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Aspect’s vice president of customer support does a lot of traveling. Hear about his experience using OCS 2007 R2 around the world.
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Customer Contact Centers in India

Contact centers in India have long since understood the need of being customer centric. This is the only way to get customers to stay loyal. However, maintaining this customer centricity is not an easy task. It takes a lot of integrated functions; technology and software for these call centers to stay on top of their game.

What should CRM systems provide?

The key aspects that customer contact centers in India need to maintain in order to be in the lead are:

First class customer service: Existing customers should be nothing short of delighted with them.
The ability to expand their reach: New customers should be reached with ease and effectively.
Constant performance improvements: Performance should be evaluated from time to time and improved accordingly etc.

The customer relationship management system in question should be able to assist customer contact centers in these areas without any hassle. A CRM system from a good vendor will have all of this covered.

IP telephony

A good IP telephony network is crucial for seamless communication that transcends barriers of time. Having said that, it is not only important to have 24 hr connectivity to run customer contact centers that are effective and very competitive. It is also important that the network in question is effective. This effectiveness will go a long way in contributing to how efficient the entire operation is. IP telephony can be very useful in aiding with supply chain management, enhanced customer service and even in decision making at a corporate level.

Unified communications

A unified communication network is extremely important in order for customer contact centers to function seamlessness not only across various functions but also across various locations. A communication system for a call center should be able to work without any kind of glitch irrespective of the network, location or the device. A good communication system will provide all this and much more. It will also provide the customer center with a secure and reliable system that can be depended on.

Contact center outsourcing is one of Asia’s most successful export today. But with competition and more demanding customers, contact center operators need to look for new processes and new technology to enhance operations. Steven Tan, Regional Marketing Director at Aspect Software, talks about some of the latest innovations that are changing the way contact centers do business.
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With a unified vision that addresses both contact center agent performance and customer-cmpany interaction management and optimization, Aspect Software provides unified contact center products that make unified communications in the contact center a practical reality.
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Aspect Software unified communications for the contact center leverages today’s IP-enabled infrastructures to improve customers’ service, sales and collections experiences. That can lead to greater top-line growth and reduce your overall cost of operations.
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Contact Center Management : An Effective Way To Bring Business In Real

Call center management services is growing rapidly like call centers business. It is increasingly demand of the market and the invention is needed very much. Call center management services required to manage the operation and functionality of the whole process for the sake of client total satisfactions.

In this current world the communication plays an important role and to coup up with it call center services are very important. Inbound or outbound call center management offers an absolute way of applying best practices, managing services level of requirements, reviewing management practices and operations, creating contracts and transition plans and also the proper combination of call center practices, planning and service desk for the effectiveness of business building.

They supply the contact center with the optimizing of their work ability by utilizing different process like documents and materials. Call center management services help a customer contact center have important prospective on their issues that contain lining up a inbound or outbound call center to the business they execute, determining key issues and etc. The creates design and plans for service level agreements with different parties pertained in the customer contact center.

The most significant and very principal aspects of a inbound or outbound call center is training and presentation. The call center management services provide a great way in getting the best and valuable training. They train in the arena of organizational aspects, technology, people matters, how to select tool and other issues with a problem solving process approach. Also it deals with auditing of the services that they provide with the support of surveys and statistics, it helps them to review their services and to get updated according to the market demand. An innovative contact center always creates blueprints, designs and plans for the shaping up of their future prospectives.

What you Need to Know about, in The contact center.

Contact Center consultants

In the contact center industry we come across a lot of abbreviations and expressions that are used very often without having a clear definition about them. He You will find a list of these expressions with their definitions .

Automatic calls distribution ( ACD ) – A computerized phone system that responds to the caller with a voice menu (IVR) and connects the call to the appropriate CSR according to a set of parameters (e.g priority of skills or longest available time) . It can also distribute calls equally to agents. ACDs are the heart of call centers, or contact centers, which are widely used in the telephone sales and service departments of all organizations.

Computer-telephony integration ( CTI ) – is a computerized systems which combines the callers data with voice systems in order to enhance telephone services by retrieving the caller database and get it displays at the appropriate CSR’s screen when the call gets routed to him by ACD (Automatic calls distribution)

Interactive voice response ( IVR ) is a computerized system that allows a person, typically a telephone caller, to select an option from a voice menu and otherwise interface with a computer system. Generally the system plays pre-recorded voice prompts to which the person presses a number on a telephone keypad to select the option chosen, or speaks simple answers such as “yes”, “no”, or numbers in answer to the voice prompts.

