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Outsourcing Inbound Call Centers: The Road to Successful Customer Care

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Business organizations show reluctance in contracting an inbound contact center to provide customer services. Though they do agree that costs are reduced, but still they feel qualms on the capacity of a service provider to meet the objective of improving customer satisfaction for a longer period. Furthermore, they put no trust on the agents deployed by call centers because they have this belief that the telephone operators fall short in verbal communications and other required skills. The bad news circulating around about call center inefficiencies and ethical issues remain a steadfast barrier that prevents companies to risk their investments.

However, one of the roads in a successful customer care is through outsourcing. This is neither a fact nor a lie. Yet, it is a generally accepted strategy. If you want to liberate your firm from the costs and time needed to manage an efficient contact center, outsourcing is the choice. When you decide to concentrate your assets to core business, your top choice is to seek the assistance of an inbound house. And then again, you will contract a third party service provider if you want to obtain low costs without discounting customer satisfaction. Well, these are just snapshots of the outsourcing splendor.

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A big issue in outsourcing is the transparency of a customer service solution. Meaning to say, customers must feel that they are calling your business entity that they are conversing with your workers. Customers need to speak with someone who knows your products or services by heart, who learns your work culture and your vision, mission and goals. In addition, it is but your unalienable right to demand that agents do possess competence in cross-selling and up-selling and that the contact center ought to quick respond to changes, both in the market where your company belongs and in your decisions as well. With this, you just have to exercise professional skepticism and due care in selecting a best-in-class inbound call center .

Aside from those mentioned above, here are some additional circumstances why you have to access the expertise of contact centers:

Your own customer care center deviates your focus on the core competencies of your business and resources are directed toward the services for customer support.

Your contact center is not producing the benefits that you expect to harvest. Thus, all investments, including time and efforts, are thrown away for nothing. This situation looks like you are adding costs without ROI.

The in-house call center casts key people skilled in product and service enhancements. The talents of this competitive workforce are exhausted not to the optimization of the developments for company offerings.

You only need a supplement and complement in your present customer care, something that serves as multivitamins to your existing programs.

Your firm lacks specialists in live answering service, expert order takers, effective handlers of inquiries and complaints, chat support and other services.

It is not of common knowledge that aside from lead generation, customer service is vital in customer relationship. The thing is when you opted to outsource your customer support, it is very crucial to pick the right telemarketing firm that fits into your shoes, that provides a wide array of services and that gives you and your customers quality aid while incurring reasonable expenses.

Brea, CA — February 5, 2009

Merrill & Associates a national, Platinum Avaya Business Partner and Solutions Provider today announced that they earned platinum certification for the 5th straight year. Damion Merrill, Vice-President made the announcement.

“Earning the highest level of certification 5 years in a row shows the dedication and hard work that Merrill & Associates puts into every Avaya project,” said Damion Merrill. “As our company has grown, we have been able to provide solutions to more customers on a national scale.”

Merrill & Associates is a leading provider of end-to-end communications services including Unified Communications (UC), Voice over IP, convergence, mobility, and contact centers. They also specialize in consulting, design, implementation, maintenance, and technical support services. As a Platinum Avaya Business Partner, Merrill works closely with Avaya and other strategic partners such as Cisco, Extreme Networks, Foundry, Juniper Networks, NetIQ, Polycom, and Tandberg, to integrate the latest hardware, software, video and applications into leading-edge business solutions.

As Avaya’s highest level of certification, only a select number of Business Partners reach Platinum status. Many factors are considered by Avaya, including Avaya sales revenue, product certifications, implementation and service capabilities, and customer satisfaction ratings.

“Merrill & Associates should be very proud of the year that they had in 2008,” said Sean Byrnes, Avaya Channel Account Manager. “While some companies in the Business Partner community have seen their sales decrease, Merrill & Associates saw a substantial increase in the amount of Avaya revenue they produced.”

