We have developed a guide to provide you with insight to make an informed decision when choosing your Telephone Answering Service.
Find out how to really compare:
Billing Methods - and which ones will save you $$$
Services - and how they should work for you
Companies - and what to really look for
The document outlines a CRM sales process flow that includes lead handling, quoting, follow up and selling, closing, and surveying. Key steps include leads being assigned to sales reps from web forms or emails, reps beginning the quoting process by gathering customer data, sending quotes via email, following up within 24-72 hours and 14 days of the decision date to close deals, converting quotes to bookings or closing as lost/canceled, and sending surveys post-interaction.
DoublePositive is a venture-backed startup located in Baltimore that was founded in 2004. They provide "LIVE Hot Transfers" of qualified mortgage leads to originators by having call center agents contact leads, verify their information, confirm their interest, and then transfer the call in real time to the originator. This allows the originator's sales team to focus only on selling without having to spend time making initial contact with leads. DoublePositive also provides lead reporting and analytics to marketing teams.
The document provides information about the role and goals of client services for a genetic testing company. It discusses how client services acts as a liaison between clients (which can include genetic counselors, physicians, nurses, etc.) and other parts of the company. The role involves being an information resource, maintaining professionalism, and tracking client opinions. It also reviews the systems and tools needed by client services, such as a CRM system and access to testing and billing information. Examples are given of how client services can anticipate client needs and provide world-class service. The importance of clear communication, tracking interactions, and understanding different types of clients is also emphasized.
Q4U is an automated call back system that allows customers to avoid waiting on hold. It queues callback requests and notifies agents when it's time to return calls. This improves service levels by reducing wait times, increasing call capacity, and better utilizing agents. The system integrates with contact center software and CRMs to provide screen pops with customer information when callbacks are returned. It offers more efficient resource usage and higher customer satisfaction compared to simply hiring more agents.
Cgap bank business_case_branchless_banking_c2rounakdholakia
Transaction costs through agents are approximately 50% lower than branches and ATMs at low transaction volumes. There are three main reasons for banks to pursue agent banking: as an additional efficient channel, for growth into new geographies and customer segments, and to enable a low-margin payments-led business model. Evidence shows agents can reduce costs for banks by providing value to existing customers. As a growth channel, banks expect favorable economics entering new markets and serving the unbanked through agents. Agents facilitate rapidly deploying payments services with minimal margins.
A leading health insurance provider worked with Technosoft to analyze and improve its Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. Technosoft used a 4-stage approach involving data collection, application analysis, benchmarking, and recommendations. This identified ways to optimize the IVR menu, increase self-service capabilities, and reduce call times. Implementing Technosoft's suggestions improved customer satisfaction by enhancing the user experience and lowering average call durations by up to 50%.
Cut Costs by as much as 60% on Communications!Pranay Sanghavi
This document discusses how telecom expense management (TEM) services can help organizations reduce their telecom costs. TEM services integrate, audit, and centralize billing to eliminate wasteful agreements, identify cost savings of 15-35% annually, and provide 5-8% savings from auditing bills that haven't been reviewed in two years. The document then outlines the TEM services Intellibuzz provides, including validating contracts, recovering overpayments, optimizing plans, and reducing expenses through cost analysis and procurement management.
Cut Costs by as much as 60% on Communications!Pranay Sanghavi
This document discusses telecom expense management (TEM) services that can help organizations reduce their telecom costs. TEM services audit telecom invoices and service agreements, centralize billing management, and typically achieve telecom expense savings of 15-35% in the first year through actions like eliminating redundant services, negotiating lower rates, and recovering overcharges. The document provides an overview of how TEM providers analyze an organization's telecom usage and bills, make recommendations to optimize spending, and help manage telecom procurement.
The document outlines a CRM sales process flow that includes lead handling, quoting, follow up and selling, closing, and surveying. Key steps include leads being assigned to sales reps from web forms or emails, reps beginning the quoting process by gathering customer data, sending quotes via email, following up within 24-72 hours and 14 days of the decision date to close deals, converting quotes to bookings or closing as lost/canceled, and sending surveys post-interaction.
DoublePositive is a venture-backed startup located in Baltimore that was founded in 2004. They provide "LIVE Hot Transfers" of qualified mortgage leads to originators by having call center agents contact leads, verify their information, confirm their interest, and then transfer the call in real time to the originator. This allows the originator's sales team to focus only on selling without having to spend time making initial contact with leads. DoublePositive also provides lead reporting and analytics to marketing teams.
The document provides information about the role and goals of client services for a genetic testing company. It discusses how client services acts as a liaison between clients (which can include genetic counselors, physicians, nurses, etc.) and other parts of the company. The role involves being an information resource, maintaining professionalism, and tracking client opinions. It also reviews the systems and tools needed by client services, such as a CRM system and access to testing and billing information. Examples are given of how client services can anticipate client needs and provide world-class service. The importance of clear communication, tracking interactions, and understanding different types of clients is also emphasized.
Q4U is an automated call back system that allows customers to avoid waiting on hold. It queues callback requests and notifies agents when it's time to return calls. This improves service levels by reducing wait times, increasing call capacity, and better utilizing agents. The system integrates with contact center software and CRMs to provide screen pops with customer information when callbacks are returned. It offers more efficient resource usage and higher customer satisfaction compared to simply hiring more agents.
Cgap bank business_case_branchless_banking_c2rounakdholakia
Transaction costs through agents are approximately 50% lower than branches and ATMs at low transaction volumes. There are three main reasons for banks to pursue agent banking: as an additional efficient channel, for growth into new geographies and customer segments, and to enable a low-margin payments-led business model. Evidence shows agents can reduce costs for banks by providing value to existing customers. As a growth channel, banks expect favorable economics entering new markets and serving the unbanked through agents. Agents facilitate rapidly deploying payments services with minimal margins.
