TMCnet a leading distributed contact center technology and services provider in the U.S., announced today that the company is contracting with more than 16,000 home-based customer service and sales agents, or home agents. The company expects that number to reach 20,000 agents by year-end.CSI has recently implemented Virtual Observer in a number of outsourced call center environments, allowin
Upgrades to call recording software are free for actively supported customers 2007-07-11 08:51:33 We are still one of only a few (if any) call recording vendors who enable supported customers
to obtain the latest and greatest version of product at no charge for software. We've upgraded 75% of our customer base and will continue to transition the rest of the VO customers with active maintenance contracts.3.0 customers are also the beneficiaries of the additional features added to the existing product - for example, the Live Desktop feature set is an incredibly valuable tool for managing agents. This could have been a standalone add-on module, but the benefits are so great from a QA perspective and customer satisfaction standpoint, we had to include it as a standard feature. For more information about the Live Desktop functionality, please contact your CSI sales rep.
The Tao of CSI: three core philosophies drive success 2007-07-10 11:49:37 Three core business philosophies drive
our success in the call recording and quality monitoring markets.Many of our blog readers might not be familiar with the history of CSI. If you are not yet a customer or partner, you may not understand what we're all about. I'm hoping this helps to explain what drives us.Since beginning as energy consultants in 1972, we've experienced all of the highs and lows of a thirty-five plus year business. Quickly becoming a custom computer programming house, we soon moved on to become a developer of a custom job shop manufacturing control system. Several years later, we've emerged as a strong call center solution provider.We developed Virtual Observer (VO) as a robust, scalable call recording and quality monitoring system. We saw a hole in the marketplace once occupied by several bloated suites of bells and whistles. Many small and mid-sized call centers could not afford the benefit of a feature-rich call recording and quality monitoring implementation
What's new in the IVR world? 2007-07-10 07:53:15 "IVR" stands for "Interactive Voice Response" and many of our customers utilize such systems to guide callers through all of the available options when they call. For more detailed information, visit the Answers.com page on IVR.Once a week we are going to feature news links for call center solutions that compliment Virtual Observer. You can click on the title of this post above, and then bookmark it and come back anytime to see the latest, dynamically updated IVR news.Note: email subscribers may not see the RSS feed embedded in this post. In this case, click here to view the entire article.
CSI partner seeks new sales rep in Illinois 2007-07-06 14:10:49 North American Communications Resources (NACR) is seeking to add sales representatives for their Illinois
territory. Interested parties can email us here and we'll get you in contact with the powers that be at NACR.NACR, a Value Added Solutions Provider, launched in 1993 with only five employees. Today, they are Avaya’s largest Business Partner worldwide and a five-time Business Partner of the Year, with employees and locations across the United States. NACR built a quality reputation as a nationwide provider of end-to-end communications solutions for organizations of all types and sizes — offering systems and support for every need, from Voice over IP (VoIP) and converged network integration, to consultative services, ongoing maintenance, and repairs.NACR actively presents CSI's Virtual Observer (VO) as a preferred call recording solution, an integral component in their complete scope of communications product and services.
Will Business users ever adopt Google's phone and web apps? 2007-07-05 14:06:59 Google recently purchased unified-telephone
service provider Grand Central for an awful lot of money. Grand Central allows users
to take all of their phone #s and centralize them in one place, with one unified number. Grand Central offers a ton of features, including the ability to view voicemails as text on the web, to playback voicemails on the web, to customize greetings, ringback tones and much, much more from the control panel, which is now run by Google. It's in beta.Google buys companies and then incorporates their services into their own free services as part of their advertising-supported ecosystem. They recently did this with Feedburner, who used to offer a "Pro" package of stats about your blog, for a nominal fee. Now that Google's in the house, everything is free.Google offers free web-based word processing, spreadsheet, presentations and calendar apps. Right now it seems unlikely that many businesses will use that as their core business apps standard, but Google is betti Read more:Business
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4 new customer implementations in USA and Canada 2007-07-03 09:51:18 CSI's professional implementation and training team just returned from 4 successful onsite visits to new customers. Often taking on a consultative role with the new clients, we always try to help them get up and running as quickly as possible, beating expectations. The marketing and sales department feels confident sending the trainers out to the field, as they usually convert new customers into new product champions, willing to become testimonials, case studies and referenceable contacts.I'll be looking to talk more in-depth with these customers over time as take them from a new implementation to a long-term client that has achieved and sustained a rapid return on investment.The four clients were of the following industries:* hospital/medical center* wireless provider* insurance company* non-profit agricultural organization
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New Call Center Openings 2007-06-29 12:16:59 We try to publish this list of new call center openings on a monthly basis:Wachovia Looks to Open Philippine Call Center
Wachovia, a prestigious banking center located out of Charlotte, North Carolina, has decided to take their consumer services overseas. They plan to construct and open a new call center in the Philippines early next year, exposing the company to a more global feel. Not only will this increase the diversity and size of their workforce, but it will also assist their 24-hour customer support. With thirteen call center locations within the United States, expanding to the Philippines will effectively cut costs and provide more services to customers.Phones Being Ringing at Verizon’s New Huntsville Call Center on September 4thThe day following Labor Day, 2007, marks the opening of Verizon’s newest call center in Huntsville, Alabama. The facility will allow for 1,300 employees, consisting of customer service agents, supervisors, IT staff and support, government custome
Emerging web-based voice tools 2007-06-27 09:02:49 * Highly useful: CallWave transcribes your voicemailCallwave is a free cellular voice mail replacement service. It's recently been enhanced with Vtxt, an automated speech-to-text service. Vtxt converts voice mail into text. When someone leaves you a message, the service e-mails or SMSes you the transcription. The conversion is far from perfect, but more than good enough to get the gist of the message.* Jangl enables private calls, but some could be coldThis tool allows you to talk with people while retaining some anonymity. Running as a service, it allows users with virtual telephone numbers to route calls to your real phone number and messages to your e-mail in-box.* DodgeballThis a mobile communication tool that lets you send out SMS messages to individuals or groups with a dash of social networking.* Grand Central (just bought by Google)Grandcentral acts as online voice mail. Users can create customized mailboxes and call filters, as well as manage all their voice mail online.
