Call

Center Handbook: The Complete

title: Guide to Starting, Running and Improving
Your Call Center
author: Dawson, Keith.
publisher:
isbn10 | asin: 1578200474
print isbn13: 9781578200474
ebook isbn13: 9781929629220
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 Page i

Call Center Handbook

The Complete Guide To Starting, Running and
Improving Your Call Center
3rd Edition

By Keith Dawson

 Page ii
Published by Telecom Books
An imprint of Miller Freeman, Inc.
12 West 21st St., N.Y., N.Y., 10010
http://www.telecombooks.com
Copyright © 1999 by Keith Dawson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
conventions, including the
right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form
whatsoever.
ISBN 1-57820-047-4
For individual orders, and for information on special discounts for
quantity orders, please contact:
Telecom Books
6600 Silacci Way
Gilroy, CA 95020
Tel:800-LIBRARY or 408-848-3854
Fax:408-848-5784
Email:telecom@rushorder.com
Distributed to the book trade in the U.S. and Canada by
Publishers Group West
1700 Fourth St., Berkeley, CA 94710
Manufactured in the United States of America
Third Edition, August 1999

 Page iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction Why Call Centers Are So Important

Part IThe Physical Center

1. Destination: Call Center

2. Facilities & Design

Part IIRouting Calls: Switches & Core Hardware Systems

3. Toll Free & Long Distance Services

4. The ACD

5. Outdialing Systems

6. CTI

7. Voice Processing Fundamentals

Part IIIThe Front End

8. Interactive Voice Response

9. Speech Recognition

10. The Web and Call Centers

11. Video In The Center

Part IVMaking Sense of the Call

12. More Computer Telephony

13. Telemarketing & Scripting Software


 Page iv

14. Skills-Based Routing

15. Customer Relationship Management

16. Help Desk/Customer Service Software

17. Dispatch Systems

18. Order Processing

19. Interactive Fax

Part VCritical Peripherals

20. Readerboards and Display Technologies

21. Headsets

22. On-Hold Messaging

23. Check & Payment Processing

Part VIManagement & Operations

24. Workforce Management Software

25. Monitoring Systems

Part VIIOutside the Center

26. Outsourcing

27. Disaster and Contingency Planning

28. Telecommuting Agents

Appendix

Resources


 Page 1

INTRODUCTION:
WHY CALL CENTERS ARE SO IMPORTANT
Chances are you have this book in your hand because you run, or
work in, or have something to do with, a call center. Chances are also
that when people outside work ask you what you do, you have to
explain to them exactly what a call center is, and they don't always get
it. They focus on the things that they dislike about call centersthose
telemarketing calls they get at dinnertime or when they're putting the
baby to bed. Or the long time they spend on hold trying to get
someone to explain why there's an error on their bank statement.
Obviously there's more to call centers than the face they present to the
consumer. But that's the realitythat people interact with call centers all
the time, and often come away frustrated and bewildered. That's one
of the main reasons this book exists: to help you improve the way the
call center operates, and following that, to improve the relationship
between your company and your customers.
This book is for anyone who works in a call center. For anyone who
sells by phone. Or who helps customers. It's about all the stuff that's
used in call centers, all the technology, hardware and software. It's
also about the kinds of services that call centers buy, things like toll
free and long distance services, outsourced call center help, site
selection assistance and consulting. And it's about the people who
work in centers: how to keep reps happy, interested, well trained and
excited about their jobs. How to make sure that you don't spend a
fortune in training only to lose those people after a few short months
because some preventable thing you're doing is driving them away.
A call center is a traditionally defined as a physical location where
calls are placed, or received, in high volume for the purpose of sales,
marketing, customer service, telemarketing, technical support or other
specialized business activity. One early definition described a call
center as a place of doing busi-

 Page 2
ness by phone that combined a centralized database with an automatic
call distribution system. That's close, but it's more than that. Today we
expand the definition in two directions.
First, we expand it to include call-taking and call-making
organizations that were originally overlooked, like fundraising and
collections organizations, and help desks, both internal and external.
And more controversially, we expand it to include centers that handle
more than the traditional voice calllets call them call centers plus.
These would be centers that handle voice plus fax, or e-mail, live web
chat centers, video interactionsall the many real and hypothetical
customer interactions that are now possible.
Estimates of the number of call centers in North America range from
20,000 to as high as 200,000. The reality is probably somewhere
around 120,000 depending on what you consider a call center. Some
experts believe that you shouldn't count centers below a certain
number of agents (or "seats"). I believe in the widest possible
definition, all the way down to microcenters of four or five people.
Why? Because those centers face many of the same kinds of problems
on a daily basis as their larger cousins: problems of training, staffing,
call handling, technology assessment, and so on. Those smaller
centers have to put the same kind of face forward to the customer as
the largest centers, in order to remain competitive. And more often
than not, those small center become medium-sized centers over time.
Call centers are generally set up as large rooms, with workstations that
include a computer, a telephone set (or headset) hooked into a large
switch and one or more supervisor stations. It may stand by itself, or
be linked with other centers. It will most likely be linked to a
corporate data network, including mainframes, microcomputers and
LANs.
Call centers were first recognized as such 25 or 30 years ago, in their
largest incarnations: airline reservation centers, catalog ordering
companies, problem solvers like the GE Answer Center. Until the
early 1990s, only the largest centers could afford the investment in
technology that allowed them to handle huge volumes (the ACD).
More recently, with the development of PC LANs, client/server
software systems, and open phone systems, any call center can have
an advanced call handling and customer management system, even
down to ten agents or less.
As companies have learned that service is the key to attracting and
maintaining customers (and hence, revenue), the common perception
of the call

 Page 3
center has changed. It is rarely seen as a luxury anymore. In fact, it is
often regarded as a competitive asset. In some industries (catalog
retailing, financial services, hospitality) a call center is the difference
between being in business and not being in business. In other
industries (cable television, utilities) call centers have been the
centerpiece of corporate attempts to quickly overhaul service and
improve their image.
It's a good working hypothesis to assume that any company that sells
any product has a call center, or will shortly have one, because it is the
most effective way to reach (and be reached by) customers.
Just when you thought you knew what you were doingtechnology is
redefining the call center, changing it into something bigger, more
complex, and ultimately more customer-pleasing.
You could choose to define a center in terms of its physical reality,
like the traditional definitions just given. It is a roomful of people,
devoted to the task of making and/or receiving calls to and from
customers. It is the place where those calls are handled, and the
accumulation of technologies that assist: phone lines, switches,
software, human expertise.
Or, you could look at it from the point of view of functionthe call
center as the locus for customer satisfaction. In that view, the center is
the "place" where the customer goes to complain, to place an order, or
get helpeven if the agents are widely disconnected from each other, or
if the database is halfway around the world from them.
There may not seem to be too much difference between those two
points of view. Until recently, there wasn't. Whether you subscribed to
one or another definition mattered little in the day to day running of a
center. You could even hold both views without much cognitive
dissonance.
Call centers have emerged as powerful, strategic tools in the fight to
gain and keep customers. Running a center has become its own
corporate discipline. The call center industry has become an
industrynot simply a collection of dissociated vertical markets with
similar needs. We've seen phenomenal growth in all
segmentsequipment sales, outsourcing services, tollfree traffic,
customer sales made by phone.
And yet, the moorings are coming loose. Something ironic has
happened. At almost the precise moment that we can herald the arrival
of the call center industry, we can see, looming out there on the
horizon, the signs of something coming along to replace what we
know as the "call center."
This isn't a dire phenomenon. It's a technological and cultural
revolution

 Page 4
in the way customers interact with companies. Call centers started that
revolution, by creating a place (a real, physical place) where
customers could get in touch with intelligent representatives of a
company. Information could pass in two directions.
Here is what will happen. What is already happening. Starting with
IVR, technologies enable automated contact with companies. Nobody
does this better than banks and financial services. Anyone who wants
to transfer funds can do it at 3 am without talking to a person. AND,
anyone who wants to report a stolen credit card can also do it at 3 am,
through a live agent.
IVR cuts out the agent for routine database transactions. It handles as
much as 40% of the volume that formerly went to agents. And like all
good technologies, it creates its own demandpeople who call trying to
get the IVR system, who wouldn't have called at all if they thought
they were going to have to talk to a real person.
IVR was step one. Step two is fax-on-demand. Call an agent or an
IVR system and retrieve a document instantly. Directions. Brochures.
White papers. Sales literature.
We are now in the middle of step three: the internet and Web sites.
Self-support by customers who search your database for the answers
to their questions. Who log their own cases by email and wait for your
reply. By combinations: fax-enabled Web sites, for example.
At the same time, the physical center itself is devolving. Smaller
centers are more practical. You can put a fifty seat center into
virtually any town or city in the US, without worrying about telecom
infrastructure or labor. Cities, states and foreign countries are falling
over each other to offer tax incentives to attract call centers.
Centers can use agents-at-home, virtual agents who sign into a center
from their homes whenever demand requires, the ultimate in just-in-
time staffing. We heard of one company that trains spouses of call
center agents. Those spouses, who already know much about the
company, are then equipped to pick up part-time work on very short
notice, and can sign into the call center from their kitchen tables.
This is happening more and more. Technology makes the role of an
agent more powerfulmore of an analytic and interpretive skill, as well
as more interpersonal. They have access to more information about
the customer and the company. And the kinds of questions they are
called upon to answer are different. They are higher level, more
complex, often requiring more deci-

 Page 5
sion-making authority for customer service and support.
We are rapidly approaching the time when more calls coming into the
call center are not directed at agents. When you add up the totalIVR
calls, fax-back retrievals, hits on Web sitesyou may already be there.
That forces us to rethink two things.
1. We need a broader definition of a "call."With so many alternate
entry points into a company's sales/service operation, we need to
rethink the traditional measures of service level, revenue generated
per call, cost per call, and so on. What is the relative cost of a Web hit,
and its benefit? (The economics of the Internet are a very fuzzy area.)
In the same vein, can we afford to treat e-mail requests for service any
differently than we do live calls?
Most of what we now describe as a call is really best described as a
transaction or an interaction between two parties, you and the
customer. Eventually most customer interactions won't involve an
agent. They will be electronically processed database transactions.
2. We have to recognize that the call center is more than the simple
place we defined earlier, a place for making and taking calls. It is best
described by its functionas a collection of people and technologies
whose role is to serve customers.
You are on one side of a chasm, your customers on the other side.
There are many ways to get from one side to the other. The customer
chooses which route depending on what he needs.
ACD vendors are already grappling with the need to route incoming
Internet traffic. The ACD itself will evolve from a voice-call routing
processor into an all-purpose traffic cop for all the voice and data
pathways into the center.
There is already evidence that the role of call center agent is changing,
into more of a knowledge worker. Reps are now, more than ever, on a
career track to supervisory and management positions.
Things are changing faster than ever before. As soon as this book hits
your hands, we'll be ready with a pile of new technologies to write
about, new products that are out there, and new ideas about how to
run the call center.
One place to go for updated information on an ongoing basis is my
own online newsletter, the Call Center News Service. You can find it
at http://www.callcenternews.com, or by calling 718-788-6220. It's
home to

 Page 6
a wide variety of unbiased information, tools, resources and opinions
about developments in the industry. It's also the repository of the
company information that's found in this book. If you find a phone
number or website that's wrong or out of date, check out the CCNS
Buyer's Guide; we've probably corrected it there.

How to Use This Book

This Handbook is divided into what we hope are logical sections,
dealing with different aspects of running a center. Each section is
divided into chapters, each describing one particular technology,
product, service, or operational problem in a center. Within each
chapter, you'll find a small listing of companies that are relevant to
that subject. We don't endorse the products or the companies, we just
write about them and try to understand them. At the end of the book,
you'll find an alphabetical listing of companies, with a bit more
information about each one than we put in the chapter listings. As you
go along, you'll see the logic.
As always with any project this size, you might find errors of fact or
judgement in this book. If so, please let me know, and if possible I'll
correct them in the next edition. You can e-mail me at
editor@callcenternews.com.
KEITH DAWSON
SUMMER, 1999

 Page 9

PART I
THE PHYSICAL CENTER
You can place a call center anywhere you like. We've seen centers in office
buildings, strip malls and industrial parks; squeezed into back rooms and
former warehouses; converted supermarkets and trading floorsthere's no end
to the ways to house a call center.

 Page 11

Chapter 1
Destination:
Call Center
Before you buy a switch, hire staff, install a single piece of software,
train any agentsbefore you take a single callyou're going to have to
find a place to put your center. Site selection is one of the biggest
decisions you'll make. It affects every decision that comes afterfrom
the kinds of wiring you install to the services you offer your
customers, for years to come. Where do you locate your call center to
provide the maximum advantage to your organization and your
customers?
Finding a site for your call center is more difficult than finding a site
for many other types of business. And it is more difficult to find the
ideal site for your call center now than it was just a few years ago.
The choice of locations has never been broaderyou can put an
effective center just about anywhere these days. But having more
choices means you have to do your homework better than ever to find
the right site for your center. It used to be a simple matter. You'd put
your center in an established call centerfriendly city, like Omaha,
hoping to get the best telecom connections, and an educated, accent-
free workforce.
But that's not the most cost-effective solution anymore. While there
are a huge number of centers scattered throughout the American (and
Canadian) Midwest, other factors let you enlarge the area of
consideration. Many companies no longer see the Midwest as an
attractive area for new centers (though existing ones continue to
thrive) because of the tight labor market in the late 1990s.
In essence, the traditional barriers have been eliminated, which makes
the decision of where to locate if anything, harder. You can get good
telecommunications services just about anywhere in the continental
US and Canada. Similar conditions exist in other regions of the
developed world. And (at least in the US), the cost of telecom has
dropped dramatically through this decade.

 Page 12
A call center is not physically demanding as to the kind of space you
put it in, either. We've seen centers in office buildings, strip malls and
industrial parks; squeezed into back rooms and former warehouses;
converted supermarkets and trading floorsthere's no end to the ways to
house a call center.
Given that, you can place a call center anywhere you like. It means
that you can choose the physical surroundings based on your specific
company's needs. If you need to be near an order processing center,
for example, or the CEO's summer cottage, you'll not find that too
much of a problem.
What is good news for call center managers is there are plenty of
locations, both in the United States and abroad, that are eager to have
your call center join their business community.
Call centers are so malleable, physically, that you can just as logically
conclude that New York City is an appropriate venue for your center
as Ponca City, Oklahoma. In real life cases, both of those cities had
something critical for the company that ran a center. In New York's
case, it was a company that already had an office presence in town;
converting an extra room into a small, informal call center made
sense, even at New York real estate prices. New York City has some
of the highest costs for office space and labor in the country, plus a
telecom environment that's not always what we could call a welcome
mat for high-tech businesses. But that's where one company set up a
center dedicated to outbound calling on small accounts. They already
had the telecom in place, and the networking infrastructure. At $
100,000 to revamp the existing space and furbish it for call center
work, it made more sense to add-on than it did either to locate
somewhere cheaper, or even to outsource.
In the case of Oklahoma, you have a very different environment.
Space is cheaper, and there is room to spread out. Several years ago a
major outsourcer built a jumbo center, investing more than $ 5 million
to build a 42,000 square foot center in Ponca City, a small town of
29,000 people.
They were not just looking to add an informal center to an existing
business function. Instead, when placing a major facility, they were
thinking costs, and thinking long-term. So state incentives played a
major role in their decision. Oklahoma has a highly developed
government program designed to attract call centers, because they
quite correctly see call centers as a killer job creation engine for their
communities. And in the case of the big centers, you can transform a
small community overnight, build a tax base, create a reason for local
people to stay in the community instead of migrate to bigger cities,
and so on. Call centers do for these communities what factories did a
few generations ago.

 Page 13
Dig a little deeper, and you find that Ponca City has an excellent
school system, including vocational schools, that can provide a steady
stream of support reps with some technical skills. The University of
Oklahoma is not too far away, either. Outsourcers like small
townsthey provide stability and permanence. But they choose
carefully, because if you make the wrong decision, you're stuck with a
multimillion dollar investment.
Selection Criteria
Labor. One surprising quality of this strong economy is low
unemploymentrecently at just 4.5% and hovering around that area for
long enough now to create real competition for quality workers,
particularly in the service sector at the low end of the pay scale.
While that's good for workers, it's affecting the call center industry.
Anecdotal reports indicate that it's harder to find workers in large
quantity at the traditional low pay and benefit rates that have fueled
the dramatic expansion of the industry in the last few years. Staffing
large centers is harder, and turnover has always been a problem. It
appears that the national labor squeeze is exacerbating the problem
that used to appear on a local or regional level, where too many call
centers in one area would saturate the labor pool. Where in the past
the industry would move on to another area, now instead salaries are
creeping up.
''Call centers have traditionally drawn from the marginally employed,"
says call center expert Madeline Bodin. "People like housewives,
students with flexible schedules, people who have to work part time,
or recent graduates. With unemployment so low, people have other
choices." She says that given the choice between a job in a call center
and something else, there has to be a reason for potential employees at
that level going to choose the center. Often, there isn't one.
Kevin Leonard of Strategic Outsourcing Corp. specializes in hiring in
bulkhundreds of agents at a time for large, high-end call centers in the
southwest. "What most call center people do is call temp agencies," he
says. "The signal is sent to all the temp agencies and they find
everyone they can't place anywhere else." When you staff by the
hundred in a single concentrated area, especially under time pressure,
the call center management ends up under the gun, with no real
opportunity to check the skills of the pool as a whole.
What this means for call center site selection is that the old rules don't
necessarily apply. Going to a location because of the cost of labor
doesn't make sense. Economic conditions will change over time,
changing the cost of

 Page 14
labor. What you need to look for is the quality and continuity of a
region's labor force. Quality, meaning people are well educated, with
computer and communication skills, and a solid work ethic.
Continuity, of course, meaning that the labor pool is deep enough to
supply a constant stream of workers, even at your highest projected
rate of turnover.
While many believe that an area's unemployment rate is the most
important indicator of workers available, the best indicator is how
likely that market is to grow. Unemployment gives you a quantity of
workers from which to choose, but is not a guarantee of quality.
If the labor market is growing, a company can set high standards for
recruiting. Growth allows that company to let go employees who don't
meet its standards. High growth also lessens the inflationary pressures
on wages and benefits in that market. In the US, this kind of growth is
usually indicated by a high number of people moving to the area. A
large percentage of young peopleand even a high birth rateare other
signs to watch for. Salt Lake City, for example, is a recently a popular
call center location, in part because of its nation-topping birth rate.
A growing labor pool is more important for call centers than for most
other industries. Because of the stress and the high turnover rate, call
centers tend to burn out a labor pool faster. After a while your help
wanted ads may go unanswered by a populace battle-scarred by call
center work.
A steady supply of new workers can make finding employees easier
when your best employee retention efforts fail. Also, call center
employees are different from most. They are usually part-time
workers that don't share a demographic profile with the usual nine-to-
fivers.
Analyze an area for students, senior citizens, housewives, people in a
career transition and people new to the area. It is from these labor
pockets that call centers usually draw their workers.
Educational Institutions. As noted above, students are historically a
ready source of call center reps. Placing a center in an area that has
one or more colleges or even a single large university can give you an
ongoing flow of admittedly transient workers. They won't stay around
long, but they are often available on short notice, and they can work
odd shifts.
Increasingly, vocational education is a powerful draw for call centers.
Community colleges are beginning to offer certification programs in
the kinds of skills that are necessary for call center work.
When rating an area, look at what the educational infrastructure is
like: does

 Page 15
the community support it? Is it channeling people into high tech jobs,
and preparing them for entry level high tech work (which is what call
centers are, really) with the appropriate mix of people skills and
technical skills? Are graduates staying in the community, or are they
leaving for something else? And is there another dominant industry in
the community that's soaking up the newly graduated workforce? An
industry that's cyclical might create boom and bust cycles of high
unemployment that will affect your cost structurenot necessarily
always badly, but it's something you have to think about going into an
area.
Using student labor is a very personal corporate decision. Students
offer a ready source of low-cost labor, have higher academic
credentials and are generally articulate. But to students, school comes
first, employment is second. Their schedules are more important than
their jobs.
Companies that can compensate for this, and students' high turnover
rate, find a ready source of student labor very attractive. Other
companies avoid student workers.
Whether you are looking for students or graduates, junior colleges,
trade schools, business schools and even high schools are often-
overlooked resources. Some schools even fashion their curriculum to
meet the needs of business.
Real Estate. Outside the major cities, this is one of the things, oddly,
you have to worry about least. Space for call centers is plentiful, and
customizable to your heart's content.
What you should look for is outside the scope of this book because it's
going to depend entirely on the kind of call center you are creating,
and the way that center relates to the rest of your company. For
example, company culture will determine the likelihood that the
center will add seats over time, perhaps doubling or tripling in size. Or
alternatively, if the company has a bias to opening multiple centers
and keeping them small. There are advantages to either method, but
again, it depends on internal factors more than external.
People used to stay away from cities like New York and Los Angeles
because the cost of office space was so prohibitively high (as are the
taxes). In recent years, though, cities (and their near suburbs) are more
popular for some industries despite the high real estate costs. Some
financial services businesses, for example, want their call centers
closer to their trading desks and corporate headquarters, particularly
when the call center is used to respond to Internet inquiries as well as
voice calls.
And cities are beginning to awaken to the notion of call centers are
job

 Page 16
creation engines (except for New Yorkthe city that never met a tax or
burdensome regulation it didn't like). "Enterprise zones" are areas that
are tax-abated or otherwise incentivized to allow businesses to open at
lower cost, provided they hire a certain number of people.
While this is a good thing, and is starting to show results, people
looking at urban locations for their centers have to balance these
zoned advantages against higher urban telecom costs, poor services
and infrastructure, and possibly deficient educational systems.
How to Gather Information
Category Information Source
Labor Force Participation by Gender Employement Security/Job
Unemployment Rate Service
Training/Skills of Unemployed U.S. Census Bureau
Graduates, by Degree Program Local School System
High School Graduates, w/Percent U.S. Census Bureau
College Bound
Names, Services, Employment Levels Local Chamber Surveys
of Major Office Employers
Average Number of Applications per
Position
Public School Indices: Local School Districts
Average ACT Scores U.S. Department of
Teacher / Pupil Ratio Education (Comparison Data)
Graduation Rate
Turnover Local Wage Surveys
Absenteeism Local Human Resource
Employee Impressions Officials
Wage Rates by Occupation Area Wage Survey
Local Newspaper Classified
Ads
Cost of Living Index ACCRA Index
Specific Degree, Certificate and Other State Department of
Programs Listed Economic Development
 School Location Local College & Universities
Real Estate/Sites Commercial Real Estate
Brokers
Transportation Official Airlines Guide
Air Interstate Commerce
Rail/Freight Commission
Water Local Port Authorities
Local Surface Local Department of
Highways/Transportation
Utility Company
Local Educational
Organization
State Educational
Organization
Infrastructure Utility Companies
Telecommunications Local and Long Distance
Carriers
Before you make a decision, you need to gather data about the
locations that are competing for your center. Much of the information
you need is easily accessible, if you know where to took. This checklist
can help cut straight to the assessment phase of the process. This
material was provided by National Consulting Services, an Omaha-
based site selection assistance firm.

 Page 17
Another way to think about your real estate selection is from a
facilities point of view: is it somewhere that people will want to work?
You're trying, after all, to hire and retain hundreds of people, keeping
turnover low. Therefore, safety and security are issues. And along
with this go amenities that cost relatively little, but attract workers
who will stay and keep them from burning out: accessible day care,
parking, even windows.
Telecom. Take it as a given that you need more than you think you do.
Imagine the fanciest, most complicated and bandwidth-hungry
application you can possibly conceive of using, then double or triple
it. If a particular location doesn't make this possible, walk away.
Someplace else will make it happen. The last thing you want to have
happen is that you commit to a locale that keeps you from using
something you'll come to need in three or four years. That was the
case with ISDN a few years ago. People who wanted to run multi-site
call centers were stymiedthey could either get a dedicated T1, or use
one of the smaller, cheaper ISDN call routing systems that were
coming out around 1994 and 1995. But with ISDN coverage woefully
incomplete in the US at that time, there were a lot of unhappy call
center managers (and vendors, who couldn't make sales to centers that
weren't covered by ISDN).
Within the US, sophisticated telecommunications is the norm. While
it is important for your call center site to have sophisticated
telecommunications, you can find this level of sophistication even in
the hinterlands.
You might have a particular relationship with an RBOC or a long
distance carrier. There may be particular services that you need that
you can only get within a prescribed geographic area. For example,
centers with extremely high call volumes may find the fact that
Kansas City, Missouri is a major switching center for both Sprint
(which is headquartered there) and AT&T a big plus.
And don't forget the Internet. In the near future, the telcos will be
carrying much of their voice traffic as data packets across newly
crafted IP networks. But until then, you're still going to need the best,
strongest Internet backbone you can find. Many more applications
than just e-mail are going to depend on this. Maybe you'll get it from a
carrier like AT&T or MCIWorldcom, or maybe from one of the new
alternate carriers like Qwest or Netcomin any case, this is something
that needs attending to before you commit to the location.
Government (and other) Incentives. There's nothing like getting
something subsidized to make a location more attractive. There are
lots of ways that governments try to sweeten the pot:
Real estate tax breaks. They may give you a percentage off the cost
of running

 Page 18
your center for a few years into your operation, particularly if you're
considering a specialized office park that's had government input, or
into an economically depressed area.
Job creation credits. These are incentives based on the number of
people you hire and keep on the payroll for a designated period of
time. (This is in the authority's interest because they make up the loss
in the personal and sales taxes that the hired workers end up paying.)
Along with that come training subsidies. To get you to locate in an
area with lots of underemployed workers, they may offer to pick up
the cost of training. This is a good incentiveask for it if it's not
immediately on the table.
Coordinated sweeteners. That is, a state (or country) can couple one
or more tax advantages with favorable rates provided by the local
telco, and/or something delivered at the local level by the town or
county authorities.
The area of government incentives is one of the most creative (in
legalistic and accounting terms)there's no reason not to ask for what
you want and see if it can be delivered, because call centers are so
advantageous to a community that there's often no reason not to make
them happy. But remember that leverage is a function of size; the
more people you might hire, the redder the carpet that's rolled out for
you.
A company that's bringing jobs and high-tech facilities into a city is
worth incentives. If two or more locations are competing on an even
playing field with regard to telecom, labor and amenities, then
incentives are a critical lureand something a call center planner should
insist on.
International Marketing
Customers in Canada and Europe are just as likely to call you for
service as their American counterparts. In fact, some sectors of
American industrytravel reservations and high tech, for examplehave
been setting up call centers outside the US for some time.
Hardware and software companies like Intel and Microsoft have
globegirdling linked centers that answer calls related to the same
product lines they sell domestically. Hotel chains and airlines are in
the same predicamentthey deal with customers who could be located
anywhere, and who want to travel into and out of the US.
For companies like those, borders mean little when a customer calls.
Other issues come to the fore:
Answering the call in the right language.

 Page 19
Taking orders in the right currencyand not losing time or money
exchanging that currency back into dollars.
Appearing transparent to the caller"non-national," or as little like an
American company as possible.
If you're getting the impression that most international call centers are
inbound, you're right. For a variety of reasons, telephone selling is not
as popular outside the US as it is here. In Europe, that has a lot to do
with privacy regulations and restrictions on the way companies can
sell over the phone. Lack of customer lists and databases also plays a
role.
Other factors include the price of long distance service and incredible
number of languages and cultures crammed into one very small
continent. All the changes that must be made to accommodate those
languages and cultures means that telemarketing does not have the
same economy of scale in Europe that it has in the US.
Many companies take their first step overseas with a customer support
center. They find that to grow overseas, they need to provide
assistance to existing customers already gathered by overseas
subsidiaries. These tend to be larger companies.
As you send salespeople around the globe to dig up new customers,
you're going to need international call centers to support both sales
and service. But it's even harder to make an overseas site selection
than it is in North America. Questions of language, cultureand of
course complicated economicsall come into play.
Look for the same things you would in the US: labor pool, telecom
infrastructure, regulations and taxes, education. But look harder, and
deeper. Comparing the incentive packages from different countries
(with different currencies, tax rates, languages and levels of
technology) can be frustrating.
Locations That Want You
United States. Where there used to be definite areas within the US that
were call center-friendly, these days there's no real reason why one
area is better than another. At this point in the booming economy, few
areas are so depressed that they can supply a steady stream of workers
at low cost. But for sheer volume, the south and southwest seem to
attracting the most centers.
Cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix have surged in population, and in
the number of new call centers taking up residence there (or in the
surrounding suburbs). There are few good studies that show where
call centers actually

 Page 20
are; instead, they tend to show where centers could be, focusing on
relative cost between regions. So we tend to rely on anecdotal
evidence to tell us which areas are more "popular." It's important,
then, to keep in mind that most companies that run call centers don't
call a lot of attention to their centers. The industry has an imprecise
sense of where the centers are clustered.
There are clusters in the Midwest and upper Midwest, through Iowa
and Nebraska, South Dakota and Kansas. The states in this region
have historically worked hard to attract centers with incentives and
on-the-ground assistance getting facilities open and running.
The move to the sunbelt is a late 1990s phenomenon, driven by lower
costs for real estate and (we think) the same thing that keeps people
moving into those regionsgood quality of life issues, lower cost of
living than in the cities on the coasts, lower taxes and the perception
of more businessfriendly authorities.
Within the US, though, there is a greater diffusion of centers than ever
before. The factors that go into call center site selection now include
one that was relegated to the bottom of the list ten years ago:
corporate convenience. With telecom plentiful, labor expensive and
real estate a non-issue, you can put your center near an important
client, a critical supply warehouse, a distribution point, or the CEO's
summer house.
Canada. The Canadian call center business is not just an offshoot of
the American industry. It's a strong, growing industry in its own right,
capable of serving both the domestic Canadian market and the cross-
border North American market. Also, you can take advantage of a
completely open border, a citizenry with a high education level and a
multitude of language skills.
Ontario, the nation's largest province, is host to many centers. One
city, Welland, is home to Canadian Tire Acceptance, a dispatch center
for roadside towing assistance that serves (mostly Canadian)
customers through an 800 number accessible in either the US or
Canada. Ontario boasts that its provincewide payroll taxes and
benefits costs are, on average, 37% less than in the US. This disparity
can work in the favor of an American company looking to reduce
costs by opening a new center or relocate the functions of an existing
center.
Farther west, Manitoba has since 1993 been very active in trying to
attract new call centers to their centrally located province. Manitoba's
position just north of the American upper Midwest is perfect for
telemarketing to and from both coasts, which was a lot of the rationale
for the industry to thrive in the American Midwest. If you need full
time zone coverage, you can func-

 Page 21
tion just as effectively in Canada as you do in Omaha. Winnipeg was
recently the site of a new 500-seat center built by Air Canada.
As an example of the kinds of incentives available, the airline has
launched the center in cooperation with the Call Centre Initiative of
Manitoba and the City of Winnipeg. The provincial government
assisted with start-up and training costs by providing a $ 3.5 million
forgivable loan through the Manitoba Industrial Opportunities
Program. In return, Air Canada has committed to create the 500 new
jobs over the next three years.
In the east, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have emerged as strong
sites for call centers, based on what are reported to be an extreme cost
differential between those provinces and the mainland US. NBTel (the
carrier in New Brunswick) cites a recent call center study that showed
that centers in that province can cost up to 50% less to operate in than
other locations. They also claim that New Brunswick call centers pay
the lowest workers' compensation rates on the continent.
One of the most important factors in the development of this industry
is the aggressive support of the New Brunswick Government. A direct
stake-holder in the call center industry, the government encourages
businesses to move to New Brunswick by offering high-level call
center training courses. Call centers are reportedly the province's
fastest growing industry.
NBTel partners with Genesys Canada to offer a technology package
that includes a network-wide call center solution called Enhanced Call
Center Solutions (ECCS). This offers a multi-tenant call center
provisioning platform that lets you deliver a number of enhanced call
center services such as screen pops, intelligent call routing and
predictive dialing to centers of various sizes, technology platforms
and geographic locations. Wherever you are in the world, you can
access complete call center functionality using regular telephone lines.
Europe. If Europe's your goal (as it often is), the first question an
American firm should ask itself is this: do I need a pan-European
center, or do I want to target my center to a single country's market?
A pan-European center requires you to staff up for calls in a multitude
of languages. You'll need switches and software that can handle skill-
based rout^ ing, and probably a voice processing system to offer
language-based prompts.
Another option is to identify the call's originating country using the
phone network itself. The advantage is that it's more transparent to the
caller if your rep answers right away in the language of the caller,
without voice system intervention.
What are your options in Europe? You have several really good ones.
The

 Page 22
top-tier countries are already so similar in the quality of their telecom,
that they are differentiating themselves on the basis of pricing,
incentives, multilingualism and local regulations that help (or hinder)
call center activity.
For a while, Europe was divided into two camps: those countries that
had an active effort to attract call centers, and those that couldn't see
the benefits and did nothing. Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK and
Belgium formed the core of the first group, France and Germany the
second. Now both France and Germany have awakened to the facts of
life, and are trying hard to attract call centers, particularly those that
serve the lucrative pan-European market.
A couple of years ago, Belgium went to the trouble of building a
dedicated facility for call centers, called variously Brucall, or the Call
Center Hotel. It was designed as a semi-official outsourcing portal, a
place for companies to come and park their centers at preconfigured
workstations.
Other countries have had more success attracting outside business,
notably Ireland and the Netherlands. In Ireland's case, they built upon
the country's solid education system, the fact that everyone there
speaks English, and the a structurally high unemployment rate. Ireland
has functioned as a point of entry into the European market for many
high profile American companies, for call centers, but also for other
kinds of back office functions like data processing.
And the Netherlands has carved out a niche serving companies from
Europe and the US that want to serve the continental market from a
single center, using agents skilled in multiple languages and a layer of
multilingual technology on top of that.
For its part, the UK has prospered because it has a strong domestic
call center industry of its ownas many as 3,000 to 5,000 call centers
focusing on British customers, by some counts (although it is
impossible to know for sure).
The Americas. One of the great open-ended questions of the day
regarding call centers is how deeply the North American industry
model will penetrate into other emerging markets, particularly Latin
America.
For example. El Salvador is grappling with that question right now, as
they try to attract outside call centers as a way of lifting their
economy.
The possibilities are tantalizing. On the plus side, they offer a
Spanish-speaking workforce to answer calls from the US or Latin
America. But there are high technological, human and business
hurdles that stand between them and this clean, efficient industry. It
seems to boil down to jobs: call centers provide plenty of them, and
they're not bad jobs, as jobs go.
Despite the tax incentives a locality has to dole out, attracting centers

 Page 23
boosts a tax base through more skilled workers, and the ricochet of
their spending through a local economy.
Outside the US, it's led countries like El Salvador to an interesting
crossroads: does it make more sense to develop a domestic call center
industry, or should they try to become outsourcers to a larger market,
like the US? Or a mix of the two?
The country has several mid-sized call centers already, mainly in
banking and for the national airline's reservation system. (A million
Salvadorans in the US generate a lot of phone calls for flight
reservations.)
They have been making the case for some time that they are a
desirable
Quick Tips
1. When meeting with representatives of an attractive call
center location (government and telco officials, particularly),
ask them to bring local educational professionals into the
conversation. See if they can coordinate the creation of a call
center certification program at a local community college or
vocational institute, or at least highlight existing courses that
can be used to channel workers towards call center work.
2. A good drawing card for some communities is a nearby
military base. Spouses and children of military personnel can
flesh out an educated full-or part-time workforce. And a
locality with a military presence (or even a former presence)
is likely to have good infrastructure.
3. Don't rely on the location authorities to ply you with studies
showing why their location is cheapesttoo often they will
compare their location's costs to some expensive place you
never planned to consider, like New York. This is one case
where it pays to get a consultant, someone independent who
can analyze the differences between places you've chosen to
compare.
4. Don't expect outbound telemarketing to be a big hit in
Europe. Regulations vary by country, and can be very strict
about things like when you call, who you call, and most
important: what information you collect about the people you
call. If you plan on a pan-European center for outbound, work
the regulations very carefully before committing.
5. Make sure that any site you select has multiple points of
entry for your telecomat least two ways into the building from
the central office or point of presence. This, in case of
accidental failure.

 Page 24
location for an American outsourcing company to open (or take over)
a center that would answer calls from either the US itself, or from the
wider Latin American region,
The idea behind that is the same as building a shopping mall-you want
to have a big name as the anchor tenant, so others will feel
comfortable moving in. They've been negotiating with a couple of the
big names in outsourcing, but so far nothing has been signed.
Mexico has had the most success so far, with both a domestic industry
and a cross-border business answering calls for the US Spanish-
language community.
Other areas like Puerto Rico, Jamaica, possibly Brazil and Argentina
have shown signs of joining the international call center industry.
Pacific Rim. Not surprisingly, Australia is the most popular
destination for US-style call centers in this area. There are strong ties
to American vendors of equipment, and numerous outsourcers have
set up shop Down Under, taking calls for both the Australian domestic
consumer market (often tied to US or European companies) and as a
jumping off point for other, smaller markets.
Other areas of note are Singapore, which has a highly regarded
telecom infrastructure, the Philippines (noted for its inexpensive labor
and favorable pro-business climate), and to a much lesser extent,
sometimes India is seen as a call center market of the future,
something of a gateway between the east and the west.
Japan, despite its highly developed economy and world class telecom,
has not been used by American or European companies as a call
center gateway (perhaps because of the high cost of doing business
there).
In short, when you're undergoing a site selection process, open your
eyes to all the new possibilities that are out there, domestic and
foreign. You should look off the beaten path. There are bargains to
found, and attractive locations that can serve very well as the long
term home of a call center. The important thing is to be flexible, and
work with the community economic development officials. You don't
need to be in a big city, or in the Midwest, or even in the US. It's all
up to you.