A leading health insurance provider worked with Technosoft to analyze and improve its Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. Technosoft used a 4-stage approach involving data collection, application analysis, benchmarking, and recommendations. This identified ways to optimize the IVR menu, increase self-service capabilities, and reduce call times. Implementing Technosoft's suggestions improved customer satisfaction by enhancing the user experience and lowering average call durations by up to 50%.
Cut Costs by as much as 60% on Communications!Pranay Sanghavi
This document discusses how telecom expense management (TEM) services can help organizations reduce their telecom costs. TEM services integrate, audit, and centralize billing to eliminate wasteful agreements, identify cost savings of 15-35% annually, and provide 5-8% savings from auditing bills that haven't been reviewed in two years. The document then outlines the TEM services Intellibuzz provides, including validating contracts, recovering overpayments, optimizing plans, and reducing expenses through cost analysis and procurement management.
Cut Costs by as much as 60% on Communications!Pranay Sanghavi
This document discusses telecom expense management (TEM) services that can help organizations reduce their telecom costs. TEM services audit telecom invoices and service agreements, centralize billing management, and typically achieve telecom expense savings of 15-35% in the first year through actions like eliminating redundant services, negotiating lower rates, and recovering overcharges. The document provides an overview of how TEM providers analyze an organization's telecom usage and bills, make recommendations to optimize spending, and help manage telecom procurement.
Cloud Communication Services 101 by Twilio Product LeaderProduct School
This document provides an overview of cloud communication services and messaging. It discusses how messaging is becoming a preferred channel for customer engagement over voice and traditional channels. Key points covered include an introduction to SMS and emerging messaging channels like WhatsApp, metrics for common use cases like clienteling and transactional SMS, and best practices for optimizing conversion rates and prices.
Interactive Voice Response and Agent Performance MeasurementKevin L
This document discusses the need for a solution that can measure customer interactions from start to finish, including their experience navigating the IVR and speaking to an agent. Currently, most call centers only have visibility into what happens once a customer reaches an agent. The document proposes a new solution that can capture and interpret every step in the IVR as well as the agent call to provide a complete view of the customer service experience. This combined IVR and call recording approach would help call centers identify issues, improve customer retention and increase sales.
This document provides an overview of implementing CRM in the contact center. It discusses that CRM has implications for an organization's strategy, culture, processes and workflows. It then outlines a proven approach to planning and selecting CRM technology, including defining requirements and solutions based on business needs, reviewing current processes and technologies, prioritizing needs, selecting vendors, and taking a phased implementation approach with clear expectations and measures of success. The goal is to integrate CRM across channels and systems to improve customer relationships and business results.
This document provides tips and advice for reducing costs associated with back office supplies, including photocopiers, telecommunications, and postage. It recommends analyzing equipment usage and contracts to ensure items are fit for purpose. For photocopiers, it suggests encouraging double-sided printing and defaulting to black and white. For telecommunications, it advises auditing traffic patterns and understanding requirements. For postage, it recommends developing a postal profile and using appropriate services. Implementing these changes could significantly reduce non-core operating costs.
Introduction To Double Positive Platform EducationMike Wolek
DoublePositive is a marketing company that provides "live hot transfers" of interested potential students to their clients' admission reps within 30 seconds of the students expressing interest online. They contact the potential students by phone to qualify their interest and then transfer the call live to an admissions rep to continue the enrollment process. This allows admission reps to spend more of their time on enrollment presentations rather than contacting leads. DoublePositive's service typically results in a 300% increase in enrollment and a 20% decrease in the cost per enrolled student for their clients.
Offering advanced ivr services on the broad soft platformBroadSoft
The document discusses considerations for BroadSoft service providers regarding offering advanced interactive voice response (IVR) services through a software-as-a-service model. It outlines key issues like increased call costs, call data handling, integration with BroadSoft, redundancy, billing increments, ongoing management, and transparency. Inference Solutions is presented as an IVR partner that addresses these considerations through their browser-based Studio environment and architecture designed for BroadSoft providers.
Outsourcing Portfolio Rationalization: Getting the Most out of OutsourcingEverest Group
This webinar from Everest Group discusses outsourcing portfolio rationalization and how to get the most value from outsourcing arrangements. It explains how unwieldy outsourcing portfolios can result in losing up to 20% of sourcing spend, even in competitively benchmarked deals. The webinar will cover the complexities that may be impacting outsourcing gains and how to realize incremental savings by addressing these issues using Everest Group's proprietary portfolio rationalization methodology. Everest Group is an advisor that helps organizations optimize their use of global business services through practical consulting and research.
Acqueon iQ is an all-in-one contact center solution that aims to address challenges with multi-vendor solutions such as integration issues, high costs, and lack of consistent customer experience across channels. It combines components like PBX, IVR, CTI, voice recording, quality monitoring, and agent desktop into a single integrated platform. Key features include support for multiple communication channels, outbound dialing modes, scripting tools, reporting, and an web-based agent desktop. It offers businesses a unified omnichannel solution to manage customer interactions across various verticals.
Customer Reach<sup>®</sup> May 2009Colin Taylor
Demystifying Email management in your contact center. Costing Telecom costs in your contact center, case studies, research, white papers, news and views
The document compares the features of an internal hotline system versus MySafeWorkplace for handling reports of misconduct or other issues in the workplace. It outlines that MySafeWorkplace offers more advanced technological capabilities, increased anonymity for reporting parties, automated report distribution, multilingual support, and expert guidance at no additional cost compared to internal hotlines which require more manual processes and resources to achieve similar functions.
Optimizing ATM Transactions with Intelligent Deposit Webinar for Credit Union...NAFCU Services Corporation
Deposit volumes at ATMs have nearly doubled for many credit unions in the past couple of years. What’s driving this growth and is your credit union taking advantage of it?