In addition to sales, Merrill & Associates has a Services Organization that provides technical support for customers, as well as customers of other Avaya Business Partners. This includes remote support, technicians on-site, Move-Add-Change fulfillment, software updates, and complex network configuration troubleshooting. They have extensive experience with customers of all sizes including Enterprise, Healthcare, Insurance, Pharmaceutical, and Small Business.

“While 2008 was a successful year, we are looking to do even more in 2009 as our company grows on a National level,” said Andrew Sherman, Director of Sales & Marketing.” In addition to providing top level service to our customers, we are looking to grow our business with other Business Partners through the newly created BP Services Organization at Merrill & Associates. As Avaya continues to pull back from implementation and services, we are ready to help fill the gap.”

About Merrill & Associates

Founded in 1989 Merrill & Associates is a Platinum Avaya Business Partner and has strategic partnerships with Cisco, Extreme Networks, Foundry, Juniper Networks, NetIQ, Polycom, Tandberg and many others. Merrill delivers scalable, cost-effective solutions tailored to a customer’s communications needs. They provide end-to-end support from design, implementation, testing, maintenance, and technical support. For more information, call 800-253-3111 or go to http://www.merrill.biz

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Upgrading to a Hosted call center software

A call center model supported by a hosted greatly reduces the cost and adds flexibility to operations while adding advanced features. The hosted software solution has proven to be beneficial to any kind of call center set up, small or large. Hosting a call center from any part of the world is possible with the Hosted IP dialer technology. Both agents and call center management have to connect to the IP dialer. The only requirement is a high-speed internet connection and good set of headphones. This is quite an effective tool in the call center industry and is highly recommended. A hosted call canter is nothing but virtual call center. Typically, the software comes with a number of features that must be studied carefully in order to recognize the suitability.
Some of the features included in Hosted are:

•    IVR and predictive dialer, full power,

•    Advanced IVR blasting, a user can work from anywhere.

•     It can handle 1 to 2000 users at the same time.

•    Guarantees excellent start times.

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•    24/7 support

•    Large scale PBX and support of blended dialer

•    Basic requirement is high speed internet and a set of headphones.

•    Dialer planes to countries like Australia, Philippines, UK, USA

•    Statistics and in depth reports of live agents

•    Fully compliant control drops and DNCs

•    Call backs and call result codes adjustable

•    Real time chat with agents

•    Can handle unlimited agents, campaigns and lists and many more supportive
features.

The whole system works through the internet. applications increase efficiency thus productivity. It makes use of the flexible VoIP platform which helps to reduce the cost of housing. The scaling facility makes it convenient to expand the business without spending too much.  The VoIP PBX hosted comes with a number of features making it highly useful in any kind of call center; it comes with voice to e-mail, fax to e-mail, caller ID, video conferencing, call forwarding and more.

The hosted predictive dialer can effectively predict the availability of live contact and when an agent is free to take a call by screening out the busy signals, no answers, answering machines and disconnected numbers -just as one does in a housed or premises call center. Some of its features are data collection, agent scripting, contact management control and reporting on the fly.  The call center can be turned into a hub for all inbound and outbound business. It is useful for marketing as it can be loaded with multiple campaigns, dialing lists and agents. Monitoring the call center with full time recording and on the fly configuration becomes easy and maximizes efficiency. Hosted comes with a number of other features which can either be used on the premises model or hosted. The features to look for while installing the software are: a simple interface and the capacity to upgrade, as well as competitive pricing.

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BASKING RIDGE, NJ — November 4, 2005

Avaya Inc. (NYSE: AV), a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services, today announced that Interstar Technologies (http://www.faxserver.com), a leading developer of fax capabilities for Internet protocol (IP) telephony networks, has been selected for membership in the Avaya DeveloperConnection program.

Interstar Technologies pioneered the IP fax server revolution in 1996 with its LightningFAX? enterprise fax server, followed in 2002 by XMediusFAX??the market’s first software-only, real-time T.38 fax solution that operates without traditional fax boards on a voice over IP network.