 Page 25

Chapter2
Facilities & Design
The furnished environment your agents have to work in for four to
eight hours a day affects their attitude more than whether the
technology they are using shaves a few seconds off call duration.
Their comfort, or discomfort, within that environment has an
undeniable effect on the way they deal with customers. And of course,
on turnover, which affects long term hiring and training costs.
But there's more to call center design than picking out pretty colors
and sleek workstations. The right call center furnishings can help the
work get done faster and better. Employees are happier, they are out
sick less, they sell more and serve your customers better. Here are
some of the important factors that go into a successful design.
One thing we're not going to get into here will be networking and
cabling. This is a thorny issue, and one that changes as frequently as
any other technology outlined in this book. Suffice it to say, make
sure of these three things:
1. You choose workstation units that allow easy access to cabling and
phone wires.
2. Your architect and design team are fully aware of the kind of voice
and data networking that you want to install, and that they are
sensitive to the peculiar needs of expensive telecom and computer
equipment. (In other words, don't put the ACD in a room next to the
HVAC system or the cafeteria).
3. Whatever your wiring plant, make sure it's upgradable without
having to rip apart floors, walls and ceilings to do it.
It's also been argued by some architects and designers that the
physical layout

 Page 26
of the call center can have a direct effect on a company's profitability.
One study done in 1990 of 70 million square feet of office space
found that the cost to build and maintain office facilities is only 15%
of the total, with the remaining 85% going to salaries. The argument
would then go that if you focus the design to have as beneficial an
effect as possible on the workforce that comprises that 85% outlay,
you can make the business case to spend more up front on layout and
design with the expectation of backend savings. Substantial research
has been completed that demonstrates the effect design can have on
increased productivity of building occupants.
Times have changed. In the past you could say the chairs, the lighting
and the design of the workstation were the most important elements of
call center design. Those things are still important, but issues of health
and safety are increasingly on people's minds these days. Yeseven in
call centers.
One architectural firm we spoke to ballparked the cost of fitting out
office space for call center use as ranging from $ 22 to $ 38 per square
foot. Assuming the average cost of $ 30 per square foot is borrowed at
9.5% for 10 years, an increase in the staff productivity of 15% will
pay the debt service for the entire construction cost necessary to
improve the space for call center use, they say.
What Affects Design?
The ADA. The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal
law that can affect call center design. Most important, the ADA is
civil rights legislation, not a building code. You can't get around it by
moving from one location to another. It's also very vague, forcing you
to go out of your way to respond to whatever circumstances present
themselves.
Some states have building codes that require ramps, accessible
restrooms and other accommodations for the handicapped. The ADA
does not require you to have any of these thingsbut it does make it
illegal to reject a qualified applicant because your facilities are not
accessible to him or her.
That means that you have to plan ahead.You have three choices. You
can put these facilities in at the beginning, when it's going to be the
cheapest and least disruptive. You can put them in when you find you
need them, that is, when you hire someone who needs them. Or, you
can ignore them completely, and face the lawsuit.
Many teleservices firms find handicapped workers desirable, but
when they bring the workers into the call center things don't work out.
They find the

 Page 27
Quick Tips
1. Is your building sick? Sick buildings are ones in which
problems with the structure cause people physical distress:
problems such as air quality, comfort, noise, lighting, and
ergonomic stressers (poorly designed workstations and tasks).
Here are some questions to ask: Is there a source of
contamination or discomfort indoors, outdoors or within the
mechanical systems in the building? Can the HVAC system
control existing contaminants and ensure thermal comfort? Is
it properly maintained and operated? And, do the building
occupants understand that their activities affect the air
quality?
2. Make sure your architectural and design teams are fully
aware of the kind of voice and data networking that you want
to install, and that they are sensitive to the peculiar needs of
expensive telecom and computer equipment. For example,
you don't want them putting the ACD next to something that's
going to be vibrating, like an HVAC system. Those
considerations are sometimes overlooked.
3. If you're putting in a brand new center in an area that has
(or might have, in the future) a tight labor market, consider
the amenities that will attract agents. Things like good
parking, broad windows with a landscaped view, onsite day
care (this is a good one). Anything that keeps agents from
leaving is a good thing.
4. Keep the center clean! There's nothing so depressing as
spending millions on a facility, and then having it degrade
within months because people can't keep their workplace
clean. Good habits start at the top: the company should hire a
cleaning service to maintain the site.
5. What will you do about smokers? Granted, many places
have gone completely non-smoking indoors, and that's good.
But you don't want to cut yourself off from the labor pool that
includes smokers. Nor do you want smokers to sit at their
desks increasingly irritated, because that's going to show up in
customer interactions. Find a place they can go, outdoors, and
make it a safe and comfortable place, close to the center's
floor (so they're not spending all day travelling to and from
their desks to the smoking area).
6. Don't forget security. If you're running multiple shifts,
you'll have a hard time getting people to work there in the
evenings and on weekends if you're not providing a safe
environment. And that safe zone should carry outside to the
parking lot and the place where the smokers congregate, too.

 Page 28
workstation doesn't accommodate a wheelchair, or a random floor
plan makes it difficult for a blind TSR to get around. Good call center
design recognizes the relationship between people and the physical
constraints of the workplace.
Safe Work Environment. Human safety should be your first priority.
Make sure everything is fire resistant, that the exits are appropriately
open and marked, and that all fire safety regulations are followed.
And that call center personnel are aware of fire safety procedures.
This is so basic to facilities design we shouldn't have to mention it.
But we will anyway.
The Call Center's Application. For order entry applications, for
example, one expert recommends at least 35 square feet for each
person's workspace. But for customer service, you might need more,
up to 45 square feet. That's because service and support reps often
have to refer to manuals, documents, and other peripheral materials
that should be stored within easy reach.
You'll also want to account for the number of people in groups or
teams, and the position of supervisors and team leaders. You're going
to need room for meetings, for example. And you're going to need
semi-private call center stations that can be isolated during training or
coaching sessions.
Corporate cultures may dictate particular placement, and that too
should be recognized when planning the layout.
The Relationship to Other Departments. Remember, once the center is
active, you're going to be watching the length of calls as a key
component of costs and productivity. If call center agents are running
up and down halls to another part of the building regularly, you didn't
plan well. If they need to be in constant contact with the fulfillment
department, for example, work that out ahead of time.
If you can't physically bring the two departments any closer, then
explore some kind of automated networking solution that will tie
people and systems togetherthat may alleviate some of the distance
trouble.
What support systems do you need? Will you need a cafeteria?
Consider long term plans and the company-wide flow of traffic. How
many conference rooms will you need? Where is the copy room, the
time clock? Will you have central or local filing?
All these questions must be answered in advance. But it's critical that
these questions be answered by call center management as well as by
the architects and the company's upper management.

 Page 29

The Existing Center

Those ideas are fine, if you're building a center from the ground up.
But what if, as is more likely, you're rehabbing a center that's been
around for a while, or outfitting an expansion of a center?
Luckily, there are still plenty of facilities factors under your control.
Lighting. Indirect lighting is the best if you can afford it. If not you
should use florescent pink tubes and parabolic lenses. These lenses
diffuse light straight down to eliminate glare. Full spectrum
fluorescent tubes are available from some manufacturers that give a
natural sunlight-like illumination.
Full-spectrum lighting is color balanced so there's no yellow tint and
less glare than with florescent lighting. The tubes fit into existing
fluorescent fixtures.
Noise. Nothing is noisier than a roomful of people all talking at once.
It's hard on the employees, and it makes callers think they're calling a
roomful of people. There's nothing so unprofessional as a call center
that sounds like a. . . . call center.
If you want the both the caller and the rep to feel more comfortable,
try acoustic wall paneling, and if funds allow, white noise machines to
diffuse noise. Using sound-absorbing foam or tiles on the ceiling,
walls and other soft surfaces, and carpeting, keeps the sound from
bouncing around. Plants are also good for the air and absorbing
acoustics, but that's a minor fix at best.
What some centers use are the same kind of foam tiling found in
recording studios, though this can give a closed-in look to the place.
In a cubicle environment (which most call centers are), talk to the
manufacturers of the workstation units themselves about what kind of
acoustical absorption properties they build into the wall coverings.
And of course, noise-cancelling microphones in the headsets will help
keep the apparent volume down, though that's not strictly speaking a
facilities question.
Seating. Your full-time agents spend at least seven hours a day at their
cubicles sitting. The chairs you choose mean a lot. A chair affects
posture, circulation and pressure on the spine.
We recommend chairs with height-adjustable armrests, split backs
that hug your back (to relieve pressure on the spinal column), a
moveable seat and an adjustable back angle.
We're not saying you have to go out and buy everyone a $ 1,000
Herman Miller chair, but don't put them in a $ 39 OfficeMax special,
either. That's putting yourself on the fast train to a high turnover rate.

 Page 30
Monitors. The top of the screen should be at eye height or slightly
below and about 18 to 24 inches from the eyes (30 inches if you are
concerned with electromagnetic radiation and your monitor is
unshielded). The monitor should swivel to help reduce reflections.
Once again, this is a small thing, with a really minimal added cost.
But buy them the biggest monitor you can, especially if they're going
to be looking at a screen that pops a lot of critical customer
information into a lot of tiny windows. The larger the monitor, the
larger you can make the type in all those tiny windows. Seventeen
inches ought to be the minimum.
Wall Height. High walls between employees reduce noise, but they
also cut agents off from one another and reduce collaboration.
Sometimes the best way to deal with a call is to lean over the partition
and ask another agent.
In the past, it was also important that agents be able to see a centrally
hung readerboard. Now, with scrolling screen tickers full of ACD
info, you're not so dependent on that, so you can consider not only
higher walls but a less formal cluster organization of the cubicles. One
generally accepted height is 42 inches. That gives a certain amount of
privacy without shutting the agents off from what's around them.
Agent Input. Agents ought to have some say in how call centers are
designed. They're not the only ones who benefit when you give them
inputmanagers and supervisors get happier, more productive
employees and fewer compensation claims.
Today, more and more call centers are collecting input from their
employees before buying workstations, for the simple reason that they
want to keep those employees as long as possible. Because call center
agents must perform repetitive phone and keyboard tasks and spend
all day (excluding breaks and lunch) at their desks, using ergonomic
equipment is crucial. You'll get happier, healthier and more
productive employees. In the long run you'll save a bundle in time and
money since you'll have lower turnover and better morale.
Considering there are more employees suing now than ever before for
repetitive stress injuries (reported incidents of RSIs are higher than
ever, accounting for 60% of all occupational illnesses) there's no
better time to offer courses in prevention and re-evaluate your center's
set-up.
The Workstations. There are a lot of options in buying and
coordinating the placement of the actual seats where agents will do
their work. We're not talking just about cubicles here; call center
workspaces are carefully designed and constructed for the particular
needs of this industry by a number of specialty companies.

 Page 31
This kind of thing is often overlooked, or put aside as managers think
more about the critical (and expensive) technology and hardware they
need. It's easy to forget that labor is the single biggest ongoing
expense in a call center. Intelligent workstation design is an easy way
to reduce costs over the long term by keeping turnover low and
employees happy. The type of workstations you choose can facilitate
team building or discourage it.
There are three types of workstations: the cluster, a pinwheel like
setup with four to six work areas sprouting from the core in the
middle; the rectilinear, a traditional panel system with four wall
panels at each station set up in rows; and the modular or free-standing
workstation.
One vendor says that cluster workstations are beneficial to companies,
like large catalog or insurance companies, that need to put many
telephone-and computer-intensive workers in the same room. That's
because clusters let you fit more people into less space, but the people
don't feel cramped.
In fact, the cluster arrangement lets you save 10% to 25% of your
floor-space and doesn't give you that mousetrap/maze effect that
rectilinear workstations sometimes create.
The gentler floor plan makes it easier for people to walk through the
call center and between groups, fostering teamwork.
One downside to the circular workstation arrangement is that the
partitions between stations are sometimes too high, making
communication between agents on the telephone difficult. With the
cluster it's easier to talk between workstations, but hard for people to
come in.
Rectilinear, or panel, workstations are a good choice for centers that
need more space for each agent or that need more flexibility in panel
and desk heights. The design of a center around these stations is more
forgiving, and easier to change as conditions change. The work
surface can be moved between notches in the side panel to
accommodate wheelchair-bound agents or agents of different heights.
Rectilinear workstations are popular choices for engineers, managers,
people who need extra room for storage cabinets and anyone who has
conferences with coworkers. You also find this style the preferred on
in technical support centers, where the reps have to refer to a lot of
external materialsbinders, reference manuals, and so forth. The type of
workstation you choose should complement your company's team-
building style.
When evaluating workstations:
Look for a style that's easy to install and reconfigure. Look for
something that doesn't have too many parts and pieces, but where you
can add overhead

 Page 32
shelves and in/out boxes.
Make sure the equipment can be connected within a panel, rather
than to a box that sits on top of a desk.
Buy through a local dealer so you'll have nearby on-going support.
And a dealer can help with things like placement of workgroups for
departments who need to communicate regularly.
Look at it as a strategic investment. Chances are, you'll have it for
the next ten years, so you don't just want to look at price. It should be
pleasant and functional.
Get panels with metal frames because they're more durable than
wooden ones. Also, get fabric panels that can be re-covered if
damaged. And again, examine the acoustical properties of those
panels.
Future Design
As call centers focus more intensely on retaining their best agents and
reducing turnover, human issues will come more to the fore in
designing (and redesigning) call centers.
Centers will include more ''community" areas: conference rooms,
training centers, even classrooms. And as call centers begin to respond
to more than just traditional voice phone calls, expanding into areas
like e-mail and web response, as well as possible video calling, the
kinds of workspaces that will be required will undoubtedly change.
The smart design team will take these things into account now,
because a call center is a five to 20 year commitment.
The best way to ensure that a call center is ready to accommodate
your needs in 2010 is to allow for substantially more layout flexibility
than is typical today.
Components that should be considered include:
Uniform, ceiling mounted indirect lighting systems that are layout-
independent.
Furniture literally on wheels or furniture systems that can be
reconfigured overnight.
Raised floors that allow ultimate cabling flexibility.
That way, the call center will be completely adaptable to any changing
business circumstance, whether it's driven by new technology, new
ways of operating, or changing company cultures and ideas.

 Page 35

PART II
ROUTING CALLS:
SWITCHES & CORE HARDWARE SYSTEMS
The ACD is the heart and soul of the modern call center. It is the engine of
productivitythe single piece of technology without which the whole edifice of
inbound sales, order taking and customer service all crumble.

 Page 37

Chapter 3
Toll Free & Long Distance Services
After the center's physical parameters are set, and the agents are hired,
the most important element (at least from an ongoing cost standpoint)
is the pipeline into the center. The toll free and long distance services
that you choose will be so expensive, and yet so rich with features and
possibilities, that it's imperative that you choose carefully, and that
you revisit your decision again and again for as long as the center
operates.
Toll free service was once amazingly simple. You had one company
to buy from, and very little leverage in the kinds of pricing plans and
service offerings you could get. By very little, we mean: none.
Companies didn't begin to build call centers until there was a cost-
effective means of making nationwide toll free calls, roughly thirty-
some-odd years ago.
Wide Area Telephone Service, originally an AT&T creation, was the
first iteration of toll free. It discounted long distance service, put the
cost onus on the called party, and so began our journey down the call
center road.
With divestiture and long distance competition, there were naturally
more choices and the price of call center telecom began slowly to
descend. And then, in the early 1990s, just as the three main long
distance companies competed fiercely in a very public battle for the
home consumer long distance market, a not-so-public but just as
vicious fight for the call center market heated up, too. It was helped
along by resellers and aggregators, which are essentially secondary
marketers of long distance service. Resellers would buy bulk minutes
from phone companies at a tremendous discount, and resell them at a
very small profit margin, making money on the spread. Aggregators
would combine the telecom traffic generated by lots of small
companies until they were able to go to a phone company and commit
to buy big packages of minutes, hence qualifying for the same deep
discounts the telcos gave to their largest customers.

 Page 38
All these things worked to drive the cost of a long distance or toll free
minute down past 10 cents, in some cases to as low as five. Of course,
things are never as simple as they seem.
Because you almost never buy telecom minutes just barethey are just
the beginning of the process. It's all in the value-add. What's a long
distance package without some kind of service assurance policy, for
example? Without network reliability guarantees?
Or better yet, would you pay more per minute if the carrier let you
manipulate the network according to your own traffic needs? Routing
calls here for one reason, there for anotherthat's a pretty powerful
ability, and they all have it.
What about being able to hold calls in the network, instead of queuing
them up in your ACD? Or park them in the carrier network, while the
net queries the ACDs at several centers to determine which one has
the right person to answer the call? You can do that too. The more
complex the routing dynamic, the more likely it is you'll have to go to
someone other than the carrier for the actual software that makes it
work, but the carriers are now eager to help hook you up. (They were
not always so eager; phone companies tend to be less than far-sighted,
as technology companies go.)
The carriers have also experimented, with mixed results, with services
that actually perform transaction processing, even fax processing, in
the network. It's like having an outsourcer handle your calls and your
transactions, but there's no actual outsourced center; it all happens
automatically.
They want you to take advantage of a lot of these advanced services,
whether or not they provide the mechanics, because quite frankly, call
centers are a gigantic consumer of telecom minutes. The more time
your callers spend hanging out in their networks, the better off they
are.
Add to that one other critical reason. If you posit the notion that long
distance and toll free are pretty much the same from carrier to carrier,
that Sprint, MCI and AT&T are all equally reliable, clear, inexpensive
and available, then what keeps you from hopping from one to another
at the drop of a hat? The hooks they get in you for buying ancillary
services. I can foresee a day when the value-added services are more
important to the carriers than the presentation of transmission minutes,
and they end up giving the minutes away to their best customers as a
loss leader.
This, especially when we enter a world with packetized networks and
all sorts of alternative transmission methods that reduce the actual cost
of mov-

 Page 39
ing a call from here to there to effectively zero.
So what was once simplebuy on pricehas become complicated. But
wait, there's complexity on another level. Until 1993, if there was a
particular phone number that you wanted to have in the 800 toll free
code, you had to buy service from the carrier that had custody of that
number. You had no freedom to change carriers and bring your
number with youif you had significant brand equity built into your
number (800-CAR-RENT, for example, or 800-MATTRESS), you
were stuck.
Until 1993.That was the year that 800 Portability reorganized the way
800 numbers were given out, and changed the whole dynamic of how
you acquire and route 800 numbers. Portability meant (and still
means) that you have custody of your toll free number. You can keep
it if you want to change carriers. This, of course, gives the carriers
added incentive to serve you better, to offer more interesting features
in their toll free networks to keep you as a customer, now that you're
not a hostage.
Remember one thing also: they need your business. Call centers are
monster consumers of toll free and long distance service. They will
make deals with you. If they do not serve you well, you can and
should leave. In fact, you should absolutely have arrangements with at
least two out of the three main carriers for your core service. At a
minimum, that protects you against service outages. But it also allows
you to compare, month by month, the offerings and prices they
charge.
At first there was a lot of concern (generated by AT&T, in part) that
portability would cause degradation of service, especially longer call
set up times, because each call to a toll free number has to be passed
along a more complicated pathway to query a database and determine
which carrier routes it before it can be connected. Happily, those
problems never materialized. Portability became part of the
competitive landscape, and I think was a strong factor in the rush to
grab 800 numbers a few years back. That rush, in turn caused the 800
number series to run out and forced the opening of first 888, and then
long before anyone thought possible, another series, 877. (Other
reserved series are warming up in the bullpen.)
Portability made toll free an intelligent network application. Users
with multi-site centers who wanted features like Least Cost Routing,
or sophisticated queuing options benefited immensely. Many of these
services are expensive, though. In some cases they can add as much as
50% to the cost of a call, putting the options out of reach of many
small and medium sized call

 Page 40
centers. High volume users have been the main beneficiaries of price
cutting and volume discounts, leaving smaller users with higher costs
and no appreciable gain in service.
Through bundled consulting plans and alliances with hardware
manufacturers, the three majors are trying to be more to you than just
a series of trunks and switches. Offering everything from complete
outsourcing of your center to simple "press one for" service, phone
carriers are providing more options for call centers than ever before.
Will the call center of the future be paying for carrier services by the
transaction instead of by the minute? This is just one of the
possibilities raised by the brave new world of call center offerings
from the three major long distance carriers.
What They Offer
In previous editions of this handbook, we detailed precise product
offerings from the three main carriers. We're not going to do that this
time out, and here's why. Information like that changes so rapidly that
there's no guarantee that they won't have changed a brand name,
feature set or pricing schedule by the time this book gets into your
hands.
Instead, what you'll find here are broad brush outlines of what kinds
of things you can do with their services. Please don't beat us up if you
try to buy these services from the carriers and they've changed some
from the way they're presented here. For more details about exactly
what they do offer, we recommend visiting their websites, while you'll
find listed in the Resource Guide at the end of this book. In general
here, we're going to refer to these services as toll free, because that's
what call centers are most interested in; this isn't a bias against
outbound-based centers, it's just a fact that inbound call routing is
more complicated, involves a more feature-rich set of tools, and
because it's more expensive, you have to work harder to get exactly
the right deal.
AT&T. AT&T has the most to lose in any competition for long
distance or toll free services. By ridding themselves of Lucent, they
said to the world that what they wanted to be was a transmission
company, once again a true carrier rather than a phone systems
company. And they did that after seeing exactly how cutthroat and
expensive a battle for market share can be. So they must really mean
it.
One of the more interesting things they've come out with is called
Transfer

 Page 41
Connect with Data Forwarding. Data Forwarding uses ISDN
technology along with CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) to let
your agents forward each customer's data along with their calls. It lets
the agent or voice response system that initially receives the call
forward the customer information to the receiving agent. This
information can range from name, address and account number, or
application-specific data like frequent flier information, insurance
plan specifics or personal IDs. The data instantly pops up on the
receiving rep's desktop.
They also offer Enhanced Announcementsessentially the ability to use
the network to pepper your holding callers with promotional
information. This is just one small way to use the power of the carrier
network to manage calls. AT&T has tools that route calls based on
caller input (what they call Recognition Routing), and those that let
you balance loads between centers for optimum staffing.
Quick Call Allocator lets you make changes as often as necessary:
routing percentage changes can take effect within five minutes, and
your customers won't experience any service interruptions. This
feature is especially useful for call centers that have traffic patterns or
staffing levels that constantly changedespite frequent fluctuations,
Quick Call Allocator lets you maintain a superior level of customer
service.
There are packages that let you route by time of day, geographic
origin of the call (down to the exchange), and countless custom
preferences that you set and reset any time you like.
Next Agent Available Routing lets you reroute toll free calls to up to
99 alternate locations if the primary location is "busy." If the primary
location is busy, calls are instantly rerouted to the first available
termination, decreasing customer "on-hold" waiting time. You can
customize NAAR to match your call volume needs: you determine
what is considered a "busy'' location by defining the Maximum Calls
Allowed (MCA). You can set this value in advance and override it at
any time. When the MCA threshold is met, all toll free calls will be
automatically rerouted to an available termination.
With Network Queuing, you can automatically queue calls without
investing in any additional equipment. This feature your call centers
optimize call distribution and improve call completion rates. Calls can
be queued for multiple call centers or for locations with a single
queue. Network Queuing can help boost sales by preventing customer
hang-ups and increasing call completion rates. Of course, you can do
this with premise technology built off the ACD, so you have to plan in
advance where you want your call control to be handled.

 Page 42
Sprint. Sprint's basic toll free offerings are designed for companies
whose calls terminate at one location. They are pretty basic, but they'll
suit the vast majority of single-site small-and mid-sized call centers.
You get things like DNIS and ANI call identification popped to the
agent screen. (A simple thing that can shorten calls by 10 to 20
seconds, and when you add that up, call after call, multiplied by
dozens of hundreds of agents, that's a lot of money.)
You can distribute calls across a trunk group (very rudimentary), and
designate a secondary location for calls to terminate in case of
overflow. They also offer a Carrier Diversity program that helps
manage and coordinate service provided by multiple carriers through
a single point-of-contact.You can allocate calls to carriers by
percentages you set or based on location, time of day, day of week
and day of year. (Very sporting of them.)
More advanced service includes what they call Network Call
Distributor, a sort of virtual call center fadlitator. NCD collects
activity information from each ACD in your system every 20 to 60
seconds. It then uses that information to automatically route your toll
free calls to the best location at that time. They have another, similar
feature that's for Call Allocation, distributing calls to your toll free
number across locations. You specify a percentage of the calls for
each location, matching your call volume to each location's
capabilities.
SiteRP is something that's been around since the early '90s, and it was
revolutionary when they first came out with it. It lets you route your
toll free calls on a call-by-call basis. You define the parameters,
customizing the routing system to your specific needs. With SiteRP,
you can identify new callers or repeat customers and route each to an
agent trained to handle their individual needs. It was revolutionary
because it was one of the very first times the carriers allowed call
centers to manipulate the network themselves, using their local
premise equipment. It was, in fact, a strong competitive feature until
the others came out with similar services. This was the first sign that
adding intelligence to the carrier network was a way around the free
fall in per-minute pricing that went on through the 1990s.
MCI. The Enhanced Call Routing (ECR) product line provides
automated voice response, voice processing, and call routing. It's their
network-based call handling service, and it doesn't differ a great deal
from those offered by the other carriers.
Since coming together with WorldCom, they have been much more
active in connecting their data and voice networks, and creating odd
and interesting service offerings based on that, than they have on
upgrading their standard

 Page 43
voice-only toll tree and long distance services.
With MCI's offerings you can move in baby steps from a call center
with technology that is exclusively on-site to a call center with
virtually no technology on-site. In between you can have some of your
functions based in the network, while others are based in equipment
on-premises.
MCI also offers extensive outsourcing and service bureau capabilities.
From total management of a large call center to on-call service for
weekend or holiday traffic, they can handle a variety of application
sizes. Available services include direct response, customer service,
help desk, order entry and fulfillment.
Quick Tips
1. Go Global: A Universal International Freephone Number
(UIFN) is basically a toll free number that works around the
worldyes, under certain circumstances you can take your toll
free with you when you expand around the globe. A UIFN is
composed of a three-digit country code for global service
application (for example, "800", followed by an 8-digit phone
number, resulting in an 11-digit fixed format. And the caller
still has to dial an international access prefix. But isn't it nice
to know this sort of thing is being hashed out by standards
bodies? If you have a lot invested in your toll free, it's worth
looking into. Call your carrier.
2. Got one of the new toll free prefixes? Don't rely on the fact
that consumers know it's free. As if 888 wasn't confusing
enough, 877 is here and others will be here soon. Promote the
free-ness as loudly as you can.
3. Use multiple carriers. That way you don't face catastrophe
if one of the carrier networks suffers an outage or overload.
Try a percentage allocation; that way, callers might face more
busy signals during trouble times, but they wilt ultimately get
through.
4. Hold the carriers to their service assurance plans. And make
sure you know exactly what to do to put that plan into place.
If calls are supposed to terminate at another location or
through another number, make sure the secondary center
knows they are part of that plan, and make sure the internal
mechanics are in place to handle the load. But it's essential
that you know how fast the carriers are supposed to cut you
over, and that you make them do it.

 Page 44

The Future
Elsewhere in this book you'll find information about the coming
together of call centers and the internet. It's impossible to leave the
subject of buying telecom transmission services, though, without
saying something about what the internet revolution will do to call
centers.
Though we focused on three carriers here, there are dozens more that
provide advanced networking services to large businesses that include
call centers. We are poised on the edge of a new networking world,
one in which a bewildering array of higher bandwidth networks will
be available for piping into your center. Frame relay, ATM, xDSL,
ISDN, all sorts of IP permutationsthey are strange, and the market
economics haven't been worked out yet. We don't know yet what
combinations of voice and data traffic will win out, and which carriers
will offer what two or five years down the road.
What we do know is that as the pipe grows thicker and stronger and
more varied, the cost of each individual call gets lower and lower. As
we said before, it's going to be the value-added services that
differentiate carriers. It's going to be harder to tell who is a carrier, as
data networking melds with telecom. And it's certain that some form
of digitized packet-based traffic will be part of even the most
traditional network, driving costs down and opening up new
international dialing vistas. The moral: don't box yourself in, get the
best deal you can and prepare to turn on a dime when someone offers
you something cheaper or throws a killer application on top of their
core service.

 Page 45

Chapter 4
The ACD
Automatic Call Distributor. A simple way of describing not just a
piece of hardware, but really everything that goes on in a call center.
That's the basic function, anyway: taking incoming calls and moving
them to the right place, the agent's desk.
Over the years, things have changed. The ACD is responsible for
more than just moving calls. That's probably not even the best term
for it anymore; we should probably be using something closer to
telephony server, though that term is already in use for the LAN
server that moves call control commands from client workstations to
the attached ACD or PBX.
Now, the ACD's job is not just to route calls, but to manage the
information associated with those calls as well. "ACD" is really a
function that can be carried out by a wide variety of different kinds of
processors.
At the very low end, you can buy a PBX that has "ACD" (read: call
routing to agents) built in, or you can choose to add it on through a PC
application. (Yes, the switches are generally open enough to third-
party or other add-on apps.) You can route calls in the network, thanks
to intelligent features built into the carrier networks.
The ACD is the heart and soul of the modern call center. It is the
engine of productivitythe single piece of technology without which
the whole edifice of inbound sales, order taking and customer service
all crumble. What the ACD has done is enable the volume of calls you
take to escalate intelligently, and in ever more specialized complexity.
It has matured beyond call routing. It is the brain and control point for
the call center, for both inbound and outbound, for voice calls and
data traffic. It's a call center's arbiter: setting priorities, alerting
supervisors to patterns and crossed thresholds.
Once, the term "ACD" meant a very specific type of telephone switch.
It was a switch with highly specialized features and particularly robust
call pro-

 Page 46
cessing capabilities that served at least 100 stations (or extensions). It
was purchased mostly by airlines for their reservations centers and
large catalogs for their order centers.
Companies with less specialized needs bought different technologies
that didn't offer the same specialized features. Today true ACD
functionality is found in telephone switches that range widely in size
and sophistication.
Today there are PC-basedACDs, key systems with ACD functions,
key systems that integrate with a computer and software to create a
full-featured ACD, PBXs with ACD functions, PBXs with ACD
functions that are so sophisticated they compete with standalone ACD
systems, standalone ACDs that serve centers with less than 30 agents,
traditional standalone ACDs (don't misunderstand, these are usually
the most sophisticated), ACDs that integrate with other call center
technologies, and nationwide networks of ACDs that act as a single
switch.
There is simply no technology more suited to routing a large number
of inbound calls to a large number of people than an ACD. Using an
ACD assures your callers are answered as quickly as possible. It can
provide special service for special customers.
ACDs are capable of handling calls at a rate and volume far beyond
human capabilities, and in fact, beyond the capabilities of other
telecom switches. They provide a huge amount of call processing
horsepower. Using an ACD assures your human resources are used as
effectively as possible. It even lets you create your own definition of
effectiveness. An ACD gives you the resources to manage the many
parts of your call center, from telephone trunks to agent stations to
calls and callers to your agents and staff.
With all these call handling options, many of them surprisingly open
and modular, why would anyone still want an expensive standalone
ACD for their center? Two simple reasons:
Power. Nothing has more raw call processing ability than a first-tier
standalone. Nothing else is so uniquely suited to the needs of today's
reservation or financial service megacenters.
Technology. When it comes to integration with other call center
systems like IVR, data warehouses and intranets, nothing can beat a
powerhouse ACD. The same goes for multi-site networking and
skills-based routing, two of today's most sought after inbound
features.
No knock on smaller systems like PC-ACDs and PBX/ACD hybrids
(which account for much of the industry's phenomenal growth in
small centers), but there is no substitute for the call-crunching strength
of a standalone

ACD in many high-volume applications.
The ACD is being changed by two dramatic trends in the call center. First, it
is being asked to channel more information, of many different kinds, in more
directions. A decade ago, there were two kinds of information: the call itself,
and raw log information about the calls in aggregate. Little else was needed,
and if you did need more details about what was coming through the ACD
you could analyze the data (which often came out a serial port) on your PC
with a cumbersome third-party tool.
Routing Calls in the Network
 Here, you can see how Teloquent's Distributed Call Center provides multi-
site networking using
either fully-integrated or peer-to-peer arrangements.
The control links between the server and other system elements can use
either ISDN D-channel packet or customer LAN connections.
It lets you use the public network to manage calls, agents and voice processing equipment,
wherever it's distributed.


 Page 48
Now, call center managers need informationpresented in a form that
makes it easy to grasp quickly. High-end ACDs vendors have added
data management modules at a rapid clip. Also there are many outside
programs that can connect to the ACD and funnel data in and out.
These include workforce management tools that forecast load, and
software systems that put real-time and historical data into any form
needed (like reports and readerboard displays).
ACD vendors are improving the tools the supervisor has to tweak the
ACD while it's in motion: things like creating groups on the fly,
moving calls and personnel around, monitoring for quality, to name
just a few things.
The other dynamic change is in what kinds of calls the ACD has to
route. Sometimes this is referred to as alternate methods of call
delivery. Call centers have been integrating ACDs with IVR for years,
and the same goes for the combination of ACD and fax. Now we're
seeing vendors grapple with the Web and the Internet, with calls that
come in from PCs and that terminate in databases instead of agents.
The call center itself is giving way to something more amorphous
known as (for lack of a better term) a "customer contact zone," in
which what's important is the transaction between the customer and
the company, not what wire that transaction passed through.
Another thing that's shaken up ACD design is skillsbased routing. At
first, this was a feature that was added to switches more because the
technology was possible and cool than because call centers were
clamoring for it. It's taken a long time for call centers to figure out
how to make it work because (for reasons that we'll go into in more
detail in another chapter) skillsbased routing rubs the wrong way
against the proper use of workforce management software.
Be that as it may, skillsbased routing is a highly interesting and
advanced system for distributing calls that come into an ACD.
Traditional routing is based on two factorsan equitable distribution of
calls among available agents, and the random nature of incoming
calls. Skillsbased routing changes this somewhat: it routes calls to the
agent "best qualified" to handle the call, measuring "qualified" by
agent parameters you set.
The ACD does this in two steps. First, some front-end technology
must be used to identify the needs of the caller. That's usually
accomplished through DNIS, ANI or an IVR system. Then that
information is matched against the sets of agent skill groups. There
are two ACD advances that let you run skillsbased routing effectively:
Leaving a call in an initial queue while simultaneously and
continuously

 Page 49
checking other agent groups for agent availability;
Or allowing an agent to be logged on to more than one agent group
(in this case a skill group) at a time, assigning priorities to those
groups by skill type.
And finally, changes have been hastened by the need and desire to
link call centers together into multi-site call center networks. In some
ways, this is operationally an extension of skills-based routing: it's not
enough to choose the best available agentoften you have to choose the
best available agent at the most appropriate location (based on time of
day, traffic at one or more sites, skill clusters or call priority).
To a greater or lesser degree, vendors of standalone ACDs are pushing
the technology envelope with their switches. Some are concentrating
on software development to add value to the core switch. Others are
paying more attention to integration with third-party call center
technologies like the Internet and IVR. Still more are adapting their
switches to smaller, departmental call centers, hoping to catch some of
the growth in the industry that way. In all, it's created a dynamic
atmosphereone in which if you want a feature, all you have to do is
ask.
Small Center?
No Problem
First, let's start by thinking of the needs of the smallest centers, those
for whom the purchase of an expensive, standalone ACD is too much
to handle. Luckily, call routing is available as part of the PBX
configuration, bringing large call center tools down to the level of
even the smallest centers.
Think of the five or ten person collections department, the customer
service area of a larger company. They have many of the same
needsand problemsas larger centers. But until now, there have been
few call handling tools that deliver state of the art features at a
reasonable price.
Their personnel are not always dedicated phone reps. They need
flexible solutions that build on the systems already in place, that give
them room to grow without putting the company in the poorhouse.
The response to those needs is a new variety of call handling
systemthe ACD without the box, or the PC-based ACD. Thanks to the
new-found openness of switch vendors, developers are offering a host
of software products that add ACD features to key systems and hybrid
switches.
For one thing, it's far less expensive to bring ACD features into an
existing business phone system. There's no capital expenditure on a
big piece of hardware. With larger ACDs, it's very difficult to justify
at the six agent size, or

 Page 50
anything below thirty agents. It's also a lot more flexible than it used
to be. You can easily integrate top-notch systems like interactive
voice response or voice mail, giving your small center a highly
professional appearance.
Critical to call centers is that you be able to add third-party call
control. You don't need to know how to program to set up a rule-
based system for getting the right call to the right agent. With the PC
it becomes a low-end solution. You can do a lot of things, like provide
special treatment to customers based on the language they speak,
route calls based on skill sets, or based on time of day for full 24-hour
coverage.
What the PBX/ACD does is let you dabble in call centers without
having to go full bore right away. Make no mistakeone of these low-
end ACDs built off a PBX will only get you so far. If you're going to
grow beyond a certain point (50 agents is a good ballpark), then
explore the larger, standalone systems. At least explore the low-end
offerings from those vendors, because those vendors are offering
much smoother upgrade paths than ever before, hoping to capture
some of the small center market.
PC or PBX/ACDs allow small installs (typically 10 to 15 people) to
be placed on the same technological plain as bigger centers. Since
many companies already have PBXs that can be enhanced with
available software, they can dabble. It's possible to convert a few
users and then decide that if things go well (they usually do), to
expand further.
For example, Cintech offers Prelude, by its very name a starter system
that encourages people to step up to Cinphony, Cintech's more
advanced software ACD. Prelude is aimed at retail stores, pharmacies,
universities, car rental placesplaces that until now might have gone
without features like call categorization and advanced routing.
Comdial's QuickQ software lets you set overflow patterns between
multiple small groups, and lets you change those parameters quickly,
with a minimum of required knowledge.
These systems do not deliver everything you'd expect if you used a
dedicated ACD, but they don't have to. Departmental needs are
different. Few need multi-site routing, for example. Department heads
(who may not be telecom people) need different kinds of reports that
have more to do with sales and costs than with call traffic.
There are many small call centers that are just beginning to realize
they are call centers. And that they need the same kind of technologies
big centers have been using for years. Customers demand the same
kind of service, no

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matter how big you are. This small-scale solution lets them reach
more of their potential for pleasing customers at reasonable cost.
Networking ACDs
One change in the nature of switching is the use of the network itself
as a platform for queuing and routing, even after the call has been
answered.
For example, GeoTel makes an Intelligent CallRouter, a system that
lets you perform ACD-style call flow manipulations directly in the
network. Remarkably, it works with a variety of phone switches and
carrier networks. What's the advantage of this? Simply, that it turns a
collection of linked call centers into a true, single ''virtual" center.
Your switch's data is processed by ICR's servers, which tell the carrier
where to send the call before it enters the switch.
This network-based call routing system works in conjunction with any
routing schemes you already use: agent skills, for example, or time-
based routing. You can even process ANI or caller-entered
information, just as if you were working with a single site ACD. But
this way you can apply those techniques across varied distant sites.
Another approach to networking ACDs is taken by Teloquent. Their
Distributed Call Center (DCC) is a software-based system that uses
ISDN to put full ACD features in the hands of agentswherever you
want them. It sends calls to geographically dispersed locations from
within the public network, and does not require dedicated facilities
such as T1 links or a dedicated ACD.
Also note that you can do a lot with the carrier network itself,
including many kinds of off-site transaction processing and call
routing. The carriers are intensely interested in taking the place of
your premise equipment. Info on this is in the chapter on buying toll
free and long distance services.
What They Have to Offer
There are literally hundreds of companies out there that sell switching
and routing systems for call centers. This is just a scratch-the-surface
look at some of the major companies, particularly those that tend to be
market leaders in developing new features and seeking out third party
partners. These few companies sell the lion's share of standalone ACD
systems.
Aspect. In late 1997, Aspect radically changed the platform
underlying its key switch offering. The change was partly one of
positioning, and partly one of hedging technological bets as the call
center industry becomes less tolerant of proprietary technology.