Download slides from this recorded webinar for credit unions as we explore state-of-the-art Intelligent Deposit ATM technology and how it benefits credit unions.
Learn more at http://www.nafcu.org/ncr
This document discusses how SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) can help enterprises simplify business communications while lowering costs. SIP allows endpoints to discover, locate, and establish communication sessions for VoIP, video, gaming, and other applications. The SIP Session Manager acts as a centralized registrar and location server. It authenticates users, stores location information, and helps routing sessions. This simplifies network architecture and promotes interoperability while reducing costs. The document also discusses how SIP can improve customer contact centers through intelligent routing, customized wait experiences, self-service options, and proactive outbound communications - helping lower costs and enhance customer experience.
C Parts Management Tail End Spend (Procurement MRO Consumables)cwouter
The document discusses strategies for managing C-parts, which refers to low volume and low value tail-end spend. It notes that the scope of a C-parts management program could include MRO consumables only or multiple commodities, with the goal of reducing internal process costs by optimizing the supply base. Typical challenges include low item velocities and prices, a diversity of items, and the need to stock some locally due to urgent consumption needs across different user profiles.
07 Pickave Wik Koenigswinter November 2008toniomadrid
The document summarizes Deutsche Post's transformation of its retail network in response to universal service regulation requirements and changing customer behavior and competition. It discusses Deutsche Post's challenges in balancing regulation and market forces, and the expansion of competitors' retail networks. It then outlines Deutsche Post's strategy to meet these challenges through improved accessibility and availability of its retail outlets while reducing costs. This includes new outlet formats like Postpoints, Sales Points and Acceptance Points for Business Mail.
The document discusses how self-service applications can help companies reduce costs while improving customer experience. It argues that while self-service applications are cheaper than live agents, companies should not force customers to use them and instead provide options. When done right, self-service applications can handle 20-90% of customer interactions by automating common requests while retaining agents for more complex issues or opportunities to increase sales. The key is finding the right balance and empowering customers to choose how they receive service.
The document outlines the six steps for designing a strategic campaign plan for Tactical TeleSolutions: 1) Define campaign goals, 2) Create call materials, 3) Determine calling CRM, 4) Design call plan, 5) Train agents, and 6) Follow up and review progress. It provides details on each step, including qualifying call targets, call goals, call materials, CRM options, call logistics, call results, passing leads to clients, agent training, and follow up meetings.
With Crexendo Business Cloud Telephone Service, you gain reliable communication technology at a fraction of the cost of traditional phone systems. With “plug and talk” technology on your already existing high-speed broadband Internet connection you’ll enjoy:
• Free 10-Party Conferencing
• Free Maintenance and Software Updates
• Unlimited Local and Long Distance Calling (U.S. and Canada with fair usage)
• Unified Communications With all of your Offices Under One Network
• No Upfront Costs for Expensive Hardware
This document discusses basic tax planning strategies for small businesses. It outlines various business expenses that are fully deductible, such as rent, insurance, salaries and wages. It also lists some expenses that are only partially deductible, like entertainment and meals. The document explains depreciation of assets over their useful life or Section 179 expensing. Startup costs up to $5,000 per year can be deducted, with any remainder amortized over 15 years. Examples are provided to illustrate how deductions reduce taxable income over the first few years of a business. The presentation concludes with an overview of tax forms used by sole proprietors, partnerships and LLCs.
Bulk SMS Marketing is considered to be one of the most economical & effective way of marketing as compared to any other mediums. Bulk SMS Service from an established & Best Bulk SMS Marketing Company can help achieve the desired marketing goals.
This document provides details on visuals and fields to be used for business intelligence dashboards for a call center. It includes 15 charts/visualizations with descriptions of the purpose and fields to be used for each. It also provides definitions for over 50 call center metrics and key performance indicators to be tracked. Formulas for calculating common metrics like average handling time, cost per call, and service level are also included.
The document provides instructions for directly updating on-call information in real-time using the Web On-Call system. Users can log in and add, edit, or delete on-call entries for daily, weekly, or monthly schedules. The system displays partial shifts that span multiple days and allows adding backup personnel. Reports can then be printed out showing past, current, and future on-call entries.
A talented workforce is key to any successful organization but finding superstar employees and keeping them can prove to be challenging. They might leave because of job dissatisfaction or be lured away by another opportunity. In this eBook, our Experts will help you to identify great employees and reduce your employee turnover. We’ve included exercises you can do with your staff to help introduce some of these fun techniques into your organization to help attract and retain superstar employees!
This eBook will provide:
•Ideas for recruiting superstar employees
•One-on-one interview questions
•Tips and techniques for engaging staff
Cloud Communication Services 101 by Twilio Product LeaderProduct School
This document provides an overview of cloud communication services and messaging. It discusses how messaging is becoming a preferred channel for customer engagement over voice and traditional channels. Key points covered include an introduction to SMS and emerging messaging channels like WhatsApp, metrics for common use cases like clienteling and transactional SMS, and best practices for optimizing conversion rates and prices.
Interactive Voice Response and Agent Performance MeasurementKevin L
This document discusses the need for a solution that can measure customer interactions from start to finish, including their experience navigating the IVR and speaking to an agent. Currently, most call centers only have visibility into what happens once a customer reaches an agent. The document proposes a new solution that can capture and interpret every step in the IVR as well as the agent call to provide a complete view of the customer service experience. This combined IVR and call recording approach would help call centers identify issues, improve customer retention and increase sales.
This document provides an overview of implementing CRM in the contact center. It discusses that CRM has implications for an organization's strategy, culture, processes and workflows. It then outlines a proven approach to planning and selecting CRM technology, including defining requirements and solutions based on business needs, reviewing current processes and technologies, prioritizing needs, selecting vendors, and taking a phased implementation approach with clear expectations and measures of success. The goal is to integrate CRM across channels and systems to improve customer relationships and business results.