Netflix contact center stresses personal touch 2007-08-16 10:07:25 I actually found two articles related to Netflix's customer service operation. The gist is that they have removed email-based customer service and are pushing customers to call and talk to a human. This is designed to differentiate them from competitor Blockbuster.comHere is a excerpt from the International Herald Tribune: Netflix set up in Oregon, avoiding other lower-cost places in the United States and overseas, because it believed that the Oregonians would present a friendlier voice to its customers. Then last month, Netflix took an unusual step for a Web-based company: it eliminated e-mail based customer service inquiries. Now all questions, complaints and suggestions go to the call center, which is open 24 hours every day of the week. The company's toll-free number, previously buried on the Web site, is now prominently displayed on the "help" page. Let's hope this trend continues!...read the full article hereYou can also choose to read about this Netflix story and comment on S Read more:contact
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Many options exist to enhance your call recording system 2007-08-22 13:57:36 I happened to be reviewing our list of add-ons, and I was surpised at how many different options and tools have been released since our last release of product, 3.0. Many enhancements and new capabilities are automatically added into the core version of product, such as our exciting "Live Desktop" feature which allows for supervisor-agent chat and thumbnail views of all agent screen activity.Going along with our "Start Small and Think Big" philosophy, some functionality is made available as an optional add-on. Many customers start with a core random recording system for quality assurance to begin proving the r-o-i before they expand their budgetary requests for additional functionality. Many customers also move from random recording to logging, or from a standard analog or digital switch and then upgrade to VoIP, and we can make sure Virtual Observer moves right along with them.One of the latest add-ons is our "Surveying" service, which works with your IVR system to provide your custom Read more:exist
VoIP telephony options for startup call centers 2007-08-21 13:55:00 One of my LinkedIn connections posed a question of which I thought the groups' answers may appeal to this blog's audience:Question:"What are the top sites to get information on VoIP telephony
for a startup call center?"Submitted Answers from the group:"I have found this site as a good reasource for all my VOIP needs."http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/"I've found Skype hard to setup and use, MSN easy to setup and good quality. Yahoo easy to use but prone to losing a call. The easiest to use by far has been the Cisco Soft Phone we use at work, the sound quality is great but it's very unreliable. This may be due to some configuration or operations issue, but I have yet to make it through an entire call without a problem (buzzing, lost calls, loosing one or the other parties sound for extended periods). Others have had the same problem to the extent that we are considering rolling back the soft phones. In the office, we are using the Cisco 7940 IP phones with no problems. "Update: earlier
Fast food call centers begin to emerge 2007-08-20 12:31:02 It wasn't that long ago that we first noticed fast food call centers would begin
utilizing call recording solutions in their contact centers to improve order taking accuracy and customer service (I believe it was Wendy's). Another story crossed my desk today, this time detailing how a Pizza franchise has differentiated itself by routing all calls for all 41 locations to its' 800#, where 120 call center agents handle the orders, create accounts, and route the orders to each location.Read the entire Pizza Chain Call Center article hereRead more related stories:- The Long Distance Journey of a Fast Food Order- Faster Food: A Call Center Transforms Drive-Through Service- Call Centers Make Fast Food Faster
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Virtual Observations' Greatest Hits 2007-08-24 10:02:22 One of the best things you can do with Virtual Observer is to easily make "greatest hits" lists of their recorded calls with the best results. They can publish it to a cd, website, or their intranet and use it for training material. Agents can listen to it to hear a benchmark of what they can be striving for. Just like that feature works, I thought I'd highlight the best blog posts we've done: our customer success stories. This will help customers see what kind of successes they can strive for with VO, and new prospects can be "trained" with real-life case studies.Without any further introduction, here are links to the Greatest
Hits from the "Virtual Observations" blog:- Easing the fear of Big Brother - Day-Timers, Inc. selects CSI for call center monitoring - Crutchfield turns up the volume in its' call center- Maverik leverages VoIP technology to build a world class call center- Results Companies Inc. selects Virtual Observer to rapidly create better trained customer service agent Read more:Greatest Hits
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