 Page 52
The core ACD, formerly called the CallCenter system, now known
simply as the Aspect ACD, incorporates two new "platforms" for call
processing. The first, called the OpenMedia Module, is built out of
MVIP and SCSA cards. Co-existing with that inside the box is another
new component, called the Integrated Applications Modulea
standards-based (NT, Pentium, Oracle) processing platform that's
scalable.
This combination, it is hoped, allows Aspect customers to use a
broader range of software applications, including some that appeal to
the smaller, departmental or distributed call centers. In theory, you
can link multiple lAMs off the main unit to create an ever-growing
chain of connected applications, all processing in tandem.
At the same time, they brought out a construction and maintenance
tool, the Aspect Architect Software. This places all the call routing
templates on a single drag-and-drop desktop, including such things as
IVR integration and call delivery channels from multiple media.
Shortly thereafter, seeking to position their switch as a serious one for
the growing electronic commerce/Internet call center market, Aspect
debuted Web Agent softwarea real-time browser-based information
sharing tool that can be added to a call center for about $ 1,000 an
agent, including CTI connectivity. Web Agent lets the person on
either side of a web transaction navigate through different pages, and
gives the call center rep the ability to guide the customer through a
series of screens according to a script. It works through a choice of
multimedia options, including a desktop IP connection, web-based
text chat, or a traditional two-line callback using the public network.
The single most important thing about this software release is that it is
an open system. It will work with ACDs other than Aspect'sLucent,
Nortel and Rockwell, and connects on the other side with existing IT
and telecom infrastructures. The advantage to webifying an existing
call center seat is that it allows you to leverage the already-trained rep
and equipment to sell existing productseven complex onesto someone
that might not have even been a caller. Converting web "lurkers" into
callers is the first step to turning them into customers.
To bulk up its CTI connections. Aspect bought Voicetek, a
Massachusetts-based IVR system company. This isn't just a case of
the large eating the small, although from a casual look at the call
center and CTI marketplaces it does look an awful lot like that. For
Aspect, this has meant combining-TCS' workforce software, CTI
integration from Prospect (which they also own), and

 Page 53
now Voicetek for IVR system and app gens.
Other companies are engaged in a similar process of piecemeal
assembly of what is likely to look like an end-to-end, all-in-one call
center system. People used to talk about the "call center in a box," as
if there would come a day when a single vendor would create, and
shrink down, a total application, hardware and software, for running a
call center. Instead, it looks more like a collection of cherrypicked
integrated apps, certified to work under the aegis of a single vendor,
will do the job just as well.
For switch vendors, the imperative to grow by adding features has in
years past created a spiral of really interesting technology that often
goes nowhere operationallyfantastic ideas (skills-based routing,
universal agent blending, "call-me" buttons on web pages, etc.) but
that can't be made to work in the real world because there are so many
operational and cultural hurdles on the ground in real call centers.
With fierce competition on features, and a frightfully high cost of
development, it's only natural that a larger company like Aspect
would find it more logical to add value to its switch through an
aggressive acquisition strategy. For the small companies that develop
call center and CTI apps, the costs of developing in a multi-vendor
environment are so high, and the need to spend huge sums on
marketing to get the word out (even when the technology is superior)
make partnering up a no-brainer. One large software company's CEO
told me that he getsand turns awayat least one request a day to join his
firms application partnership program.
For Aspect, having Voicetek on the inside allows them to get into
more network-based transaction processing and call routing. The
Voicetek Generations IVR line brings in some of the hot areas like
natural language speech recognition and text-to-speech that Aspect
needs to keep their switch marching up the high end of the call center
market.
Finally, they have a network routing product, a multi-site call
processing application that supports different types of networks
(PSTN and internet), and different vendors' switches. It uses the
Architect Graphical User Interface to present users with a single
system view of what's going on in all the companies call centers, as if
they were a single, unified virtual center. (Which, from a management
point of view, is how you should look at them.)
The benefits of vitualizing centers are well known, mainly that you
get a finer nuanced control of the dynamic changes happening among
centers for better call control and, if your volumes are high enough, a
cost savings

 Page 54
through economies of scale.
Aspect's self-refocusing involves minimizing the fact that they sell a
switch, which is now one of several core "enterprise platforms" upon
which a call center runs its applications-these include other vendors'
switches.
Running on those platforms are a series of "integration enablers" like
their Architect software, the Enhanced Services System (this is the
Voicetek app gen environment) or CTI from Prospect. And at the top
are the applications, all open of course, that come from Aspect and
others, and that include things like the Network Router.
They've come to the conclusion that in a world of open systems, it's
better to be known for the enablers and the apps than the switches, and
they are probably right about that.
Intecom. Intecom (Dallas, TX) has been a champion of the little guy,
making advanced features available to the small-and medium-sized
call center market.
That's not to say large users are left out in the cold. Their switch
supports up to 8,000 agents. Addressing the need for increased call
processing and application options planned for high volume call
centers and PBXs, Intecom introduced the Intecom E Millennium
Server in early 1998.
The original E was conceived as an incremental system, the kind that
you buy a small piece of when you're small, and then add
toemphasizing the multi-site linking capabilities. (We know of one
center using an Intecom E that has more than 4,000 agents scattered
over nearly a dozen sites).
Tremendously increasing the processing power of its communications
platform, the E, the Millennium Server with its sustained ability to
complete over 500,000 calls and support 3 million CTI messages per
busy hour in optimum configurations.
Serving up to 8,000 agents in a non-blocking, single database system,
the Millennium Server supports an Ethernet CTI interface with 63 IP
addresses to handle the most intense CTI capabilities in the industry.
Intecom adds to the E switch with an NT-based application platform,
called CallWise Centergy. It uses SQL Server as the database upon
which it serves up statistics, reports, and customized templates for
seeing what's going on in a call center, and making changes based on
that information.
It traces call event details from start to finish, supporting single or
multiple call centers from a single administrative point. (The reports
are provided by Crystal Reports 6.0).The whole system is standards-
based, extremely open and promises to bring more custom options to
managers who use the high-powered E switch.

 Page 55
CallWise Centergy captures call center events second-by-second in an
ODBC-compliant relational database to construct the information and
statistics needed for effective call center management and quality
customer service. The GUI reporting interface allows users to
configure, layout, schedule and run reports. The single solution also
provides data redundancy and fault tolerance, recovering data from
the main Intecom platform after any loss of communications. The
scalable Windows NT server allows customers to size the system for
current requirements and expand it as their needs grow.
Lucent. Lucent is a spinoff of AT&T; in the breakup, AT&T got the
wires, and Lucent got the phone systems. Lucent has become, in short
order, one of the world's most powerful communications companies.
The Pelorus Group claims that Lucent led its call center rivals in 1997
in both revenue and agent positions shipped. In fact, Lucent shipped
the most agents in five of the six market size segments they tracked,
especially at the higher end. At the very highest end (centers of 151
agents and up), Lucent shipped a reported three times as many agent
stations as its nearest competitor.
Though it's almost impossible to pin down with any certainty, another
study showed that Lucent appears to have the highest market share
among call center switch suppliers to the US market. A Dataquest
report entitled US Call Centers Market Share and Forecast showed
that Lucent's domestic shipments increased from 197,000 agent
positions in 1996 to 251,000 in 1997.
Apparently, Lucent has 30%+ market share in several categories:
small (more than 21 agents), middle (more than 75 agents) and high-
end (401 agents or more). In that last segment, Lucent was reported to
have a 52% market share.
However you count it, there's no getting around the fact that the
Definity is one of the most popular switches for call centers.
The Definity ECS Call Center is the core switching platform on which
Lucent overlays a very broad software suite called Centre Vu. One
application, for example, is called Centre Vu Exchange. It can
assemble info from as many as 20 Definity switches and 40 multi-
vendor voice response units. It can tell you exactly who touched a
call, even if that call was transferred from site to site. It also tells you
the length of time a call spent in a given application. One use: gauging
which voice prompts have the best effects under different
circumstances. This reporting tool lets you see exactly what those
circumstances were.
It's so precise, for many call center managers this will open up a
whole new way of looking at datadrilling down to the rawest call path
information, rather than looking at aggregates. It's being touted as an
alternative do

 Page 56
data mining, as more of a way of selecting out "boutique" batches of
data.
The CentreVu Call Management System provides more than 100 real-
time and historical management reports designed to help you achieve
critical sales and customer service objectives, while boosting the
productivity of your call center employees and resources. It offers
extensive historical data storage capabilities, keeping detailed intra-
hour data for up to 62 days, daily reports for up to five years and
weekly and monthly data for up to ten years.
An optional Forecasting package allows you to use trended data and
"what if" growth scenarios to forecast the number of agents and the
economic break-evens of staffing and abandoned calls.
One largely theoretical application that Lucent was showing at the
time this book went to press was a new way of combining multiple
call centers into one systems, using ATM networking. It works by
combining Lucent's CentreVu applications software and the
company's enterprise networking solutions.
The upshot is to create a complete system delivering, to an enterprise,
one customer care center even as its call center sites are spread around
the world.
The solution is aimed at call centers with multiple locations that want
to take advantage of public and private high-speed converged
networks.
As part of the ATM-based platform, Lucent plans that its CentreVu
Advocate, which selects and routes incoming calls using predictive
algorithms, will be able to handle calls among separate locations as if
they were one site. This makes agents from the entire enterprise
available to serve customers.
Similarly, their CentreVu Call Management System, which provides
call center operation performance measurement tools, will, from a
centralized site, use graphical tools to manage all agents connected via
the ATM backbone. For CTI apps, customer records in one city will
be instantly accessible by agents in other locations. Enterprises will no
longer need to concentrate on integrating or linking databases and CTI
applications.
The solution includes the integration of the CentreVu line with its
Definity ATM switch and PacketStar Access Concentrators, which
enable voice, data and video traffic at each call center location to be
supported over the ATM backbone network. This is very interesting
stuff to watch develop, especially as they proceed with a controlled
rollout through the year 2000. It's not even priced yet, it's so
experimental.
Lucent also has analytic tool for call centers that combines center data
with information from outside, in the rest of the enterprise. CentreVu
Visual Analyst is software that helps companies understand the
correlation between

 Page 57
call center activity and business results. It collects information from a
company's multiple databases and presents it in easy-to-use
interactive, graphical formats. CVA lets managers look at their call
center performance data while simultaneously viewing data from
other parts of their business.
With its integrated reporting capabilities, users can analyze complex
networked databases to make smarter and faster enterprise-wide
business decisions. It helps uncover trends, patterns and problems
buried in large amounts of disconnected data. It works in conjunction
with call center performance reporting systems such as Centre Vu Call
Management System and CentreVu Explorer. A bank might learn
from its report, for example, that agents are making strong sales on a
loan product to a certain customer segment. At the same time a
database outside the call center, with company revenue information,
might indicate the bank is receiving more profit on that product from a
different customer segment.
Basically, the more information from various sources you can
combine in a meaningful way, the better your call center will perform
from a whole-business standpoint.
Nortel Networks. Nortel's Symposium Call Center Server is a call
switching system that sits inside a Windows NT server, and that
allows users to layer a suite of NT apps on top. (The suite itself has
been bundled with a host of other products, notably the WebResponse
Server and an IVR, into a portfolio called Symposium Internet Call
Center.)
SCCS puts the switching into a client/server box (an NT one, to be
precise) . That makes it an interesting choice for small companies
looking for a platform upon which they can grow their center.
For the small center, this system offers a wide range of benefits,
including advanced call control and reporting, skills-based routing, a
good scripting language, and the ability to network existing call center
apps with new Symposium sites.
Perhaps most important, Symposium is open to connection with third
party products (Nortel has been a leader in this area since the days
when the Norstar phone system was the most open, call center-
friendly key system around).
The Symposium system can be networked together with existing
Meridian or Norstar call switching systems (so companies expanding
their call center infrastructures can do so incrementally). Capabilities
included in the Symposium are skillsets (that is, a form of skills-based
routing), and ease of integration with third-party products through
open interfaces like ODBC, Host Data Exchange, Meridian Link and
Real Time Interface.

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Symposium Agent software offering acts as something of a bridge
between the older platforms and the Symposiumit runs on Win 95 as
well as NT, and integrates with other Nortel call center products, such
as the Call Center Server and the Meridian 1 communication system.
Calls come into the Meridian 1; the Call Center Server routes them to
the most appropriate agents; and Symposium Agent helps agents
manage the customer interaction.
The software suite is available in three packages, depending on the
level of customization a user is likely to need. "Package 1" is for call
centers that need screen pops simultaneously with inbound calls. This
enables screen pops based on DNIS, ANI or digits collected from
IVR. "Package 2" has that, plus a desktop softphone, automatic call
distribution (ACD) features, individual agent statistics that enable
agents to monitor their own performances and call logs that agents can
access to place calls. "Package 3" adds a development tool, workflow
automation and call-scripting to the mix. It's unlikely that you'd want
to run a call center without the ACD features in #2.
Further evidence that all the various streams of messaging input will
ultimately be collapsed and handled by one "super-ACD"-type of box:
Nortel's enterprise messaging system called CalIPilot that incorporates
speech rec, call management, CTI hooks and an app gen for building
the kinds of apps you'd need for a call center.
While it's unlikely to be a call center app in and of itself, unified
messaging (especially on the enterprise level) is likely to be the kind
of glue that connects the business' phone system with it's data
messaging traffic.
It's likely to provide some of the structure for creating small-scale
departmental call centers that are needed for specialty applications, or
that connect to larger, standalone centers.
CalIPilot manages voice, fax and e-mail messages. It integrates with a
wide variety of e-mail clients and creates a multimedia mailbox. And
you can use it with voice commands, saying "play" or "print" to
activate functions.
While that kind of thing won't be of much use to the call center rep,
what will be good will be the background call tracking, and things like
the TAPI and S. 100 interfaces, which provide the hooks into
coordinated call center apps.
If an app is intelligently design on top of this, it literally allows any
desktop or person in the company to act as (or interact with) a call
center agent.
For those who need internet integration into their existing telephony
front-ends, Nortel is putting a batch of Internet capabilities into their
Symposium Open IVR 4.0.

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For starters, the system can automate web inquiries through backend
database lookup: an end user enters an account number on a web page
and the system pulls the customer record, and then can fax something
back or arrange for an agent to call the customer.
Open IVR also accepts speech and fax input. The system has a text-to
speech feature (designed for internal users to have e-mail read aloud)
and a large speech recognition vocabulary (100,000 words, of which
20,000 are available at any one time). Open IVR integrates with the
Syposium Call Center Server, and the Integration Package for
Meridian Link (yes, it's an integration to an integration, rather than
directly to a product).
Rockwell. Seeking to grab a portion of the underserved but exploding
small call center market, Rockwell took its call handling expertise and
shrunk it down to the size of an NT box. Transcend is a call
management system that's based on their larger Spectrum switch; it
runs the same software, but scales much smaller. A complete system
can be had in 10, 20, 40, and 80 agent position configurations.
Upgrades are available in 10 agent increments. Transcend is also
available in a 20, 40, and 80 agent position kit form, which includes
all the software and just the ACE 360/ISA-2E processor board.
It's built on an Oracle Universal Data Server and Dialogic's CT Media
middleware in a layered approach that separates out the application,
switching, routing and call handling functions, making it easier to
integrate the whole thing into existing data and telecom
infrastructures. That aims it
Quick Tips
1. There's no quick way to buy an ACD. There are, however,
lots of examples of RFPs and sample proposals floating
around on the Internet. Use as many resources as you can to
try to distinguish features that seem innovative but have no
real use in your center, from those that you'll really need. It
might take time and be a torturous process. But with the cost
of these systems, you'll be glad you didn't rush.
2. Consider the secondary market. The life cycle of a
standalone ACD seems to be shortening, from around six
years to as little as three or four. As the switch's features move
toward software, good quality basic hardware is more and
more available from used dealers, at reasonable prices. That
includes the critical peripherals, like phone sets.

 Page 60
squarely at the informal and departmental call center.
The open, standards-based approach ultimately makes it easier to add
on IVR or web or any other data-oriented application, or connect to
existing apps (which is the more likely case in the smaller center).
Rockwell has historically had leading edge technology but a hard time
defining exactly where that technology fit into the real world activity
of the call center. The small center market, however, needs no
rationale; it's a clear growth area in an industry that many are now
seeing as somewhat mature.
Since the reorganization of Rockwell's switching systems division
into the more fleet-footed ECD in 1997, Rockwell has been much
better at matching their technological developments to the needs of
the marketplace.
The Spectrum is a switch that serves centers of between 50 and 150
seats and somewhat larger, depending on which model you use. All
Spectrums, including the mid-sized version, incorporate Rockwell's
software like the Telescript Graphical Editor (for designing call flow),
Total Recall Reports (for historical feedback on call center activity)
and remote agent features.
This switch connects with other open Rockwell products like the Call
Center Command Server and Transcend, based on the S.I 00 standard.
Perhaps it's a sign of how far we've come, but this version fits inside a
cabinet the size of a PC server, and has a greater degree of "plug and
play" software configurability than older versions.
The Call Center Command Server is a software suite that sits in front
of the Spectrum. It's a development tool for creating mini-apps that
coordinate the flow of data in and out of the call center. Completely
open and object-oriented, 3CS functions as the interface between
business apps and call center systems.The control platform's open
architecture features reusable object-oriented components such as
Microsoft's ActiveX Controls, making it easier for call center
supervisors to rapidly develop custom, enterprise-wide applications.
One component, an app called Commander, consolidates separate call
center data elements into a single control point, letting supervisors,
managers and administrators immediately respond to changes in call
centers. Commander also graphically manages the dynamic
relationships between agents, supervisors and applications.
Information screens are customizable and scaleable. Administrative
features include the ability to view equipment configurations for the
call center. Application telescripts can be created and modified
efficiently, in both text and graphical modes.

 Page 61

Chapter 5
Outdialing Systems
As an outbound call center manager or supervisor, you get more than
a little annoyed when your agents can't reach the people on their call
lists. You know it's not your agent's fault. Much of their time is taken
up trying to get through to a prospect to make a sale or collect a bill,
and the longer it takes them to do their job, the more it costs.
Even if you have a small call center, a typical agent only reaches 25 to
35 people per 100 attempts, which could take hours. Enter predictive
dialing: automation provides the same 100 calls in, say, 90 minutes,
routing your agent only the ones that reach a human voice.
Today's dialers are much more sophisticated than they were fifteen
years ago. Predictive dialing automates the entire outdialing process,
with the computer choosing the person to be called and dialing the
number. The call is only passed to the agent when a live human
answers.
Predictive dialers screen out all the non-productive calls before they
reach the agent: all the busy signals, no-answers, answering machines,
network messages, and so on. The agent simply moves from one
ready call to another, without stopping to dial, listen, or choose the
next call.
True predictive dialing is merely one kind of automated dialingthere
are others. But predictive is the most powerful and the most
productivityenhancing. True predictive dialing has complex
mathematical algorithms that consider, in real time, the number of
available telephone lines, the number of available operators, the
probability of not reaching the intended party, the time between calls
required for maximum operator efficiency, the length of an average
conversation and the average length of time the operators need to
enter the relevant data.
Some predictive dialing systems constantly adjust the dialing rate by
monitoring changes in all these factors. The dialer is taking a sort of
gamble: know-

 Page 62
ing that these processes are in motion, and knowing that there is a
certain chance that a call placed will end in failure, it must throw more
calls into the network than there are agents available to handle them,
if they all succeed.
Sometimes the prediction is wrong, and there are fewer failures than
expected. In this case the called party will pick up the phone, say
hello, and be hung up on when no agent is available. One of the
intricacies of predictive dialer management is fine-tuning the
aggressiveness of your dialer's algorithm.
Predictive dialing has been nothing short of revolutionary in the
outbound call center. When operators dial calls manually, the typical
talk time is close to 25 minutes per hour. Most of the rest of that time
is nonproductive: looking up the next number to dial it; dialing the
phone; listening to the rings; dealing with the answering machine or
the busy signal, etc. Predictive dialing takes all that away from the
agent's desk and buries it inside the processor.
When working with a predictive dialer, it is possible to push agent
performance into the range of 45 to 50 minutes per hour. We've heard
of centers going as high as 54 minutes per hour. (You can't really go
higher than that, taking into account post-call wrap up time.)
There is more to the technology than just the pacing algorithm.
Predictive machines excel at detecting exactly what is on the other
end of the phone, including the ability to differentiate a human voice
from an answering machine. They typically decide that the call has
reached a person within the first 1 /50th of a secondthe start of the
word ''hello."
Here are just a few of the important ways predictive dialing systems
can help you.
They completely automate outbound consumer calling. That includes
the actual dialing, assigning agents and controlling the list you call
from.
You can run multiple inbound and outbound campaigns, and lets you
specify names on a list not to call. It also schedules automatic call-
backs for nonproductive calls. Dialers let you set the parameters for
the dialing algorithms to meet the needs of a particular campaign, like
the percent of overdials the system sends out.
With collections applications, for example, you may not care if the
dialer has to hang up on a "customer" if there is no agent available.
You'll trade the customer's good will for a higher volume of calls. But
for a sales promotion, you'd want to keep those hang-ups to a
minimum.
You can manage your call center more effectively.
Standard features include real-time statistics about how each agent,
group

 Page 63
of agents or list is performing. Also, trunk pooling, which reduces
operating costs by processing both inbound and outbound over the
same trunks.
They reduce agent burnout and turnover. Just imagine all the tedium
they avoid: finding the phone number, typing it in, waiting for the
phone to connect and the number to ring.
The dialer makes sure that the only calls an agent has to deal with are
real calls, with a live customer on the other end. No busy signals, no
endless ringing, no answering machines.
Cutting out that stalling doubles the time spent talking on the phone.
Talk time, which is about 20 minutes an hour without a dialer, jumps
to 40 to 50 minutes with one. Agents like their jobs better when they
don't have to wait around for the phone to be answered.
Reach more people in less time. You penetrate lists more deeply in a
fraction of the time.
Predictive dialers adjust the balance of agents from one list to another,
taking into account factors like list performance, time of day and the
success of particular agents.
But Wait
Aren't They Complicated?
Yes, and no. The story of dialing in the last few years has been one of
a technology that matured, and then was overrun by changes in
technology outside the box.
By that I mean that the basic functions involved in predictive dialing
(or any other dialing, for that matter) were long ago created and
encoded into software. The rest of the cost of a predictive dialer was
the cost of the high-powered dedicated box needed to make it happen,
and to integrate it into the list system, and to the agent desktop.
It wasn't so long ago that predictive dialers were a simple purchaseyou
bought the one that gave you the most talk time per hour, or the one
that had the best answering machine detect. What you looked for in a
dialer was dialing features. That's changing immensely.
Like most other hardware technologies, predictive dialers are
responding to changes in the nature of the call center. Nowadays you
want more flexibility with your agents, inbound or outbound. You
want to link your hardware systems together: switches and computers,
dialers and voice systems.
More than anything else, you want to choose the software applications
that make sense for your business, and get cost-effective hardware to
run them.

 Page 64
Decoupling the software apps from the hardware is the most
impressive development to come along in years.
Predictive dialer vendors, like PBX and ACD vendors before them,
have been forced to adapt to a changing world. People are less
inclined to choose a standalone system they can't program and can
only be connected to a limited range of compatible peripherals.
Predictive dialing has always been a software application. It required
a great deal of processing power, so the vendors put their specialized
software onto high-powered computers, most of them with a closed
architecture. But the research and development was always geared to
better dialing algorithms, more sophisticated call tracking features,
and better database managementessentially software apps.
What started as a great idea for outbound telemarketing and
collectionsfire out more calls than necessary to maximize agent
productivitybecame the platform on which software companies
continued to refine and develop new features for handling calls.
It was such a good idea that companies in other areas (telemarketing
software, especially) began adding predictive dialing modules to their
systems. The logic was good: if dialing features are mainly software,
and powerful generic processors are available to run them, there's no
reason not to create a whole new category of productthe PC-based (or
at least client/serverbased) dialer.
The traditional hardware/dialing vendors are now changing to match.
Several of them have taken their core technologies, enhanced them,
and are presenting them to call centers in a new light. They are
creating systems for managing all aspects of the call flow. They let
agents make calls in predictive mode, and receive incoming calls as
well.
To facilitate that, dialer makers have incorporated a technology to
blend agents; this allows a single station to handle either incoming or
outgoing calls. And although it's not used widely yet, it's growing.
The dialer is steadily losing its identity as a purely outbound object.
It's got to act like, and interact with, inbound call routing systems.
Because it's increasingly unlikely that a given center will be doing all
of one kind of calling, or all of another. Recent information from
Datamonitor suggested that the market for outbound dialers was
actually expected to increase in the next few years.
Since few call centers are now dedicated to outbound traffic,
integration with inbound is the highest priority for the vendors of
high-end outbound

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dialers. Their strengths is clearly in the software that routes the calls,
downloads the lists, tracks the results and coordinates the customer
information on the backend. If this sounds an awful lot like the new
CIS software, you are right. If it sounds like computer telephony
integration, you are also right.
The most successful predictive dialer companies right now-the ones
making the most interesting and useful technology-are the ones that
have rethought the logic of the outbound call center and recast their
dialer as an indispensable component of the inbound and outbound
center. For all of them, the selling point is not the power of the dialing
engine, but the value-added capabilities of the companion software.
So Predictive Dialers Head for Software . . .
This is the most important piece of information you need: predictive
dialers, which usually run you $ 7,000 to $ 15,000 per seat, can be had
for as little as $ 2,000 per seat.
How is that possible? We found one company that put together a
custom installation, using their own programmers, with a software-
based predictive dialing system and Dialogic boards. It may not be the
best system for everybody, but it is definitely possible to get
predictive dialing for less than you expect.
Dialing is by definition software. It always has been. For years, the
predictive dialing vendors (rightly) competed with one another on
featuresanswering machine detect, speed of answer, and fundamental
algorithmthat were software.The boxes were of secondary importance.
They were proprietary because you needed lots of processing
horsepower to drive those software applications.
Enter software-based dialing. And client/server computing. And
companies that don't want to pay high costs to replace their existing
data networks.
Nowadays you want to have more flexibility with your agents,
inbound or outbound. You want to link your hardware systems
together: switches and computers, dialers and voice systems.
The logic behind it is overwhelming: if dialing features are mainly
software, and powerful generic processors are available to run them,
there's no reason why they can't be part of an overall inbound and
outbound call routing system on a client/server platform.
So what should you be thinking about when buying your predictive
dialer? Integrationwith every other piece of hardware and software in
your call center. Mostly software.

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What's happening in the call center now is the marriage of voice and
data. Call centers are using open dialing platforms to take advantage
of other niche technologies in the call center. It's a powerful means of
taking the benefits of predictive dialers even further.
Why is integration important to call centers? Primarily because of the
increased control call center managers have over their technology.
Essential call center equipment like ACDs, PBXs and predictive
dialers now work in concert, allowing for greater efficiency and
productivity.
Companies are driven to make better use of their resources. There are
so many technology directions that companies can easily fritter away
resources and not really improve the service they provide or the
bottom line that they protect.
An example of predictive dialer integration from the inbound switch
side is Rockwell's Galaxy ACD, which contains sophisticated
predictive dialing features. Through their Contact GateWay II call
processing system, Rockwell's predictive dialer controls the pacing of
the outbound calls from a group perspective rather then from an
individual agent.
When should you consider a client/server-based system?
When you have an existing PC or client/server data network leading
to agent stations.
If you are thinking of buying telemarketing software to automate
your outbound calling. Many vendors now include predictive dialing
modules as part of their outbound call or list management. Others
create links with dedicated PC-based dialing products.
If you are trying to integrate a number of inbound and outbound
technologies using a client/server or network database architecture.
 If your center is too small to justify a larger standalone dialing
platform, but you still want to extend the talk time for agent
efficiencies. (And you think you might grow in the next few years.)
Smaller centers have basically three options:
1. Buy a turnkey system (which may be proprietary) and build a
telecom and computer system around it. This is good for companies
that want to dump older equipment.
2. Go for an integrated solution, combining the power of PCs and
LANs with software or hardware dialing processors and a phone
system.
Using off-the-shelf parts, you can put together inexpensive solutions.
You can

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grow into it slowly, without sacrificing the dialing features you need:
swift answer detection and screen transfer.
3. Or lay a dialing solution on top of the existing telecom and data
infrastructure. Your best option here: talk to the vendors who make
your existing equipment and software. Chances are you might find a
dialer maker among the vendors of your ACD, VRU or call
management software.
Software-driven predictive dialers integrate into the call center
environment because they're based on multipurpose minicomputers
that let users run other software and because they employ industry
standard computer-telephone devices to perform predictive dialing.
Besides predictive dialing, many dialing systems let call center agents
perform preview dialing where agents call up data and review it
before the call is placed. Preview dialing mostly benefits small call
centers making business to business calls.
As for the future of predictive dialers, most agree about the
importance of integration. For some call centers, integration means
less dependency on mainframes, while others see it as a way to tie
dialers into a national database of people who don't want calls. Even
more adventurous is the theory that full function predictive dialing
will be possible from an agent's home phone.
Regardless of what happens in the future, one thing is true: forward
thinking has turned a once limited piece of hardware into a versatile
and vital piece of technology. As long as that persists, its value in
today's (and tomorrow's) call center remains undiminished.
What to Look For
Databases. The dialer must connect to your host system to access
your call lists. It's got to switch between lists and campaigns and it's
got to reschedule call backs for busies and no-answers.
Continuing improvement in software and applications. With a clear
focus from the vendor on integrating the dialer with inbound
switching and with the total customer management software
infrastructure. It's not going to do you much good if a sales person
works from one isolated island of information, and the customer
service department works from another.
Call blending. You don't have to divide agents into inbound and
outbound pools anymore. Once, it was necessary. But why should you
have outbound

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agents rushing through a call list while inbound agents sit idle?
What happens when an automated outbound center starts to receive
callbacks from the people not reached on the first call? (That happens
a lot in collection environments.)
If the ACD and the dialer don't communicate well, the calls could go
to an inbound-only group. But you may want the same agents to
handle inbound and outbound. Or a particular account may belong to
an agent or a group.
Intelligent features are available for blending inbound and outbound
calls on the dialer. You adjust for peaks and valleys by dynamically
switching agents from one group to another. It reduces staffing
inefficiency and maximizes agents' talk times more than ever before.
There are two kinds of call blending: reactive blending, where agents
are switched around when the system detects an overflow; and
predictive blending, in which you predefine when the pools are
switched.
Computer/telephony integration. Dialers should be linked to the host
telephone switch, as well as fax and voice mail systems. Monitor
ACD activity through server-based connections to the switch. These
reports help control workflow in a call blending situation. All this
information is vitalhow many calls come in, how long they are on
hold and when the call center is busiest.
Business-To-Business impact. Predictive dialers are great when you
have large lists of customers or potential customers. But they don't
work well when you have to call businesses.
That's because companies almost always answer their phones, even if
the specific person you want to reach is not there. You lose the
efficiency gained by screening out no-answers and busies. The same
problem applies to people whose job it is to screen calls.
If you need to do this kind of calling in conjunction with consumer
telemarketing, consider a dialer that lets you shunt several agents into
a separate campaign, then run that campaign with the predictive
features turned off. Lots of dialers let you do this.
If you do this kind of calling exclusively, try a sales management
software program that controls your lists, feeds the sales person the
phone numbers, but lets them keep control of the call from dial to
hang-up. This is called preview dialing and it's common to most
contact management or sales automation software programs.
Do a 30 day test of the dialer with each vendor you're considering.
With a 30 day test, managers will experience not only what the system
can do but what

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impact it will have on your people.
Make sure the system supports the number of users you need now
and in the future. Take a close look at the stability of the
companythose that made just dialers in the early '90s have been
dropping like flies.
It's important that there is at least one person within your company
whose primary job is to see the project through. This shouldn't be just
a part of their job but a major function of their job.
Beware of slow transfers. If the prospect has to say hello three times
before the call reaches the agent, you might lose the sale before you've
made the pitch. Your system should transfer the call fast enough for
the agent to hear part of the first "hello."
Beware of call abandonment. Some lower-end predictive dialers
hang up on 20% or more of prospects. The last thing you want is to
generate complaints: for people with Caller ID to be calling your
center, or calling the phone company, of the state regulators. List
owners who receive complaints may stop renting you their lists. Try to
buy a system capable of a zero abandon rate. This is a necessary
precaution in case future regulations require it.
Get a system that's capable of inbound/outbound call blending.
That's the ability of every agent to handle both incoming and outgoing
calls from the same station. This leads to higher list penetration and
more sales. The outbound agent can leave a message explaining what
the call is about. Calls that come back in based on that are more likely
to end in a sale. Likewise, inbound-based agents can handle outbound
calls during slow periods.
More leads can mean a lower sales conversion. Perversely, when the
supply of fresh leads is unlimited, agents sometimes don't try as hard
for the sale as they do when the supply is limited. Especially with very
little wait time between calls.
Get call tracking and custom list loading. Your system should keep a
record of call attempts to be certain that each attempt is at a different
time during the day and on different days. Some weaker systems have
no call tracking abilities at all, and every time you load the dialers the
same people are always called first.
Keep transition times short. Predictive dialing should reduce the
after-call work time (that time between when your agent hangs up the
phone and when they are back on the phone) at a given low
abandonment rate, say, 2%.
Only a few predictive dialers can achieve list penetration level of 50%
with daytime calling, while maintaining an average wait time between
calls of nine

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to 20 seconds at a 2% abandonment rate.
Get full branch scripting. The best scripting systems allow data and
calculations to be performed in the script and the screen routing is
based on the answers given.
Also when an agent hits a key to change screens, it must be
instantaneous, no matter how many people are on the system. A
multiple-second wait time is unacceptable. The system should also
provide function keys for access to questions most likely to come up
at each specific place in the script.
Ensure campaign flexibility. There should be no limit to the number
of campaigns or number of projects that can be called. Every operator
should be able to call a different campaign at the same time.
Make sure it's expandable. What if your company becomes a big
success? Plan for future growth. (We always have to say this, but it's
true.)
What They Have to Offer
The products and companies that are detailed here are always in flux.
This is also not meant to delineate the whole marketplace; rather,
we're showing by example what some of the leading vendors have to
offer and what new features and technologies are interesting to call
center managers.
Buffalo International. Long before the hardware-based outbound
dialing vendors opened up their systems, and ported over from Unix
to NT, back in the days when you'd have to pay $ 5,000 to $ 7,000 per
seat for full-fledged predictive dialing, Buffalo International was
selling a do-it-yourself development platform on which you could
build a LAN-based outbound dialer for not much more than $ 1,500 a
seat. It was hard, and you had to know what you were doing, but it
could be done.
Buffalo's Open Architecture Predictive Dialing Engine (OADPE) is
the platform on which Drextec has built and now offers a
telemarketing software application for outbound centers of 12 to 144
agents. The Drextec Prospecting and Telemarketing System (DPTS) is
available in several scaled editions, and the clients work on platforms
from NT down to the very old DOS (still out there in some outbound-
only telemarketing shops).
Reflecting the qualities of the platform it's built on, DPTS is very
modular, with things like agent monitoring, reporting, and fulfillment
available. The agent client application contains standard telemarketing
features and campaign management stuff, lots of user-defined data
fields and ample call control.
Buffalo is morphing its platform into a full-service NT telephony plat-

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form: the Object Telephony Server, with souped-up performance,
capacity and features. Buffalo's original offering, the Open
Architecture Predictive Dialing Engine was one of the most
interesting products of the mid-1990s; it was (and still is) a complete
software implementation of predictive dialing in a completely open
boxa small call center could buy it, build it and make it run for a small
fraction of what you'd pay for a traditional turnkey system.
This next system is another version of the open switcha PC-based call
processing platform built out of SCSA Dialogic cards, networked,
capable of supporting thousands of ports across multiple hot-
swappable hardware modules. It can support multiple client apps on a
single server, transferring calls between apps even if they were written
by different developers. Its features include inbound/outbound call
blending, IVR, voice messaging, integral digital recording and fax
processing.
It integrates with any existing network/database management system
via TCP/IP, NETBIOS, or OCX. Buffalo says that there will be
versions available to support various specific telephone switches (such
as Comdial, Intertel, AT&T, CT Connect, and Harris). The system,
known as OAPDE/OTS, is a piece of sophisticated technology that
allows a user either to build a custom setup to dovetail with existing
application needs, or to buy a more "constructed" off-the-shelf system
from Buffalo or one of its VARs. Developers kits are also available.
Despite the complexity of the task, this system illustrates two things.
First, how important open connections arethere are thousands of
informal call centers that, because of legacy databases and cost-
containment mandates, need advanced call processing without the
expense of traditional hardwarebound systems. And second, that NT
is perhaps the most pervasive platform for call center application and
design that's come along in the last decade.
The OTS builds on the philosophy of the open dialing engine: you
don't need to rely on closed, proprietary boxes at high prices to get
advanced call processing.
Davox. This company has been running from the label "predictive
dialer vendor" for years. With some success. They want to be seen as
a company that's successfully combined their outbound dialing
processor with an inbound call management engine. This is a valid
viewpoint. Their dialer is so wrapped up in layers of call center
management software that its impossible to break it apart any longer.
Since they acquired Answer Soft and began grafting CTI middleware
on top, the core system has been even more entangled

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with inbound call center operation.
The Unison system is the dialing manager, with sophisticated dial and
pacing technology, campaign generation, flow, and filter capabilities.
It streamlines outbound call operations by automating a number of
time-consuming processes. Supervisors control the parameters that
affect the actual call placement, freeing agents to focus on the actual
call. Layered upon this dialing engine is Davox's array of real-time
campaign management/measurement capabilities.
It's controlled by the Smart Management Center, a UNIX RISC-based
that manages, monitors, processes, reports on and controls a broad
range of telephony and data-oriented call center tasksall in real-time
and using a graphical user interface.
There is a call blending tool (called Scale) and a separate scripting
utility (Lyricall), making this one of the most full-featured
telemarketing tools on the market. Aimed squarely at the top-end,
highest volume centers.
EIS. EIS's predictive dialer, the Centenium XL, is an inbound and
outbound call processor that has improved call blending features over
previous versions, and a more realistic emphasis on inbound
capabilities, especially inbound scripting.
The system also sports inbound call control from the agent desktop
screen, and DNIS-based screen pop. The Centenium XL is aimed at
centers that are primarily outbound (they cite 60% or more as the
ideal), but that need to have strong inbound or blended
inbound/outbound capabilities.
EIS is making some strong technological statements with this product.
For one thing, they have declared that they are not looking to move to
NT at the server level, which would seem to buck a trend. For another,
they appear to have made a strong commitment to the use of call
blending, which has until recently been a technology in search of a
business model for its use.
What we liked about the XL was the basic, incremental improvement,
top to bottom, in a product category that's been static for some time
now. They've improved the system administration, the way it collects
and reports center stats, even the supervisor interface.
With what is reported to be 60% new code in the software, EIS is
saying to the industry that the era of the standalone predictive dialer is
far from over.
Centenium is also the dialer that's embedded in Hewlett-Packard's
Customer Contact Manager (a middleware software product), through
the use of EIS's Gateway middleware, a software version of their
dialer that animates their own outbound processor.

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Once the EIS Gateway system places a dial-out and receives a
connection, it coordinates with the HP component, Smart Contact, to
send the call to an agent and retrieve the customer record and script.
All that data gets pushed to the agent's terminal.
Executone. We've often said that predictive dialing is the ultimate
computer telephony application-a pure software-driven technology
that doesn't need to be bound to a particular box or platform.
Executone's Infostar Predictive Dialer (release 4.8) is an open,
standards-based app for both outbound and blended centers.
It features Windows 95, 98 or NT Workstation Agent software and
has 32-bit applications at all desktops that enable integration with
LAN applications.
ODBC technology supports active links to external data sources and
software packages. It scales up to 96 agents (though it gets pricey at
that level, running up into the $ 300,000 range).
One advantage of the system is that it lets anyone who can muddle
their way through Windows do the configuration, campaign setup,
build screens and manage scripts. A Dynamic Inbound/Outbound
feature automatically moves outbound call center agents to inbound
queues based on supervisordefined thresholds. Agents are returned to
inbound queues when the queue conditions are relieved. The system's
reports take into account the fact that agents are doing double-duty.
InterVoice. Inter Voice's AgentConnect is a turnkey call center
system, an all-in-one that puts the most commonly used call center
applications (both inbound and outbound) into a single platform. That
platform supports up to 960 agents in its initial release.
The kinds of apps that it can process include inbound queuing, screen
pop, call screen transfer, IVR, predictive dialing, agent messaging and
of course, reporting on all this. The applications can be enhanced with
speech recognition and Internet connectivity, as well. The system also
has the ability to interface with virtually any legacy telephony, host or
database environment, InterVoice claims.
The company is making a run at the ''call center in a box" movement,
arguing that having all the apps inside a single platform rolls together
all the capital investment, lowers operating costs and the risks of
integration failure. It is true that a lot of the heartache traditionally
associated with implementing CTI applications comes from
integration failure. An all-in-one can reduce the time it takes to get up
and running, and provide a single vendor to turn to for technical
support.