This document provides tips and advice for reducing costs associated with back office supplies, including photocopiers, telecommunications, and postage. It recommends analyzing equipment usage and contracts to ensure items are fit for purpose. For photocopiers, it suggests encouraging double-sided printing and defaulting to black and white. For telecommunications, it advises auditing traffic patterns and understanding requirements. For postage, it recommends developing a postal profile and using appropriate services. Implementing these changes could significantly reduce non-core operating costs.
Introduction To Double Positive Platform EducationMike Wolek
DoublePositive is a marketing company that provides "live hot transfers" of interested potential students to their clients' admission reps within 30 seconds of the students expressing interest online. They contact the potential students by phone to qualify their interest and then transfer the call live to an admissions rep to continue the enrollment process. This allows admission reps to spend more of their time on enrollment presentations rather than contacting leads. DoublePositive's service typically results in a 300% increase in enrollment and a 20% decrease in the cost per enrolled student for their clients.
Offering advanced ivr services on the broad soft platformBroadSoft
The document discusses considerations for BroadSoft service providers regarding offering advanced interactive voice response (IVR) services through a software-as-a-service model. It outlines key issues like increased call costs, call data handling, integration with BroadSoft, redundancy, billing increments, ongoing management, and transparency. Inference Solutions is presented as an IVR partner that addresses these considerations through their browser-based Studio environment and architecture designed for BroadSoft providers.
Outsourcing Portfolio Rationalization: Getting the Most out of OutsourcingEverest Group
This webinar from Everest Group discusses outsourcing portfolio rationalization and how to get the most value from outsourcing arrangements. It explains how unwieldy outsourcing portfolios can result in losing up to 20% of sourcing spend, even in competitively benchmarked deals. The webinar will cover the complexities that may be impacting outsourcing gains and how to realize incremental savings by addressing these issues using Everest Group's proprietary portfolio rationalization methodology. Everest Group is an advisor that helps organizations optimize their use of global business services through practical consulting and research.
Acqueon iQ is an all-in-one contact center solution that aims to address challenges with multi-vendor solutions such as integration issues, high costs, and lack of consistent customer experience across channels. It combines components like PBX, IVR, CTI, voice recording, quality monitoring, and agent desktop into a single integrated platform. Key features include support for multiple communication channels, outbound dialing modes, scripting tools, reporting, and an web-based agent desktop. It offers businesses a unified omnichannel solution to manage customer interactions across various verticals.
Customer Reach<sup>®</sup> May 2009Colin Taylor
Demystifying Email management in your contact center. Costing Telecom costs in your contact center, case studies, research, white papers, news and views
The document compares the features of an internal hotline system versus MySafeWorkplace for handling reports of misconduct or other issues in the workplace. It outlines that MySafeWorkplace offers more advanced technological capabilities, increased anonymity for reporting parties, automated report distribution, multilingual support, and expert guidance at no additional cost compared to internal hotlines which require more manual processes and resources to achieve similar functions.
Optimizing ATM Transactions with Intelligent Deposit Webinar for Credit Union...NAFCU Services Corporation
Deposit volumes at ATMs have nearly doubled for many credit unions in the past couple of years. What’s driving this growth and is your credit union taking advantage of it?
Download slides from this recorded webinar for credit unions as we explore state-of-the-art Intelligent Deposit ATM technology and how it benefits credit unions.
Learn more at http://www.nafcu.org/ncr
This document discusses how SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) can help enterprises simplify business communications while lowering costs. SIP allows endpoints to discover, locate, and establish communication sessions for VoIP, video, gaming, and other applications. The SIP Session Manager acts as a centralized registrar and location server. It authenticates users, stores location information, and helps routing sessions. This simplifies network architecture and promotes interoperability while reducing costs. The document also discusses how SIP can improve customer contact centers through intelligent routing, customized wait experiences, self-service options, and proactive outbound communications - helping lower costs and enhance customer experience.
C Parts Management Tail End Spend (Procurement MRO Consumables)cwouter
The document discusses strategies for managing C-parts, which refers to low volume and low value tail-end spend. It notes that the scope of a C-parts management program could include MRO consumables only or multiple commodities, with the goal of reducing internal process costs by optimizing the supply base. Typical challenges include low item velocities and prices, a diversity of items, and the need to stock some locally due to urgent consumption needs across different user profiles.
07 Pickave Wik Koenigswinter November 2008toniomadrid
The document summarizes Deutsche Post's transformation of its retail network in response to universal service regulation requirements and changing customer behavior and competition. It discusses Deutsche Post's challenges in balancing regulation and market forces, and the expansion of competitors' retail networks. It then outlines Deutsche Post's strategy to meet these challenges through improved accessibility and availability of its retail outlets while reducing costs. This includes new outlet formats like Postpoints, Sales Points and Acceptance Points for Business Mail.
The document discusses how self-service applications can help companies reduce costs while improving customer experience. It argues that while self-service applications are cheaper than live agents, companies should not force customers to use them and instead provide options. When done right, self-service applications can handle 20-90% of customer interactions by automating common requests while retaining agents for more complex issues or opportunities to increase sales. The key is finding the right balance and empowering customers to choose how they receive service.
The document outlines the six steps for designing a strategic campaign plan for Tactical TeleSolutions: 1) Define campaign goals, 2) Create call materials, 3) Determine calling CRM, 4) Design call plan, 5) Train agents, and 6) Follow up and review progress. It provides details on each step, including qualifying call targets, call goals, call materials, CRM options, call logistics, call results, passing leads to clients, agent training, and follow up meetings.