As an Innovator member of Avaya DeveloperConnection, Interstar Technologies joins more than 1,000 companies from around the globe who are creating solutions that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company?s investment in its communications network.

?Interstar?s pioneering XMediusFAX T.38 Fax Over IP products are all-in-one, software-only fax server solutions that leverage Avaya?s media gateways and converged VoIP network solutions,? said Martin Demers, president and CEO of Interstar Technologies Inc. ?We are committed to collaborating closely with Avaya to deliver compliance-tested Fax Over IP solutions that will improve security and reliability for businesses, reduce their costs and deliver a true return on their investment.?

Avaya created DeveloperConnection to promote new interoperable communications features and applications that businesses can integrate into their operations to achieve competitive advantage. The use of open standards allows companies to add new capabilities without having to replace their existing network infrastructure. Since the program?s inception in 2001, it has promoted the development, compliance testing and co-marketing of innovative Avaya-compatible third-party products by members with expertise in IP telephony, contact centers and mobility applications.

?Our Avaya developer community has become a catalyst for rapid innovation and the creation of new multivendor applications that help enterprises around the world embed secure, reliable communications capabilities into the fabric of their business?making their people more productive, processes more intelligent and customers more satisfied,? said Eric Rossman, vice president, developer relations and technical alliances, Avaya.

Membership information and a listing of solutions developed and tested under the DeveloperConnection program are available at http://www.devconnectprogram.com.

About Avaya

Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than 1 million businesses worldwide, including over 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500?. Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet protocol (IP) telephony systems and communications software applications and services.

Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications – and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services – Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya website: http://www.avaya.com.

About Interstar Technologies

Privately-held Interstar Technologies pioneered the fax server revolution in 1996 with its LightningFAX? server software. It then reinvented the fax server in 2002 with XMediusFAX? server, the industry?s first boardless, T.38 IP fax server solution for enterprises and service providers. With thousands of systems installed in more than 40 countries, Interstar is committed to providing world-class, electronic messaging technology to enterprise markets of all sizes, financial institutions, and governments.

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Interstar Technologies award-winning solutions for Microsoft Windows are distributed worldwide through a global network of resellers, system integrators and OEM partners. For more information, visit the Interstar website at http://www.faxserver.com.

Media & Investor Inquiries:

Scott Horne, Avaya

908-953-3476

Matt Booher, Avaya

908-953-7500

Gisele Seto, Interstar

514-422-4323

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Recommendations for Employee Training in Inbound Call Center

Human brain is one of the finest technology that has the potential to turn every impossible dreams to a reality. But this is possible only when the process is systematic and guidance is provided to grasp the concepts in a sequential manner. If we take the example of an inbound call center, we cannot deny the importance of employee development and training. It is the foundation stone of success in any organization and needs proper up gradation and intensive care from time to time. As technology is changing at a faster pace, it is hereby essential to prepare the employees in respect to the particular job profile, they have been appointed for.

An employee in a call center outsourcing company may come from multiple backgrounds. But whenever you appoint the make sure that the candidate takes interest in the profile and align him/her as per the company’s interest and goals. Training offers them the opportunity to communicate with the innate goals of the firm and permit them to lay their path for the coming years. The human resource management professional are responsible for imparting the training sessions with a special attention to the present market dynamics. These sessions are not only important for the employees but also for the company that relies upon them for the future prospects.

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If you want that your team of professionals excel the inbound customer services with a dedicated approach then you might have to take some considerations.

Most organizations keep their training programs optional due to initial high costs involved and do not consider it as an essential part of long term corporate strategy, which eventually will even out the expenses involved. Make training a necessity as it is very common phenomenon that mostly of the outsourced call centers minimize the training period in order to reduce the cost involved in it. Consider it to be the vital and try to develop some better strategies to impart the best by hiring best professionals.