Call Work Code ( CWC ) – A number, up to 16 digits, entered by CWC agents to record the occurrence of customer-define deviants (such as account codes, social security numbers, or phone numbers) on ACD calls.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI )- factors that show certain standards and guidelines to maintain productivity.

Service Level Agreement ( SLA )- A contract between a network service provider and a customer that specifies, usually in measurable terms, what services the network service provider will furnish. Services for customers can be measured, justified, and perhaps compared with those of outsourc­ing network providers. Some metrics that SLAs may specify include: What percentage of the time services will be available; The number of users that can be served simultaneously; Specific performance benchmark to which actual performance will be periodically compared.

Average call waiting ( ACW ) – the time from the person reaching the number being called until the CSR picks up the phone (~20seconds)

Average Talk Time (ATT )- time frame within which the customer is kept in the phone (~2minutes)

Average Hold Time (AHT ) – period of time during which the customer is kept on hold (has to be as minimum as possible)

Customer Service Representative ( CSR )- person attempting and handling all the calls, providing the customer with any inquired information.

Senior Customer Service Representative ( SCSR )- CSR who is not only handling the calls but also conducting telesales.

Team Leader ( TL ) – person who plays leading role among the team, setting up an example and responsible for couching, training, guiding, motivating and encourage the CSRs to accomplish the assigned tasks as well as coordinating externally and internally and drive the team ahead towards the potential vision.

Supervisor ( SUP ) – a person who is a step above the team leader and below the managerial level, responsible for the day-to-day performance of the group, should have the authority, to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline CRS, or responsibly to direct his team leaders on the efficient ways to achieving the department goals , adjust their grievances, or effectively recommend an actions to resolve the raised issues. It is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment.

Customer Relationship Management ( CRM )-entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customers whether it be sales or service related. The Computerization way of interaction is recently being used in the market approaching the new strategy in serving customers with each new advance in technology, especially the proliferation of self-service channels like the WEB and WAP phones, more of the relationship is being managed electronically and therefore organizations are looking for ways to personalize online experiences through tools such as help desk software, e-mail organizers and Web development.

Internet Contact Center ( ICC )- where all the required contacts and inquiries can be kept in one database, and viewed by all of the users. ICC has such features as Universal Queue, real-time and historical reporting, web collaboration, email transfer, etc.

Voice Over IP address ( VOIP )- A category of hardware and software that enables people to make telephone calls via the Internet. In simple words these hardware and software converts the voice signals into packets of data, which are transmitted on shared, public lines.

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Makings of a Good Contact Center Offshore

Most contact centers need to focus on giving the best contact center offshore service that they can give. This is easy to say, but what exactly does it mean and what exactly does a contact center offshore company need to have in order to achieve this?

A contact center offshore or onshore should be the central point, the hub of a company’s enterprises where all customer-related calls, correspondence, and all kinds of contact are filtered in segregated and processed. Emails, newsletters, catalogs sent through the mail, online inquiries and chat should all be expediently managed and processed in a good contact center. Offshore call centers should work doubly hard for the care of a company’s customers because the relationship between a company and its customers are so fragile and yet are of the outmost importance. This is the truth, you can ask any veteran company or businessman about this and they will give you the same answer.

How exactly does a contact center offshore establishment handle the sheer bulk and complexity of customer service relationship management? A good contact center offshore should have the best infrastructure which will be able to help the customer service reps to handle and expertly process each customer. They should have intense training in the basic technical skills required. And more importantly, they should have a good grasp of the language and culture that are inherent in U.S. clients and of the business as a whole.

These agents shall be managed by efficient managers. Take that away and the structure collapses and falls into itself. These will be the people who are tasked to pass down and therefore maintain the great customer service standard and the U.S. style business methods and ethics. Training in software or lack thereof is also a big factor that could either make or break your regular garden variety contact center offshore company.

The second tier that makes a good contact center offshore is the technical aspect. Equipment should be functional and up to date. But the real test is the software of the company. A lot of contact center offshore establishments do not use original computer software. The practice lets these companies save a few dollars in expenditure but this can cause big problems in the long run. The also sometimes use sub standard software. So much depends on the company software. It should be reliable, fast, and easy to use because the processing of call information will all rely upon this. This is in essence, the hub of the hub.