With Crexendo Business Cloud Telephone Service, you gain reliable communication technology at a fraction of the cost of traditional phone systems. With “plug and talk” technology on your already existing high-speed broadband Internet connection you’ll enjoy:
• Free 10-Party Conferencing
• Free Maintenance and Software Updates
• Unlimited Local and Long Distance Calling (U.S. and Canada with fair usage)
• Unified Communications With all of your Offices Under One Network
• No Upfront Costs for Expensive Hardware
This document discusses basic tax planning strategies for small businesses. It outlines various business expenses that are fully deductible, such as rent, insurance, salaries and wages. It also lists some expenses that are only partially deductible, like entertainment and meals. The document explains depreciation of assets over their useful life or Section 179 expensing. Startup costs up to $5,000 per year can be deducted, with any remainder amortized over 15 years. Examples are provided to illustrate how deductions reduce taxable income over the first few years of a business. The presentation concludes with an overview of tax forms used by sole proprietors, partnerships and LLCs.
Bulk SMS Marketing is considered to be one of the most economical & effective way of marketing as compared to any other mediums. Bulk SMS Service from an established & Best Bulk SMS Marketing Company can help achieve the desired marketing goals.
This document provides details on visuals and fields to be used for business intelligence dashboards for a call center. It includes 15 charts/visualizations with descriptions of the purpose and fields to be used for each. It also provides definitions for over 50 call center metrics and key performance indicators to be tracked. Formulas for calculating common metrics like average handling time, cost per call, and service level are also included.
The document provides instructions for directly updating on-call information in real-time using the Web On-Call system. Users can log in and add, edit, or delete on-call entries for daily, weekly, or monthly schedules. The system displays partial shifts that span multiple days and allows adding backup personnel. Reports can then be printed out showing past, current, and future on-call entries.
A talented workforce is key to any successful organization but finding superstar employees and keeping them can prove to be challenging. They might leave because of job dissatisfaction or be lured away by another opportunity. In this eBook, our Experts will help you to identify great employees and reduce your employee turnover. We’ve included exercises you can do with your staff to help introduce some of these fun techniques into your organization to help attract and retain superstar employees!
This eBook will provide:
•Ideas for recruiting superstar employees
•One-on-one interview questions
•Tips and techniques for engaging staff
The document provides time management tips organized into sections on organizing, planning ahead, avoiding time stealers, health, techniques, and common mistakes. Some key tips include creating to-do lists and using checklists, planning the next day's tasks, limiting distractions from online activities and phone calls, scheduling time for exercise and personal activities each day, and using time management techniques like the Pomodoro method to focus on one task at a time for set periods. Common mistakes to avoid are constantly checking email, getting distracted by other computer activities, multitasking, and working in interruptive environments.
How to motivate your staff and improve employee moraleDexcomm
How to Motivate Your Staff and Improve Employee Morale
Upon hire employees form perceptions about their new workplace. Negative perceptions can lead to disengagement very quickly and prompt new hires to look for another job within the first year of employment. Some studies show that turnover can cost up to 250% of an employee’s salary. That’s expensive!!!
At Dexcomm, we believe that engagement practices are vital in efforts to engage our staff and improve employee morale. One of the many challenges in today’s workplace is retaining top talent and keeping them engaged. We work hard to capitalize on our human capital because they are our greatest assets. We’d like to share some of what we’ve learned about engaging our employees and improving employee morale. We hope our tips can help you strengthen your team and capitalize on your greatest assets.
This eBook will provide:
•Five easy ways to help make a great first impression on your new hires
•Fun ideas for engaging your staff
•Ways to enhance your organization’s culture and improve employee morale
•Creative non-monetary benefits to attract and retain top talent
The document discusses various theories of motivation from Maslow's hierarchy of needs to Herzberg's two-factor theory, examining what drives human motivation including needs, goals, rewards, and relationships. It also presents McClelland's need for achievement, power and affiliation theory and explores motivation concepts like intrinsic and extrinsic factors. A case study example is given of a company that tried to improve working conditions and relationships but saw no increase in productivity, pointing to a need to better understand intrinsic motivation factors.
The document discusses several theories of motivation:
1. Frederick Taylor believed workers are motivated mainly by pay and breaking work into small repetitive tasks. However, this led to worker dissatisfaction.
2. Elton Mayo found workers are motivated by social factors like interaction and attention from managers.
3. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory proposes workers must have lower level needs met like pay before pursuing higher needs like fulfillment.
4. Frederick Herzberg argued motivators like interesting work that provides responsibility are more effective than dissatisfiers like pay. Methods like job enrichment and empowerment can motivate.
The document discusses changes and challenges facing revenue assurance (RA) with new technologies like 4G/LTE. Key points include:
1. New technologies and services like IoT, mobile payments require new RA approaches as CDR data is replaced by transactions/events and there is huge volumes of "big data".
2. Billing is shifting to flat rates and subscriptions requiring subscription assurance to dominate RA operations.
3. Internal fraud risks increase as new network elements are non-standard, allowing manipulation. Identity theft through device/account manipulation also poses risks.
4. RA systems must integrate diverse data sources across billing, IMS, HSS etc. to assure different revenue streams from subscriptions, pre
This document discusses how communications service providers can develop customer experience leadership through transforming their customer service operations. It argues that CSPs must integrate knowledge across silos and introduce proactive and predictive capabilities. To do so requires: 1) Changing metrics from incident management to knowledge-enabled customer advocacy; 2) Creating a knowledge integration model to organize information across silos; 3) Developing self-learning organizations that automate resolutions and reduce manual handling of incidents. This will enable CSPs to deliver better customer experiences through more efficient operations.
Total Cost of Ownership Cloud vs. On Premise Contact CenterNaina Rajput
The document discusses the total cost of ownership for on-premise versus cloud contact centers. It outlines the direct and indirect costs associated with each model. On-premise contact centers have higher upfront and maintenance costs, while cloud contact centers have more predictable operational expenditure. Cloud contact centers can boost agent productivity through metrics like lower wait times and increased first contact resolution. Overall, the cloud model transfers most costs to third-party providers.