Try to involve the management because without their participation all the training designs would fail. The entire training program can only be successful when there is a sufficient training manual or trainer is available with your firm. Training on a regular basis will maintain the skill levels of your inbound call center team and further motivate them to grow and get better at their professional areas of expertise.

Check out the results and measure the quality of work in comparison to the last project. You will be surely surprised with the success level going high and the confidence level of the employees that drive the business of inbound customer services to the top.

Inbound Call Center Services Aid Real Estate Businesses

Using a live operator to answer calls for a real estate business instead of voicemail, answering machines, or automation increases leads and leaves customers satisfied. Utilizing inbound call center services can be the difference between obtaining and losing customers. Live coverage for their office phones makes a great impression for potential and existing clients, and a business can lose calls if a live operator does not pick up.
Real estate agents are constantly out their offices dealing with showings, closings, and client meetings. Customers deserve a live response, and using an inbound call center service projects a professional image. They can act as a personal secretary for a real estate agent, at a small fraction of the cost of hiring one. Using a service makes live communication available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for customers.
Real estate is a competitive business, especially in a challenged economy, so every tool to gain an advantage over a competitor is helpful. There is a significant home inventory on the market, and there are qualified buyers out there. They just may be more difficult to find, so it is a disappointing loss if a lead falls through because a machine answered their call. A real estate business needs a competitive edge, and every interaction with customers needs to be personalized and productive.
There are many companies today providing inbound call center services. These companies handles inbound call center services and can aid in the real estate business by handling customers professionally and warmly. These companies supply live agents who can deal with leads knowledgeably, and can also send requested information by mail or email. Their representatives can take calls and then email, fax, or transfer the call, or follow any customized instructions.

St. George, UT — June 3, 2009

TCN Inc is pleased to announce this month its commemoration of 10 successful years of business.

In this era of Skype and IP phones, it is difficult to remember ten years back when analog voice technology dominated and digital voice was only a pipe-dream. TCN founder and CEO, Terrel Bird, remembers that time well however; he staked his fortune and his professional reputation on the plodding horse called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). 10 years later, with the ever-growing success of TCN, it is apparent he picked the right horse.

After beginning research and development into VoIP in 1999, Terrel paired this new VoIP technology in 2000 with an ASP-modeled, interactive voice messaging (IVM) product: a brand new animal. In April 2001, TCN began marketing this web-based novelty to newspapers and casinos across the country. Since then, through the inevitable ups and downs of creating and refining avant-garde technology, TCN has continued its role as pioneer in many industries and in many different ways:

-January 2002: TCN is the first IVM company to utilize text-to-speech (TTS)

-November 2002: TCN begins breaking the icebergs of skepticism in the Credit and Collections Industry, now one of the most fervent believers in IVM technology

-November 2002: Work begins on a web-services API version IVM

-2003-2004: API Integrations with several of the world’s largest software companies in various verticals

-October 2005: The first international office opens in Toronto, Canada

-January 2007: The first European office opens in Italy, followed closely by the second in the United Kingdom

-January 2007: TCN’s anticipated Platform 3.0 is released to widespread acclaim

-December 2008: TCN’s Agent Gateway and groundbreaking web-based Predictive Dialer released

On the heels of the fantastic reception P3, Agent Gateway and the web-based Predictive Dialer have received in key verticals, TCN looks forward to another decade of innovation and successful business, maintaining always the maxim that has brought the company so far: client-centric development.

For more information, for a demonstration and for a free, no-obligation trial, please call 1.888.745.1901 or visit http://www.tcnp3.com.

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St. George, UT — June 3, 2009

TCN Inc is pleased to announce this month its commemoration of 10 successful years of business.

In this era of Skype and IP phones, it is difficult to remember ten years back when analog voice technology dominated and digital voice was only a pipe-dream. TCN founder and CEO, Terrel Bird, remembers that time well however; he staked his fortune and his professional reputation on the plodding horse called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). 10 years later, with the ever-growing success of TCN, it is apparent he picked the right horse.