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Melita. At press time, Melita was readying the next step in their
Explorer line, this time a company-wide system that combines
multiple call center data management with the need to get that
information out of the call center and into the rest of the company,
The product will be called Enterprise Explorer. It's built on the
architecture that they unveiled in 1997, an open standards-based
platform called MPower.
A key part of this intended product is the Mixed Media Server, which
should allow companies to integrate their existing communications
and computing infrastructure. Mixed Media Servers can be deployed
at multiple sites and connected using industry standard Asynchronous
Transfer Mode, T1 /E1 or Voice-over-IP communications networks.
That enables speedy implementation and deployment of advanced
apps, letting customers expand operations to additional sites without
the need for duplicating system resources like PBXs, ACDs, IVR
systems or predictive dialers. By supporting multiple sites, Enterprise
Explorer will let companies optimize resources and dynamically re-
deploy them across available sites, in response to changing needs.
Also, word is that Enterprise Explorer will expand the choices for
customer contact to include e-mail, fax and the web.
What's this got to do with predictive dialing? Explorer, and the
product families that go along with it (Magellan, and the actual
PhoneFrame dialer itself) is only interesting insofar as the software on
top lets the call center do something it couldn't do before. Setting the
dialer up as the reporting and management tool over both inbound and
outbound is one approach that's becoming popular.
Melita's latest application suite brings them back to their core
markettelemarketing call centers that have a strong outbound focus. A
recent addition to the PhoneFrame line is Explorer TeleSuite, a bundle
that features strong back-end data managementreal-time access to the
piles of enterprise corporate data, along with scripting tools to make
sense of it, and present it appropriately to the agent desktop.
TeleSuite also includes a nice feature called Same Agent Call
Backallowing agents to schedule follow-up calls to the contact
through a calendar program. (It would be nice to see this as a standard
feature on inbound applications, too, so a caller could talk to the same
person when calling about a problem for the second or third time.)
This bundle features coaching and conferencing, the ability to
dynamically add a record to a calling list while it's in process, and
Internet connectivity

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Quick Tips
1. Caveat Emptor. When shopping for small-scale predictive
dialing systems, beware of the loose use of the word
"predictive." Predictive dialing, by definition, is not available
for one agent. It requires groups on which to base its
assessment of how many calls to place into the network. A
single agent (or even a small group) is not enough on which to
base an accurate judgement.
What some vendors offer as predictive dialing is really
anticipatory dialing. What's the difference? It uses the
statistics generated by a single agent to "anticipate" when that
agent will be ready for the next call. It dials the call while the
agent is still talking. If that call takes too long, then you have
an abandoned call. It only takes one abnormally long call to
throw off the stats. What you don't have with anticipatory
dialing is the cushion of averaging talk times across groups of
agents.
Another term you might run across is power dialing. This is
(roughly) a bulk dialer that shares some characteristics of a
predictive dialer (good for small groups) but that does not
have an algorithm for calculating ahead of the agents and
predicting when one will be ready. It will, however, screen
out busies and no-answers. If a vendor makes a dialer that
doesn't have a predictive algorithm, but they want to position
it in the marketplace as more advanced than a mere preview
dialer, they may tag it as a 'power' dialer, confusing all and
enlightening none. As the term with the loosest definition, it's
rapidly losing all meaning.
2. Does your dialer let you cross-reference lists with other
databases based on demographics, geocoding or other
characteristics? It should. And you should be able to change
lists on the fly and have these changes instantly affect the
current project.
3. Make sure that you maintain a Do-Not-Call list, as required
by recent Federal legislation and some states, and as
recommended by most major telemarketing associations.
4. What's Power Dialing? It's not predictive. This is (roughly)
a bulk dialer that shares some characteristics of a predictive
dialer (good for small groups) but that does not have an
algorithm for calculating ahead of the agents and predicting
when one will be ready. It will, however, screen out busies
and no-answers. If a vendor makes a dialer that doesn't have a
predictive algorithm, but they want to position it in the
marketplace as more advanced than a mere preview dialer,
they may tag it as a 'power' dialer, confusing all and
enlightening none. As the term with the loosest definition, it's
rapidly losing all meaning.

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add Internet-gathered contacts to a campaign while it's already
running, or allow a customer to click on a web page and initiate a call-
back. The software system runs on Melita's Universal Telephony
Platform.
Mosaix. The Mosaix 5000 Call Management System is a UNIX-based
high performance predictive and managed outbound call handling
engine. They use what they call the Expert Calling algorithm to
monitor the environment and adjust call pacing based on individual
service level objectives.
It's got several optional blending technologies that can be used on top
of it for manipulating the flow of calls between inbound and outbound
agents. (This is done with a CTI link to the center's inbound switch.)
The 5000 scales up to 150 outbound workstations and 300 lines.
(There is also a 4000 model.)
System operators can easily add or release lines from one job to
another on the fly. This enables immediate staffing changes and the
ability to set the most effective line-to-caller ratio at any time.
Software that runs on top of the dialer includes Producer, an app lets
managers customize their predictive dialing apps, including adding,
deleting, and modifying wait queue messages, completion codes, and
function key descriptions for both inbound and outbound transactions.
The interface to this app has been designed with an eye to shielding
the manager/user from having to know about or deal with the ugly
data and telephony underpinnings of the telemarketing process.
That's one good idea: separating the management of the campaign
from managing the actual dialing parameters allows a more customer-
focused kind of thinking to take place in the center.
Also available: TM Express, a software platform for telemarketing
that includes the basic components like predictive dialing, scripting,
list and campaign management.
This client/server software supports up to 150 agents. One of the
things they've tried to do is wed some aspects of a customer service
system into their more traditional outbound-focused product;
telemarketing itself has become more complex in recent years, as
direct response has increased and sales has taken on a more inbound
bias.
TM Express supports things like inbound/outbound blending at the
agent station and customization based on the vertical industry. It runs
on Windows NT servers and desktops, Microsoft SQL Server, and
Microsoft Internet Information Server.

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Chapter 6
Computer Telephony
Any company's main focus should be its customers: fielding their
calls, delivering service, getting orders out the door, making sales.
The easier it is for a customer to get in touch with you, the better the
relationship will be. Companies that do the best job of opening the
door to customers, those that make it as easy as possible for customers
to find out what they need to know, are the ones that have the best
track records in the long term. Small and medium-sized companies
that have adopted customer-focused attitudes have, over time, become
giants of their industries.
Over the past few years there has been much discussion of the pros
and cons of a new set of technologies called CTI, or
computer/telephone integration (or just computer telephonythey all
mean the same thing). Computer telephony was designed specifically
to enable better contact between companies and their customers.
It is a loose but complicated amalgamation of interlocking
technologies. It isn't any one thing, not any one piece of hardware or
software. It's a way of combining the two streams of information-
voice and data-through open, standards-based systems. It has uses in
all areas of modern business, but its most dramatic possibility is in the
call center. If implemented well, it can improve the way a company
interacts with its customers, which of course, is the whole point
behind the call center.
Computer telephony is a way of reaching beyond the traditional
limitations of either of the component technologies (phones and
computers) and bringing them together in a way that improves them
both, by bringing more information to the person on the phone, and
making the data behind the scenes much more flexible.
Think about it. The ability to integrate your computer and telecom
system could bring the customer's phone call along with his datafile
right to the

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agent's desktop, as the call comes in. This translates to massive
savings in 800 line charges and agent labor.
In practice, implementing computer telephony has been a dicey
proposition. Until very recently, it was largely custom, with each
venturesome company taking the plunge using a systems integrator to
cobble together all the necessary links, proprietary interfaces and
special connections to applications. The benefits are easy to see, but
sometimes difficult to achieve. Most call center CTI experiences
begin with good intentions. Somehow, they don't all end up that way.
Imagine this scenario:
Your company is facing stiff competition and is growing rapidly. That
results in a certain amount of customer tension-people have a hard
time getting to you on the phone through when things go wrong. It
takes too long for sales reps to respond to good leads. E-mails come in
from customers and go . . . you're not exactly sure where. Same thing
for fax traffic.You don't even have time to think about the traffic
coming in from your web site (and whether your site is connected to
your call center).
You hear that there are technologies out there that promise relief.
They promise to tear down the walls between you and your customers
by bringing voice and data together. You swallow the bait. You hire a
consultant and they present you with a plan. Screen pop, says the
consultant. When a call comes in, shouldn't the agent have all the
information? Sounds good, you say. Single point of contact, he says.
So when a customer calls, whoever handles it has all the relevant info.
Makes sense, you say. Links between the switch and the host.
Connections everywhere.
Of course it makes sense. And before you know it, you are in the
middle of an implementation. The months drag on. The consultant
puts a dollar figure on the technology, but once he's gone from the
scene you realize that his number didn't include things like training, or
coordinating what happens in the center with what goes on in other
departments. Of course, the technology works, but do the people
know how to work the technology?
A year later, you are staring at the prospect of starting all over, with a
different set of technological priorities, a different consultant, but the
same basic feeling in your gut that yes, you do need to get closer to
your customer. You just need a better way to get from Point A to
Point B-one that has clearly defined cost and benefit signposts along
the way.
For most of the 1990s, installing CTI systems was an incredibly
custom job that involved detailed on-site "fixing" to make sure that
everything worked

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together. Luckily, things have changed a lot.
Computer telephony is simply defined as "adding computer
intelligence to the phone call "When you think of it that way,
everything from simple screen pop to predictive dialing becomes, at
one level or another, a computer telephony application. Depending on
your call center's level of sophistication, and the capabilities of the
underlying telecom infrastructure, you may already be using core
computer telephony technologies.
Where Did CTI Come From?
Consider, for just a moment, the historical anomaly of telecom.
Despite the conventional wisdom about the rise of the microprocessor
and the computer revolution, the fact is that the national telephone
network built incrementally by AT&T over the course of decades was
a feat of computational and networking engineering unmatched in the
20th century.
And yet, when microprocessors begat PCs and PCs begat client/server
networks, the companies that made the phone switches for average
businesses remained curiously unmoved. Notwithstaning the fact that
the business phone system is one complex piece of computational
hardware, there was a great deal of resistance to making the phone act
more like a computer.
The computer, though, was easy enough to make act like a phone. The
computer industry was better at implementing the things that make
disparate technologies talk to each other-important things like vendor-
independent standards.
Computer telephony has its origins in the fact that if you wanted to
add on to a typical office PBX, you had to buy the add-on from the
original vendor, or from a third-party company that wrote to the
proprietary spec promulgated by that PBX vendor.
Good applications were hard to find because for a software company
writing these add-ons, the cost of developing for multiple switch
vendors was prohibitively high. If you wanted a reporting system to
complement your switch, you had only a few options: buy from the
vendor or the vendor's approved partner, or build it yourself. Neither
option was particularly attractive.
Computer telephony was an attempt by the more perceptive members
of both the PBX and computer industries to come to grips with the
notion that they were more alike than different. Switches were really
high-performance communications servers, after all. If the specs could
be opened up, if standards could be developed, both sides would
benefit from the flood of appli-

 Page 80
cations that would be developed.
Today's switches come with CTI hooks built in, and a suite of
applications from the vendor and its partners that take advantage of
the connections.
CT's Changing Face
What began as a tentative effort by PBX vendors to open their
switches, has over most of a decade turned into a more solutions-
based set of technologies.
Part of that is due to the widespread adoption of technical standards
for interoperability between vendors and industries. At the basic level,
there are standards for the operation of component hardware at the
board level. There are also specs put out by individual vendors that
enable applications to work correctly on particular board sets-SCSA
and MVIP, for example, by companies like Dialogic and Natural
Microsystems.
There are also standards, created largely by the computer software
industry, for the creation of applications that work with operating
systems. The key standards, TAPI and TSAPI, were offered up by
Microsoft and Novell, respectively, as a way to push the switch
vendors into compatibility so that developers could use those
companies' OS platforms as the basis for CTI applications.
Some of these apps focused on call control (the movement and
tracking of calls around a phone network). Many others were apps that
took advantage of the growing LAN/phone system connections to
bring data to the desktop at the same time as the phone call arrived.
Wherever voice and data networks come together, you need standards
to assure that the integration goes smoothly (or works at all).
The Internet, of course, forced things to become even more
standardsbased. Building apps that combined call control and data
manipulation became a lot easier with the adoption of Java, TCP/IP
and ODBC as standards for data communication.
While most apps assume that there will be a dedicated piece of
hardware for the pure telephony switching, it's becoming clear that
nearly all the addon functions of value-the call center specific
applicationscan reside quite nicely in a "telephony server" hooked into
the phone switch. More and more, that telephony server is a Windows
NT box.
In addition to raw interoperability standards, there are more different
kinds of links to consider. In any data/voice application, there are a lot
possible combinations. When we say "voice," for example, we could
be talking about a lot of different kinds of "call" - traditional phone
calls, for one, but

 Page 81
also recorded calls in the form of messages, fax traffic, even the digits
that callers enter when they pass through a voice response system.
As for data, this starts with the host information that resides in the
back-office databases. But it also includes the subset of host data that
moves to the desktop (and back). And MIS data that passes through
the corporate LAN, through intranets, over the Internet (including
company web traffic), and e-mails.
It used to be easy to isolate the two streams-to break it apart and
clearly identify what was voice and what was data. Today, though, a
corporate CTI system might also be dealing with strange
combinations that include elements of both sides: things like voice-
over-the-Internet, fax-over-the-Internet, browser-based transaction
processing, "call me" buttons that appear on web pages. Even speech
recognitionall these combos are the result of standards that make it
easier to push data and voice across each other's pathways, and that
make it increasingly irrelevant what form a piece of information
comes in. What's more important is how that information is acted
upon, and who has access to it.
CTI is now so broad that it is best denned as any technology that
combines some form of real-time, person-to-company communication
with a background of data that adds-value to that communication.
When we first wrote about this, in the first edition of this handbook,
computer telephony was a developer technology. It was still being
thought out, and built into the core telecom. It needs to be embedded
in the switch, or the switch needs to be open to one or more of the
"glue" products that sit in between the switch and the applications you
want to run ("middleware"). Now, that integration is showing up more
behind the scenes, as products (particularly applications) for call
centers assume a greater degree of CTI readiness on the part of the
switch and the center infrastructure as a whole.
The phenomenon of switch-to-host integration represents a total
transformation of what you can do with a center. Thanks to this
category of product, the most sophisticated call center features are no
longer only available to the biggest, highest-volume centers. Small
companies can now avail themselves of once prohibitively expensive
technology, taking advantage of ANI, DNIS and other network-
provided services to do a lot more with each call. This places them on
a more level playing field with their most mammoth competitors.
Some of the most obvious benefits that computer telephony offers the
call center:
Have shorter calls. Cut hold time dramatically. Speed information to
the

 Page 82
agent's desktop, then to the caller. Reduce your telecom usage costs
(the second biggest expense in a call center).
Have happier customers. Simply put, your reps solve more of their
problems the first time out. And faster.
Make more sales. You have more information about the caller. And,
more important, you can bring the information that's hiding in the
corporate database to bear on that particular call exactly when it's
needed. You know what they like to buy, and what problems they've
had in the past. You can appeal to them on their terms. They don't get
passed from agent to agent. And you can cross-sell or up-sell them
while building their loyalty.
Make better use of staff. Gain efficiencies through blending, and
other ways of creating dynamic, responsive group configurations.
Slow period for calls coming in? Move some of those reps to the
outbound side. A dialer seamlessly starts sending them calls, a script
pops on the screen, a whisper prompt in their ear tells them the name
of the person they're talking to. Presto-no more down time. Now, it's
not quite as simple as that, but you get the point; computer telephony
puts more information-meaningful information, not just raw data-into
the hands of the people who can use it most.
Improve customer service. Put more information into the hands of
the customers, with or without agent intervention. Customers can
often serve themselves. This costs less and frees up company
resources for more complex tasks.
Connect with the Internet, or with company intranets, with all sorts
of multimedia sales and service tools. All of the traditionally
expensive tasks, like order processing, literature fulfillment,
interactive faxing, are made easier through computer telephony.
What Its Used For
Voice response systems are front-ends to the phone system that
deliver recorded information when someone calls. Interactive voice
response is two-way; it responds with information when a caller enters
digits on the touch tone phone. And when that information comes
from a host database, that's CTI in action.
Customers can call at any hour of the day or night looking for account
balances or order status information. The IVR engine queries a
database in the background and reads the information to the caller. In
this way it can be made dynamicinstead of just reading off a set of
canned, pre-recorded announcements ("we're closed right now, please
call again tomorrow" or "to

 Page 83
leave a message for our sales department, press one'') it pulls real time
data out of corporate databases.
When this is translated to the web, the kind of information you can
make available to customers is expanded dramatically. Anything
visual, from catalogs to product schematics, can be dropped onto a
customer (or agent) desktop. Customers can help themselves when
problems arise. They can learn about your products before they buy.
And when it comes time to talk to an agent, they are better prepared;
so the call is shorter, more effective, and more profitable. The
"shopper" does his shopping without consuming your most valuable
resources. But the buyer gets your full attention.
CTI is an information delivery tool. It won't make a seller out of
someone with no sales ability, but it will give someone who deals
with customers the knowledge they need to address the needs of the
customer.
For starters, a customer record is brought to the agent's desktop at the
same time as the customer's voice arrives on the phone. The caller can
be identified in many ways, including the information that travels with
the tollfree call, or through digits entered by the caller himself. When
the agent has the customer information in front of him, the call doesn't
last as long. The customer doesn't have to repeat himself every time
the call is transferred. And the agent sees the entire history of the
relationship with that customer. If the customer has a history of
problems, the rep will know about it. And if the customer has a
million dollar lifetime value to the company, the rep will know that
too.
Better still, if that caller is really a million dollar value, the CTI
system will know it before the rep will, and can be set up to send the
call directly to someone equipped with the experience to handle
priority customers.
Another way CTI helps is with quality control. In call centers, calls
are often monitoredrecorded and archived so that the agent and his or
her supervisor can listen to them later and assess performance.
That analysis process is made much more productive when it's
augmented by the data that passes through the agent's screen during
the call. A complete record of every transaction can be kept
indefinitely, including every screen viewed by the agent. This "screen
scrape" is an audit trail and a training tool.
All these things help a company cut operating costs by reducing (or
stabilizing) support staff headcount. A company can be more
productive with the same staff by handling more calls (or customers,
or transactions, depending on which metric is most important to
them).

 Page 84
And most important, it lets a smaller company look like a big
onewithout sacrificing the personal touch. Customers don't care how
big a company is, they care about what kind of response they get
when they call or contact that company. If they get good service from
Federal Express or L.L. Bean, they're going to learn to expect it from
every other business they deal with, no matter how large. CTI
applications allow companies to appear more fully outfitted than they
really are. This could mean putting systems in place to answer calls
during off hours when no agents are available, or having a web site
take orders at all hours. In any of these cases, the underlying
technology that links the computer networks and the telecom systems
enables the small company to decide for itself how to manage its
customer relationships.
A call center that uses computer telephony knows who its customers
are and why they are calling. It knows what they like, what they
dislike, and how much they are worth to the company. On the other
hand, without computer telephony every customer interaction is like a
blind datefull of expectation, and possibly, frustration.
CTI lets a company respond faster to changing market conditions. But
it must be implemented correctly: with clear and ongoing support
from upper management and a clear-eyed view of the company's goals
for the technology.
For a company to put computer telephony into place requires that they
determine, from end to end, exactly what they want a customer
interaction to be like. Every contingency must be accounted for:
phone calls; e-mails; fax requests; even web hits. Far too many
companies have had disappointing results because they didn't put in
the computer telephony they needed; they put in the technology they
imagined. The right CTI is the mix of applications and core
technologies that add value to the company's existing operations, and
allow it to do more: voice mail, unified messaging, advanced call
routing, fax redirection, internet telephony, call center apps, customer
service software, sales force automation, whatever combination is
most useful in their particular circumstances. The key is to figure out
which pieces are right for which circumstances.
There are many ways to make it work. There are also many places to
go for expert advice. Component vendors start the process, and often
point the way to application partners who's product works with the
core pieces. Telcos and other large service providers can also provide
an umbrella under which integrations between all the pieces are
certified to work correctly. There are systems integrators, who
specialize in matching the various pieces to the custom

 Page 85
needs of a particular company, or vertical industry.
Whichever direction, the growing company needs upper management
buy-in, direction on the goals of the project, and a clear-eyed view of
the relationship between the company and its customers.
The Call Center Jigsaw Puzzle
Putting the pieces of a CTI system together involves an amazing
degree of coordination between products and vendors at several
levels.
The bottom layer consists of the fundamental hardware and
conjunctive elements: the boards that process the voice and data
channels; the servers and networks, often ruggedized to reflect the
mission criticality of what they are used for; and the standards and
open APIs that link different vendors' equipment together. The most
common boards used in CTI systems are from manufacturers like
Dialogic, Natural Microsystems, Lucent, Brooktrout and several other
specialty companies, depending on the application.
Parallel to that sits the dual networking infrastructures: the phone
switches and the data networks. The phone switches are usually PBXs
or dedicated high-volume call routing switches called "automatic call
distributors," or ACDs. Phone service is also a core component. Not
just because it's an obvious necessity, but because increasingly, the
carrier networks are being upgraded to deliver advanced call
processing services through the network. Sometimes this works
directly to the advantage of the smaller businessif messaging or call
routing applications can be run from the network, you need to invest
less in premise-based equipment. You can implement "high touch"
services like call centers without spending so much on high tech
infrastructure.
The data networking infrastructure, like the phone system, is probably
already in place: LANs, intranets, external Internet connections and
web sites, desktop browsers and firewalls.
Between these two networking areas lies the middleware layer. The
products in this category are what most people think of when they say
CTIthe very specialized applications that draw data out of host
systems and coordinate it with incoming telephony information, then
format it for both sides. Originally, many of these products focused on
coordinating between a single vendor's switch and a single host
format. As a rule of thumb, the older and more widespread the
databases, the more important (and more complex, and customized)
the middleware has to be. This has accounted for a lot of the tension
surrounding the installation of CTI. For companies with decades-old

 Page 86
legacy systems and extremely customized databases, installing CTI
meant that to achieve any of the benefits, you had to go through a
trying period of intimate customization between the switch and the
database.
Increasingly, middleware connectivity is being sold as part of the
switch, and middleware companies themselves are being acquired by
larger companies above and below them on the CTI component chain.
The next level of product in the CTI hierarchy is the application layer.
This is the software that actually does the things that make people
more productive, things like messaging or speech recognition,
automating sales forces or taking orders through the web. It's a good
idea, when pondering a transition to CTI, to start here, with a concrete
idea of what you want the system to accomplish. It's akin to buying a
PC based on what kind of application you want to run. You pick out
the spreadsheet and word processor that has the features you need,
then buy a PC that makes those features work best. CTI is no
different. The best approach is to identify the applications that suit
your business and then build up and down to integrate those apps with
the infrastructure you already have.
Along with these layers of technology come the consulting services
and systems integration know-how that ties it all together. For the
most part, CTI is not an off-the-shelf accomplishment. It does require
intimate connections between different technical realmsthat are
usually managed by different people, with different sets of priorities.
How to Make It Work
There's no way to tell you everything that can go wrong (or right) with
a CTI install. There are so many things that can't be anticipated by
outsiders, which is another key reason why you want to have an
internally directed plan, rather than handing everything over to a
consultant or a systems integrator.
Many companies need help defining the scope of what CTI should do
in a business context (not just from a technical point of view). That
help can come in the form of a consultant or systems integrator, who
typically work with a company to coordinate the entire plan of an
installation, help select the products from the various layers, and if
necessary create any custom linkages or applications to suit the
situation.
Or, that help can come from one of the vendors themselves. This is
more common than it used to be, as vendors have worked hard to
orient themselves in a way that makes more sense to the end-user:
end-to-end coverage of the

 Page 87
entire CTI process, from the component layer through the applications
and service. They often set up umbrella offerings through application
partners, so that a customer can choose from a variety of apps that are
all pre-certified by the hardware vendor to work together.
So use this short list as a tickler, to spark some thoughts about the
kinds of things that apply to your particular business circumstances.
These aren't the only things to watch for and pay attention to; they are
just the ones we hear about most frequently.
Single out the high-volume areas of your call center operations. For a
telemarketer selling stereo equipment, the customer service and new
orders division may field many calls, while the help desk may get a
relatively low load. For a PC vendor, however, the help desk may be
just as inundated, or more so, in the face of decreased sales.
Before implementing any computer telephony technology, you should
define the internal environment. The areas with high volume are going
to have the highest payback when you implement open applications.
Possibly, only one or two of your applications would really benefit
from computerassisted telephony.
The telecom manager should also assess the nature of each
department, to see if the switch-to-host application would enhance or
besmirch the corporate image. (Yes, failure to do this could prove
extremely embarrassing.)
When calling the complaints division, for instance, the caller usually
expects to air her grievances to a live agent. Her resentment and
frustration may only build if greeted by a VRU unit.
LANs, minis or mainframessize up your host solution. For smaller
call centers, a local area network can serve as the entire host side of
the solution. Clearly, the last few years of application development
have shown that a LAN-based or client/server-based application gives
you more flexibility when it comes to importing telephone functions
to the workstation than you'd get with a mainframe.
Of course, if you have a mainframe or mini already in place, you'll
probably work with this existing hardware. You can often use these
hosts as central servers, connected to workstations via local area
networks, combining the flexibility of a LAN with the processing
power of a mainframe.
Pin down the vendor on probable savings and goals. Before you even
think of contacting a vendor, you should evaluate the time it takes to
handle a given call. Only then will you know what your projected
savings might be.

 Page 88
Bear in mind that most applications salespeople are just
thatsalespeople. Get past the vague promises and pin them down on
how much will be saved. Demand detailed projections and scenarios.
Ask to speak to a few happy customerseven among happy customers
you may find some potential drawbacks of a particular system.
If you're fortunate enough to be running a regional monopolya utility
or water worksyou can call colleagues from other areas to discuss any
open applications they may have implemented. If you run a mail order
house, you may have less luck getting your competitors to divulge
their secrets.
Starting over or improving upon the existing order. Many
applications can be integrated into an open CTI environment rather
painlessly.
For instance, you may have an application that calls up customer
profile information by having the agent key in the customer's social
security number. Using ANI, the open application automatically
summons the file to the agent's screen simply by replacing the sodal
security number with her home phone number.
Many open applications, like predictive dialing engines, are more
efficient or economical if purchased as turnkey applications.
Sometimes, it pays to scrap the old order rather than undergo an ill-
fitting adaptation.
Test the waters. There are two ways to test computer telephony apps
prior to full implementation. Dummy applications are available,
simulating call traffic, your workforce, the equipment you plan to
employ, your network services and your application code. You can
also have a test region on the host, where you can run pilot tests while
you're making changes, perform load analysis.
Many telecom managers prefer to phase in the new regime gradually
through such separate testing areas. One way is to phase in with 10%
or 20% of your customer base, then gradually broaden the application
to include the entire base through the call center.
Avoid glitz for its own sake. CTI apps perform some feats so
stunning that even the most sober telecom center manager can get
carried away with the fancy.
Few would argue that the act of automatically shunting a caller's vital
data and his phone call to an agent's terminal before that agent even
picks up can save a lot of valuable seconds in WATS time and agent
labor. All of these precious seconds are lost, however, when the agent
picks up the phone and exclaims"Hello Mr. Brooks, how may I help
you?"
If you call people by name before you give them a chance to introduce
themselves, you're going to waste 20 seconds of your time with 'how
did you know I was calling?"' The result is a transaction three times as
long, and three

 Page 89
times as expensive, than the manual solution.
Don't ignore agent considerations. Weeks before you implement the
application, you should set up a training programcoordinated by the
applications developerto master the system.
As with any introduction of automation, you may need fewer
employees on the jobin this case, agents at their terminals. Perhaps
your budget will permit you to divert customer service reps to a larger
support group or complaint division. You may also be compelled to
reduce the workforce, either through attrition or layoffs.
Also consider the implementation of new evaluation criteria for those
who remain at the call center. If your application incorporates a voice
response unit, for example, the unit will handle most of the simple
inquiries without any live agent intervention. Which means that your
agents handle only trickier, more difficult calls. So you should expect
that the duration of an average call fielded by an agent will increase.
Reality checks. Three months after your application is in place, then
three months after that, you should take a look at how much you are
saving.
Note that while it is relatively easy to calculate lower toll-free usage
or fewer agents needed to staff the phones, other benefits are more
difficult to gaugesuch as how many new policies have been taken out
by insurance customers simply because the agent was able to transfer
both their datafile and screen immediately from the life insurance
division to the accident group.
Often, you'll find you must alter your long-distance contract, your
agent scheduling, even the capacity of your computer plant to
accommodate the changed call processing environment.
From a bottom line standpoint, though, these changes are probably for
the better. Many end users report a nine to 16 month payback on their
investment.
Key Features to Look For
And so here are five key features that you might want to add to your
call center through computer telephony. There are many others, and
the list grows all the time. (That's part of the wonder of this industry.)
Again, these are the ones we see most frequently, that provide
demonstrable benefit to the companies that implement them. You can
add them by adding software that contains them, or as part of a
general CTI overhaul. The benefits of each of them are always the
samefaster and better customer service.

 Page 90
1. Simultaneous Screen Transfer. An agent is speaking to a client. The
agent has the client's database up on his screen. The agent needs to
send the call to someone else for special treatment. Push a button on
his screen, "Who would you like to send this call to?" He types the
name, hits Enter. The call and the updated screen go to the specialist.
Quick Tips
1. Maximize your ANI hit rate by including a secondary
phone number under the customer account information on
your host computer.
2. Reducing headcount through shorter call lengths is a poor
way to justify a CTI investment because there are many less
complex ways to reduce call lengths and headcount is often
not reduced by the amount calculated a head of time.
Make sure you relate CTI to your company's three to five year
business objectives, how you differentiate yourself from your
competition and your customer service strategy. Doing this,
your case to justify the CTI investment becomes all the more
compelling.
3. Typical CTI applications include customer service,
telemarketing, order entry, help desks and emergency centers.
If your application has one or more of these characteristics, it
can benefit from CTI:
Telephones and computers are used to enter, provide or
update information during telephone calls.
Increased personalization during a telephone call has
business benefits.
A targe call volume means a 15 to 30 second reduction in
average call length produces large expense reductions.
 Budgeted staff is unable to handle the call volume.
Outbound agents are frustrated by the amount of time they
listen to business signals and unanswered ringing.
Try to incorporate your existing system into the new one.
Fewer changes for customers and service reps mean grater
acceptance and use.
4. Don't call in the vendors until you have done a thorough
analysis of user requirements. Some vendors are happy to help
you do this, but you may wind up with a set of requirements
based on a vendor's capabilities rather than your needs.

 Page 91
2. ANI/Caller ID Database Lookup. A call comes in. It carries the
calling number. Your ACD grabs the calling number, passes it to your
database over your LAN. As the phone rings on an agent's desk, the
agent's screen pops with a screenful of information on the caller. What
he bought last time. What his problems were. How they were
resolved. What he tried to buy last time.
Automatic phone lookup can shave 15 minutes off a typical callthe
time the agent takes to ask the hapless caller such questions as
"What's your name, address, phone number, etc.?"
3. Predictive Dialing. When your agents are not answering incoming
calls, they could be making outgoing calls. "Last month and the month
before, Mr. Smith, you bought four dozen boxes of paperclips. May
we send you another four dozen?"
4. Other Database Lookups. Many agents are linked to only one
database. But customers always want more information than one
database can provide. A price list. A list of your dealers. Other
machines you're compatible with. How to get the machine fixed.
Layouts of the hotel rooms you're renting.
5. Fax server. Your agent is answering a call for help. Explaining the
solution is too difficult and time consuming. It's easier to say, "May I
fax you several pages of explanation?" Let your fax server send the
pages while you make another phone call. Let your customer follow
the jumping ball on the fax he just received.

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Chapter 7
Voice Processing Fundamentals
Customers demand convenience. They want information quickly, but
they also want specialized attention. And they want to reach you on
their timetable, not necessarily yours.
Voice response assures callers reach the right department without the
need for an agents. Callers like having options. They hate being
forced to wait in queue. Voice processing means you can offer them
options. Depending on the technology you use, they can leave a
message for a return phone call, retrieve information themselves, or
request that it be sent to them.
And the benefits to you are even greater. When you use a voice
processing system, more calls get handled through the system. Instead
of paying your reps to answer every call, they can handle just the
callers who ask to speak to them. Depending on circumstances, you'll
be able to handle higher call volumes with the same number of reps.
Information that an IVR system captures is always accurate. It comes
firsthand, from the customer. By now everyone realizes the value of
customer information. You can use it for cross marketing, surveying
demographics about who your customers are, and so much more.
A lot of information about IVR will be presented in the next section.
IVR is a special animal; it's the key voice processing component in
call centers, worthy of special attention. What this chapter will do is
explain some of the other voice technologies that are available. These
technologies, like speech recognition and automated attendants, are if
not critical, then important for specific applications and industries.
Less than 10 years ago it was possible to go through each voice
processing technology and give an example of a standalone system
that offered that technology. Today's systems are much more
sophisticated.
These days certain technologies are found almost exclusively as
functions

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in larger systems. It's likely that some or all of these are included in
the ACD you've already got, whether you use them or not. (Maybe in
reading this brief chapter you will see the virtue of simple voice
functions and trot out your ACD manual to get some of them turned
on.)
When there is a standalone product, it is almost always aimed at the
low end of the market. But today's voice processing market is also a
place where you can get what you wantexactly what you want. The
hottest technologies are application generation software products,
voice boards and the accessories needed to create ''do it yourself"
voice processing systems.
Here, we've outlined the technologies that are available. In a sense, all
we're really doing is showing you how some core voice technology
(voice boards plus some software logic) can be put to use. There is
precious little difference between audiotext, auto attendant and their
grown-up cousin, IVR, besides power, scalability and feature set.
Under the hood, they are all essentially the same. But no matter what
type of voice system you choose, they all share one common
characteristicyou'll be more productive and will save money in the
long run.
Audiotext
Audiotext is a simple technology. It plays callers recorded messages.
A typical example may be press 1 for store hours, 2 for directions, 3 to
hear info about a latest product. Depending on the caller's selection,
the system would play the appropriate message.
Over the years audiotext has come to be denned by what it is not: it is
not interactive voice response (IVR). An audiotext system is self-
contained and does not interact with a separate computer system.
In call centers, audiotext frees agents from answering simple and
repetitive questions and improves service for callers who need special
help. It also answers callers questions 24-hours a day, seven days a
week without any fuss. This lets you offer your customers at least
some service at all times.
Although audiotext may seem a bit behind the times compared to the
more advanced systems out there, it's a cheap way (cheaper than
advertising) to appeal to a large target audience.
For example, you can use an audiotext system to let callers search
through a database for a house or automobile.
Audiotext can also be used for special promotions. Advertise a small
blurb about your company/product with a phone number. Then give
those who call

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the full scoopincentives to buy, or special offers.
One app we know of lets callers enter their zip code to find out
addresses and phone numbers for the nearest location where they can
get a product or service. Using the system, callers typically hear this
information about a second after entering their zip.
Audiotext is often part of a complete voice processing system with
other options like voice mail, auto attendant, and sometimes IVR.
Standalone systems, once common, have now become part of an
integrated system allowing you to pick and choose the applications
you need. It's pretty hard to find a standalone audiotext system these
days. Most audiotext systems are functions of a voice mail or IVR
system.
Announcement Systems and Messages On Hold
The most basic building block in the suite of technologies we call
voice processing is the announcer. An announcer simply answers an
incoming telephone call and plays a recorded message.
Digital announcers use a computer chip to store the recorded message.
Other systems use tape to store the message, similar to the way an
answering machine does. (Word of advice: stick to digital. Tape is too
delicate, too cumbersome, and hard to edit. Digital is not just the
future, it's the present.)
You can have the system play a message and simply hang up, or ring
the caller through to your phone system after playing the message if
they choose to stay on the line for more information.
Announcers can also work with ACDs to play messages to callers in
queue. You can program a message to simply thank the caller for
holding, play onhold music, or even better, play recorded promotional
messages.
Because an announcer is so simple, it doesn't have the high-tech
appeal of other voice processing technologies. But announcers are
vital to most call centers and many other businesses because they play
music and messages to callers waiting on hold or in queue for a call
center agent.
Call centers turn to sophisticated technologies like computer
integration to save a few seconds per calland may spend hundreds of
thousands of dollars to do so. But few stop to think that a simple
announcement on hold that tells callers to have a credit card ready can
save that same call center five seconds per call at almost no cost.
When choosing an announcer the most important thing you'll need to
decide is the amount of recording time you'll need.

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Automated Attendant
Automated attendants answer a call, play a message with a menu of
options and route the caller to the extension or menu choice selected.
In call centers, automated attendants are helpful in having callers
direct themselves to an appropriate queue. For example, an automated
attendant in a call center might ask the caller to dial one for sales, two
for billing or account information and three for technical support. The
call would then be routed to the correct department or the correct
ACD gate.
Once it was common to find standalone automated attendants. Today
they are usually a part of a voice mail or other voice processing
system. In fact, they are so fully integrated into today's PBX systems
and messaging technologies that you almost never have to worry
about buying this (or any of the voice technologies itemized so far).
These are features of larger scale systems that are still important to the
functions of a center.
Voice Mail
Now this is where you get into specialized technology. Not all voice
mail systems are alike. And they have not (yet) been completely
subsumed into larger boxes (though this is happening at a rapid clip).
A voice mail system answers telephone calls to individual phone
numbers or phone system extensions, plays a greeting from the mail
box owner and records the callers message.
At the mailbox owner's prompting it plays back messages, forwards
them to other extensions, saves them or deletes them.
Voicemail has a different role in the call center than anywhere else.
While it can be used in the traditional sense for call center managers
or upper management, it's most often used to give callers an option to
leave a voice mail message as opposed to waiting in queue for an
agent when integrated with your ACD.
A voice mail system appropriate for the special needs of a call center
should alert agents when there is a message in waiting. If the voice
mail system you choose cannot do this, it's important to create a
system designating certain agents to return voice mail calls when call
volume falls below a predetermined level.
Voice mail is a critical tool for the small center that cannot afford to
staff agents after-hours. A voice mail system won't shut out any
callers. It keeps your center open 24 hours a day.

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How Audiotex Works

Not long ago voice mail was the classic voice processing application
and usually came in a standalone system that was sometimes bundled
with an automated attendant. Today voice mail is usually a part of a
complete voice processing system.
The latest thing in voice mail is "screen-based" voice mail that lets
you call up messages of many kinds on your computer screen
including your voice mail, e-mail and fax messages. More and more
vendors are jumping on the bandwagon to offer computer/telephony
interfaces that put voice mail on your desktop PC. With this kind of
interface you can get information not only about your voice mail
messages, but also view e-mail messages or faxes from your PC. This
"unified messaging" gives you one mailbox combining voice, fax and
e-mail messages. Unified messaging gives you an easier interface than
the telephone keypad. Most unified messaging runs across a LAN and
integrates with your phone system. The object is to have desktop
control over all of your messages, with the ability to retrieve them,
read e-mail messages or listen to voice mail and store and forward
them through your computer or phone.

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Some benefits:
Users can view messages that come in even if they are on the phone.
There's no need for dedicated voice mail hardware.
The user can do all the configuring.
You can move voice, data and e-mail from site to site across
networks.
It eliminates the need to use the phone pad to issue commands.
Previously, telephone-oriented software had to run on systems
connected to ISDN or proprietary digital phone lines to control
features like hold, transfer and conferencing through TAPI.
Active Voice was one of the first companies to put voice mail on the
user's desktop. Their original TeLANphony product bridged local area
networks, telephone systems, voice processing and desktop
computing.
With a unified messaging app, when a call comes in, a window on
your PC pops up and gives you information about the call. With the
click of the mouse you can ask callers to identify themselves, hold,
play a greeting, transfer the call to another extension or ask the caller
to leave a message without picking up the receiver.
As call centers change (and as the web becomes more of a customer
input channel), combining different types of messaging will be more
important, and we will probably see the next generation of unified
messaging applications focus more on serving the needs of the center.
Application Development Software
Getting a voice processing system to do exactly what you want can be
frustrating. That's why call center managers with computer expertise
sometimes create their own systems using a PC, voice processing
boards and application development software (also called an
application development generator, or app gen).
These software packages make putting together a system easier by
protecting you from the lower level computer languages (read: "harder
to use") through graphical user interfaces and object-oriented
programming.
Sometimes a voice processing system will come bundled with an
application development software component, to help you tweak the
system to fit your exact needs.
When should you look into using application development software?
If you are frequently going to modify your voice processing
applicationsay for each campaignthen you could easily benefit from
software that will let you do this yourself instead of waiting for your
vendor.