Robotic process automation (RPA) can be used in various areas of the telecom industry. It allows telecom providers to automate repetitive tasks related to network management, invoice and purchase order processing, customer onboarding/offboarding, responding to partner queries, and sales order processing. This frees up employees to focus on more complex work. RPA also helps with data transformation, expense control, first call resolution, debt collection, and improves efficiency and scalability. Implementing RPA reduces costs, errors and improves customer satisfaction for telecom companies.
Building a Business Case for Replacing Your Call Center ACDGenesys
As an executive responsible for call center infrastructure, you understand the limitations of your legacy ACD. The challenge is how to calculate the ROI for replacing legacy systems with a SIP-based contact center infrastructure that can deliver an omnichannel customer experience.
View this slideshare and learn how to:
Compute cost savings from pooling agent resources
Calculate hardware and maintenance savings
Estimate the benefits of a consistent customer experience
Get more in the white paper: Should You Update or Abandon Your Call Center ACD? Why Companies Choose SIP-Based Contact Centers http://gsys.co/VGQxK
Multisourcing the new model for multi vendor customer careSteve Chirokas
New cloud contact center technology is making multisourcing a powerful customer care solution by addressing key challenges in managing vendor diversity and balancing customer satisfaction with cost savings. Features like multi-channel integration, cost and billing granularity by vendor, management delegation, intelligent call routing considering SLA commitments, and prompt messaging flexibility help overcome issues like desktop variations, visibility into costs and performance, and independent vendor control. Regular communication is also important to set expectations and ensure collaboration between multiple outsourced contact center vendors.
Cost Reduction Guide Issue 7 CommunicationsChris Brown
This document provides tips and advice on reducing operating costs related to business communications. It discusses how to better manage costs for fixed lines, mobiles, data, technology purchases and leases, contracts, and internal policies. The goal is to help businesses ensure their communications costs are managed effectively and efficiently. Expense Reduction Analysts is a consultancy that helps clients reduce non-core operating costs, including in communications areas.
This document provides tips to help businesses reduce operating costs related to communications. It discusses how to reduce costs for fixed lines, mobiles, data, and technology. It also discusses whether to purchase or lease equipment and how to manage contracts and policies to minimize expenses. The overall aim is to help businesses ensure their communications costs are managed effectively and efficiently.
Originally produced in 2010, this is a white paper produced to provide a high-level understanding of the call routing functionality that underpins the Tmedia family of media gateways from TelcoBridges of Boucherville, QC.
Kinetic Data White Paper, Divide And Conquer To Accelerate Client Transitionsbrettnorgaard
White Paper discusses how to accelerate transitioning new clients to the service platform by breaking offers into standard, optional and customized groupings.
Read how cloud telephony ensures businesses have scalable and reliable access to unified business communication without any burden of setting up infrastructure or additional CAPEX. Move your business communication to the cloud today.
Every business needs a call accounting systemJonGiberson
Every business needs a call accounting system to control telecommunications costs, which are one of the largest monthly expenses. A call accounting system provides critical information about how the telephone system is used to help managers allocate costs, optimize the phone system configuration, and document any security or compliance issues. It also allows tracking of sales activity and trends in call volume to improve productivity, lower usage costs, and reduce unnecessary expenses.
This white paper discusses how to optimize service delivery across an entire enterprise beyond just the contact center. It outlines challenges like underutilized resources, backlogs of work, and lack of visibility. The paper argues that service delivery optimization increases effectiveness and efficiency by adhering to service level objectives, increasing employee and resource performance, and providing operational insights. It claims Genesys software can help by enabling a single prioritized global task list and proactively distributing tasks to the best resources to meet goals.
The document provides an overview of various telephone equipment and services that can be selected to fit an organization's needs, including PBX systems, Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Call Center Management Software (CMS), Computer Assisted Telephony (CAT), and Workforce Management solutions. It describes features of these systems such as digital switches, VoIP switches, Centrex lines, and Software as a Service configurations. The document also covers telephone services including dial tone, long distance, networking considerations, and special features that can be added.
This document outlines best practices for performance measurement in call centers to maximize efficiency and quality. It discusses 15 key metrics for call centers, including service level, agent schedule adherence, active and waiting calls, first call resolution, call abandonment, average handling time, customer satisfaction, contact quality, forecast accuracy, net promoter score, staff turnover/retention, blockage, staff shrinkage, up-sell/cross-sell rate, and cost per call. For each metric, the document defines the metric and provides tips to effectively measure and manage performance. The overall aim of the document is to help call centers understand the important metrics to track to improve their operations.
The document discusses a session titled "Cloud Meets Contact Center: From Zero to Hero in 14 Days!". The session will cover the benefits of cloud contact centers, strategies for deploying one in 14 days or less, expected ROI, and uniting agents across locations into a virtual call center. The presenter has nearly 30 years of experience in project management and contact center operations. Attendees will learn about EPA's case study deploying a cloud contact center for its Safe Drinking Water Hotline.
The document discusses how remote support technology can help service desk analysts improve service quality and reduce costs. It explains that remote support allows analysts to fix issues from anywhere before they cause service failures or breaches in service level agreements. Using remote support helps standardize tools across different devices and environments. It also helps reduce repair times and avoid sending technicians on-site. This improves customer satisfaction and shows executives how the service desk adds value by meeting business needs.
How outbound communication and crm can take your contact center to the next l...ConvergeHub
1) The document discusses how legacy telephony-centric contact centers can take advantage of cloud telephony and CRM to enable more proactive outbound communication with customers.