After beginning research and development into VoIP in 1999, Terrel paired this new VoIP technology in 2000 with an ASP-modeled, interactive voice messaging (IVM) product: a brand new animal. In April 2001, TCN began marketing this web-based novelty to newspapers and casinos across the country. Since then, through the inevitable ups and downs of creating and refining avant-garde technology, TCN has continued its role as pioneer in many industries and in many different ways:

-January 2002: TCN is the first IVM company to utilize text-to-speech (TTS)

-November 2002: TCN begins breaking the icebergs of skepticism in the Credit and Collections Industry, now one of the most fervent believers in IVM technology

-November 2002: Work begins on a web-services API version IVM

-2003-2004: API Integrations with several of the world’s largest software companies in various verticals

-October 2005: The first international office opens in Toronto, Canada

-January 2007: The first European office opens in Italy, followed closely by the second in the United Kingdom

-January 2007: TCN’s anticipated Platform 3.0 is released to widespread acclaim

-December 2008: TCN’s Agent Gateway and groundbreaking web-based Predictive Dialer released

On the heels of the fantastic reception P3, Agent Gateway and the web-based Predictive Dialer have received in key verticals, TCN looks forward to another decade of innovation and successful business, maintaining always the maxim that has brought the company so far: client-centric development.

For more information, for a demonstration and for a free, no-obligation trial, please call 1.888.745.1901 or visit http://www.tcnp3.com.

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Canton, GA — August 30, 2011

Inc. magazine has ranked Classroom Essentials Online as Number 92 on its 2011 Inc. 500 List, an exclusive ranking of America’s fastest-growing privately held companies. The list represents a comprehensive look at the achievements of independent entrepreneurs across the United States. A three-year growth rate of over 2700% also helped Classroom Essentials Online to achieve the No. 3 ranking for Atlanta-area companies overall, and the No. 5 ranking for the Business Product & Services group.

Classroom Essentials Online is a family-owned and operated business with two generations of the family involved in all aspects of the business, from logistics to personally answering each customer’s call or e-mail. The company retails church chairs, school and nursery furniture, folding tables and chairs, and banquet furniture to businesses and institutions around the country. Their customer base includes churches, public and private educational institutions, hotels, convention centers, party rental centers, and the military. Their warehouse in Canton, GA, just north of Atlanta, enables them to continue to provide local delivery to business customers in the greater Atlanta area, in addition to shipping nationwide daily.

Many of the products carried by Classroom Essentials Online are custom-manufactured to their demanding specifications. All aspects of logistics management, from manufacturing to sales to order fulfillment are handled in-house by family members and warehouse employees, which streamlines inventory management and keeps overhead low. Savings are then passed on to the customer, allowing Classroom Essentials Online to maintain pricing levels at or below many of their competitors, as well as enabling them to offer additional quantity discounts on many of their church chairs, banquet chairs and other popular products like childcare cribs. One of the primary goals of the company is to continue to provide person-to-person, individualized attention to its customers while it continues to grow and expand.

About Classroom Essentials Online:

Company owners the Washabaugh family began in the church and school furniture business in 1985 via traditional catalog sales to Atlanta area customers. In 2007 they launched the Classroom Essentials Online website and began selling to a national customer base. The company strives to aggressively manage overhead which in turn allows them to maintain retail pricing at extremely competitive levels. Their church chairs, banquet furniture and folding tables and chairs are custom-manufactured to their exacting specifications. Maintaining a high level of quality combined with personalized customer service continue to be high priorities at Classroom Essentials Online.

For more information, please contact Tamara Meier via e-mail at: promo(at)CliXelerate(dot)com, or at: (678) 777-1907

or visit: ClassroomEssentialsOnline.com

Classroom Essentials Online on Twitter: @Chairs4Church

Classroom Essentials Online on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ClassroomEssentialsOnline

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