Developing a Speech Recognition APP
This is diagram shows how Applied Voice Technology's overoll software architecture is organ
layers and modules that encapsulate different functions.
The use of software "objects" allows the software to be quickly adapted to add new functio
support new hardware, integrated with other software and customized for new applicatio

 Page 99
But beware: this is not for the faint of heart. Even the most user-
friendly app gen can be a beast. Quite frankly, creating the workflow
logic of a voice processing application is very different from knowing
how to schedule agents, or manipulate service levels. It's not always
going to work out the way you planned it, and it's always going to
take longer than you think.
Most voice processing systems come with preconstructed apps in their
toolkits. If it's at all possible, try to use those. App gens are wonderful
tools, but the closer you get to off-the-shelf, the better off you'll be.
Speech Recognition
Speech recognition is a lot like IVR, only callers get to speak
selections rather than press corresponding numbers on their phone
pads to get information.
Speech recognition gives callers without touch tone dialing the same
access to information as those with touch tone service. Not only will it
satisfy these callersbut think of the population of callers who need
glasses to dial. These callers won't have to juggle their glasses with
the phone pad to see the numbers they are pressing.
Although over-the-phone speech recognition still has a limited
vocabulary, most systems are effective enough to allow callers to
speak selections such as "sales" "flight number 123," "transfer cash"
or ''order baseball cap."
Speech recognition technology is constantly improving. Vocabularies
keep growing (which means you can program the system to
understand more caller commands). It seems almost all systems are
now continuous speech.
Make sure you choose one that is indeed continuous speech.
Otherwise callers will be forced to pause and wait for a beep after
saying every word or number. Since it's an unnatural to speak this
way, callers may be more likely to hang up or ask for a rep. There's
also an increased chance of the system not understanding every word,
since it's hard to tell speech from silence.
If you already own an IVR system and want to add speech recognition
capabilities, you should check with your vendor. Many of the big
manufacturers like Lucent, Syntellect and InterVoice have added
speech recognition to their IVR systems.
this technology has made tremendous strides in the last few years. It
promises to change the way customers interact with automated
systems, broadening the range of telephony interactions.
There are two distinct kinds of speech recognition, known as speaker-
dependent and speaker-independent. The two diverge wildly in the
kinds of

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things they are good at, and the kinds of systems needed to make them
run.
Call center apps necessarily focus on speaker-independent
recognition. Many people will call, obviously. The human brain in the
form of a receptionist can recognize a huge number of variations of
the same basic inputthere are literally an infinite number of ways to
intone the word "hello." What you want in a call center is a system
that will respond to the likely inputs-the most common words like yes,
no, stop, help, operator, etc., the digits, the letters of the alphabet, and
so on.
Telecom has gradually been accepting the technology in operator
assistance and routing systems. (But not everywhere you think. Some
automated applications that ask users for spoken input, like directory
assistance, are actually just recording it and playing it for the operator,
who inputs it manually-it saves time, but speech rec it isn't.)
Internationally, touch tone penetration is still very low, leaving a vast
installed base of potential callers who can not access IVR. It follows
that these callers are then going to be expensive to process when the
come into a call center because they have to be held in queue until
there's an agent ready for them-high telecom charges from the longer
than average wait, coupled with the cost of agent-service (rather than
self-service).
On the downside, international call centers, particularly those that
serve multiple countries, can field calls in multiple languages. If you
use an IVR front end to have the caller select their language then you
by definition don't need speech rec. These are surmountable problems
that have more do with the operation of speech rec in practice than
with the underlying technology.
Speech rec costs a lot to develop and perfect, but once it's done, it's
done forever. The cost of maintaining it is negligible, and it has little
of the headaches involved in CTI or other "fancy" call center
technologies. Once you tease meaning out of the speech, it becomes
input like any other, just like information entered via the web, DTMF
or spoken to an agent.

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PART III
THE FRONT END
Centers are moving away from the traditional voice-centric environments to
multimedia customer contact centers that can process "calls" regardless of
their point of origin (web, phone or fax) and regardless of their form (voice,
text or image).

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Chapter 8
Interactive Voice Response
If the call center is the front door to your company, then interactive
voice response is the doorbell.
Simply put, interactive voice response (or IVR, as it's more widely
known) is an automated system for collecting information from
callers. It's a customer-oriented front-end for your call center. That is,
it's a computer system that lets callers enter information in response to
questions, either through a telephone keypad or the spoken word. The
caller then gets some kind of information back from the system
through a recorded (and digitized) voice or a synthesized voice. They
can also get that information back through a connected fax system, or
a web site. How the information is delivered is less important than
that fact that the customer can arrive, input and review data at any
time, even when your center is unstaffed.
Whatever you can do with a computer, you can do with IVR.
Customers can retrieve virtually any kind of datafrom account
balances to the weather in Chicago to the location of the nearest
movie theater.
The benefits are vast. The telephone is familiar to everyone. It already
has a world-wide network. Accessing information by telephone lets
anyone interact with the computer from anywhere in the world. It also
cuts down on the need for agentsespecially when repetitive questions
and answers are involved. Not only do you save on personnel costs,
but you are more likely to keep the agents you like, because their job
is less boring.
Used as a front-end for an ACD, an IVR system can ask questions
(such as, "what's your product serial code?") that help routing and
enable more intelligent and informed call processing (by people or
automatic systems). IVR far supersedes more rudimentary
technologies (such as Caller ID) in such applications.
At one time there were no choices in how to implement it. You bought
a dedicated box, integrated it with your ACD and the vendor would
work with

 Page 106
you to design your applications. Eventually you'd be up and running.
So much has changed since those not-so-good old days.
The benefits today? Well for one, the market is truly open. For the
most part, any ACD can integrate with any IVR system.
There are tools you can buy that let you design the system you want,
called application generators, or app gens. These tools are simply
software requiring industry-standard boards. Using these tools
eliminates or greatly reduces reliance on IVR vendors. Such reliance
(and it could get quite costly) used to be the only way to get up and
running or to make program changesunless you had knowledgeable
well-paid programmers working for you. Now set-up has become
inexpensive and almost simplistic.
When application generators first came out, the programming had to
be done in DOS. Now everything is Windows, and development is
graphical, so you don't need to be a great programmer or telephony
expert.
Some of the application generator vendors are even creating full-
featured software bundled with low-end voice hardware (such as two-
port) for under $ 1,000 so you can try out the product before making a
long term investment.
Even if you buy a ready-made standalone system, many vendors have
developed enhanced, easy-to-use developing tools (such as GUI voice
editors) to make it simpler than ever to be up and running, or to make
changes to the program on the fly.
Why You Should Use IVR
This is a no-brainer. This is perhaps the most important peripheral
technology you can implement. Depending on the application, you
can siphon off from 20% to as much as 60% of your calls, or even
more. There's no part of the customer interaction that isn't helped by
the interactivity. The whole thing operates more smoothly because
you've obtained some facilitating information from the caller.
Sometimes that's nothing more than just a call's purposesales or
service, Windows or Mac.
If you can get them to input their account number, you are armed with
a database extract, and instantly you've created a CTI application that
can bring rich screens full of information to the agent desktop.
Or you can deliver that information directly to the caller, no agent
necessary, and improve your cost structure even more. Call centers are
constantly caught between two contradictory imperatives: reduce
costs and improve service. IVR is like a gift from the gods for both
sides of that equation.

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The fact that IVR is bundled with (or easily added on to) almost every
switch sold in the last five years should make it an even easier
decision. But if you still need convincing, here are a few thoughts.
IVR is widely accepted by callers. As the technology has matured,
there has been more emphasis on correct implementation. Like
eliminating "voice mail jail," that annoying state wherein callers can't
press zero and exit the system. When badly designed scripts are
eliminated, callers like the result.
IVR keeps your call center open 24 hours a day. Start from the
assumption that you're never going to be able to hire as many staff as
you'd like. Training costs are high, and with turnover high also, you've
always got to have inexperienced reps in the pipeline. IVR can take
the sting out of that process by giving callers an option during periods
of unexpected high volume. And it's effective. IVR gives caller a nice
impression of your company when they can get information at 2 a.m.
IVR never calls in sick, takes vacations, breaks or lunch.
You can also use an IVR system to make handling calls easier for
agents. One vendor's IVR system lets callers listen to company
offerings, and when they hear something they would like to order or
book, they just say "agent" and the system connects them to a live
agent. Agents then hear an excerpt of what the caller expressed
interest in so they know how to handle the call.
IVR can increase call volume. In one application over a six month
period the call volume handled increased more than five times (from
30,000 to over 150,000 calls per month) At the same time, the number
of messages left for agents remained relatively constant.
As voice processing systems take over more calls, the pie grows as
well. These systems seem to create their own traffic. This causes
problems for businesses that try to cost-justify IVR purchases through
the number of staff positions they will be able to cut, because as an
effective application creates new and better service, people will use
more of it.
It's important to remember, with all this talk about cost savings and
being open 24/7, that IVR can't replace humans, only assist them. In a
welldesigned IVR implementation, you've automated the transactions
that can be easily done, leaving call center agents with the calls that
require human skill and intellect. Some companies have gotten into
trouble by trying to handle all calls through technology. The experts
say that this is just not possible. Some calls will always require the
kind of assistance that only a human being can offer.
Don't have think of IVR as an all-or-nothing situation. Just because a
sys-

 Page 108
tem can do something doesn't mean you have to use it all the time.
IVR is cost-effective. Call center managers tell us an IVR system pays
for itself in less than a year. That makes sense when you consider the
number of questions it can answer without the aid of a rep. Most of
the questions it answers are routine inquiries that would eat up
valuable agent time. With IVR, agents can be left to handle only the
more complicated questions or the callers who request a live agent.
What also makes IVR cost-effective is its flexibility. With most
systems you can start small and just add lines as call volume grows.
It's not uncommon, for example, to find that systems are bundled with
pre-built software "templates" that you can snap together to create
applications which you can then update when your needs change.
It gives callers control. Callers have options with IV R. They can
press a key to reach the department they need, hold for a live agent, or
get what they need without having to speak to a rep. A note of
caution, though: during working hours, make sure callers can get out
of the IVR system to reach a live operator. It's nothing but frustrating
to press 0 trying to get a live voice and instead being disconnected or
forced to listen to voice prompts again.
Not having a live operator available is only acceptable during after
hours. In such a case voice prompts should announce something like
"Thank you for calling XYZ company. While no one can take your
call during these hours, you can press one to hear information on A,
two to get information on B faxed," and so forth. A final prompt
should announce "Press 5 if you would like to leave a message for a
return phone call during office hours. Thank you for calling."
You can create special temporary applications. You can tie your IVR
system into advertising campaigns. Each month you can offer
different specials. Run an advertisement on television, in a newspaper
or even in the yellow pages. Then, when callers reach the IVR system
you can have a menu choice directly related to your ad.
When the special ends, you can return voice prompts back to normal.
The benefit is that a large volume of callers get fast, consistent
information without bombarding your agents.
What to Think of When You Shop
Evaluating various systems? Here are some selection and installation
tips to keep in mind when looking over the vendor brochures.

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1. Telephone interfaces must be compatible between the IVR system
and the phone system, in cases where equipment is to be installed on
site. Some service bureaus offer remote IVR applications. This is a
feasible alternative when direct agent or service personnel contact is
not required.
2. Choose a system that lets you easily add more telephone interfaces
and voice storage capacityyou should always anticipate growth.
3. Line capacity describes the number of simultaneous conversations
the system can handle. This requirement is a function of anticipated
traffic, peak volume demands and the tolerance of the caller receiving
a busy signal or a ringback of more than two or three rings.
4. User interfaces are typically subjectively evaluated during the
system selection process, and are a function of the script and
recordings. Recordings are usually first created by the installer, but
updates are maintained via recordings made after the installation.
Thus, the ease with which the system administrator can manage
recordings is critical. The product should allow high quality
recordings to be made directly with a microphone or telephone set, but
should also support recordings made by commercial studios.
5. System usage reports are critical in preventing a business using an
IVR system from isolating itself from its callers. The system must be
capable of supplying informative reports about the nature and
disposition of incoming calls, such as:
How long did people stay on the line?
How many hung up without making any selections?
What items were selected most often?
How may after-hours callers left messages for an agent to return
their call?
6. Make sure the vendor understands exactly what you want. Tell
them exactly what you want your customers to hear. Check references
so you'll know their history of service and support.
7. Your system should not force regular callers to listen to lengthy
prompts.

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Callers should be able to bypass recordings and skip to the prompt
they want to hear.
Increasingly, thanks to better integration between IVR and the switch,
you can offer IVR as one option to callers languishing in the hold
queue.
For example, Small call centers that use NEC's PBXs for their call
routing can add that company's newest IVR front-end to the mix. Que
WorX is an NT-based IVR system built upon Edify's Electronic
Workforce application development and runtime platform. Que WorX
consists of a number of applications, including one called Queue
Depth that tells the caller how many others are in the queue ahead of
them. It updates their progress as they wait.
Estimate Time to Answer will do just thattell them how long they can
expect to wait based on the real-time call volume. Callers waiting
longer than a specific threshold have the option of requesting a
callback from an agent by entering a return telephone number. The
next available agent will return the call. Que WorX works with the
ACD on both the NEAX 1000/2000 and the NEAX 2400 PBX
platforms.
Working with Outsiders
An alternative to rolling your own IVR is to work with a developer. In
some cases third party developers buy an application generator and
develop an application specific to a particular industry. You can also
hire them to develop the application you want.
IVR front-end services are also available through outside service
providers.
Comdisco and Call Interactive, for example, are hooking up to
provide a service that combines Comdisco's worldwide disaster
recovery capabilities with Call Interactive's IVR services. The aim is
to provide companies with fail-safe IVRso that a company that has to
provide service 24/7 has an external source of coverage.
Banking and financial services firms, for example, perform a lot of
their basic consumer transactions unagented. In those cases, it may not
be necessary to buy full-service disaster recovery services, where the
entire call center is replicated at a moment's notice. Instead, they can
opt for just the backup they need; in this case, the data capture,
transaction processing and basic call routing.
Here are some other reasons to use a service bureau:

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You can start small. If your call volumes are low, the vendor can start
you off with just a few mailboxes or some combination of voice
messaging and call routing.
Your current system has a longer life. Assuming the vendor's products
integrate with your existing PBX (here we're talking about very small
centers), PC-based services and other hardware and software, you can
enhance and expand your current system without starting over.
You are protected from obsolescence. Take advantage of state-of-the-
art technology without locking yourself into systems that may or may
not be appropriate in the future. It is the vendor's responsibility, not
yours, to upgrade systems as new technologies become available.
Application Generators
Perhaps the greatest technological advance in IVR came not in
hardware, but in softwarenamely, the "application generator," or
"automated programming tool."
An application generator is a software tool that lets you produce
software quickly. In response to your input, it writes code a computer
can understand.
Writing an IVR app with only the voice or fax software support you
get from leading card makers can be a nightmare. Try fathoming the
details of controlling cards, queues, OS calls and other excruciating
technical items. Then start dealing with host interfaces, and you'll be
screaming for mercy in no time.
It's mind-boggling. That's why the "mere mortal" subset of developers
buy IVR app generators, software that buffers them from the
troublesome down-and-dirty coding tasks so they can concentrate on
the application itself, respond quickly to an ever-changing
marketplace and make money.
There really are three types of IVR app gens to choose from. At one
extreme is the truly "pure" GUI or object-oriented approach, where
you can drag and drop features into your app. At the other end of the
spectrum you have specialized programming languages, built
specifically for the IVR job, like Parity's VOS. In the gray area
between you find packages that, although not strictly GUI, have one
or more strong "visual" components, such as state-machine tree
structures displayed on screen.
Of course, just because a program is pure GUI doesn't mean that it's
necessarily superior to a non-GUI. The number one key to purchasing
an app gen is always functionality, though ease-of-use ranks a close
second.

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They're great because you don't need to be a technical wizard to use
most of the application development software on the market. The
drawback is that the code they produce often isn't as efficient as the
code a good programmer could produce.
Application generators offer pre-packaged solutions to some of the
basic problems IVR programmers encounter. If you will need to make
changes to your voice processing system often, an application
generator is a handy tool. You won't need to rely on your vendor to
make changes to the call flow. You'll save money in the long run on
vendor service charges when you make your own changes.
Adding On More Features
IVR rarely stands by itselfit's the perfect integration technology for a
whole host of voice and data applications. Add-on features like speech
recognition, text-to-speech and fax-on-demand are becoming popular.
It's important to choose a system with open integration so you can
always add these features.
In narrowing your search down to the best vendor, look at the
application you need, the services the company provides for support
and the image and reputation of the company.
Adding speech recognition is a time saverespecially when you have
several prompts. A caller who knows what he wants to do can just say
''claims department" and be connected. And as the Internet takes on a
stronger role as a call center front end, more and more companies will
be offering access through all kinds of call center/computer telephony
products. Some IVR vendors have already started.
InterVoice offers Visual Connect on their IVR platform which gives
users Internet capabilities to support Internet access to legacy systems
and applications over the net. Users can now see on their PCs what an
IVR system would read to them over the phone.
Perhaps recognizing that the speech front end is going to be at least as
important as the touchtone interface in years to come, speech and IVR
vendors are making hasty arrangements to work together, at least in
presenting their products in an integrated fashion to potential
customers.
Brite is going to act as VAR for Nuance's speech recognition engine,
for example. Nuance's speech rec is good, and is used in some notable
high-traffic applications. Brite sells into some of the same markets,
with large-scale IVR systems for government, financial services and
telecom companies.

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Combining with Nuance allows them to offer the base platform for
frontending the call center without having to develop speech rec on
their own. It gives their customers the ability to choose speech rec as
one option in front of the center, among others that can include
telephony input, web and other CTI-enabled connections.
In a similar vein, Inference and Periphonics entered into a joint
marketing agreement to integrate Periphonics' IVR system with
Inference's new kCommerce Support application. This will also
provide a platform for integrating speech rec systems with a customer
service knowledge base. Customers will be able to receive answers to
their spoken questions when calling for service.
Again in this case the speech rec capability is outside the IVR,
enabled here by Periphonics' integration with third-party speech rec
engines.
IVR companies tend to be very good at connecting with other
companies
Quick Tips
1. Know Your Callers. To develop the best caller interface,
you look at the most common questions, comments and
information your callers request. This should guide you in
determining the types of inquiries you should let your IVR
system handle. Getting a good handle on who your customers
are and the reasons why they call can lead you toward an IVR
system with applications specific to your needs.
2. Use IVR as a way to handle an especially large volumes of
calls for special applications. If Monday morning is your
busiest time, rather than adding staff, use IVR to handle the
extra calls. Or, instead of staffing up for special promotions
and offers that you know will heat up the phone lines,
consider ways you can use IVR to handle the callers who
don't need to speak to a live agent.
3. You should not overuse IVR or overprogram voice
prompts. Think of the application as a tree with branches. Too
many prompts at once will confuse callers, or by time they get
to "press 6 for X" they will have forgotten what one, two and
three announced. Three or four prompts is enough. After
callers press a corresponding number you can have another
three or four menu prompts lead to more options based on
their first selection.
4. Always make sure that during business hours callers should
always be able to press o to reach a live operator.

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for complementary product offeringsrecall that several years ago they
were among the first call center vendors to start building web and e-
mail hooks into their systems, at the application generator level. Not
so that they could start selling web apps, mind you, but so that their
customers could build them for themselves, or connect third-party
service systems (like Inference's) to the end user.
FastCall Enterprise 3.0 is a client/server system that connects a
computer telephony system with frontend IVR (linking, of course,
with Spanlink's own IVR system). Most important in this release is
that Spanlink is including a new version of the desktop middleware,
that critical software component that allows all the pertinent
information to be gathered together into one happy package for the
person who answers the phonethe phone call travels with information
about the caller, which can be gathered from a variety of places,
including backend data sources.
FastCall Enterprise has one nice new featureit deals with what's
known as the "zero out" problem. When callers opt to transfer to an
agent, they punch zero, which can result in the deletion of all
information they have entered into any automated system. Then they
get frustrated when they have to relay all that info again verbally.
FastCall Enterprise passes the callerentered information it saved in the
IVR to the agent along with the call.
This latest release offers features like automated customer
identification and record look-up, storing and retrieving of up to 256
fields of information in the IVR system, call routing, simultaneous
call and screen pop delivery into as many as 99 different Windows-
based applications, re-routing of the data/call and many after-call
work options. It's designed to slide into the infrastructure already in
place in smaller call centers, preserving the investment you already
have in call handling equipment and app software.
They report that the smaller centers they seek, those with 250 agents
or less, make up 70% of the call center market.

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Chapter 9
Speech Recognition
With almost no fanfare, speech recognition technology has made
tremendous strides in the last few years. It's what you might call a
stealth technology-the kind that keep academics and serious R&D
departments busy for years showing incremental improvement, and
then all at once the development reaches critical mass and it's
everywhere, in all sorts of applications. It promises to change the way
customers interact with automated systems, broadening the range of
telephony interactions, and giving the call center a strong new tool in
the front end for capturing customer data.
According to one analyst, the worldwide market for automated speech
recognition products is projected to jump from $ 100 million in 1998
to $ 1.6 billion in 2002. The US market potential for speech-enabled
auto attendant products is expected to grow from less than $ 10
million in 1998 to $ 250 million by 2001.
The reason it is so explosive is twofold-first, the speed and power of
the typical PC grew along the expected curve until it was strong
enough to process speech in real-time; second, the developed
algorithms were steadily improved to allow computers to discern the
appropriate patterns that underlie speech, without regard to accent,
speed of speech or other eccentricity.
Speech rec is starting to gain a toehold in call centers as an
autoselector-a tool that the customer uses to interact with an
automated system to either route himself to the proper person (an auto
attendant or ACD front end) or extract the information he needs from
a host database, à la IVR.
In the short and medium term, the interaction of choice for a customer
wanting information is still going to be the telephone. While they are
migrating to the Internet in huge numbers, call centers will still be
deluged with phone requests for information, service, problem solving
and order taking. IVR is still the dominant way for callers to routes
themselves to their information

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destinations. When you put an intelligent speech engine in front of
that you decrease the chances that the customer will ultimately have to
make use of an agent's time. Costs are shaved and customers go away
slightly more satisfied.
By itself, speech rec doesn't add new functionality to the call center.
Instead, it adds new callers: those with rotary phones, those who are
mobile, those who are so pressed for time that they can't be bothered
to do anything but speak. It then processes those callers using the
same traditional tools that call centers have used for years. The same
benefits flow from speech recognition as from IVR: fewer calls that
have to go to an agent, shorter calls, and more self-service.
This technology generates a lot of excitement in the public because of
its association with things like voice typing, or dialing a cell phone by
voice. But clearly, the specialty applications call centers need-those
that need to be speaker-independent-are more powerful in the long
term, with the potential to save agents time on data collection.
Consider an application created by Nuance Communications for
Schwab's automated brokerage system. When I first saw this demoed
in 1996, I thought it was pretty good: it understood me more than half
the time, and seemed flexible. Now it's even better. And according to
Nuance, it now handles half of Schwab's daily telephone stock quote
volume, with 97% accuracy. With the migration of personal financial
services to the Internet (and with price and service the determining
factor in a competitive industry), giving a customer the ability to say
"I'd like a quote on IBM" instead of typing out some ridiculous code
is a key differentiator.
There are a lot of companies working on applications for this. As
processing power improves and the cost of delivering a working
application drops, it is likely that speech rec takes over as a successor
to IVR as the "non-agent" telephony transaction.
The kinds of input that a speech rec system would have to process are
very well defined-sequences of digits for things like account numbers,
phone numbers, social security IDs or passwords. Or, some apps use
discrete letters for getting stock quotes. There are a million ways to
use it to extract information.
There are two distinct kinds of speech recognition, known as speaker-
dependent and speaker-independent. The two diverge wildly in the
kinds of things they are good at, and the kinds of systems needed to
make them run.
Call center apps necessarily focus on speaker-independent
recognition. Many people will call, obviously. The human brain in the
form of a recep-

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tionist can recognize a huge number of variations of the same basic
inputthere are literally an infinite number of ways to intonate the word
"hello." What you want in a call center is a system that will respond to
the likely inputs-the most common words like yes, no, stop, help,
operator, etc., the digits, the letters of the alphabet, and so on.
Telecom has gradually been accepting the technology in operator
assistance and routing systems. (But not everywhere you think. Some
automated applications that ask users for spoken input, like directory
assistance, are actually just recording it and playing it for the operator,
who inputs it manually-it saves time, but speech rec it isn't.)
Internationally, touch tone penetration is still very low, leaving a vast
installed base of potential callers who can not access IVR. It follows
that these callers are then going to be expensive to process when the
come into a call center because they have to be held in queue until
there's an agent ready for them-high telecom charges from the longer
than average wait, coupled with the cost of agent-service (rather than
self-service). On the down side, international call centers, particularly
those that serve multiple countries, can field calls in multiple
languages. If you use an IVR front end to have the caller select their
language then you by definition don't need speech rec. These are
surmountable problems that have more do with the operation of
speech rec in practice than with the underlying technology.
Speech rec costs a lot to develop and perfect, but once it's done, it's
done forever. The cost of maintaining it is negligible, and it has little
of the headaches involved in CTI or other "fancy" call center
technologies. Once you tease meaning out of the speech, it becomes
input like any other, just like information entered via the web, DTMF
or told to an agent.
That's the essence of speech recognition in the call center-it's a simple
front-end, with albeit limited application. But that's what they said
about IVR ten years ago, and look where we are today.
Who Is Working On What
Nuance is integrating its speech recognition software into the CT
Access telephony API environment created by Natural Microsystems.
What this will allow developers to do is build commercial speech rec
apps into their voice processing projectsso that speech rec moves from
the back room of serious R&D into the hands of the everyday
developer. This promises to open the door to more apps, more
experimentation with speech rec, and

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perhaps more different ways for customers to perform electronic
transactions.
Nuance's system excels at its ability to simulate natural language
processingyou can talk it with less fear of failure than other systems
we've seen. "Natural conversational dialog" (as they call it) is key for
creating working back-and-forth transaction processing, self-routing
and data extraction apps that offer customers a third way between
using the touchtone phone as a computer terminal and talking to a live
agent.
Also, speech recognition is slowly but surely working its way into the
telco infrastructure. One sign is that Voice Control Systems and
Siemens Public Communication Networks have been working to
integrate VCS' speech rec technology into Siemens' EWSD digital
switchthe switch they sell into the telco market. Siemens is providing
a voice processing system that adds speech rec capabilities (in the
form of discrete digit and command recognition) to basic IVR
applications.
For example, users will be able to add speech control to enhanced
subscriber services like call forwarding and screening, and something
that's always popular in the telco industry, automation of operator
services. Siemens PCN has a reported 150 million phone lines using
EWSD technology in the field.
Another application for speech rec is in messaging apps; a company
called Tecnomen is adding speech rec to their Enhanced System
Services messaging platform. Tecnomen, a Finland-based telco
supplier, will be putting VCS's speech recognition into apps focused
on the automated retrieval of voice mail, fax and e-mail messages.
The international component in both these announcements is not an
accident. Speech rec is especially useful in Europe and Asia, where
touchtone penetration is spotty, and the variety of languages make
true, discrete speech rec a key customer benefit.
Giant retailer Sears has turned to speech recognition in a big way,
implementing it in 750 of their retail stores nationwide as part of a
program to redirect calls more efficiently. It's also hoped that this will
help them redeploy almost 3,000 people to other, more productive
tasks.
The automated speech system, built by Nuance, is part of Sears'
Central Call Taking initiative. About three-quarters of the calls that
come in to each of the stores' general numbers will be handled by the
system, for a total of 120,000 calls each day.
Callers, when prompted, will be able to say the name of the
department they want to reach"shoes," for example. The cost of
automating the

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department transfer is much lower than the cost of having an operator
do it. (Reps are available to assist in case a customer has trouble.)
Sears will be able to use this system instead of hiring temps during the
busy holiday season and other peak periods.
The system was piloted at some Sears stores during a recent holiday
season. Development began the prior summer, a fairly quick
turnaround for a system complex enough to stand in for 3,000
operators at 750 locations. Sears integrated the Nuance system into
their existing IT infrastructure; a custom app uses the speech rec
system's ODBC hooks to query a centralized Oracle database for
individual department phone extensions, reducing call transfer time.
This is one of the biggest examples of speech rec being used in
consumer apps outside financial services. When retailers take on a
technology, that's a sure sign they feel comfortable with both the
consumer acceptance and the technical sophistication of it.
Airlines have also been historic early adopters. Airlines have been out
in front in pushing this technology as a way for their customers to get
quick access to a wealth of information. American Airlines has one
such system, which they call Dial-AA-Flight.
The airline's automated flight information system gives customers
data on arrivals, departures and gates. According to American, it
handles approximately 19 million customer calls a year.
AA is moving to add a speech front-end to the system, at first in a
pilot program (no pun intended) that will take 10% of the traffic. This
is not American's first use of speech rec. Earlier in 1999, they rolled
out a similar service to their VIP customers.
(It's interesting that speech, which a just a few years ago was
ridiculously bad at speaker-independent recognition, is now moving
into real world applications from the top down, from best customers
into the general pool.) American's speech recognition system uses
technology from Nuance and Periphonics.
IVR/Speech Combos
And that highlights one other trend: the cooperative nature of the
relationship between speech recognition designers and IVR vendors.
Perhaps recognizing that the speech front end is going to be at least as
important as the touchtone interface in years to come, speech and IVR
vendors are making hasty arrangements to work together, at least in
presenting

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their products in an integrated fashion to potential customers.
Brite is acting as a VAR for Nuance's speech recognition engine. Brite
sells into some of the same markets, with large-scale IVR systems for
government, financial services and telecom companies.
Combining with Nuance allows them to offer the base platform for
front-ending the call center without having to develop speech rec on
their own. It gives their customers the ability to choose speech rec as
one option in front of the center, among others that can include
telephony input, web and other CTI-enabled connections.
In a similar vein, Inference and Periphonics entered into a joint
marketing agreement to integrate Periphonics' IVR system with
Inference's new k-Commerce Support application. This will also
provide a platform for integrating speech rec systems with a customer
service knowledge base. Customers will be able to receive answers to
their spoken questions when calling for service.
Again in this case the speech rec capability is outside the IVR,
enabled here by Periphonics' integration with third-party speech rec
engines.
IVR companies tend to be very good at connecting with other
companies for complementary product offeringsrecall that several
years ago they were among the first call center vendors to start
building web and e-mail hooks into their systems, at the application
generator level. Not so that they could start selling web apps, mind
you, but so that their customers could build them for themselves, or
connect third-party service systems (like Inference's) to the end user.
In the same vein, Nuance is working with Syntellect in a strategic
partnership through which Syntellect will become an authorized
reseller of Nuance products, and both companies will engage in joint
marketing initiatives.
As part of this agreement Syntellect has added Nuance6 to its
SpeechReco Server and IVR systems. Syntellect's SpeechReco Server
is a Windows NT-based speech recognition system with built-in
scaleability. Companies with less complex speech recognition needs
can choose to add Nuance's technology directly to their Syntellect
IVResponse systems.
Previously, Syntellect's systems recognized limited verbal input from
a caller such as "yes," "no" and digits 0 9. With Nuance technology
added, Syntellect customers can create more complicated and subtle
applications for automated call center systems. Nuance6 uses natural
language speech recognition, letting callers speak naturally and
conversationally, without

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pauses between words.
For example, using this technology, a banking customer may be
greeted with "What would you like to do?" Rather than listen to a
menu of options, the customer can reply conversationally, saying:
"pay some bills," "I wanna pay bills," "add payments," or even "pay
two hundred and fifty dollars and sixty-three cents to the phone
company on February 12.''
Brite Voice Systems and Philips Speech Processing are allying to
combine their technologies, integrating the Philips speech recognition
software into Brite's application development environment.
By the end of the two and a half year arrangement, Brite will have
folded Philips' SpeechMania product into the app gen; from there,
developers will have access to both speech tools and traditional IVR-
type voice tools from the same kit. They could then create a call
center application that worked with both types of call flow without
passing out of one development environment and entering another.
Also, IVR apps and speech rec apps will be able to share common
voice storage and prompt generation. It's also hoped that transfer
speeds and capacity will be improved.
IVR vendor Periphonics is hooking up with T-Netix, a company that
makes technology for call processing and fraud prevention. The goal
is to offer voice verification for automated telephony applications-
high security for sensitive transactions, basically.
Periphonics is integrating T-Netix's SpeakEZ Voice Print technology
into the VPS line of IVR systems. SpeakEZ Voice Print reduces the
risk of fraud by requiring callers to pre-record a spoken password and
identify themselves by that same password every time they want
access to the secure system. It adds security, but it also reduces the
costs of already-secure systems by automating the process-when an
agent doesn't have to do the verification, it saves time and money.
The alliance involves porting T-Netix's technology to Periphonics'
own speech processing platform, so that the IVR system can talk to
and interact with the speech rec/verification engine. One of the
catalysts for this hookup is that financial services companies, which
want the security of verified transactions, are major users of IVR
systems like those offered by Periphonics. The connection is a natural
one for both sides; for either one to develop the other's technology
independently would be a waste of time. This will shorten time to
market.

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Financial Services Out in Front

Visa International is betting that "v-commerce," the heinously-named
catchall term for telephone transactions enhanced by speech-
recognition, is a big part of their future. (Thank goodness "v-
commerce" is trademarked, or it might actually catch on.)
Since 1995, they have been an investor in Nuance, and participated in
pilot programs to add automated speech to cardholder transactions-
basic things like card activation, card replacement, and travel
planning.
These are things that, like all good IVR apps, don't need an agent for
the basic, introductory information gathering stage of the transaction.
Only when things get more complicated, or the consumer gets
confused and tries to bail on the automated system, does an agent
really become necessary.
Now Visa and Nuance are working on developing apps for use by the
member banks for customers to self-serve over the phone. Visa is also
joining Nuance's V-Commerce Alliance, an association of vendors
that intersect with Nuance's speech technology.
It's got some important names from the call center field, but it doesn't
have any speech companies other than Nuance. Nuance's speech rec is
as good as anyone's, but it's not the only one, so the impact of an
association like this is in the power of the end-users, like Visa, to push
a particular technology.
Several v-commerce applications are currently available for Visa
member banks including speech banking and automated bill payment.


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Chapter 10
The Web & Call Centers
When the first edition of this book was published, not that many years
ago, the idea of a connection between the Internet and call centers was
theoretical, and not very well thought out. The most common way of
thinking about the issue was to imagine self-support applications:
literally, email-based posting of customer support cases, and the
ability of a customer to search a database of problems and solutions
by themselves.
Just a few years ago, it was possible to talk about the different ways of
delivering customer service without mentioning online support at all.
When you did mention it, it was in the context of CompuServe forums
or company-sponsored bulletin board systems. The Internet explosion
that's brought us Web pages was still a year in the future. That's how
fast things have changed.
A call center is not a place. It is a set of functions. It is the process of
selling to people who are not in the room with you. And of serving
their many varied needs. A call center's primary function is to create
and keep customers.
Right now, that function requires a physical presence, a locationan
actual set of seats filled with people to help customers. Agents that
have access to stores of data about the customers and the company,
and the points of intersection. These people act as gatekeepers for the
two-directional flow of informationas intermediaries and interpreters.
What if those functions could be accomplished without people? Or
with a vastly fewer number of people, so that those who are left are
true experts who add value to the transaction, and who don't merely
funnel that transaction along.
This is the goal experts are reaching toward when they tout the Web
as a useful adjunct to the call centerthe promise of a workforce
deployed in exactly the way that is most useful and efficient.
Customers who solve their

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own problems, who in essence sell themselves, and a specially trained
cadre of agents dedicated to doing what only humans can do.
To some extent, the call center industry has been flirting with this
notion for years, with varying degrees of success. First there was fax,
then fax-on-demand. Want information about our company at 2 am?
Rather than pay to staff off-hours, make information available for
retrieval by the customer himself. It's fast, cheap and gets generally
high satisfaction marks from the customers.
Then there's IVR. It's great for routing calls to agents, shortening call
times, getting people into the right queue, etc. But it also allows
people to self-serve for simple database lookups like an account
balance, an order confirmation or shipping status. Or to diagnose a
technical problem.
Again, the trend is toward providing an automated response to
customer interactions. The reasons are clear:
Automated responses are cheaper than agent-provided ones.
They are always the same for all callers. Two people who call for
directions from the airport to your office won't get different routes
from different reps.
Automation is always available, even when you're closed.
Of course, there is a downside. Some people miss the personal touch.
And any problem or question not planned for in the rules-based
structures of your system requires human intervention anyway.
The Web is the third advance in self-serve automation. It has many of
the advantages of faxit's a dynamic, easy-to-maintain format. It is
available to huge numbers of potential customers. And it surpasses fax
or IVR in one critical area: it has enormous multimedia capabilities
(sound, graphics, video, and more). It is rich in the one quality IVR
lacksthe ability to control applications that require visual presentation
or extensive keyboard output, or both.
Customers can order products. They can download software. They can
read catalogs.
Clearly there is a need for alternate points of entry into the call center.
You can think of the call center as the focal point of a "customer
contact zone" where a lot of interactions take place. Ultimately, as
more kinds of call center applications are developed that bypass the
agent, a given customer will have more choices for entering the zone
and concluding the interaction. Some points of entry may be better for
making a saledocument retrieval by fax-back, for example. Others are
better for customer support, like IVR.
The Web offers an amalgamation of these techniques. Where the Web
first

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began to take hold was with help desks. These smaller centers, already
strained by escalating call volumes, were in the vanguard of agent-
enhancement technology. Problem resolution software frees technical
experts from the drudgery of answering repetitive questions, letting
them get to the business of solving more complex problems. It puts
them in a position to add value to the customer transaction, rather than
merely pipeline a piece of existing information to the customer.
But what about other call center systems, like ACDs? If a caller has a
choice of how to get into that customer contact zone, where will the
switch fit in?
The answer has turned out to be twofold.
First, there is the omnipresent e-mail. (Itself a revolution in
communications technology; if it weren't for the fact that the Web has
pictures and sounds, we would be marveling at the amazing
transformation e-mail has wrought in our society.) In call centers just
the last two years has brought something that's sometimes called the
"Internet ACD" or "E-mail ACD." Bad terms, but they do describe
fairly well what's going on.
What they do is perform the same types of targeted routing that the
telephony switch does for calls. They take large volumes of e-mail as
it comes in, parses out some form of meaning (who is the sender, what
is the subject, etc.), determines whether it can be answered with an
automated response, and if not, sends it along to someone who can
handle it in an effective way. Routing tables show who can handle
what, and how often.
These systems also track and audit the response to those e-mails. So
you can set an organizational parameter, for example, that all e-mails
have to be "handled" within a certain timeframe.
The other major thrust has been a tentative exploration of one of the
Web's major attractions, which is live chat. The idea being that a
customer visiting your Web page would click on a button to initiate a
text chat window, having a semi-real-time conversation with a rep
back at the call center through a text typing session.
There are several advantages to this. One is that a single rep can
handle multiple chat sessions at once, because many of the responses
can be automated. (One vendor showed me a system where a rep
could handle six at oncea recipe for burnout and turnover if ever there
was one.) The other advantage is that it is relatively simple technology
connecting it to a rep's desk, in contrast to the much more complicated
Web callback systems, that attempt to connect a Web surfer to a call
center through an actual telephony connection.