2) Integrating cloud telephony with CRM allows contact centers to send personalized, customer-specific outbound messages across multiple channels to provide alerts, announcements and engage in more meaningful ways beyond just solving problems.
3) This streamlines business processes, automates some outbound communications, and frees up agents to focus more on inbound customer support while still maintaining customer relationships through proactive outbound messaging.
Similar to Telephone Answering Service Considerations (20)
2. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Jamey Hopper
President
Because service considerations and billing methods are closely related, a discussion of various billing
methods used by TAS companies is covered first. Other service and company considerations are then
covered.
There are many variations within each of the individual categories. Two companies quoting the exact
same price and the same pricing structure may end up billing the customer vastly different amounts for
the same time period and traffic usage. This is due to different TAS equipment tracking minutes or calls
in different fashions or even different TAS offices with the same equipment using different methods to
calculate minutes. For example, one office with a very low per minute rate includes ring time and non-
working hold time in its time calculation. Another issue is that some TAS companies bill on a 28 day
cycle resulting in 13 invoices a year, while some bill monthly resulting in 12 invoices per year.
The most significant issue with the different methods from a TAS perspective is the training that is given
to the operators. With a flat rate, message count or service unit billing method it is to the TAS advantage
to have the call end quickly. The incentive is to take a limited amount of information and terminate the
call. With time-billing the incentive is to be thorough with the information taken from the caller. Clearly
either system can be taken to extremes by the individual TAS. The largest component of TAS expenses
is employee salary and benefits. There is an incentive for the TAS to reduce the amount of time an
operator spends on a call. Some of the billing methods encourage a setup where the customer would
realize a reduction in TAS billing by automating systems or by the customer taking on certain service
steps such inputting on call information rather than having the TAS perform this function. Voice mail on
the front end of any variable rate system (that is, all except flat rate) will also generally reduce customer
billing.
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
dexcomm.com
3. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Billing Methods
Flat Rate | Message Count | Service Units | Dedicated Operator | Time Usage | Other
ANSWERING COMMUNICATION SERVICES
Flat Rate Message Count Service Units
Pro Pro Pro
Allows for budgeting as the Ideal for business who may only A client with limited people on
amount of the monthly bill is need someone to collect a call and every message sent to
known in advance. name and number and no other their smartphone would be ide-
information. ally suited for this system.
Con
Usually a higher rate per billing Con Con
cycle as this method carries Most of these services count Generally each point of contact
more risk for the TAS. every call as a message, includ- is a “unit”. That is, each call,
ing hang ups, wrong numbers, page, fax or email, text mes-
Brief etc. The customer service rep- sage, each customer check-in,
This method is usually associ- resentatives will simply make a etc.
ated with small or poor service message ticket for “lady hung
TAS offices. Flat rates generally up” or “man will call back” as Brief
do not allow the TAS to cover the complete message. This style of billing is ideally suit-
their variable expenses, which ed for simple service accounts.
are primarily operator related, Brief
so customers may unexpectedly Was used throughout the indus-
find their account in the hands try in the days of handwritten
of an unfamiliar provider as the messages.
flat rate TAS either goes out of
business or is bought by a larger Used much less now with the
service. The rate must be ad- availability of sophisticated
justed periodically as call traffic scripted messaging software.
changes.
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
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4. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Billing Methods
Flat Rate | Message Count | Service Units | Dedicated Operator | Time Usage | Other
Dedicated Operator Time Usage Other Charges
Hourly
Pro Pro Brief
Dedicated operators usually The training focuses on thor- Many TAS offices will include ad-
become more skilled when han- oughness in message taking, ditional fees. Some examples
dling only one type of call. rather than brevity. This can include:
lead to more complete mes- Holiday surcharges, email
Con
sages, and also to higher billing delivery, fax delivery, message
Difficulty in matching call traffic
due to longer time of operator storage, caller ID, monthly
to number of operators staffed.
involvement on a call. reports, email response, voice
Can become expensive for the
client as occupancy rate of mail, yearly line charge, pag-
dedicated operators is lower Con ing or alpha dispatch, SMS text
than pooled operators: however, Generally the “billing clock” is on delivery, web access, monthly
when there are too few dedicat-
when an agent is actively work- maintenance, etc.
ed operators their occupancy
rate can become so high as to ing on a call.
lead to errors and burnout.
Brief
Brief Used by the vast majority of TAS
Operators are dedicated to one offices, especially in the pre-
client only. mium service level group.
Frequently requires a hybrid
system with some dedicated
operators and some overflow
to a general operator pool (for
example for overnight and mid-
day call traffic).
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
dexcomm.com
5. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Service Considerations
Staffing | Occupancy | Distribution | QA | Dispatch | Training | HIPAA | Systems
Staffing Ratios
• Staffing too low will lead to long ring times and poor service levels.
• Staffing too high can lead to poor service due to operator boredom as
well as high prices.
Occupancy Rates
• The ideal occupancy rate for our industry is between 55% and 65%;
higher than that level will lead to mistakes and burnout.
• Extremely high occupancy rates do not allow time for coaching, training,
quality & performance reviews.
Distribution and Routing
• Some use a general distribution system in which any call can be routed
to any operator.
• Some services use sophisticated call routing systems. A sophisticated
skills based routing system will direct calls for a particular customer to an
operator, or a group of operators, trained in handling that specific ac-
count or account type.
Quality Assurance (QA) Systems
• Most TAS companies grade calls regularly.
• Some offices have sophisticated QA systems, insuring consistent grading
and statistically significant results.
• Many TAS offices have extensive call logging systems and store the text
and voice recorded messages for various periods of time.
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
dexcomm.com
6. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Service Considerations
Staffing | Occupancy | Distribution | QA | Dispatch | Training | HIPAA | Systems
Take and Dispatch System
• Some TAS companies have the operator taking the call also dispatch the
call. This has the advantage of having the operator able to answer a
question should there be information requested that might be difficult to
include in a message (like the demeanor of the caller).