With so many <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’, ‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’]);” href=”http://www.voncore.net/”>contact center offshore</a> companies out there, choosing the right one is very hard. Arm yourself with information and search the internet for the right one to fit your needs.

More than simply workforce optimization, PerformanceEdge™ from Aspect Software gives you the power to transform the performance of your contact centers. PerformanceEdge combines the #1 workforce, performance and campaign management applications with next generation recording and quality management and integrated coaching and eLearning – delivering true contact center performance optimization.
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Learn how Aspect unified communications applications for the contact center leverage Microsoft Office Communications Server to improve business processes and customer satisfaction.
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Cumulux offers product and services that let enterprises strategize, develop and operationalize cloud computing applications. Cumulux has a proven track record of delivering business value to customers by implementing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions based on platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2 and Force.com. Cumulux was founded in 2008 and has offices in Chicago, Seattle and Chennai, India.
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New York, NY and Oslo, Norway — September 29, 2009

Confirmit has announced that it has joined forces with DMG Consulting LLC to deliver a webcast highlighting the ways in which businesses running contact center operations can use a Voice of the Customer program to increase customer retention, while reducing operational costs.

In this webinar, Donna Fluss, founder and President of DMG Consulting will share best practices for building a Voice of the Customer program that optimizes customer retention and satisfaction. She will highlight how successful programs enable businesses to improve the customer experience, reduce agent attrition and produce a more competitive and cost effective contact center environment.

Fluss comments “Even in the era of social networking, surveys are still the most effective ways to determine how satisfied customers are with a company’s products and services. Analyzing feedback on a timely basis enables companies to rapidly identify service issues, substandard processes, and outdated policies and procedures. Retaining customers is a top goal in good times; it is even more important in a tough economic climate. Investing in technology to gather feedback and improve service before customers broadcast their frustrations to the world is vital, especially in the era of social networking.”

The webinar will guide contact center managers, supervisors and QA specialists who are interested in building or enhancing their Voice of the Customer program, as well as Customer Insight professionals who want to combine contact center data with customer survey data.

In addition, Gary Schwartz, SVP Marketing at Confirmit will discuss the ways in which global businesses have taken advantage of feedback management technology to deliver significant benefit to their customers, contact center and enterprise.

Schwartz added “This webinar gives us a great opportunity to share some best practice examples of successful feedback programs, particularly in businesses who have combined feedback data with CRM data to provide context to their decision making. I’m looking forward to discussing some of the key ways in which contact centers can harness the power of the Confirmit platform to drive efficiencies and improvements.

The Webinar will be held at Thursday, October 1, 2009 12:00 pm CDT and registration is available through the AMA website.

Press contact

Gary Schwartz, SVP Marketing, Confirmit, +1 212 660 1816

About Confirmit:

Confirmit is the world’s leading SaaS software vendor for Customer Feedback, Employee Feedback, and Market Research applications. The company has more than 200 employees and offices in Oslo (headquarters), Guildford, London, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, and Yaroslavl. Confirmit’s software is also distributed through partner resellers in Barcelona, Kuwait City, Madrid, Milan, Santiago, Sydney, and Tokyo.

Confirmit targets Global 5000 companies and Market Research agencies worldwide with a wide range of software products for feedback / data collection, panel management, data processing, analysis, and reporting. Customers include British Airways, Countrywide Financial, Dow Chemical, Experian, GlaxoSmithKline, Halifax Bank of Scotland, Intrawest, Ipsos, Nielsen, The NPD Group, Safeco Insurance, Statoil Hydro, Symantec, and Virgin Media.

About DMG Consulting LLC:

DMG Consulting LLC is an independent research, advisory and consulting firm that provides strategic and tactical advice to contact center managers, vendors and the financial community about the contact center and analytics markets. Our mission is to help clients build world-class contact centers by leveraging technology, processes and people. We provide insight and guidance to assist management in optimizing the performance of their contact centers by increasing operational efficiency, providing an outstanding customer experience, enhancing loyalty and increasing sales and profits.

DMG Consulting analyzes all aspects of the contact center market and publishes research on Quality Management/Liability Recording (WFO), Speech Analytics, Performance Management, Surveying/Feedback, Workforce Management, Contact Center Outsourcing, Hosted Contact Center Infrastructure and Interactive Voice Response Systems. DMG’s consulting experience spans more than 2,000 end-user organizations and vendors. Our hands-on operational, technology and financial expertise gives us deep insight into what customers need and want from enterprises and vendors. For more information, visit www.dmgconsult.com.

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