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As you would expect, vendors are closely watching Internet
technologies, looking for ways to integrate their switches with Web-
enabled applications. As one manufacturer suggested, it is when the
consumer can (and does) cherrypick from a combination of entry
pointsfax, e-mail, Web or voice calland expects to switch from one
mode to another during a single "interaction" that advanced ACDs
will need to be tightly integrated with the Internet.
What will happen is that human interaction will be reserved for where
the agents can add the most value.
What We Are Dealing With
Buchanan E-mail, a British consultancy specializing in the use of e-
mail, recently performed a website response survey that attempted to
assess the current standard of customer service by e-mail in the UK.
The Buchanan survey visited 361 website addresses across several
industry sectors, hey sent an e-mail inquiry to each accessible website,
asking general factual questions, taking into account the product or
service offered by the individual sector or specific website. Then they
allowed 28 days from the sending of their email for a response to be
received. Of the 290 successfully delivered e-mails, the surveyors
received a response from 180 websites within the 28 day perioda 62%
response rate overall.
"With a most generous 28 days allowed for response, 48% of all
websites successfully mailed are demonstrably dealing with the
problem by ignoring it," the surveyors report. You can make
allowances and say that the need to deal with high volumes of
customer e-mail runs ahead of a company's ability to do so, that it's
always a surprise how many come in. But the simple fact is that
customers are turning to e-mail for queries at a much higher rate than
anyone expected. Dealing with those e-mails should be a higher
priority than it is. Maybe the call center isn't the right place to do it,
maybe we'll see the development of dedicated e-mail centers. In either
case, it's plain from the Buchanan data that personal responses are, at
this stage, better for the consumer than automated ones.
In any case, however, research seems to show that there has been a
rapid move to integrate the web into call center applications.
According to a recent Frost & Sullivan report, the compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) for this market for 1997 2004 is forecasted by
them to be 110.4%.
They find that call centers are moving away from the traditional
voice-centric environments to multimedia customer contact centers
that can process

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"calls" regardless of their point of origin (web, phone or fax) and
regardless of their form (voice, text or image). This finding is not
exactly news, but it's nice to have data to back up our strong anecdotal
feeling about the way the market is heading.
F&S also find that there has been a proliferation of companies
entering the market since 1998, and this includes companies coming
from both sides of the fence: internet companies and call center
companies. In many cases, these companies are partnering with each
other to leverage expertise in each of these areas.
For the purposes of this study, a web-enabled call center was defined
as one in which there is a system that links a call center to a web site
and enables a web browsing customer to interact realtime with a CSR.
Two-way, realtime communications between the CSR and end user
can be achieved using either call back, text-chat, voice-over-IP, video-
over-IP, and whiteboarding.
What about Internet Telephony?
While it is true that live audio/video Internet products are out there, in
the customer service environment (that is, in call centers) these
products are almost never implemented. At the present time, Internet
telephony is not a factor in this arena, and quality of service is just one
of the many good reasons.
Web/call center combinations are being used in pilot applications, and
often they incorporate a "call me" button on the web page that brings
the customer into the call center for a telephony interaction in parallel
with what's going on over the web. More often than not, these things
initiate an outbound call to a customer-entered telephone number.
The problem implementing IP-telephony based service has less to do
with the network's quality of service issues than it does with the way
calls are routed into the center (the ACD has to be able to send it to
the right agent, and queue it, and report on it) and with the human
issues of how customers wish to get their service. In nearly all cases,
the telephone is the instrument of choice for service delivery, despite
the availability of a web alternative.
One vendor, CosmoCom, is making a go of an IP-based virtual call
center system that blends traditional voice telephone calls with live
internet sessions. It manages and distributes both live calls and
messages, including voice, fax, and e-mail.
CosmoCall supports fully distributed operation with remote agents
and multiple site operation transparently through its IP backbone that
transports

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voice and data. It includes a multiple chat capability that lets CSRs
conduct several concurrent text-based chats, while simultaneously
speaking with their customers over the telephone or the internet.
With CosmoCall, visitors to an e-commerce web site can click a link
to establish a live multimedia connection to a customer service
representative. CosmoCall queues the calls, selects the right kind of
representative for each caller, and informs each representative about
the nature and context of the call.
And on another front, Dialogic recently demonstrated an interface
between Internet telephony and CTI applications. This gatekeeper-
based technology will extend the capabilities of Dialogic's CT
Connect call control software. According to theory, applications will
be able to monitor and control IP telephony calls in the same way they
currently do in traditional telephone environments.
This new technology will allow CTI applications to operate within IP
telephony environments as easily as a traditional PBX.This
transparency between IP telephony and traditional PBXs means that
CTI developers will be able to market their applications for use in IP
telephony environments with little or no change.
The Many Ways to Reach a Call Center
 Used to be a phone call hit a switch, and you talked to an agent.
Now, things are more complex. The call center is still there, agents and all,
but they are augmented by other ways callers can help themselves.
By Web, IVR, fax-on-demandand other things we haven't thought of yet.
The call center is evolving into something that might be
called the "customer contact zone."

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Customers will then be able to use IP telephony in conjunction with
contact management, customer service, and support applications: in
other words, in call centers.
In a standards-based IP telephony environment, the gatekeeper is the
focal point of enhanced call processing because endpoints within its
domain consult it whenever a connection is set up, torn down, or
changed. During call setup, for example, a gatekeeper handles
functions such as bandwidth allocation, address translation, access
permission, and call routing.
Dialogic expects to offer this gatekeeper technology as a CT-Connect
component later this year. The company is also working with
providers of commercial gatekeeper products and operators of public
IP telephony networks to incorporate this important CTI
interconnection technology into their offerings.
The Connections in Practice
A book is not the perfect place to talk about such a dynamic and fast-
changing subject as the relationship between call centers and the
Internet. (One way to stay current is to visit the website we maintain
for this very purpose, the Call Center News Service, at
www.callcenternews.com.)
In any case, one way to see the impact of the changes, is through the
flurry of products that have come out recently, and the changing
relationships between companies as they cross from one product
category to another.
For example, Quintus and Brightware are teaming up to integrate
internet call handling technologies into traditional call center customer
management software. Quintus' desktop products are being will be
integrated with Brightware's E-mail Relationship Management
System (ERMS) applications, including Contact Center and Answer
Agent.
What this will do for the both of them is allow them to walk into a call
center and argue that they can not only route calls and manage the
customer data to the desktopthey can also route incoming e-mail
traffic and combine the data streams generated by both sorts of input.
A Web-browser-based publishing tool makes collecting and sharing
customer data within the call center, and throughout the enterprise, as
easy as accessing a Web page. Envision Telephony's SoundByte
Enterprise Web Desktop lets centers publish customer contact
information in a browser page format or "web desktop."
The new format simplifies the transfer of customer information from
the call center to the enterprise. Departments outside of the call center
can use

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Web Desktop to get customized access to data necessary to make
more strategic, timely business decisions. The kinds of data at work
here are primarily digital call recordings and call center performance
reports.
Executive management, marketing and product development, for
instance, can track customer response to promotions, monitor service
quality and query customers through this system. Web Desktop is part
of Envision's SoundByte Enterprise call center suite, an automated
call monitoring system that collects and publishes information about
customer contact with a company's agents.
Core elements of Web Desktop include call evaluations and graphical
comparisons of individual versus group performance. Supervisors can
also add training tools, demonstrate productivity reports, publish
department specific issues, and highlight morale topics. For example,
supervisors can feature "agent of the month", incentive programs, and
other events.
VocalTec's new Surf&Call Center lets online shoppers make toll free
calls directly from a web site into any telephone or formal call center.
A Pro version goes on to let online shoppers to speak over the Internet
to call center agents as well as jointly surf web pages and fill out
online forms in a secure environment.
At the CeBit show in Germany (where this product was launched)
Deutsche Telekom announced the extension of their line of toll free
services to add freecall Online, a new app based on Surf&Call.
"This will allow our corporate clients to receive toll free calls directly
from online customers in order to facilitate an increased number of
quality customer contacts from corporate web sites," said Ralph
Ulmer, group leader for enhanced IP services at Deutsche Telekom.
Surf&Call Center uses the same standards-based IP telephony
network infrastructure that carriers can use to target a variety of
audiences with services such as phone-to-phone, fax-to-fax, PC-to-
phone, and Internet Phone Call Waiting.
The SDK also allows system integrators to customize web pages and
agent desktops to support Surf&Call Center's voice and joint data
collaboration capabilities.
The market for web-enabled call center solutions is expected to grow
at a compound annual growth rate of 110% through 2004, according
to Frost & Sullivan stats cited by VocalTec. Interestingly, this product
is aimed squarely at the carrier market and the call centers those
carriers spawn.
Primus's WebPack is a set of tools for creating knowledge bases and
pub-

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lishing them on the internet, complete with natural language search
capabilities. The gimmick is that you're supposed to be able to
complete said knowledge base within a single work week.
The advantage to putting the knowledge out in front of the call center
is simple: customers will use it to try to solve their own problems
before coming to an agent for help. This cuts down on call volume.
(Though we suspect that the duration of the remaining calls would be
somewhat higher, because those calls are likely to be the thorny ones
that can't be worked out using an automated system.)
One early user of the WebPack system reported that for 65% of
customers, the self-service option directly solved their problem.
Another internet front-end product takes a somewhat different
approach. FaceTime's Message Exchange service tries to meld all the
newer modes of internet communicationinstant messaging, for
exampleinto a logical package that can be parsed by a call center.
Consumers engaged in online shopping at a FaceTime-enabled web
site instantly receive live and or email-based sales and customer
service assistance by connecting to the company's call center. The
FME service suite routes, queues, and reports on inbound email and
instant messaging interactions, helping sites prioritize customer
requests and manage service levels.
Most interesting is Instant Messaging Management, enabling
eCommerce sites to manage real-time, live text-based communication
between a CSR and a customer. FaceTime accepts, routes, and queues
these requests to the appropriate CSR, and provides supervisory
functions and management reporting. (A lot of the actual interaction
can be automated.)
The other main component, E-mail Management, manages inbound or
forms-based requests from consumers.
The FaceTime Message Exchange features a real-time monitor that
shows supervisor and managers current queue and agent status. It can
also monitor customer specified service level targets and alert the
supervisor when these targets have been exceeded.
FaceTime is an application service provider (ASP) for internet
customer service. In other words, FaceTime is an online service, not a
product. That's good, because it means you can be deployed in days,
scale up or down and avoid implementation hassles with the IT
department.
And another interesting product is Mustang Software's Internet
Message Center, a product that routes incoming e-mails through a call
center, and

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includes agent and reporting features.
The IMC Enterprise Edition incorporates the ability to calculate
service levels on a pool-by-pool basis in both the real-time IMC
Monitor and in historical reports generated by the IMC Reports client.
Administrators determine the service level goals (the maximum
acceptable time that a customer should wait for a response) for each
pool.
The IMC Monitor and IMC Reports modules include additional
information based on that goal; that is, the percentage of messages
that are responded to within the configured service level goal for each
pool.
This goes a step further in the move to treat incoming e-mail in the
same way you treat calls, from a tracking and response point of view.

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Chapter 11
Video in the Center
By Madeline Bodin
You probably haven't given serious thought to putting video in your
call center. (No, not showing videos to your agents. They really don't
need to see As Good As It Gets at work. I mean adding video call
handling capabilities to your call center.) A year ago, when I wrote an
article on multimedia call centers, even the call center technology
vendors I spoke with weren't very enthusiastic about video in the call
center. They were doing handsprings over internet integration, but that
is another story.
I thought video was overkill myself until I opened an IRA (individual
retirement account). Now, I live in the country-way out among the
cows and sheep. There are people nearby whom I'm sure are perfectly
good financial consultants. But it just so happens that one of my best
friends is a financial consultant. And it just so happens he lives 300
miles away from me.
He's such a good friend that he is licensed in my state, just so he could
handle my account. He mailed me a huge packet of stuff-and then the
fun began.
Filling out the paper work to open an IRA long distance is a
multimedia experience. We sat on the phone with the papers in front
of us. My friend tried to walk me through the forms, and some were
easier than others. I had to fax stuff to him. He had to fax stuff to me.
I had to mail stuff to him. He had to mail stuff back.
Most frustrating of all was not being able to find exactly what he was
talking about instantly as we went through a 25 page report together. I
got lost more than once.
''We need video," I told him. And since he was in financial consultant
mode, he gave me the polite version of "Yeah, right."
I didn't need to see my friend's face as we filled out this form. He
didn't need to see mine. That's the biggest misconception about what
video can do for your call center. Moving pictures of your customer or
your agent are not

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much help in anything (except perhaps a plastic surgery consultation)
no matter what any of the other proponents of video in call centers tell
you.
A video connection lets you transmit anything you can show on your
computer screen, including any sort of form: IRA, catalog order,
medical claim, home owner's insurance, auto loan, mortgage, college
application.
Not only do both parties get to see the form, but they can also both
change what is there. My friend could have circled the information he
was talking about, and I wouldn't have been looking at figures on
another page. He could have highlighted the part of the form I was
supposed to fill out, and he could have seen that I was doing it
correctly.
The faxing and mailing could have been kept to a minimum and the
conversation would have gone faster and smoother. Video would have
even let me transmit my signature on the form.
I would have liked to do all of this from home, but most video
applications revolve around a video kiosk. (Think of something like
an ATM, only you get to sit down. And yes, banks are among the first
users.)
But, I don't want you to think that implementing video in your call
center will be easy. It won't be for a few reasons. The paramount
reason is that video in the call center is still an emerging technology.
Things change daily. Vendors work with completely different
standards and finding someone with experience making everything
work can be difficult.
Among vendors, there tend to be switching experts and video experts.
The smart ones work together, but there are many good solutions
among all the options.
If you already use a sophisticated call center switching system, such
as Lucent's Definity or Intecom's E platform, and you want your video
agents to work from the call center, adding video to the call mix can
be relatively simple.
"At Lucent we are applying all of our experience with routing and
reporting to multiple access," says Laura DiSciullo of Lucent. "Video
calls can be queued, routed and reported just like a normal call."
But, many companies don't want to handle calls these ways for one
reason or another. The biggest reason seems to be that the video
application is the company's first foray into a call center-like
application, and they don't want to spend the big bucks for a
sophisticated ACD that they will use for nothing else.
There are also a few applications (my friend the financial consultant
comes to mind) where the company doesn't think of their video users
as agents, doesn't have a lot of them in one place or has another good
reason for want-

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ing to keep the video "agents" away from the rest of the call center.
If you have just a handful of kiosks, you can handle the incoming
video calls with simple rollover techniques. For example, the
customer at the kiosk might get a busy message and be transferred to
an agent for a voice-only session.
When you have just a few kiosks or other video calls coming in, these
simple methods can work. When you start talking about hundreds of
kiosks, a multimedia ACD of some type is needed. There are several
multimedia ACDs being developed that are designed specifically for
small, multimedia call centers.
With video, you not only have to worry about the technology in your
call center, but also how your "caller" is going to contact you. Some
people believe that PCs equipped with video cameras are going to be
as standard as CD players and hi-fi speakers in the next few years, but
your application may not be able to wait for that day.
It isn't practical to expect everyone who wants to communicate with
your call center by video-to have all the equipment they need at home.
A video kiosk provides that equipment in a public area, such as a mall
or building lobby, or in a semi-public area such as in a bank branch or
even a supermarket.
A video kiosk can be as simple as a phone, a screen and a video
camera, or it can be as complicated as an automated bank branch
within clear plastic walls that includes a computer, an ATM card
embosser, check printer, special paper stocks, scanner, several video
cameras, card readers and comfy chairs.
Believe it or not, before you start considering equipment for either end
of the video transmission you have to give a little thought to what will
carry the signal in between. The basic choice is between ISDN and the
Internet. The most important question to ask yourself when diving in
to a video implementation is if the Internet will give you the
bandwidth you need.
If you just wanted to do talking heads, either could work. The
standard that uses the Internet (H.323) may not be as high quality as
the ISDN standard (H.320), but when you factor in all the money
you'll save by not ringing up ISDN charges each month, the Internet
standard starts looking a lot better.
Those other applications (forms, spreadsheets) also eat up bandwidth,
however and depending on the application, having the customer
sitting there application loads just doesn't cut it.
If you don't like these choices, wait a year. There will probably be
better choices. The trick is not waiting too long. Video today is much
like comput-

 Page 136
er-telephone integration was seven or eight years ago. While there are
some advantages to sitting back and seeing how things work out with
video, there are also advantages to being the first in your industry to
offer a really helpful service. Video is worth a second look.

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PART IV
MAKING SENSE OF THE CALL
If there's one thing that distinguishes the call center today from the typical
center five or ten years ago, it's that we now have so many more tools at our
disposal to assess the nature and properties of the call as it's coming in.

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Chapter 12
More On Computer Telephony
A few chapters ago (Chapter 6, for those counting) we talked about
computer telephony, mostly from the point of view of its history, how
it got where it is now, and what kinds of things it allows a call center
to do.
When we think about a typical call entering a call center, we most of
the time envision that call as an old-style switched voice call, a person
trying to reach a person. But more and more, that voice call is only
part of the picture. Nowadays, the call center is required to deal with
voice interactions (still the primary mode of communication), but also
a diverse range of alternate media: fax, digit input (IVR), speech rec
input, e-mail, web surfing, even voice-over-IP (straight from the
Internet).
The reason that the call center doesn't collapse under the pressure of
trying to make sense of all these inputs is because of the solid
framework that's been built up over the last ten years through CTI, or
computer telephony integration. Starting with the coordination of
simple voice and data, applications have been created that mix the
information lurking behind the scenes in corporate databases with the
split second call processing and switching that brings the voice call
into the center (and to the agent's desk).
This voice/data linkage is what allows a call center to graduate from
something as rudimentary as screen pop to the more complex
activities, like combining e-mail processing with call processing using
the same agent group. Or connecting a web visitor with a call center
rep for a voice call. It's all possible because once you start to combine
the huge resources of the backend with the customer contact
infrastructure on the front end (i.e., the call center, plus the website),
then you're basically forced to examine every input that comes in,
parse it, and figure out what you know and don't know about the
customer originating it. And then you are forced, in turn, to come up
with some kind of organized system for prioritizing, measuring and
analyzing all

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these different kinds of interactions. It gets frightfully complex in
practice. But it's important to see the developing complexity that
results: it's important to remember that if you have a call center and
you decide you want to start pushing e-mails through that center,
there's got to be a way to make sure that e-mails don't sit in someone's
box for a month while they are handling phone calls, and that all 40
people who are handling e-mails handle them according to the same
set of business rules laid down companywide.
To solve these problems, a whole new category of software has
emerged in the last few years, sort of a hybrid between help desk,
customer support, sales force automation, and enterprise resource
planningit's called customer relationship management software, or
CRM. (You might also see it referred to as customer information
systems, or CIS.) We'll get more detailed on this in another chapter.
For now, the point is simply that it's computer telephony, by now a
hoary old term that's almost laughably imprecise, that makes it
possible to connect the front end of the interaction with the data
resources on the back end. And that's how you are able not just to take
a call, but to make sense of that call.
Computer telephony actually makes itself felt throughout the
enterprise, sometimes in unlikely places.
Naturally, it starts in the business's phone system. The core of a
business communication system is usually a PBX (private branch
exchange). It's the switch that connects to the phone lines and the
telecom service providers on one end, and the internal phone sets
(through extensions).
Until the early 1990s, PBXs were closed and highly proprietary. The
only standards they adhered to were telco standards for routing calls
around the phone network. Otherwise, if there was anything special
you wanted your phone system to do, or connect to, you had to go
through the vendor.
Occasionally, a vendor would authorize a third-party developer to
create an application for some special purpose, like reporting or call
accounting. The problem, though, is that every vendor who wanted to
create one of these specialized apps had to create a different version
for every major PBX line. That made them expensive, and it made
upgrading a constant headache.
CTI was initially an effort to open up those PBXs, making them
adhere to certain standards for internal call routing (notably those
promulgated by Microsoft and, at that time, Novell). The theory was
that if all a PBX had to do was pass calls back and forth between the
phone network, it was really not much more than a glorified single-
purpose computer anyway. And a call

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could be seen as another form of data being routed around a network.
Vendors spent the rest of the decade trying to make telephone
switches function more like servers on data networks.
According to Dialogic (which makes component boards used in many
of these apps, and was recently bought by Intel), computer telephony
applications need two types of resources: media processing and call
control. Media processing is the transmission and reception of call
content. For example, a voice response system is primarily media
processing, since it plays voice prompts and listens for touch-tone or
speech responses.
By contrast, call control is the actual creation, tearing down, and
routing of calls, and the monitoring of where calls are going. For
example, a call center application typically routes calls to the correct
service representative and then displays data screens for the
representative when the call arrives.
At its heart, computer telephony is a way of making sure that when a
call comes in, you can take the data that rides along with the call and
look up something in a database based on where that call is coming
from. So as soon as that call arrives, you can know who it is. You can
know if that person is a customer, or not. What kind of a customer he
is. Whether there are any open issues with that person, and so on. No
matter if the person who answers the call is a customer service rep, a
receptionist, a salesperson, or the owner of the companythey all have
access to the same bucket of information.
This allows you to know your customerswhat they like, what they
don't like, what they've bought in the past, how they've been served,
whether they like to talk to you by web or by phone, and most
important, how valuable they are to your organization.
This intertwining of networks allows you to overlay applications like
those new CRM systems. So you can coordinate between the front-
end of the customer interaction, and all the data about customers that
resides in separate islands throughout a company. So you can perform
complex analysis about customers, even to the extent of prioritizing
them in real time, as they callso that you can allocate just the right
kinds of resources to helping them, and no more.
In all, you can act more flexibly, with more relevant information
available when you need it. Increasingly, computer telephony
technology is an enabling technology, letting software companies
create applications that in turn let the companies that use them be
more nimble, competitive and responsive to customers.

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For his part, this gives the customer the freedom to contact you in any
way that makes sense to him, at any hour, for any reason. And doing
so in a way that comes at little or no cost to you. It's not that CTI
doesn't cost moneyin fact, it can be frightfully expensive, depending
on what you hope to achieve. But it allows the cost of any given
interaction to drop. Calls are shorter and more fruitful. More
interactions through "free" means (voice response, web and e-mail,
particularly) mean that when a person does make a phone call, they
are better prepared, armed with more information about their account
or your products.
What makes this possible? Mature, stable computer telephony and
data networking systems that work with a minimum of maintenance
and installation cost, and that remain customer friendly.
Which Raises the Question of the Internet.
Computer telephony products on the market increasingly look to the
Internet as a way of transporting information, particularly as an
interface at the desktop. Call center applications use web browsers as
the tool to retrieve back end information about customers and pop it to
the agent's desktop.
It's also a good tool to use for collaborative customer interactions,
where the customer and someone at the company are both looking at
the same screenful of information. In these apps, the rep can guide the
customer to particular web pages, can track what pages the caller has
seen and can even keep an audit trail of both sides of the screen-based
call.
The dramatic rise of the Internet has spawned a series of sister
technologies to computer telephony called Internet Telephony, which
are concerned primarily with transporting telecom traffic over IP-
based networks, and incorporating more IP technology into existing
carrier networks.
This begs the question of whether we really need computer telephony
in the first place. After all, if the Internet (and its derived intranets) are
really going to replace more traditional LAN-based data networking,
computer telephony may be seen as a transitional technology, to be
superseded itself by something from the data networking side in short
order.
Though this may be the long term future, the fact is that for most
purposes, the traditional CT-enabled PBX is going to be here for a
long time, as the standard tool in the business telecom toolbox.
The Internet, where it plays a role, will be on the data side,
coordinating the flow of information between the front and back ends
of the transaction,

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working in tandem with the data network-aware switches.
Bob Fritzinger, vice president of Voice Technologies Group, says that
small and medium sized companies thinking about buying CTI-
enabled equipment face an interesting choice. "The requirement to
have ultra high reliability phone systems hasn't changed," he says. "So
do you buy conventional networking equipment and wait while the
solutions mature? And while the companies that make them learn
from mistakes?"
Fritzinger says that general purpose IP telephony will mature in two
phases. First, it will make its way into the carrier networks. Then, the
second phase will take it to small business. "You see an increasing
consolidation of all these services into one box. Why buy separate
machines, and deploy your own LAN, when you can go two years
from now, buy a box and vou have a business? If I were starting, I
would focus investment on the data network.
Quick Tips:
1. Get your prospective vendor to ROI your specific purchase.
That is, get them to sit there with a calculation matrix, plug in
the variables, and show you exactly how much money it's
going to save, and when. This can be critically important
when dealing with upper management (when you are asked to
explain why CTI costs so much) and with small systems
integrators, who often promise better results than they deliver.
Having it spelled out on a piece of paper can make all the
difference.
2. Key among the things you should find out about your
prospective vendor is the availabilityand the costof after-sales
support. Installing CTI is one of the most complicated things
you can do to a call center; you're certainly going to need help
with it. And you're going to need to know how much you're
spending on that support before you jump in.
3. Not all CTI is created equal. There are (still) competing
standards, and a great deal of proprietary hardware and
software out there. Make sure you know what standards are in
use in the systems you choose, and that those standards mirror
your priorities going forward over the next several years.
4. Questions to mull: How difficult is it going to be to get
applications for the core platform? Do they have to be
customized? Or are there pre-written off-the-shelf apps
available from the vendor or their partners? The answers
could save you money.

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Treat the telephone net as ultimately disposable.''
The inherent problem that CTI aims to address is the dissimilarity of
the two networks. "Convergence allows for the promise of a smart
network with smart terminal," Fritzinger says. The lesson: don't be a
guinea pig.

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Chapter 13
Telemarketing & Scripting Software
Telemarketing software is a major investment, but the amount of
money saved through increased employee productivity allows the
system to pay for itselfusually within the first six months of use.
No matter the size of your call center or the level of automation, the
right telemarketing software can add productivity to your operations.
Customers get better, more personalized and faster service when your
reps use telemarketing software. Your agents have everything at their
fingertips. They have time to make more calls. It makes follow-up
much easier.
We are talking about software that keeps contact lists, fulfillment
information and buying history. It runs scripts and campaigns, most
especially in outbound sales programs. With most packages, all
information can be retrieved and updated by any of your reps. This
means customers get the same service each time they call, regardless
of what agent they talk to.
Most of these systems are now concentrating on taking the data out of
the call centerallowing managers to track customer information
enterprisewide, and in fact there are some who believe that this niche
is in danger of being subsumed into the newer and wildly popular
customer relationship management category (CRM). There is some
truth to that point of view.
However, there will always be a place, especially in the small center,
and those that are dedicated to outbound calling, for software that
simply manages the list and the dialing. In this case, you are less
concerned with front-end/back-end integration than you are with the
outbound front-end end crunching as far through a list as possible.
Here are some of the things you should think about when considering
what kind to buy.
Scripts. One of the best ways to break in a new sales agent is with a
script. You can create scripts for different telemarketing activities like
sales, follow-

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up or customer service.
Then, agents who move from one group to another (or cover for
another group on short notice) a way to handle calls without sinking.
It's also the most critical way to enforce a consistency of
approachmaking sure that all components of a telesales program are
brought across to the customer every time. Otherwise, there is no way
to accurately measure the productivity of either the program, or the
sales reps.
Software makes creating scripts a matter of flow-charting the answers
to various questions. Branching logic is standard on most major
software packages. From the agent's point of view, he or she reads the
appropriate question off the screen, and selects from a menu of
choices depending on what the customer responds.
TeleScript from Digisoft (New York, NY) includes something they
call SuperScripting: it links to multiple databases at the same time,
delivering information directly into the script and writing it back
during the ongoing conversation. It can also link to a phone switch or
a predictive dialer, so the correct record will always pop onto the
screen. Data can be manipulated so the information is validated before
the call is completed.
SuperScripting includes a fully graphical script editor, letting you
embed any type of graphical image necessary for increased agent
productivity. Menu fields, check boxes, buttons, logos, emblems,
symbols, and images from other programs are just a few clicks away.
Even interactive scripts, with sound-files and video-clips are possible.
Increasingly, "telemarketing" is just one function of much larger
application suites aimed at call centers of various sizes and types. This
makes sense, when you think about it. From a software developer's
point of view, "suiting" allows them to expand the potential market
for their products; if one particular application falls out of favor (as
telemarketing software appears now to be doing), they can de-
emphasize it when selling the suite. Those centers that still need it will
find it bundled into larger, more expensive packages.
List Management. Telemarketing software's other defining function is
the ability to create a calling list from information in your database.
You can use telemarketing software to clean your existing calling
lists. Some programs are able to merge/purge out useless names. Or
you can run the lists against larger databases to flesh out missing
information.
At the very least, a good telemarketing program ought to perform day-
to-day maintenance of the company's in-house lists: customers, leads,
sales, ful-

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fillment This goes hand in hand with a program's database features.
Sales Pipeline Analysis. One of telemarketing software's most
important features is the ability to give management instant feedback.
How many calls turn into sales? What is the return on investment in
the call center?
Managers want to see how these programs are working to produce
sales, so they can correct scripts or change the segmentation of lists.
The software you choose should let you analyze how much time and
money each account costs at each stage of the selling process. That
helps the call center focus on revenue generated from each sale, rather
than just on the number of calls made or contacts reached.
Handle Inbound Calls, Outbound Calls or Both. You may want to run
simultaneous campaigns. Or feed the results of inbound-generated
leads into an outbound calling cycle. If your software doesn't have this
capability, it doesn't have much. At the very least, you should be able
to switch reps between handling inbound calls and making outbound
calls, and you should be able to seeinstantlyall queues, surveys and
scripts tied to campaigns.
Database Compatibility and Maneuverability. Even if you are just
beginning to automate, finding software that works with a number of
database formats is vital for sharing information with other
departments, other companies, even for importing list information.
And while you hope it never happens, if your vendor goes out of
business, or if you decide to switch systems, you don't want to lose
your investment in your database too.
Transaction Processing and Order Fulfillment. Your outbound
campaign is going to be most productive if the scripting system that
convinces the customer to place an order segues directly into a system
for placing and fulfilling that order.
For example, Telemation, a package (modular, like the ones discussed
above) from Database Systems, includes a tool for building online
transaction processing applications. (Online in this context means
"during the call," not the more common Internet meaning of being
connected to the Internet.)
If you've gotten the impression so far in this discussion that this
category is a little stale, you're right. Telemarketing software's heyday
has been here and gone, especially now that outbound almost always
goes hand in hand with inbound telesales, direct response, and
customer service.
There are few if any companies that make software that is only for
outbound telemarketing, and in many ways the category just below
thatcon-

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tact management and sales force automationhas pushed its way up.
Programs like Goldmine, once just a simple tool for helping a single
salesperson get through the day, has evolved into full-blown network-
based, multi-user sales tools.
Companies that specialized in the list management and scripting areas
have by and large reached upward to expand into CRM, leaving this
largely empty of products that do this and this only.
As recently as the early 1990s, it was not unusual to find companies
that made their living selling software dedicated not just to this niche
application, but even to particular hardware platforms like the AS/400
or the DEC system. Those days are gone.
What to do? If you are small and unlikely to grow in function, see if
you can get by with the list management capabilities in a Goldmine,
ACT! Or other lower end product. (I've even seen successful
implementations of Microsoft's Outlook for this kind of application,
though that's a recommendation I'm not prepared to make.)
Larger, and might grow? If you want something that will see you
through several generations of growth, and that you can to very
quickly, something more along the lines of IMA's Edge might suit.
You can also get suites from Cincom, Aurum, Vantive,
Pegasystemslots of companies, depending on the vertical industry you
occupy, your price sensitivity, your sensitivity to having consultants
on premises to set you up, and other factors.
Also note that if you have (or are considering) a predictive dialer, the
choice of software may be a complete non-issueit may already be part
of the package. You can get some good software with the dialing
engine. The dialing companies don't just make high-powered
hardware. Many dialers are now PC-based and come with snazzy
telemarketing software. Look at what's coming out of Davox, Melita,
even Oracle (which some time ago bought a company called
Versatility, which made one of the original PC-based telemarketing
and dialing systems).
Davox's system, for example, offers features like branch scripting, the
ability to make changes to campaigns in progress, a report writer and
Enhanced Recall Queuing. This feature lets reps remain available for
calls on completed campaigns while working on new campaigns.

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Chapter 14
Skills-Based Routing
If there's one thing that distinguishes the call center today from the
typical center five or ten years ago, it's that we now have so many
more tools at our disposal to assess the nature and properties of the
call as it's coming in.
Instead of having to be content with the raw data that can be supplied
through ANI or DNIS, we have a whole tableaux of data-gathering
options at the ready, most notably the customer-entered digits from
any IVR system.
This is important in many respects, because the more you know about
a call (and the caller) the better able you are to respond with the most
appropriate resources. Which in turn lets you handle the call faster,
better, and more productively.
And the best way to do that is to route a call to the agent most capable
of handling that specific callrouting based on an agent's skill or
combination of skills, like language, training, experience, or any mix
of those and other factors.
Routing agents by skill delivers profound benefits to your centerbut
the technique is not without problems. Here's what you need to know
about skills-based routing.
In theory, skills-based routing is a call center manager's dream come
true: always handle the call based on exactly what that call demands.
The agent who deals with the customer is precisely the right person
for the job. It allows you to provide the ultimate in quality customer
interactions.
But there is a flip side. With high quality comes a high price. Because
when you classify agents by skills it can become a nightmare to
determine exactly how many people you need at any given time. The
traditional methods of workforce planning break down in the face of
too many variables assigned to each call and each agent.
Skills-based routing is one of the most requested features in new ACD
purchases. That's not surprisingit gives the center manager much more
flex-

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ibility in assigning agents to groups. It gives you precise tools to
determine that if a call meets certain criteria, it goes to a particular
group or person.
For example, you may set it up so that calls are separated by language.
With an IVR front-end, the ACD can send Spanish-speaking callers to
a set of agents who are fluent in that language. Or, you might send
calls from priority customers to the most senior agents. Or calls for a
particular service to agents trained in that area. There are few
limitswhich is what makes it very appealing. It gives the call center
manager the ability to construct call flow patterns thatmore than ever
beforematch the real needs of actual callers under their real business
conditions.
Skills-based routing is a relatively new mechanism for matching a
caller's needs with an agent who is capable of meeting those needs. In
traditional call centers, agents are grouped into categories: each agent,
regardless of his or her individual knowledge and capabilities, is
organized into an ACD group which is assumed to be comprised of
individuals with an equal level of knowledge and experience. When a
call is answered by that group, theoretically, any agent is assumed to
be equally equipped to handle that caller's needs.
In the real world, agents have very different capabilities or skills. For
instance, a new employee may only have the experience to handle
very basic types of calls. An experienced employee, on the other hand,
may be able to handle a wide variety of call types. SBR essentially
embraces this reality and views each agent as being unique.
It Gets Tricky
One of the obvious downsides is that it is very difficult to manage.
There are simply too many variables that influence the quality of
service experienced by a particular kind of caller and the degree of
utilization experienced by different types of employees.
A fundamental characteristic of SBR is its ability to define and
inventory the unique strengths of each individual. As callers request
specific types of assistance, as defined by a variety of means,
including VRU selections or DNIS digits dialed, SBR matches those
needs with an individual capable of responding to them. In effect,
SBR breaks down the tradition of assigning agents into ACD groups
and views each agent as its own 'group'.
At its heart, skills-based routing is a system for distributing calls that
come into an ACD. Traditional routing is based on two factorsan
equitable distribution of calls among available agents, and the random
nature of incoming

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calls. Skills-based routing changes this somewhat: it routes calls to the
agent "best qualified" to handle the call, measuring "qualified" by
agent parameters you set. The ACD does this in two steps. First, some
front-end technology must be used to identify the needs of the caller.
ANI, DNIS, IVR, speech recognition, even web-based pre-prep. Then
that information is matched against the sets of agent skill groups.
There are two ACD advances that let you run skills-based routing
effectively:
Leaving a call in an initial queue while simultaneously and
continuously checking other agent groups for agent availability;
Or allowing an agent to be logged on to more than one agent group
(in this case a skill group) at a time, assigning priorities to those
groups by skill type.
What is the impact on call center productivity using this style of
routing? It can be significant, especially in call centers where there are
many different types of calls being handled and many different mixes
of employee skills. The impact is likely to be relatively small in a
large call center that handles only a few different types of calls and
has relatively few cross-trained employees.
The Problem?
When you increase the number of options for routing, you naturally
increase the complexity of the calculation involved in figuring out the
optimum call center configuration.
When you want to figure out how many people you'll need on staff
during a particular period of time, or how many trunks, you might turn
to a workforce planner. This kind of software takes known data, adds
your expectations (parameters) and calculates the state of the call
center during the period you need to know about. And it helps you
create the operational things you need to base on that, like work
schedules.
The problem is that most of these software systems have (until very
recently) relied on the Erlang formula for analysis. And Erlang
assumes that calls coming into the queue are random and unknown.
But again, skills-based routing is not based in random and unknown
patterns. It's based precisely on knowing something about the call.
Once you know something about the identity or needs of the caller,
you are moving the ACD's routing away from Erlang. In other words,
Erlang-based predictions won't work well in call centers that use
skills-based routing.
Some software vendors are trying to move beyond the limitations of
Erlang calculations, with mixed results. Pipkins' Merlang, for
example, is an

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attempt to move past Erlang to something that more accurately
represents call center traffic. Other workforce managers from TCS,
Blue Pumpkin and others have tried varying approaches, and there has
been a lot of debate about the use of an alternate and intertwined
technology called "simulation" to overcome some of Erlang's
shortcomings.
Jim Oberhelman of Bard Technologies says that Erlang is not useful
at all in predicting for skills-based routing, because to do skill-routing
you need to know what's in the queue.
Also, he says that predictions based on Erlang overstate requirements
by an average of 3% to 7%, depending on the type of application. In
larger, high volume sales centers, for example (like cataloguers)
Erlang predictions tend to come out very close to reality. But in help
desks, with their lower volume and longer talk time, predictions can
vary quite a bit.
What to Do?
A simulator actually models the center's traffic based on your
parameters. In the case of callLab, Bard's ACD simulator, it generates
random calls, each with identifiable qualities. You can examine what-
if scenarios that explore all the possible skill groups you'd want to
create.
Simulation can help you understand the effects on service level and
cost of your routing schemes. For example, we asked Bard to run a
simulation showing the relative changes in the same call center under
three different routing plans. The center is a hypothetical one offering
sales and service on four separate products. Also, callers can get any
of those sales or service options in either French or English. They
posited 100 seats with a varied arrangement of skills.
That works out to 16 potential skill categories (four products times
two options times two languages). A given agent can be proficient in
any one or more categories.
In the first example, calls are routed traditionallyone call type to one
agent group. Here, the average speed of answer was high, 109
seconds. All the other numbers were also high, but not out of the norm
for your typical call center.
In the second example, calls are routed to the most qualified available
agent using skills-based routing. The numbers are markedly better by
all measures here.
As a control, they also simulated a theoretical maximum scenario:
what would happen if all the agents are assumed to be perfectly cross-
trained to

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take all of the calls and are organized into a single agent group. This is
the highest cost, probably impossible example.
The difference between examples two and three are strikingbecause
they are not that different.The simulation shows that skill-routing is
far more efficient than traditional routing, and not so far off the
impossible-to-achieve maximum.
(Bard's simulations project that to get skills-like results with
traditional groups, you'd have to add 50% more people.)
And the savings are not just in peoplethe numbers for trunk minutes
are even more startling, a key stat for an inbound 800 call center.
It's clear that skills-based routing brings major improvement to call
centers. And it's possible to quantify that using simulators. They are a
good planning and staffing toolbut they are not schedulers. They can
tell you how many people you'll need in given circumstances. But
they can't work out break schedules, or figure out how to slot in
vacation time.
Also, with the increasing popularity (and sophistication) of distributed
ACDs that use skills-based routing to send calls through the public
network to a linked center, managers need better tools to measure
performance.

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Chapter 15
Customer Relationship Management
Customer Relationship Management. In general, it's the art and
science of making customers happy. In practice, it's a relatively new
category of software that combines front-end customer interactions
with all the customer data lurking behind the scenes throughout the
company.
This is one of the most interesting and growing markets out there right
now. It's a confluence of several older software niches (telemarketing
software, data mining/warehousing, help desk/customer support, and
others) that are made more powerful in combination. They are also
more powerful when applied together to the point of customer contact,
that is, the call center.
So how large is this market? According to information supplied by
Chordiant and MCI Systemhouse, the 1997 market revenues in this
category were $ 290 million, with systems integration revenues
accounting for another $ 2 billion. On top of that, $ 3.2 billion was
spent on ''infrastructure"the call center basics like equipment and
middleware that you'd need anyway, whether you were using CRM or
not.
The market is growing at a reported rate of 47% compound annual
growth, leading to software revenues in 2000 of $ 3.5 billion.
CRM is a way of tying the front-end of the customer interaction with
the vast resources of data on that customer that exist in the back (and
usually outside the call center). From a customer point of view, that
means that the agent has information ready on who the caller is and
what dealings they have had in the past. It results in shorter calls, and
better calls that generate more revenue and are more refined and
purposeful. It's only since CTI has become mature that this is really
possible to accomplish on a large scale; until recently, this has been
one of those apps available only to the largest call centers, usually as
an extremely expensive, slow customization. All that is changing as
the technology improves.