• A take and dispatch system has the advantage of a single operator
gaining experience with message delivery, knowing where the different
company employees are at each time, knowing how they like to be
reached and being able to review the message and correct any mis-
takes or unclear aspects of the message itself.
Training Program
• All TAS offices have some form of training.
• Some companies train on the operations floor, some train in a remote
training office.
• Some companies have ongoing training, specific customer training,
customer type training.examples: training for home health customers,
funeral home customers, physicians or any other industry type
HIPAA Protocols
• Many TAS offices are hiring consultants and enacting extensive HIPAA
provisions.
• Some TAS offices are less aggressive, while some are doing nothing at
all.
System and Software Capabilities
• Some TAS vendors provide complex scripting software allowing for exten-
sive customized messaging for individual offices.
• Other systems provide alternative messaging systems such as inbound
and outbound faxing, voice mail, email & SMS text message, linkage
with database applications (for example the ability to provide clock in
and clock out services with a voice mail system) and allow real time
backup capability.
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
dexcomm.com
7. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Associations Awards Certifications
Award of Excellence
Joining and actively participat- ATSI & CAM-X offer Award of ATSI and CAM-X offer various
ing in the various associations Excellence programs. These levels of certification.
generally results in TAS com- are essentially mystery shopper
panies with better systems and programs where a “shopper” will Site Certification is designed to
procedures. Most of the as- call a TAS and grade the opera- insure 99.9% up time of the TAS.
sociations focus on educational tor on up to 28 different criteria Site Certification also examines:
programs for their members, for each call. A TAS averaging compliance with labor laws,
including the topics mentioned over 80% on the ten calls grad- EEOC guidelines, policy manu-
in the section above. ed during a six month period will als, insurance coverage, etc.
win the Award of Excellence.
Industry
Association of Teleservices International
(ATSI)
Canadian Call Management Association
(CAM-X)
Regional
Southern Telemessaging
Western States
Great Lakes
Others
Groups
National Amtelco Equipment Owners
(NAEO)
Startel National Users Group
(SNUG)
Others
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
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8. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Company Considerations
Associations | Awards | Certifications | Preparedness | IT Management Staffing | Ownership
Preparedness IT Management Ownership
In addition to Site Certification Some TAS offices have full time Some TAS companies are owner
some companies have taken in house IT staff while others operated, some are owned by
large steps to insure continu- engage outside contractors for IT large companies.
ing operation in the event of a support
disaster. Some of the large companies
hire professional managers
Some TAS companies have to run an office; some of the
detailed Disaster Plans and ex- owners of small services are at-
tensive backup systems, includ- tentive but untrained in many as-
ing redundant switches, servers, pects of business management.
telephony and Internet providers,
etc. No model would appear to be
perfect in all circumstances, but
it is something that should be
examined carefully.
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
dexcomm.com
9. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Billing Compairsons
Flat Rate | Message Count | Service Units | Dedicated Operator | Time Usage
Billing TAS #2 TAS #3 TAS #4
Consideration
Flat Rate Not available at this time
Message Count n/a
Service Units n/a
Dedicated n/a
Operator
Pricing structure is based
Time Usage on the time used on your
account.
Optional customer selected
Other Charges features
Billing Cycle Monthly
Holiday Surcharge No holiday surcharge
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
dexcomm.com
10. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Service Compairsons
Staffing | Occupancy | Distribution | QA | Dispatch | Training | HIPAA | Systems
Service TAS #2 TAS #3 TAS #4
Consideration
Staffing Ratios Monitored weekly
Occupancy Monitored hourly
Rates
Distribution and More than 10 levels of
Routing operator distribution
Our QA department reviews
thousands of calls every
Quality month scoring each call on
Assurance (QA) more than 30 criteria which
Systems are regualry reviewed with
staff and management
Take and Yes
Dispatch System
Once hired, new employees
participate in extensive class-
room based training under the
Training Program supervision of a dedicated
and experienced training
department
HIPAA Protocols Yes
System and Monitored on site by our
Software dedicated IT team
Capabilities
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
dexcomm.com
11. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
Company Compairsons
Associations | Awards | Certifications | Preparedness | IT System Mgmt | Ownership
Company TAS #2 TAS #3 TAS #4
Consideration
ATSI, CAM-X, NAEO, Southern
Teleservices Association,
National Federation of Inde-
pendent Business, BBB (Baton
Rouge, LA and Lafayette, LA),
Associations Louisiana Association of Busi-
ness and Industry, Greater
Lafayette Chamber of
Commerce, Partners1 Trade
Organization, Trust Acadiana,
Crescent City
ATSI Award of Excellence
2004-2012, CAM-X Award of
Awards Excellence 2008-2012, LSU
Top 100 Fastest Growing Tiger
Businesses 2011-2012
ATSI 24/7 Gold Site Certifica-
Certifications tion, ATSI Customer Service
Representative Certification
Equipped with a super
fuel tank, generators, and
dedicated on-site server
Preparedness rooms and on and complete
fully-redundant, real-time on-
and off-site backup systems
Three full-time employees that
IT System include a Systems Engineer,
Management Systems Developer and an Ap-
plication Analyst
Ownership Owner operated
518 Patin Rd. • Carencro, LA 70520 • (337) 236-8300
dexcomm.com
12. Telephone Answering Service Considerations
The first step in developing an effective business relationship is to understand your needs,
goals and strategies. An answering service is an extension of your business, don’t allow just
anyone to represent Your Voice. When you are ready to form a winning partnership, our
staff is ready to answer any questions about our services and pricing.
CORPORATE SALES wWw
518 Patin Rd 877.339.2666 dexcomm.com
Carencro, LA 70520 337.296.0254 @dexcomm
337.236.8300