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This has gone forward only because call centering has ceased to be an
arcane specialty, welcoming professionals who come from data
networking and IT as well as telecom people. What it takes to run a
modern, top-notch call center requires more in the way of people
skills and organizational savvy than the ability to program a switch.
The goals of the modern call center are vastly different, and more
customer-focused:
Create as many points of interaction between company and
customer.
Minimize the cost of those interactions.
Identify those non-customers who might become customers.
Give everyone outside the company the tools to gather information
about the company.
Gather as much information about those customers as possible.
Provide that information to anyone in the company who can use it.
The key words here are company and customer. The only thing that
matters is bringing together the people with the money and the people
with the product. The call center is the best tool ever invented to do
that. What is not interesting any more is the call. On a low level of
operation, you certainly want to measure calls, because that's the
metric of productivity in a centerhow many calls did these agents
answer in how short a period of time, equals how much it cost you to
run the center.
But what everyone outside the call center is measuring is customers,
and the results of the interactions. The call center's role is shiftingfrom
a place where calls get answered to the place where information is
exchanged.
Precious few call centers have made this transition yet. So many are
still operating according to the old rules that it may seem premature to
talk about this radical shift. But the fact that the technology is out
there renders the point moot-this transition will happen, is already
happening. If CTI is only used in 2% of call centers (a low estimate),
and there are 100,000 call centers in North America, there are still an
awful lot of state-of-the-art centers out there testing new ways of
operating in this data-centric environment. And you know where those
CTI-enabled centers are: hidden away in plain sightyou touch them
every time you call Schwab and speak the name of the stock quote
you want; every time you track a package with FedEx's web site,
whenever an airline calls you to tell you your flight will be delayed.
At America's top companies, the ones that have the most riding on
every customer interaction.
In the ideal world, every customer will be handled as if she is the
compa-

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ny's only customer. Every interaction she has with the company will
be enlightened by all the relevant information about her needs and
desires. All the data she has ever expressed about preferences and
background will be saved, and brought to bear on the interaction
intelligently. It is not simply a matter of collecting data and storing it
in a backoffice database somewhere, where it is reported on and
forgotten. It must travel in two directions. When a company knows
something about a customer, if must use that knowledge to build the
relationship between the two parties. And it must do so relentlessly, so
that the customer reaches the point where she is doing business with
the company because she has so much invested in the company that
it's simply easier than switching to a competitor.
And when you do that for every single customer interaction, across all
customers, whether it comes in the form of a phone call, a web visit,
an outbound telemarketing call or an in-store visit-that is the mass
customization of service.
There are really four ways of practicing customer service. The first,
most basic method, is to treat every call just as a ringing phone-
somebody must answer it at some point. When lots of phones ring,
that means trouble. This is the triage stage.
Then there is the traditional, early '90s method of call-centering-as-
usual. Those phones are ringing? Get an ACD to route them, separate
the agents into groups, and by God we can handle the volume. The
goal of this method is costcontainment.
Then it gets interesting. There is a natural progression from triage to
costcontainment. From there, companies realize that the call center
offers an unprecedented opportunity to gather information, and use
that data in a rudimentary way to get new customers, or sell existing
customers more product. This is the old CTI paradigm: "Oh, I see
you've bought a green shirt in the past, Mr. Dawson. We have a new
line of green shirts, would you like to try one on sale?" Crude, but
effective. What differentiates this third stage of service operation from
the costcontainment stage is the more optimistic view of the call
center as a corporate asset, rather than a cost-center.
Taken to its logical extreme, using current technology, is the stage
four call center: where every interaction is completely customized
from the ground up. Service is designed as a seamlessly integrated
component of the corporate-wide customer retention strategy. It's
reflected in the kind of data gathered and the information that makes
its way to the agent's screen. This is starting to percolate out into the
public consciousness: look at the success of

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Levi's jeans that are computer designed to fit women; or web sites that
let the customer choose how to view them (Yahoo, for example).
Once the processes are designed, the cost per interaction is negligible.
The revenue opportunities are enormous.
And yet, most companies today are stranded somewhere between
stages two and three, between containing costs and starting to think
about ways to add intelligence to their calls. Until they stop thinking
in terms of calls and start thinking in terms of customers, that's where
they will stay.
That's where CRM systems come inthey negotiate the exchange of
information between front and back. They enforce consistency of
message and interaction across all channels of input. That means that
a customer who contacts you via e-mail with a problem gets the same
answer to a question as the person who calls. And when a customer
has both called you and e-mailed you, the rep who handles either
interaction knows about all the others.
And of paramount importance (but not always in the front of the call
center manager's mind) is the ability to parse the resulting information
and make marketing sense out of it. So you can aggregate the
knowledge about your customerswhat they like, how they reach you,
whether they are satisfied with your company's methods, products,
services.
Where Is CRM?
There's no uniform way of presenting CRM software. The vendors
come from all over the product spectrumeveryone wants to, needs to,
get into the act. So you find switch vendors buying or building this
software. And help desk companies trying to shed that label by
extending their software from pure service apps into the sales and data
management area. And more recently, you find products built just for
this niche.
What they tend to have in common is that they are generally suite-
driven, modular, and built to integrate well into other parts of the call
center and corporate structure. So you'll have a module that does sales
force automation, for example, and another that handles incoming e-
mail processing, and yet another for coordinating with the CTI
middleware layer. These are just example, but they show you how
diverse and complicated this type of thing can be. What follows are
some recent product examples; not a complete overview of the
industry, which is impossible in a book (and would be out of date
almost instantly)just a representative sample to show you the direction
major vendors are moving in.

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For example, Aspect is a switch vendor which is desperately trying to
remake itself as a customer relationship management software
provider. For two years now virtually everything coming out Aspect
has had to do with the either the reorganization of their ACD as a set
of modular software-based components, or with the acquisition of
smaller companies that add value to the switching feature set
(Prospect, Voicetek, etc.).
Recently they established an R&D lab and test center at the Microsoft
campus to develop enhanced call center support for CRM solutions in
largescale, mission-critical and distributed environments. The new
R&D facilities there (and at Aspect's California sites) will help Aspect
work on the next generation of its NT-based Customer Relationship
Portal
What is a Customer Relationship Portal? It's a multimedia customer
contact package for managing customer interactions over voice, Web,
e-mail and fax. Or, another way of putting it is that it's Aspect's way
of throwing their hat into the increasingly crowded customer
relationship management ring.
Aspect's CRM software will leverage the advanced call center features
of Windows 2000 and Windows Telephony Applications
Programming Interface (TAPI) 3.0, when released, for third-party call
center control. The Portal deploys distributed or "virtual" contact
centers to route customer contacts to the best resource for customer
service and direct marketing.
The Portal comes equipped with controls to connect to a range of
components including front-office databases and desktops from
companies such as Vantive, Clarify and Siebel.
Pivotal Software, which makes a "mid-enterprise" CRM product, is
allying with Interactive Intelligence to integrate their two products:
Interactive Intelligence's Enterprise Interaction Center and Pivotal's
eRelationship suite.
The two are actually very complementary. One comes from the
telephony and call control side of things (EIC) and the other from the
data management side (Pivotal). What makes them a logical combo is
that they both took an open systems approach to get to this current
point.
EIC is an all-in-one NT-based communications server. It handles all
the telephony functions of the center, including PBX, IVR, ACD,
voice mail, fax server, Web gateway, and CTI middleware system for
organizations up to several hundred users in size at a given location.
Through add-ons, it can perform a lot of the popular web-telephony
stuff that's beginning to percolate into call centers, like text chat and
web callback, and some of the more traditional highvolume call center
activity like predictive dialing and SS7 pre-call routing.

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For their part, the Pivotal eRelationship application suite can be
thought of as customer relationship management focused largely on
the internet side of the interaction.
Putting the two together will allow users to identify, prioritize, queue,
and distribute phone, email, Web, and fax interactions based on
current business data, thus being able to differentiate their customers
to better interact with them.
Point Information Systems' TeamPOINT enterprise customer
management software includes complete integration of all web
channel communication into the platform, web-based marketing
automation, and expanded sales force automation and
internationalization.
Web interactions are now so tightly integrated into the system's
tracking mechanism that a user could capture and track contact and
lead information from web site users, and tie their web site use to
specific marketing campaigns. TeamPOINT provides expanded sales
force automation features for account/territory management, pipeline
reporting and remote access to marketing and sales materials. It's also
got stronger support for Euro and multicurrency transactions than it
used to (Point has corporate roots in Europe.)
TeamPOINT shares and updates e-commerce interaction data across
all channels in real-time, and lets this web communication flow into
the business processes and workflow that manage customer
relationships in other communication channels.
The result: the same escalation procedures used for dealing with "hot"
leads captured in the call center can now be applied to web inquiries.
Chordiant, on the other hand, stresses their ability to provide
personalized service as a differentiator of their offering. The
Chordiant system uses a dynamic model that initially includes 150
customer characteristics, and can be expanded to more than 1,000
attributes to automatically tailor such elements as the product,
promotions, price and service levels based on the needs and value of
each customer.
CCS 1.6 includes additional key features aimed at performance and
scalability. It can integrate virtually all of a company's existing back
office information systems. Using a Meta Data architecture, CCS
retrieves information from multiple external systems in real-time to
map and route data, maintain front-office to back-office persistence,
and workflow-enable applications. Doing this can consolidates several
database transactions into a single business operation.

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Also new, a "closed loop" management system that automatically
guides a rep through a complex series of steps automatically without
the need for training or maneuvering through menus or commands.
An automated workflow engine delivers the right set of instructions
and prompts based on the specific customer request and the business
processes the company wishes to apply to that particular consumer.
Quintus has introduced a call center product suite called eContact that
offers centers a single solution for routing and managing customer
interaction across all forms of electronic and voice-based media. It
manages and routes customer interaction through a voice, voice-over-
IP, IVR, speech rec, fax/imaging, email, web and e-commerce.
Details of each customer interaction are recorded and stored in a
common data repository, providing personalized service based on
actual customer histories.
They cite four benefits to their approach:
It provides access to an expanded customer base by enabling a
greater number of interactions through a wide variety of media.
It manages, tracks and reports on customer relationships across all
electronic channels.
It delivers consistent, personalized service across e-contact/voice
channels.
And it ensures a low cost of ownership with simple administration
and customization tools.
This is a fairly typical explanation of how front-end/backend
integration products are supposed to work, and to my mind signifies
the rapid maturation of this category.
The eContact suite really does de-emphasize the call center, and you
have to look hard to see a roomful of agents in this picture. Instead,
you have a series of modular applets, some used by agents, and some
used by support departments, HR people, inside sales, and so forth.
This is clearly the way of the future, with the call center defined as a
core function of an increasingly de-telephoned customer contact
infrastructure. Over time, these software offerings will extend
themselves out into other realms, like order processing, web
management and e-commerce (this is already happening).

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Chapter 16
Help Desk/Customer Service Software
Your help desk is one of the key points of contact between you and
your customers. It is the place where the customer may decide
whether to do business with you again.
That's why it's important to provide the best, most efficient automated
service you can.
It doesn't matter what kind of service you provideif you've got
customers, central help desks make sense. It doesn't matter what
industry you're in. Whether your customers are internal or external,
help desks have shown they can deliver faster service, quicker
answers, and better follow-up.
Help desks take advantage of all the latest call center
technologiesmore than a third use ACDs to route calls to agents. Half
use voice mail. And most are either using or planning to use problem
management software.
At the most effective help desks, callers are tracked from the first
moment they call in. Call management software systems retrieve
information about who the caller is, and what kind of equipment he or
she uses. Has the person called before? What problems have they
encountered? It's all there, right at the agent's fingertips.
So are the answers to many of the caller's problems. First line support
people have access to knowledge bases of solutions to common
questions. That saves time: the length of the call is shorter. It also
saves money: expert technical support reps (who cost a lot more than
first line reps) only handle the really sticky problems.
Increasingly, self-support is being used to siphon off even more of the
traffic. Many of the good products out there now support web-based
customer access to databases of problems and solutions, the ability to
post and track cases as they make their way through your system, and
integration of phone and e-mail queries about problems.
Clearly there are benefits to automated customer support:
1. You can gather information about how people are using your
products. That

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way, you can identify future avenues for marketing new products, and
at the same time prevent production problems.
2. Maintain accurate inventory records (for internal help desks).
Today's software is better than ever at tracking what people have, and
especially what combinations of equipment they use. Knowing how a
caller's computer is configured, including what software they use,
dramatically speeds the call.
3. Analyze what kinds of calls you receive. Management sees what
products need redesign, or which customers need training.
The most effective help desks are the ones that combine elements of
all these technologies in ways that reflect their own unique industry
and customer base. The best way to make your center into a well-oiled
service machine is to learn from those who've already blazed that trail.
Help desk products range from simple software that tracks calls to
complex problem-resolution engines. Some of the ways they can be
used:
To collect information on how products are used, either for
preventing production problems or identifying future customer needs.
To identify areas where end-users may need more training.
To analyze the types of calls that come in. Management can see what
the common questions are and prepare standard answers to help those
people quickly.
To rapidly search a database for information about that particular
customer. The rep sees what kind of equipment that person has and
any previous questions he's had.
For internal help desks, to maintain accurate inventory and
configuration records.
 To quickly give callers the most up-to-date information on how to
solve their problems. They do this by combining the expertise of
many technical people into a form that the rep can easily access.
What combination of uses and features you need will depend on the
size of your help desk and the nature of the products you need to
support.
Systems generally fall into three broad categories: advisory tools,
retrieval tools, and hybrids.
Advisory Tools
Advisory tools basically tell you what to do. A system like this will
ask you what product you have, and lead you through a problem until
you find a satisfactory solution.

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Key to getting the solution is the knowledge base, which can be any
collection of knowledge about a particular subject. It can be
troubleshooting strategies, or descriptions of how a device works.
You get the information out using simple scripts called decision trees,
or more complex ones called expert systems. A decision tree is like a
flow chartif a certain condition is met, then one answer is found; if
not, you get another.
Expert systems (or knowledge systems, as they are sometimes called)
are more complex. The best way to think of them are as rules-based
systems. If the power light isn't on, then it is not plugged in. You have
if-then rules that aren't connected in any predictive processing path.
They are unconnected, like islands of knowledge. The way they get
connected is with an inference engine. If you have 1,000 rules, and
someone posts a question, the engine knows that there are five rules
that can help here, and it weeds them down. Based on what
information is fed into the system, different rules are selected for use.
The advantage to this kind of system is that it allows virtually anyone
to provide first-line help to a caller. No expert interpretation is
expected or needed from the rep. That can be a downside, too, for
more complex problems that need technical support. Also, someone
must maintain the knowledge base on an on-going basis.
Retrieval Tools
Retrieval tools bring up useful information and leave it up to the end
user to interpret. They also require more skill to use. There are three
major retrieval methods used in most help desk products:
Text search and retrieval. This is the simplest: type in some words,
and the system finds instances of those words in a document.The
problem is that it may retrieve too muchyou may learn 50 different
reasons why a PC won't boot.
Some products have a "bubble up" method, where the most recent or
most frequently used solutions come to the surface. Another approach
is to give people ways to prune the list by putting more constraints on
it.
Hypertext. This is not really a retrieval process so much as a way for
the user to root around in a large pile of information. Concepts and
phrases are linked together. It's used by skilled people who need to
find something in a technical manual, for example. It is not very good
for first-level technical support. But it can be combined with other
methods of retrieval.
Case-based reasoning. In this method, the software searches for an
answer based on the content of a case, rather than a keyword. It needs
more sophisticated indexing and software to match up the problem
with the solution. The

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one big advantage: it learns from experience.
In a case-based system, the knowledge is contained in an external
database maintained externally. If the first level support rep comes
across a problem he's never seen, he can filter it past a more technical
person, then input the case into the database so that it is accessible
next time.
Entering the new case is a matter of data entry, rather than
reprogramming, as it would be with an expert system. Using a
''learning" case system can save you the cost of creating the thousands
of rules you'd need for an expert system.
A knowledge system might lend itself to a help desk where there is a
high level of attrition or low skill, where they need that interaction.
Case-based lends itself to a more mature help desk.
Of course, there is more to the help desk than finding solutions.
Systems allow you to log in a call, track that call, and collect and put
in a repository all the information generated.
The networking component is important.You can disseminate
information outside of the customer service group, to groups like
sales, product management, or administrative.
What to Look For
No two buying situations are going to be alikemost probably you'll be
faced with an array of products that offer similar features, sit on
similar platforms, and that range in price from the reasonable to the
absurd. So here are some the things to think about and to watch for.
1. Adaptability, flexibility, and customizability. It's important that you
be able to change the look and structure of your software to reflect
your ways of doing business. That may be as simple as changing the
titles on fields, or giving the administrator control over user access.
Consider that help desk software must be especially adaptable to the
changes in your product. If you are using a problem resolution engine,
you constantly fine-tune the questions and solutions as they evolve. It
should be easy to control, and to update.
Expert systems are difficult and expensive to set up and maintain. The
best compromise for many people is an indexed keyword system.
2. Advanced reporting. Its reports should be either tables of data or in
graphical form, and they should be easy to create (or you'll never use
them). The only way anyone else in your company is going to get any
value out of the

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information you put in (for marketing or product enhancement, for
example) is if the reporting is simple enough to use often.
Look for reports that show you details of call flow: number of calls,
how they are bunched in time (after a launch or upgrade?) and how
particular agents handle them. Also be sure that the system tells you
how long cases stay active before they are resolved.
The report generator should report on anything that's indexed,
meaning most data in the Customer, Inquiry, or Activity files.
3. A billing system for support calls. A good external help desk
system needs the ability to record how much time is spent with a
customer, and provide some kind of billing module that creates
invoices, or at least a report.
For example, a timer that toggles elapsed time for billing support and
logs it to the system's activity file.
4. Suspensions and overrides. Customer support software ought to tell
you what level of support a customer is entitled to. Likewise, it should
let you know if a customer hasn't paid his or her bill for the product
you're supporting. That way you can cut off technical support after 60
days, for example, if you still haven't received payment.
5. Strong inventory module for internal help desks. A lot of support
has to do with questions like "I'm trying to run Excel and the graphics
aren't coming up." The support person would want to know what kind
of graphics card is in that machine, and what the user's configuration
is like.
6. Solid problem solving. The problem resolution engine is the grease
that makes your support center wheels turn smoothly. Whether you
choose a system that uses simple keyword searches or more complex
rule-based systems, you need to invest time and effort in keeping your
knowledge base updated.
The best way to make your center more productive is to stop
reinventing the wheelwhen someone solves a problem, everyone
should have access to that solution.
7. Attach voice, fax or e-mail to a record. When a customer gives the
first line support person a three or four minute description of their
problem, it would be mighty helpful to store that as a voice message
and attach it to the case record.
The voice record should be accessible to anyone who touches the data
file.

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Anyone who deals with the case, from the first line support to the
technical experts, has the information straight from the source.
8. Ease of use. Easy doesn't mean simple; it means speedier filling in
of screens, agents who are less tired and customers who don't get
asked to repeat themselves. Some things to look for:
Auto-fill fields, where keying in one part of a field (or a whole
screen) pulls the rest from the database automatically, or transfers a
customer's information into a new, blank case form.
Pull-down lists. These eliminate keying errors and enforce
consistency among users.
9. Escalation and case management. Call tracking is one of the most
important aspects of automating a help desk.
Good software will give you reports in graphical format. It will keep
track of how long cases are open, and if you choose, let you
automatically escalate the priority of a case if it exceeds a threshold.
Quick Tips
1. Ask the right questions of your vendors. Make sure the
features you request are features you actually need (or might
need in the future)and that those features really work the way
you want them to. It's not enough just to ask a vendor if his
product is "web-enabled," for example. Many will say yes and
leave it at that, not explaining that there are many ways to
web-enable a help desk. Purchasers should be careful not to
simply go down a checklist of "wants" without knowing how
they want the vendors to approach those wants.
2. Have you standardized on an enterprise-wide hardware
platform, and if so, does that keep you from getting the
software you need? Will it keep some people from having
access to the data collected by your help desk? This is a good
time to evaluate what you've already got (and might want to
change).
3. Don't "dead end'' yourself with closed architectures. Look
for a product that contains DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange).
OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) and ODBC (Open
Database Connectivity) standards, among others.
4. Groupware features can be especially helpful in customer
service software. Especially helpful are features that let users
communicate: messaging, smart routing and forwarding, and
automatic priority escalation, to name a few.
5. Don't let customers use you as a crutch. Make sure you
provide your customer base with adequate training, or a voice
response unit as a front-end to answer routine questions.

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Chapter 17
Dispatch Systems
There are times when problems won't go away with just a phone call.
For all the fancy front-end problem solving call center machinery,
sometimes you still have to send a field technician out to a site to take
care of something. That's why the perfect adjunct to good help desk
software is a dispatch system: software that manages and tracks the
people and cases out in the field.
You don't need 1,000 techs to warrant the cost and maintenance of a
dispatch system. In some cases it can be worthwhile if you have as
few as five technicians. Here are some of the ways an automated
system helps.
1. Automated dispatch figures out who needs to go to the site, based
on troubleshooting experience for that particular problem, and an
analysis of who is available. (And the skills on hand among those who
are available.)
2. It indicates what kind of support is stipulated in the customer's
contract. (Did they sign for 24-hour support, or for a limited period?)
And if integrated intelligently, it can signal the help desk rep to offer
an upgrade to the customer so that they can purchase the necessary
service when they need it.
3. It tells the technician what he needs to bring to the job. The cost of
sending someone on-site is usually significant. You want to make sure
they have what they need and understand the problem ahead of time,
so they don't make a second trip.
4. It knows what the technician did and what to charge for the
services.
5. And dispatch systems can track depot repairwhen a circuit board
fails, for example, the tech replaces it but takes the broken one back
so it can be

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fixed later, or returned to the supplier, or analyzed for quality control.
Dispatch systems are most widely used at companies that spend large
amounts on equipment. Companies that use software and lower-end
hardware often just need parts shipped. On-site engineers are usually
necessary to service higher-end medical or telecom equipment, for
example.
Many companies are building remote phone diagnostics into their
equipment. One telecom equipment vendor, for example, uses
diagnostics so if something is going wrong with their device the
system will automatically phone the help desk. This interfaces with
the system which answers the call, looks into the problem and routes
it to the right person. So if it is 3am, the system as a whole will know
to page someone at home if the situation is urgent.
One of the most important benefits of a dispatch system is its
intelligence. The system automatically knows who to route an on-site
problem to based on information collected by the dispatcher.
Schedules and geographics are things that change dynamically. It's a
lot to ask of a human.
Dispatch systems, at least the ones we are discussing here, are
software systems that automate the process of responding to a
customer call, creating a trouble ticket, assigning a field technician
and later noting when the problem was resolved.
These systems are used by high technology companies (computer
hardware and software and medical equipment companies in
particular), consumer products companies (servicing automobiles,
appliances and more), industrial products companies and internal help
desks.
Dispatch centers have traditionally been independent of either the help
desk or customer service departments, and so are often insulated (and
isolated) from traditional call center operations. This is beginning to
change. Many companies sell a dispatch module separately to serve
these traditional customers, and in fact dispatch is now an intricately
linked part of the customer service software sector.
That's because customer service is holistic. Customers shouldn't have
to cross rigid boundaries to get their problem solved. In the past, the
customer service and technical support departments were separate.
But when companies looked at their operations from the customer's
perspective, they realized they weren't presenting a coherent image.
As a result, we are seeing those functions merge. Some companies are
even changing the name from field service to customer service, or the
"customer satisfaction department."

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The technology being supported by these centers is another force
driving the trend. More and more technical support is being done
remotely, rather than on-site. Only a small percentageaveraging well
under half, and for some companies less than 5%will end in a field
call.
The reason for this is that hardware has become more reliable and
more often supports those remote diagnostics, while software has
become more sophisticated. The offerings of most dispatch system
providers reflect this.
How to Choose
Buying dispatch software is much different from buying any other
kind of software. The main difference is that other areas of business
come with defined standards, but dispatch doesn't.
For example, buying an accounting system is relatively easy, since
there are standards of accounting the package must adhere to. But
each company runs its dispatch center differently. What's likely to
happen is that you will fit dispatch features into a larger purchase of
customer service software, perhaps from one of the new "customer
relationship management" offerings which are very suite-driven.
That's why it is important to get the field tech department supervisors
into the loop early in the process of speccing out what you need from
service software. If dispatch is a module that you're going to need, it's
likely that you'll find it already a part of the help desk software you
want to buy; it's even possible that they'll cobble one together for you
(programming is incredibly object oriented these days) and then turn it
into a new module in the next iteration of the product suite. We've see
this happen.
It's also important to remember that no "off the shelf package will fit
like a glove. There's going to have to be some degree of customizing
done; know in advance how willing you are to do that yourself, in
house, or if you're going to need your vendor to do that for you.
It is vital that the product migrate to new computer platforms and
change with your needs. Ask yourself what platforms are you going to
be using five years from now? (Admitting that five years down the
road is almost the end of time to high-growth technology companies.)
The software, of course, should move with you to the new platform.
The one certain thing in a call center is change. You have to adapt the
product to that change without changing the source code, because as
soon as you change the source code it becomes difficult for the vendor
to support.

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And then you would have to hire your own staff to support the
software, a costly proposition.
The heart of a dispatch system is contract administration, not the
service work order process. Many service organizations have complex
contracts to distinguish themselves from the competition. This
"creativity" challenges the notion of a "standard" product.
Field technician dispatch is an important part of the customer service
and technical support mix. Luckily for those considering purchasing a
dispatch software system, vendors seem very aware of dispatch's role
in the larger scheme of things. This won't make buying a dispatch
system easy, but at least some assurance that the vendors speak the
language of customer service.
Time is precious in the dispatch center. A dispatch system could allow
each tech to handle one more call a day. If you have 100 field
technicians who handle an average of four calls a day, adding just one
would translate into millions of dollars saved over the year.
Quick Tips
Even if you already have a dispatch center, it may not be
worthwhile to staff up around the clock for the slim chance of
a customer calling with a problem at 3 a.m. Yet, think of how
pleased a customer would be to reach a live voice at that hour
assuring her the right person would come to fix the problem.
One solution is outsourcing the overflow. Solution. You can
hire a service bureau for the 24-hour, after-hour or overflow
dispatch service support. They'll screen situations, page the
appropriate technician and automatically route unanswered
pages with escalation instructions to an operator.


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Chapter 18
Order Processing
Order processing systems give you power over your inventory and
pricing. They help you sell more in any given phone call. They take
the guesswork out of the order-taking process.
The work is not over once you've made the sale. In fact, it's just
beginning. The productive call center has automated call routing and
the customer data. Why stop there? %&? Processing orders is the
bread and butter of many businesses. If you are going to spend good
money to deliver good service, you should pay attention to how you
deliver the goods as well.
Yes, order processing software can make your order department more
efficient. Yes, it can help your reps take orders faster and more
accurately. And when things go wrong, it can certainly cut the time
required to search for records of past orders from minutes or hours to
just seconds.
It's true that all the time you'll save using order processing software
could save you money on your toll free service.
While those are all great reasons to buy order processing software,
there is a much better one: The information you gather while taking an
order can help you offer better customer service and increase your
sales.
Software systems make a difference in how you track sales and
manage inventory. They can collect data and show you how well your
products are doing.
It boils down to control: the call center with control of its sales is only
half finished. Here are some of the things you can do with order
processing systems to control the order process.
With many order processing packages, it's easy to generate pick lists
and mailing labels from the data entered on the order screen. This
makes things easier for Fulfillment and means your orders get shipped
faster.
More accurate order-taking means fewer complaints to customer
service. When there are problems, your automated records let you
resolve them on

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the first call.
Automation means that when your order department learns the
address and telephone numbers of new customers, or the new
addresses and telephone numbers for old customers, the information
can be used by your list people for more accurate direct mail or
telemarketing efforts.
Information about which customers are buying which products, and
which customers are due for a re-order, is valuable to your sales and
marketing departments.
If you've automated the rest of your sales cycle but are neglecting
order processing, the time has come to fill the gap. Here's what to
think about when looking for an order processing system for your call
center.
1. Collect data about customers. Like other types of software, much
order processing software is built around databases that hold
information about your callers. They join the call records to the
product records. That makes it easier to see the big picture. It also
helps you deal with calls. It's critical that in the move to implement
high-powered backend/front-end integration systems, the CRM
products, you not forget to connect processes like order-taking and
fulfillment.
If a customer is already on the line, an agent may need to review the
history of that account. This kind of software does more than just take
ordersit enhances customer service. So you can ask a customer 'how
did you like that blouse you bought back in April?' The customer feels
like she is getting personalized service, and she is.
Customer data is also important because it speeds each call. If you get
a record out of the database and onto the agent's screen using just a
name or account number, it eliminates repetitive re-keying of data
every time that person calls. And maintaining a history of previous
payment methods speeds up ordering.
2. Micro-manage your inventory, pricing and product development.
Someone calls to place an order. You should be able to tell them
whether that product is available, when it can ship and describe
important features of it.
Good software tracks the products you sell most (and least). Turn that
information over to marketing and development, so they can figure
out what's working (or not working). For business-to-business users
with regular customers, include details of special pricing plans. The
software you buy should have the ability to calculate volume or
preferential discounts.

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When a caller has a question about a product, how will your reps find
the information they need? Must they exit the order processing
software to get to information in another software system?
It's important that your reps be able to retrieve some product
information right from the order processing system so they can answer
customer questions while taking an order.
As with product information, it's important that your agents are able to
quickly check if ordered products are in inventory, without leaving the
order processing program.
Depending on your company's inventory tracking methods, it may
also be helpful if ordered products are deleted from your inventory
records as soon as they are ordered.
Some order processing software packages have quite sophisticated
inventory tracking functions, either as part of the basic package, or as
optional modules. For example, it's helpful for the rep to know things
like:
if items are available
when a back-ordered shipment should arrive
if you are awaiting drop-shipment or if the item has been drop-
shipped.
3. Use each call as an opportunity to cross-sell or up-sell. Some order
processing systems do double duty with call-management features.
Users can create scripts to increase sales with each order. It's one way
to keep that customer from walking away without buying.
4. Keep track of your sales data and lists. Your order processing
system must have good reporting and tracking facilities. The
information you get out of this software is just as important as what
comes out of your ACD. When purchasing a system, ask what reports
it generates. These are a few important ones:
How much product you sell by source (catalog, ad or special
promotion).
Product profit reports.
Comparison of sales month to month, by product and by agent.
5. Integration with other sales-cycle software. The goal is not merely
to automate the ordering process, but to create a cycle of information
that can increase sales and improve customer service. The ability to
share databases and other information between software packages is
crucial.
If you already have sales or other software in place, it may be more
effec-

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tive to find an independent order processing package that can share
information with your existing systems.
Order processing software now commonly includes features
traditionally found in telemarketing software, including literature
fulfillment and post-sale follow-up.
As data about your products is collected over time, augment it with
information about the customers who buy them. Reorders are critical
to staying in business. Software like this helps you develop controlled,
targeted lists to keep the customers you have.
6. Transfer data to other in-house departments. The free-flow of
information makes your organization more productive. When an agent
takes an order, the entire process is sped up.
The details of the order are added to the customer record. Sales and
marketing benefit. That order is electronically routed to the shipping
department, where an instant assessment of stock takes place. Better
management of inventory and shipping means money saved.
Software links to accounting and accounts receivable mean fewer
errors. No one has to decipher or re-key details from a form when the
data is transferred automatically.
Another benefit is forecasting. Information gets to financial
departments as quickly as orders are placed. They can make more
accurateand more timelyprojections based on daily sales.
If you use an outside fulfillment service, an order processing package
can let you can send them your orders electronically.
7. Telephone integration. The ability to deliver screens of computer
information along with a telephone call saves timeand time is money
when you are paying the freight on toll free lines.
Find out what kind of telephone integration is available with the order
processing software of your choice. It should be easy to find
sophisticated integration features on programs designed for larger
computer systems like minis and mainframes.
8. It should keep track of all the major shipping systems. Whether you
use UPS, FedEx or any other shipper, software gives you more
flexibility.
It should set up each carrier's rate and zone information, necessary
forms and paperwork. And, it should be able to make any updates
behind the scenes, using

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the Internet. In fact, as with any enterprise software these days, the
closer the user interface is to a web browser, the better off you will be
in the long run.
Use inventory tracking features to record the weight of each product.
Combined with the shipper's tables, you can tell a caller the exact
shipping weight, cost of delivery and estimated date of arrival.
9. Interface with credit card authorization systems. Taking credit card
purchases over the phone requires you to verify the authorization of
that sale with the credit company.
Many call centers, with their dozens of simultaneous sales, use a
third-party credit card authorization service. They send credit card
orders in batch mode several times a day and verify them.
Your big decision is whether to go with instant credit card
authorization, which is faster and helps weed out fraudulent orders, or
batch processing which lets you use your agent's time and your
telephone lines more efficiently.
10. All the other little things. Order processing systems contain all
sorts of neat little features to make your agents' lives easier.
For example, make sure it assigns sales tax based on zip code or
county. This kind of thing is especially helpful if you have a corporate
presence in many locations. One nice features we've seen that's pretty
standard now is one that lets agents enter a zip code and have the city
and state fields filled
Quick Tips
1. One way to keep customers happy is to be upfront with the
truth. You should immediately acknowledge back orders or
out-of-stock products. Be as specific as possible about the
actual shipping date.
2. Never fulfill an order without going for an additional sale.
Let customers know about other products or services that
might interest them.
3. There are alternatives to dedicated order processing
systems. For example, you may have already invested in a call
management or telemarketing system that maintains your
customer data. Instead of recreating that information (as some
order software requires you to do), your telemarketing
software might do the job. Or, you can go outside your
organization for order-taking services. Service bureaus can
deliver advanced technology and a broad range of options.

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automatically. It can be a real time-saver.
Browse through some feature lists or stroll through some brochures.
Features like these are not major selling points, so you can miss them
in a targeted search One of these ''nice to have" features might become
a "must" for your operation.
Order processing may never have the flash of sales or the warm-
fuzzies of customer service. But with order processing software, it can
be an important part of your sales cycle, helping both sales and
customer service, and winning friends for your company on its own.

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Chapter 19
Interactive Fax
Fax is so easy, and inexpensive, that you should be using it as an
adjunct to your voice response system. One expert told me (reminded
me, really) that fax is still the second most common source of
customer input into a call center. I suspect that the near future will see
e-mail catch up to and surpass fax. Still, as one of the most ubiquitous
and easy-to-use technologies around, it's a mistake not to deal with
inbound and outbound fax traffic in an intelligent way.
The press of paper-based transaction information is still a huge part of
the process inside call centers. In a sales environment, faxes are a key
ingredient in the confirmation of transactions. Many customers insist
on getting a fax as part of a complex transaction like booking a
reservation, or applying for a loan. And on the inbound side, there are
countless ways that fax becomes part of the equationorder-taking,
warrantee registration and simple requests for service or assistance, to
name just a few.
Fax technology has been around in its modern incarnation for more
than two decades. (Here's a personal anecdote about fax technology:
in 1981 I was working as a young intern at a public television station
in New York. On the night that Anwar Sadat was assassinated, it was
my job to stay late and fax the late wire copy from New York to
Washington DC. "What's a fax?" I asked them. Then they wheeled out
a desk-sized machine and showed me how to push paper through it at
half an hour per page. It seemed at the time like an amazing
technology, but it was a far cry from Group 3.)
The major application for interactive fax in the call center is product
literature fulfillment and technical support. Close behind that are
government applications and catalog distribution.
Interactive fax saves money in quite a few ways. You don't waste staff
time manually faxing out requests. As with IVR, customers don't have
to speak to a rep (cutting phone time) when the information they need
is readily available.

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Fax-on-demand, for example, allows anyone on the outside to call into
your company and request specific information. It gets sent, often
within seconds, to any fax machine the customer desires.
Or, use an outsourcing service bureau to send and receive thousands
of faxes at a time for a fraction of the cost of buying your own
hardware. It's one of the best ways to reach customers with instant
offers or user tips.
A fax server is a network device which allows people in a call center
to keep track of who's asked for what documents. A service rep can
fax any document to a customer right from his workstation. The fax
starts transmitting before the conversation terminates.
Here are some of the ways interactive fax helps call centersand saves
them money.
Fax-on-demand service siphons off some of the call volume,
particularly those that deal with routine inquiries. Also, the
information you can deliver this way is far more detailed than with
standard voice prompts through IVR.
It expands the range of abilities for technical support people at help
desks. You can preempt many questions by using the fax system as a
front end to send callers a set of prepared answers.
If they still have questions, the help desk rep knows that the caller has
already seen some basic information. With some systems, the caller
can request info without losing his or her place in the queue. And the
agent's screen shows what documents the caller looked at.
A sales center can deliver timely, consistent information to reps in
the field. Information like updated prices and product information is
as close to a salesperson on a call as the nearest fax machine.
Fax servers have the unique ability to deliver large quantities of
detailed
Quick Tips
1. It's not enough to simply put documents on the system that
you think callers will want. Unless the fax-on-demand system
is promoted in some way (such as in corporate brochures or
print ads), your prospects and customers will not know that
the system exists and will not use it. Promotion of the system
is vital to its success and must be incorporated into the
company's overall marketing program.
2. Study management reports carefully. They provide
information about which documents are requested most
frequently, how frequently certain callers use the system,
when drop-offs occur, etc. Often they provide vital feedback.

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information, something you can't do in a voice call. Pictures,
schematics, charts and lists all come across better this way.
Information is available on a 24-hour basis, which is great if you run
a technical support service.
You get better billing and control of the information delivery
process. You can keep better records of who requested what, when.
And you know how the amount of service delivered relates to service
contracts purchased.
Going Outside for Fax
Some companies find it's easier to do their faxing through outside fax
service companies. That way, they can take advantage of the latest
technologies without making an investment in expensive hardware.
Here are some things to look for when choosing a provider.
1. Ask the service bureau who their client base is made up of. Are the
needs of their other customers similar to yours?
2. How long has the service bureau been in business? If the service
bureau is new, you might want to hold off until they are established
and recommended.
3. What capabilities can the service bureau's interactive fax system
offer a subscriber? Will all your present needs be met? What about
your future plans?
4. Have the service bureau do an estimate on six months worth of
document delivery based on your company's statistics. If the total
exceeds $ 300 per month, then it's probably better to have your own
fax-on-demand system on site.
This depends on your internal company philosophy and resources, as
well as the degree to which the fax-on-demand system will be
integrated with your call center. A service bureau is a good solution if
you are short-handed on technical expertise or do not want to invest
heavily in capital equipment.
It may be a short-term solution if you are uncertain what size of
system to purchase. Some service bureaus will provide a turnkey
solution, seeing you through the critical period of system turn-up, but
then turning it over to you to manage and operate.
Most fax-on-demand applications require minimal capital investment.
Think carefully about your call patterns. To send out a fax broadcast,
you might want to reach several thousand people in a short period of
time. For

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this type of application, service bureaus are optimal. For fax-on-
demand, however, this scenario is rarely the case. Usually your calls
will be staggered throughout the business day and into the evening. It
may not be critical for a fax to go out immediatelya delay of 10 or 15
minutes might be acceptable if the system becomes unusually busy.
In these scenarios, it is often less expensive to purchase a system
unless there is additional expertise that you require, because ports are
tied up throughout the day as opposed to brief periods of time.
Most fax-on-demand vendors are small companies. Look carefully at
the customer support they can provide and determine if their response
time will be adequate for your needs. This is one additional area
where a service bureau might be of help.
What to Expect from the Technology
What kinds of call centers can benefit from fax-on-demand? Clearly,
since fax is an information delivery system, it's going to make the
most sense where two conditions arise: you have a repository of
complex (and relatively stable) documents that you need to make
available all the time; and you have a customer base that needs to
access those documents in hard copy format.
Why not switch over to the Internet and make everything available
through the web? Well, that's a question that doesn't really have a
good answer, and don't think the vendors of fax systems aren't
sweating that one. The web is better. It has all the advantages of fax,
with some things fax doesn't have, like color, and the ability to
capture information from the customer through forms before feeding
data back. You can even customize the information in the web
presentation, depending on the input from the customer. You can do
this with fax, but it is much harder.
The reason to keep up with fax is that it's still out there in the world.
People do use it, they are comfortable with it, and it can be reasonably
priced to maintain. Total system cost will be determined by the
number of incoming calls and the anticipated duration of each call.
Call duration will depend on how long it takes callers to maneuver
through the voice menu and select their documents, plus the time it
takes to deliver those documents. It's important to remember, though,
that fax-on-demand systems are often provided on a user-pays basis.
You're not paying for reps, and you're not paying the freight for the
telecom, either.
The primary cost of your system will most likely be in on-going
administrative expenses. Therefore, you should invest in the type of
system that offers

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the features and functionality you desire, and focus efforts on
implementing an application that is easy for you to administer, update,
and manage.
If you are paying the freight, offering fax services over a toll-free line,
one way to reduce telephone expenses is to structure the voice
prompts in such a way that the first option is the one most frequently
selected. Try to keep fax images to black and white wherever
possible, since gray-tones take longer to transmit. Using thin lines
rather than thick ones for diagrams will also reduce transmission time.
Test documents before loading them onto your system to determine
how long they will take to transmit. Use sans-serif fonts on documents
wherever possible. Focus on how document updating and indexing
procedures can be automated to reduce your administrative burden.
Often a fax-on-demand system can be cost-justified on the basis of
reduced call completion times. If callers are not connecting to an
agent, usually call durations are shorter. This translates into reduced
toll-free charges and/or the need for fewer agents. Often fax-on-
demand systems can be cost-justified in a period of three to four
months, according to experts.
Traffic patterns may change over time if the fax-on-demand
application becomes a high-volume one. Experienced callers may
delay calls until after normal business hours because they know that
there is a 24-hour fax-on-demand solution. Thus, through time, a
higher percentage of calls occur during off-peak hours, when no agent
is on duty, and hence are answered by fax-on-demand.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there is more to interactive fax
than just document fulfillment. Usually, there are features for fax
broadcast and other "messaging" tools built into a fax server system,
or available as an addon. For example, you might want to retain the
fax numbers of individuals that have retrieved specific types of
information from your fax-on-demand system and follow up with a
notification of price changes, new product availability, or coupon
specials.
Some systems also offer fax mailboxes. These are temporary storage
facilities much like e-mail that can be particularly useful to mobile
workers. They are designed to store incoming faxes until the user
wants to retrieve them. The user interface is similar to that used to
retrieve information for fax-on-demand.
In general, IVR is better for applications in which the message is short
and in which a simple menu can be constructed (no more than three
tiers of prompts if at all avoidable). When information becomes
complicated or needs to be written down, fax is desirable. If in doubt,
beta test both applications and then determine the results. Some
centers offer callers a choice of fax-on-

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demand or voice-based information. One example is retrieval of
laboratory test results. If the caller is familiar with medical
terminology, IVR will suffice; if not, fax-on-demand is a better
alternative. The caller decides which technology she is more
comfortable with.

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PART V
CRITICAL PERIPHERALS
It's an easy matter to quantify the time people spend on hold. The whole
notion of service level is derived from the idea of answering a certain number
of calls within a certain amount of time. Behind that, of course, is the idea that
the people who are not being served are sitting in a virtual waiting room until
their number is called.

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Chapter 20
Readerboards and Display Technologies
Display boardsreaderboardsare a stable, versatile technology, and an
inexpensive way to quickly improve call center performance. They are
also rapidly becoming if not obsolete, than at least not as necessary as
they used to be, replaceable by more malleable, "soft" boards that sit
on the agents' desktop screens.
Most of the talk you hear about managing your call center employees
focuses on agentsdo they have enough say, control or information. But
do you ever think about the supervisors?
For quite a while, the case for readerboards has been that they put
useful data out there on the call center floor for agents to see it, where
they can use it to make better decisions about how to do their job.
That data also helps supervisors, who are no longer chained to the
ACD stat terminal, who can get up and help people individually at
their desks, without fear that an alarm threshold will pop up as soon as
they walk away.
Supervisors spend less time playing catch up, more time doing
people-work than babysitting the numbers. Agents feel less like
they're being treated like children. Everyone likes their job better and
turnover goes down.
End of story? No, not when you realize that the possibilities in
readerboards are broader than you think. There's a lot you can do with
them, and a lot of ways to configure them. It's not just a matter of
throwing one up on the wall and watching data scroll by.
The Benefits
Today, display technology mostly comes in three flavors: the
traditional red/yellow/green readerboard, hung on a wall for many
agents to view at once; a TV/monitor version of the remote board; and
a stat readout that's fed directly to each rep's desktop PC. For
discussion purposes, let's call them all

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"readerboards" unless we specifically mean a desktop software data
scroll.
Whichever type of system you prefer, there are four major benefits
you can count on when you implement some form of display
technology:
1. Improved call statistics. Simply put, when people know what's
going on, they respond faster. If agents know how many calls are in
queue, or that an alarm threshold has been reached, they are less likely
to go on break at that moment. They are likely to speed through post-
call work, or put off optional assignments until the peak smoothes out.
The readerboard then has a hand in bettering the stats, not just
reporting them.
2. Enhanced supervisory time. Get the supervisor out from behind a
desk, and onto the floor where she can answer questions.
Readerboards, which usually work in tandem with an ACD stat
terminal sitting on or near the supervisor's desk, give managers
flexibility. They have time to monitor more calls, improving call
quality. They can confer with agents about specific problems, or give
better training and guidance.
This is possible because they know, as they move around the center,
exactly what the ACD status is. With most models, they can program
the display board to show rotating groups of statistics (for different
ACD splits, for example). Alarms can trigger bright colors, audible
tones or other special effects.
3. Improved morale and an empowered workforce. Agents know
about problems as they are happeningnot later, when they can't do
anything about it. The more they know, the less likely they are to have
serious complaints about their work, and that can keep them in the job
longer. Lowering turnover reduces training costs. It also improves
service by establishing a core of experienced reps. Agents feel like
they are in control of their job, their actions, and most important, that
they control the numbers (not the other way around).
According to one survey of readerboard users, service reps improved
their self-management by 17%. (And respondents were able to
decrease staff levels 4% due to greater efficiencies.)
4. Readerboards allow you to achieve other goals. Say you want to
allocate some agents to a part-time outbound program, for follow-up
or post-sale calls, for example. Without some kind of display, the
supervisor has to control when the agents flip between inbound and
outbound.

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But a call center display system gives agents the ability to know that
when calls are low, they can move over to outbound and make a few
calls. And when a surge of calls comes in, they see it and can flip back
to handle the queue. It takes a lot of the pressure off both the agent
and the supervisor.
Buying Smart
Here's some advice on what to look for when shopping for a
readerboard or other display system:
Make sure it has an audible alarm at a threshold you choosewhat's
the point of having it flash and bunk in colors if nobody's looking in
that direction?
Three-color LEDs that change color in response to thresholds you
set.
A refresh rate (how fast the data is changed) that is fast enough for
your needs. Some displays refresh data in 30 seconds. Some call
centers have high abandon rates at 30 seconds. The two wouldn't work
well together. This is also going to depend on the software that drives
it. A readerboard is, after all, only as useful as the data that comes out
of the switch and the software that formats it for viewing. Which leads
to the next point:
Make sure that the switch, the reporting toolkit, the readerboard and
its driver software all come from compatible vendors. This is not as
big a problem as it used to be, especially if you're looking at a ''soft"
PC-based display system.
Displays that can be individually addressed and also work in a
network of linked displays.
The ability to schedule messages, to save messages and call them up
later, and to have a message sent after a certain threshold is reached.
What's Out There
For a couple of years now, every time we go to a trade show, there
have been a ton of products that take real-time statistical information
from the ACD and push it to the agent desktop in one form or another.
This information, of course, is what used to flow in red, yellow and
green across a readerboard, but now, thanks to Windows, CTI and
client/server applications, can show up in a zillion colors on any
supervisor of agent screen.
So that begs the question, what do you need readerboards for? Not
much, really, and most of the companies that make the display boards
are far more focused on the fact that the analytical software they
produce is of greater value than a relatively dumb piece of hardware.

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Here is something that would be really nice. Vendors, programmers,
take note: there does not yet appear to be one of these on the market.
How about an HTML-or Java-based applet that will take the ACD
data (after it's been parsed and prioritized and made sensible by the
reporting software) and roll it across the desktop in a scroll, akin to
the stock tickers nobody really wanted from "push" technology a
couple of years ago.
A simple applet like that could pull refreshed data off a server at
regular intervals, or get regular feeds off the corporate intranet. I don't
think it would chew up too much bandwidth, and it would be an
incredible boon to companies that run multiple centers, virtual centers,
or remote agents. Use the same applet to have corporate headquarters
see a strip parsing the data a different way, for example collating real-
time call center data with sales data for a profitability ticker. This
should be easy to produce, and make a nice addon for one of the
reporting companies, even a workforce management vendor. Anyone
make this already? We want to see it.
I'm not going into details here on the technology of the old-style
readerboard, because that's a technology that's either readily
understood, or unnecessary. Buy a board, plug it in, configure
software, type in prefab messages and you're off and running. I'll
wager that the hardest part is figuring out which wall to hang it on.
No, what's really interesting are the PC-based displays. Used to be
that people didn't want to use them, because they took up "valuable
real estate" on the rep's desktop. That was in the days of the 14 inch
monitor. And because "all that data will confuse the reps"-someone
really said that to me once. (Bet the turnover in that center was pretty
high.)
Since the underlying technologythe softwareis fluid, it really doesn't
make much difference what form the output takes. PCs, especially in a
browser-based world, really do make the most sense.
For example, last year Fujitsu's IntelliAgent hit the market, a desktop
application that functions as a local readerboard for the agent's PC
screen. It brings all the stuff you'd see on a traditional wallboard,
including personal performance information and group statistics.
Because IntelliAgent is a desktop app, it includes call control features,
like letting the agent view the status of other agents before
transferring a call to them. It works with the IntelliCenter
management package, and incorporates up to 50 definable templates
which administrators can customize for different agents or groups.
Information is presented through color-coded thresh-

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olds and icons.
Supervisor terminals have had this kind of information for years; it's
interesting that this is migrating to the agent desktop at precisely the
moment that call centers are confronting issues of agent
empowerment and high turnover. Putting data directly into their hands
helps them manage their own workflow and make intelligent
decisions about how they do their jobs. That's got to have long term
benefits.
Desktop messaging is increasingly a cost-effective alternative to
physical readerboards. For one thing, they offer a degree of
programmability and flexibility that hard-wired boards just can't
manage. One such product that was originally developed for the call
center is now being marketed as a companywide broadcast messaging
system for intranets.
Softbase's NetLert puts its messages into a user-sized scrolling
marquee on the desktop. Its messages can be pulled by users directly
on the system, or remote users and telecommuters. It's good for group
memos, and for communicating basic PBX data output to a wide
number of users. The client application periodically polls the data
source for refresh information. Obviously, this is not the same as a
system that pulls data every ten seconds out of an ACD, but for an
informal or lightly distributed center, where phone reps are spread
widely within a single building, for example, it can be an effective
tool.
It has more application as a "messaging lite" tool for reps who can't
stop what they're doing to read incoming e-mail than it does as a
traditional threshold alert tool ("No breaks-the queue is full!"). But the
future of wallboards is surely pointing to the desktop.
CallCenter Technology's Prism is a data management tool that lets
agents, supervisors and managers gather and view real time and
historical data from multiple data sources. Like a readerboard system,
Prism gathers information from the ACD; this is displayed on the
desktop, though, rather than on a physical wallboard.
Prism then is able to coordinate it with exception data from workforce
management systems, performance scores from quality monitoring
systems and actual transaction data. What you get when you put this
all together is a more holistic view of what's going on in the center,
the kind of thing people in management are likely to want to see.
When you put things together that aren't often combined (like agent
performance and transaction data), you often end up creating new
metrics that are more meaningful than the tradi-

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tional cookie-cutter call center stats.
Another interesting feature is that Prism incorporates CAD drawings
of call center floor plansso supervisors can locate in physical space
the data events that might get lost in columns of data. The system
consists of a server and Console desktop software. Reports and data
views come preconfigured for several different user points of view,
and are largely customizable.
So where does this sort of thing leave the traditional call center? There
are still plenty of places to get the hearty old readerboard. Companies
like Telecorp Products, Texas Digital, Pyderion, Symon, AACall of
these are working with the software that drives boards (or the boards
themselves) and in nearly all cases, the results are far more flexible,
more data-centric, than they were before.

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Chapter 21
Headsets
Headsets are a key ingredient in every call center. They provide
hands-free operation for your reps, letting them type faster, talk on the
phone longer, and walk away without annoying neck pain.
They are also the most abused, wear-intensive items in your center.
People swing them around by the cord. They yank them out of the
socket. They throw them in the drawer. You'll buy them this year.
And next year. And the year after that.
Luckily, vendors keep upgrading them to provide more comfort and
durability. Warrantees have gotten longer. Prices are coming down,
too. Most good headsets average between $ 120 and $ 250, depending
on features and the volume you purchase. By some estimates, the
average life of a headset is about 29 months. And they nearly all come
with warrantees that act as a hedge against failure during that period.
Consider: if your center seats hundreds of agents, you could be
spending thousands of dollars each year for new and replacement
headsets, plus backups.
It's not true that all headsets are alike.They vary in style, sound
quality, and technology (to some extent). Here's what you should look
for when buying.
1. Which style? There are two main categories: monaural (one ear) or
binaural (two ears). Monaural comes in over-the-head, over-the ear
and in-the-ear styles.
A lot of this choice will depend on individual comfort. Some people
don't like the feel of one or more of these styles. In-the-ear could feel
like it's going to pop out, or you might feel lopsided with monaural.
If it's at all possible, try to give your staff a choice of styles. Not only
does that help the reps feel like they have some control over their
work environment, but it lets them choose based on personal criteria:
"this one will mess up my hair and that one won't," or even "this one
sounds better than that one."

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Also, pay attention to headset complaints. If reps tell you something is
wrong with the headsets you've already got, take them seriously. Physical
discomfort or poor sound, if left uncorrected, will affect your customer
service in the form of higher turnover and bad morale.
2. Consider noise levels. Base your headset selections on the real world
conditions inside your center.
Is it very noisy? Then choose a binaural model with a noise-canceling
microphone. But if your reps need to consult with one another during or
between calls, then a monaural might be better. That way they don't have to
take the headset off and put it on every time they need to speak to someone
nearby (which itself can reduce it's lifespan).
3. Sound quality. The caller should never know that they're talking to
someone on a headset. They should also never hear much of the ambient
noise of the rest of the call center (other agents talking, or a keyboard
clacking).
That's why noise-canceling microphones come in handy. They raise the
rep's voice while reducing the background noise. This is becoming a
standard
Make More Calls
 Using a headset saves time, as this chart from Plantronics shows.
The more time you spend on the phone, the more savings from using a headset adds up.
If your telepphone people are still picking up a handset with every call
think how much they could get done if they only had a headset.

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feature on call center headsets; at a recent trade show, most vendors
were showing headsets equipped with flexible, noise-canceling mics.
A good tip when selecting headsets: find out if you can buy (and get a
good deal on) accessories (another way of saying "spare parts"). The
best way to get value out of your headsets is to extend their life
through repair. Buy extra foam ear pads, eartips and connector cords.
Replacing these relatively cheap parts keeps you from buying a whole
new headset.
4. Convertibility. Some headsets are modularthat is, they let you
reconfigure the way they're worn, switching between headband style
and contour style. (This is a way to get around the impracticality of
letting everyone choose their own headset. One model can suit many
needs.)
If you go this route, though, be careful to check the construction of the
headset and make sure it's rugged enough in all its configurations.
5. Universal amplifiers. These are great because they make your
headsets compatible with different phone systems.
Check carefully to make sure the amp you want is truly universal.
Some vendors make amps specific to one phone system or another.
Ideally, the headset should move from phone to phone with no
trouble. Also, make sure you know how to adjust the amp yourself,
without relying on a technical person to set dip-switches and controls.
Headsets are a mature technology, with little fundamental change
from year to year. What changes are hidden features, like warranty
length, durability, and sometimes design.
As long as you buy based on comfort and durability you won't be
making a mistake.
How to Make Them Last
Clean the cushions and voice tubes regularly; these parts accumulate
grime and dust.
Start a program to educate your employees in good headset care.
They should know what it costs to replace and repair headsets. They
should be made responsible for their maintenance.
Keep extras on handextra headsets and spare parts (if the vendor
makes them available). They are cheap enough to justify the expense.
If the headset uses eartips, use the proper size. Women should start
with

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Size 3, men with Size 4, and the eartip must fit into the outer ear
canal.
It it uses earpads, make sure the cushion is centered over the car, that
hair is out of the way and that the foam is in good condition. Replace
it as soon as it becomes torn.
If headset transmission drops over time, try cleaning the microphone
screen or voice tube. Sometimes they get clogged with debris.
It you're in a noisy environment, you're best suited for a binaural unit
with a noise-canceling feature. For small offices a monaural or over
the ear headset will work well.
Look for clarity and volume. A headset with mute switch and a quick
disconnect are nice features; they allow the user to communicate with
someone in the room without the caller hearing, and allow for some
freedom for the user to get up from their workstation without
removing the headset.
Think you've heard all you can hear about headsets? Well, we found
one we really liked, that was comfortable, seems durable, and fit
snugly without getting annoying after several hours on the phone.
GN Netcom's Profile SureFit was a surprise to us. It's got no headband
(unless vou want one, the pieces are all modular, and you can
rearrange the fit to whatever shape you want). It's an on-the-ear
model, with the earhook holding the speaker and microphone.
The earhook is what makes it special, a comfortable composite
material that can be manipulated to fit right; you can bend it, and it
won't break, but it will retain its shape.
Headsets are one of those items that people have to choose for
themselves, but we're pretty sure that within the next year or two,
models from lots of manufacturers will be mimicking the bendable,
non-plastic feel of the SureFit.
It's not the only set out there that we like, but it's emphasizes how
personal a choice this should be.
Quick Tips
Here's something to look out for when you're switching over
from handset to headset. Sometimes, the headset lets you
control the volume in both the headset and the handset. One
headset user reports that when the headset was connected, the
volume was too low on the handset, and couldn't be adjusted.
If you plan on using both, make sure the volume can be set
properly through both instruments.

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Chapter 22
On-Hold Messaging
Call centers are good at managing the customer relationship, and they
are good at the mechanics of call handling and transaction processing.
But sometimes less attention is paid to the mystery period in
betweenthat time that the customer spends on hold, waiting in the
queue.
We know a lot about the hold queue from a technology standpoint. It's
an easy matter to quantify the time people spend on hold. The whole
notion of service level is derived from the idea of answering a certain
number of calls within a certain amount of time.
Behind that, of course, is the idea that the people who are not being
served are sitting in a virtual waiting room until their number is
called.
What Do We Do with Those People?
The options available include:
playing them messages and/or music to enhance (or ameliorate) the
experience;
allowing them to leave the queue to perform some other action, like
querying an IVR system for basic information;
and doing nothing at all.
Not too many people are going to argue that you should do nothing,
but in a lot of cases that's what happens. Particularly when the time
spent in the queue is too short to allow for any meaningful activity.
We should count this as a success, obviously.
Playing messages on hold is an old idea that is still popular, with good
reason. One executive at a music-on-hold production company once
told me that if you look at messages on hold as a form of advertising,
it has the lowest cost per impression of any comparable media.
Under those circumstances, then, what you want to do with the hold

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queue is use it as a value opportunitytell people about what you have
to offer, bring them information about your company that they might
not otherwise be exposed to.
The hold queue exists because of an imbalance between the volume of
customers trying to reach you and the resources allocated for handling
those customers. If you have an equivalence between those two
factors, then the hold queue disappears, but your costs go up too high.
Therefore, you want to build in a certain tolerance level. You need to
assess, realistically, what kind of waiting time your customers will be
willing to absorb, and under what circumstances.
If they want to buy something from you, then you want to answer
their call immediately. The more valuable the customer, or the
potential transaction, the lower the tolerance the customer will have
for waiting in queue. So if you are selling $ 5,000 cruises to people
who have booked in the past, answer immediately.
Likewise, you want to take the call from the Platinum card holder, and
the Super frequent flyer, and the guy who has been to your website
and pulled down all the information he needs to decide between
buying your widget and your competitors widget.
In the same spirit, you probably also want to minimize the hold times
of people who owe you money. The collections environment has a call
center dynamic all its own. But it's pretty clear that when someone
does respond to a collections mailing by calling in, the worst possible
thing you can do is keep that person waiting on hold. If they call to
resolve, it's up to the center to allocate the resources to make the call
shorter and deal with the customer quickly, before the opportunity is
lost.
That's what the hold queue is all about; it's a delicate balancing point
between the call center's cost of doing business and the opportunity
presented by the customer. Too few resources allocated, and the
opportunity will go away. Too many resources and the opportunity
may not be worth pursuing. Like everything else about running a call
center, how you handle callers on hold depends on the relationship
between the urge to reduce costs and the need to drive revenue.
Back to messages on hold. There are two ways to use hold media. One
is what I will call the opportunistic method. That involves telling
people more about your company and products you offer in short ten
second bursts.
There is little else you can call these but commercials. They are most

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prevalent on queues that are inbound telesales, and they can be said to
help the interaction somewhat by providing cross-sell and up-sell
information at no cost. You see this a lot less on the service side.
Frankly, people do not enjoy that medium when they call to solve a
problem.
In fact, it's a bit of a vicious circle. Because when you allocate
resources you are almost always going to tolerate a longer hold time
on non-revenuegenerating service lines than on sales lines. So when
you play advertising messages, they cycle through more often during
a typical hold session, and the annoyance factor is increased.
You end up diminishing your returns quite quickly. That's why most
of the service applications we've seen tend to use hold media
somewhat differently.
They accept the premise that you're going to have to wait longer for
service than you are for sales. That service from an agent is somewhat
more precious a resource than service from the web, or an IVR
system.
So it makes sense to give people as much information during the call
that might either shorten, or complete, that call. Before it hits an
agent.
In a true technical support center, for example, there would likely be a
series of selection criteria applied before the caller ever went into the
hold queue. These can be identifiers, telling the routing mechanism
who the caller is and whether there should be any special priority
assigned. (This is the Platinum card holder example just mentioned.)
It may also include any special information gathered, like an account
number or the number of a service contract, that will give the
automated router some classification for the kind of problem that
might be coming.
The simplest implementation of this kind of thing is ''press one for
Windows, press two for Mac," but it can be used a lot more artfully to
get the call to precisely the right person, and therefore reduce both
hold time and the amount of agent transferring that the call would
require.
You can also play messages during the queue that alert the caller to
the true length of that queue. If you tell a person that there are 20 calls
ahead of him, or that the average call takes 4 minutes, or that there's
an estimated 15 minute wait before reaching an agent, that's power in
the hands of the customer.
That means you won't have to spend 30 seconds mollifying someone
who's waited too long before solving his problem. You can also invite
the caller to use other options either while waiting, or instead of
waiting. Giving out a web address is a good idea. Offering a faxback
system is also good, but less likely to be used during the wait.

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And offering to let someone pass the time in an interactive diagnostic
voice response system without losing place in the queue can be
valuable on your end as well as theirs.
Because if you are CTI-capable, you can pump all the information
about what the caller has queried and heard about right to the agent's
desktop, saving time. Prevents repetition, and gives the rep more to
work with in diagnosing a problem.
In all, how you handle your hold queue will say a lot to your
customers about how you feel about them. It presents a lot of
opportunities, and can often be a neglected component of call center
operations.
Messaging Systems
With a message designed for play on hold, you can do more than keep
your customers occupied and your company free from fines.
A survey conducted by Nationwide Insurance showed that messages
on hold reduced hangups by 50% to 80% and increased the amount of
time callers were willing to spend on hold 15% to 35%. The survey
also concluded that sales increased 15% to 35% because of
information callers heard on hold. Some of the things on-hold
messaging can do for your business:
Increase sales. You can deliver quick bursts of information about
who you are and what you do: products, services, special promotions.
You can reinforce the messages in your advertising, driving up sales
and increasing revenue.
Cross-sell. Just because someone calls for service doesn't mean
they're not open to buying. Cable companies learned this lesson a long
time ago, putting messages for premium services and pay-per-view
events on the hold queues for their services lines. Another idea is to
promote products loyal customers might not have heard about, like
extended warranties and service contracts, or limited-time offers.
Image enhancement. Face it, there's nothing like silence to tell the
caller you don't care much for them. Messaging on hold leaves the
customer with a more positive impression of your company. And it
can make you seem larger and more successful than you really are, an
advantage a small startup might need in a competitive industry.
Answer frequently-asked questions. There are two kinds of questions
you can deal with in your messages. The first is the kind that drive
your receptionists crazy: your address, business hours, or fax number.
The second is to tell the caller what she is going to need to do to
complete the call when they

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reach an agent. "Please have your account number handy, as well as
the model number of the product you are having trouble with."
The hardware you need to implement a message-on-hold system is
pretty cut and driedand not terribly expensive. (Over time you'll spend
more for programming and production than you will for the playback
technology.) Better still, in the last few years it has migrated from
analog tapebased systems to digital players and analog/digital hybrids.
That has reduced wear, improved sound quality and makes systems
far easier to update and maintain.
Most phone systems provide an audio input for you to connect a
playback system. Many automated attendant and voice mail systems
do, too. There are several kinds of on-hold message players. Which
you choose will depend on the quality of the message you can
tolerate, and the kinds of features you want.
Analog loop-tape players. These are simple cassette players whose
tapes run in continuous endless circles. Don't buy this. Technology
has completely superceded this option. The more you play a tape, the
worse the sound. Continuous loop tapes run all the time, by definition.
You'll constantly be replacing the tapes.
Auto-download digital announcers are the next step up. These are
cassette players coupled to digital playback systems. The units
download the program material from standard tape cassettes into the
digital players RAM. Because it gets played back digitally, the endless
looping is all electronicno degradation of the analog tape.
One advantage to this type of system is that cassettes are a very
convenient way for production houses to distribute programming.
These units are often favored as part of a package deal by turnkey
producers of on-hold messaging for that reason.
The digital players themselves start with as little as two minutes of
playback capacity. Adding memory adds playback time. Features that
add value: re-downloading message from cassette after a power
failure (eliminating the need for UPS protection), and at the higher
end, the ability to check the message integrity in RAM and re-
download if it finds errors.
To make programming easy, make sure you get a system that has a PC
interface for system configuration and backup.
Remote-programmable digital announcers. This is the new bread and
butter of the industry. Like their cousins, these are RAM-based digital
players that are

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equipped with built-in modems. That lets you download program
content from a remote computer, or from an off-site producer of
programming.
If you have a program that requires constant updating, this can
automate the process. Most feature battery backup of RAM in case of
power failure.
CD-based systems are increasingly popular, especially in larger call
centers. These are essentially programmable CD-players. (It is
important to remember that nearly all the on-hold technology comes
from the audio world, not the telephony or telecom world. And not
even from much of the computer world.)
The simplest CD system lets you cue up a selection of audio tracks
from a CD. Your on-hold program supplier may distribute your
program on a disc, especially if it's custom content. Also, discs are
available that contain generic licensed music, free of copyright and
license fees.
And the inevitable next step up the ladder: blending the output from
the CD player (the music source) with output from a straight digital
announcer (custom voiceover content). You can record a message
from your handset, phone it in, change it ten times a day if you like.
And the music that sits underneath it is of top quality.
Another way to do it is with the features in the switch itself. Most
major ACDs now let you play messages to the caller while in the hold
queue; in some cases you can literally program in hundreds of
messages, from either local or remote content providers.
One of the advantages to this approach is that messaging becomes just
one possibility for callers in queue. With the Aspect system, for
example, callers can access other parts of the system (perhaps in
response to something they hear in a message), and then return to the
queue in their exact spot.
One nice feature that's become more common: because it can talk
directly to the switch, some announcement systems can tell the caller
how much wait time to expect. You can have a set of messages
procreated for different waittimes: very soon (seconds), one minute,
two minutes, and so on. These can be interspersed with other custom
messages to keep that caller from hanging up.
In addition to these options, there are specialty products that are
beginning to make their presence felt, especially at the smaller end of
the market, in micro-centers and home offices. Typical PCs come
equipped with a wide variety of audio/telephony/modem options, that
often combine a sound card, voice mail, on-hold messaging and Caller
ID detection in one (often cumbersome) piece of software. These are
threatening to turn music and messaging on hold into something as
common as the home answering machine.

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(This, thanks in part to the increasingly shrinkwrapped availability of
computer telephony technology.)
But that will only accelerate the process already under way of making
your choice one of programming, rather than hardware. Choosing a
content producer is far harder (and more important) than picking a
hardware platform.
Picking the Content
Most of the companies that provide on-hold services (as opposed to
the equipment) are experienced audio production houses, many
sporting their own studios, voice talent, scriptwriting staff, and
message crafting knowhow. Many are from the advertising world, so
they know what kind of information and presentation works in
holding a customer's attention in the short bursts of an on-hold queue.
Some operate subscription services, letting you change your message
at frequent intervals. If you go this route, you'll want one of the
message players that lets you swap in a new message quickly, either
by replacing the CD or tape, or through an automatic modem
download.
In fact, since many production companies act as turnkey providers,
you can get the hardware integrated with the type of programming
service you need. Service companies often distribute the hardware
made by major vendors.
One advantage of using a service is that you can have them do all your
recorded systems: voice mail, audiotext, even IVR prompts, all in a
consistent voice. Your company will present a consistent face (or at
least, voice) to the world.
There are some things you should look for in a service provider:
1. See how long the company has been in business. It's pretty easy to
see if someone is established in the industry, or if they're a fly-by-
night operation.
2. Call their clients, ask them questions, and most important, listen to
their messages. If you call a reference and find yourself listening to a
scratchy, repetitive, or worst of all, boring message, you and that
production company are not a good match.
3. Try a reasonably priced package of regular changes and updates.
Customers call repeatedly over the years. Hearing the same old
message can turn them off, especially if you're not mixing in some
marketing or sales information.

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4. Communicate your promotions and marketing strategies to the on-
hold provider. Give their creative something to work with, and
something to earn their pay.
Some companies provide an 800 number to call for a sample message
on hold, others provide demo tapes. Either one will be valuable in
examining what the company has to offer.
The more "creative" you want the company to be, the more important
listening to a program similar to the one you have in mind is. Have
your heart set on a humorous program? Listen first. One persons
humorous is another persons corny.
(Humor is not the universal language, this may be why so few
companies use it in their messages on hold. If you are interested in a
humorous message though, many providers will be eager to do your
bidding.)
Crafting an Effective Message
Here are some tips for what to put on your on-hold messaging system
pointers that should keep people holding longer.
1. Don't keep telling customers to continue to hold. Customers find
this irritating. Use the time efficiently to promote.
2. Give callers an option to exit the message. The customer needs an
out. They need an option to leave a voice mail message or reach the
reception area, especially in the call center environment where they
may want to place an order or voice a complaint. Callers don't like
being forced to listen to a message and if they have to, there will be
more abandons.
3. Steer clear of chest beating. Keep the message short, low-key and
to the point. The message should be informational rather than
advertisy. The customer wants to be taken care of, not hear bragging
about the company. It should be viewed as an opportunity to tell about
products and services, offer an toll-free number for future calls or a
fax number.
4. Use MOH as an opportunity to tell customers about other products.
Product A might sell by the thousands, but customers may not know
about B and C products. Using the phone to tell them is a critical link.
There's already a relationship. It's been proven that people will do
repeat business with a company they're comfortable with.

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5. Incorporate thematic elements into an on hold message. Tie in
mottos or slogans used in brochures or even yellow page ads as part of
a complete marketing mix.
Give your audio program suppliers an activity schedule of what you're
planning to do over the year. That way a tape could be in and running
for whatever you're marketing that month.
6. Watch for excessive repetitiveness. The first and second time a
caller hears the same message is okay, but once they hear the same
message on a third call (or the third time within a call) you're in the
danger zone.
Quick Tips
1. Writing your own scripts? Some pointers:
Keep individual topic items short.
Thank the caller often.
Use phonetic spellings for unfamiliar words.
Don't make any one topic more than four lines long.
Don't use "shop talk."
2. Don't succumb to the temptation to make your message a
no-holds-barred extravaganza, catering to every caller and
using every auditory bell and whistle. Messages should be
simple, to the point and NOT ANNOYING. That's what will
keep callers on the line.
3. You might be thinking: Why should I invest in
programming or production? Can't I just play the radio on
hold to keep people amused until an agent is available? The
answer is: NO. Playing the radio over the phone amounts to a
rebroadcasting of copyrighted material. You can buy a license
in advance (for a sum that depends on the number of phone
lines you have). If you don't do it in advance, you can end up
owing ASCAP and BMI much more, a fee of from hundreds
to thousands of dollars per song. And, if your competitors find
out you are playing radio on hold, where do you think they'll
place their ads? Finally, you'll lose all the benefits of having
someone call-you're not selling to them, or giving them some
value-added information that's going to gain (or keep) a
customer. And you're probably paying for the call, too. Think
about it.

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There's no excuse for not using some form of on-hold messaging. Its a
cheap, easy way to keep people from hanging up. You can have
someone else do nearly all the work, while you reap the benefits. How
often does that happen in life?

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Chapter 23
Check & Payment Processing
As call centers become more intricately linked to the rest of the
organization, back office functions become more a part of the day-to-
day operation of the center. Call center managers have to worry about
more than just calls; they have to oversee (or at least participate in
overseeing) the flow of data into and out of the center. To departments
like shipping, accounting, order processing, and so on.
When you add to that the complexity of the input channels that the
customer is now using (that is, the Internet, in all its glory), we see a
strange broadening of the call center, and a much more complex
technological environment that faces the agent.
There are two threads to discuss here. One is decidedly low-tech, but
important to many small and mid-sized call centers: automated check
processing, where customers pay from their bank account in the same
way they traditionally pay by credit card. This is totally overlooked as
an option by many centers.
And the second is the more nebulous way that high-end transaction
processing systems are becoming part and parcel of many IVR and
related software applications.
Checks Via Phone
One way to increase sales by phone is to add an automated check
processing system, especially for smaller companies. If you're a start-
up, for example, the ability to let customers pay by check might mean
the difference between success and failureespecially if you're not set
up to take credit cards yet.
According to a report from a company called Checks By Phone, 70%
of callers who don't use a credit card and are requested to mail a check
never do mail it. That's a lot of expected revenue that never
materializes.

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And the flip side of that: if you've got customers who previously paid
by mailing a check, persuading them to phone in their orders and pay
with their checking account number can increase order size by 50%.
Checks By Phone is a service that lets clients receive payments from
bank accounts by phone, faxeven on-line. From the customer's point
of view the transaction is transparent. they give the rep their account
number just as they would a credit card number. The data is then
transmitted to Checks By Phone's processing center for authorization
and overnight payment.
Automatic check debiting means the check is processed the day after
the call, not days or weeks later. It works like this: an agent explains
to the customer that your company will have a facsimile check printed
and processed. She also mentions that paying by check over the phone
gives him the same consumer protection he would be eligible for if he
actually wrote out and mailed the check in his checkbook.
The customer's check number is sent to a check debiting service by
modem. The service prints out the facsimile check and sends it back
to you for processing by the next business day.
What this does is apply the same impulse-buying logic to non-credit
card customers that call centers have always applied to credit card
callers. In fact, what it really does is open the call center to a kind of
customer who otherwise might never have called.
What's more, it opens up those callers to your automated systemsthey
can enter checking account numbers into an integrated voice response
(IVR) system, for example, or be included as part of an outbound
telesales program. This boosts the effectiveness of:
fundraising;
collections;
 and direct response inbound sales, to name just a few examples.
Automatic check debiting service companies number among their
clients just about every type of company that does business by
telephone. But it is clear that automatic check debiting is most
frequently used for, and has the biggest benefits in, debt collection.
It works for any situation where you would be shutting out a portion
of your potential customer base, or relying on them to send money
later (by which time buyer's remorse could set in). But by adding a
check payment option, you add the ability of your agents to cross-sell
and up-sell. The logic is simple: more callers turned into customers,
more data collected about

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them, and more revenue. In both the short and long term.
Here are some suggestions for how to make the best use of automated
check processing.
1. Offer the check option as many ways as possible, and let people
know. In your catalog, wherever you include the credit card logo.
During calls, when agents should mention it as an option for payment.
If you sell using direct response, it should be part of your advertising.
2. Collections programs that take checks will pull in more money
using automated check transactions than they will if they rely on
customers to pay later. With automated checks, you can take partial
payment immediately and set up a payment schedule for the
balancecreating more goodwill and less payment resistance.
Remember, it's harder (and more expensive) to find a new customer
than it is to retain an existing one.
3. In cases where you sell an ongoing product that requires cyclical
billing, you can replace much of the billing process with automated
checking account withdrawals.
4. One advantage of using a check processing service bureau is that
they filter out bad checks by running transactions against large fraud
control databases.
These days there's no reason why you should lock yourself out of
transactions involving check-paying customers. If you're a company
with a large, well-established center, you can extend your offerings
and enhance revenue. And if you're small, or you don't take credit
cards, you can use checks as a way to reach every possible customer.
It's a no-lose proposition.
A Related Technology
Debit processing is when you use your automatic teller machine
(ATM) card to pay for a product or service. There's been a big push
by banks toward debit cards in the last few years, partly to make
transaction processing easier for those who would rather use bank
money than credit to make purchases. Debit processing is similar to
automatic check debiting in that both transfer funds from a customer's
bank account to a vendor's account without the customer touching
paper. But where check debiting uses verbal contracts and verification
letters for customer approval, debit processing uses the combi-

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nation of the electronic information on the ATM card and the
customer's PIN number for securityin the same way an ATM
transaction does.
In a point of sale environment, consumers slide their ATM cards
through a magnetic stripe reader and punch their personal
identification numbers (PINs) on a keypad. A service company, such
as SPS, processes the transaction. The transaction transfers funds from
the customer's bank account to the store's bank account.
By in a call center, the debit card functions exactly as a credit card
would, and in fact is almost always backed by a credit card company
so the existing credit card infrastructure in the center can be used to
process the transaction.
Online Transaction Processing
The other change in the way call centers process transactions has to do
with the Internet, of course, and the way that other call center software
systems are including better connections to either processing houses
or dedicated OLTP (online transaction processing) software.
For example, PaylinX makes software that allows a call center to
process credit card transactions. Sounds simple, but in reality this
critical ability is rather complicated. Their system gives authorizations
within one to two seconds (if you have a high-speed ISDN
connection, which is an option).
The PaylinX system is comprised of a Payment Server, which is one
of several boxes depending on the platform the user is running. On top
of that sits their PaylinX for Site Server softwarea drop-in component
that supports both authorization-only and authorize-and-capture
transactions, and that you can use straight from the box with little or
no programming. After that, using it is a question of what connections
you want made; to the internet, for example, for web-based
processing, or to other client applications.
It's designed to serve the payment processing needs of the company as
a whole. It has CTI and IVR hooks, Microsoft BackOffice
compatibility (for Web Commerce servers), and has a batch
processing option. In short, there's a way to configure it to suit just
about every transaction processing need that we could think of.
Intek Information's TelWeb is essentially an Internet-based transmitter
of call center information. It takes data from many sources, including
the switch and the back end database, and layers applications on top
that process transactions and manage data flow.
It purports to be an all-purpose call center app for large-company
centers;

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they have sold into Fortune 1000 companies like Sony and American
Express. On the plus side, the designers of the system recognize the
need for a coordinated approach to various channel eventsit can link
database information on a client with all the telephone, Internet and e-
mail events that person has generated.
And because it's got a hook into the switch, it can be used as an
Internetbased real-time call management system by people inside and
outside the center, on-site or from a remote location. Its best use is as
a coordinated transaction processing and data warehousing
application, but we're at the point now that any application that takes
data from the switch and treats it as portable is an all-purpose call
center tool. The era of specialty apps from specialty vendors might be
closing.
TelWeb, being large and Fortune 1000-centric, starts at $ 150,000.
Whether it's useful depends on how large a center you run and how
intimate you want to get with your data.
Also, Hewlett-Packard and Inter Voice are co-developing and jointly
marketing an integration of HP's Virtual Vault and Inter Voice's
Visual Connect. The combination, aimed at the financial services
industry, is an attempt to offer HP's more secure transaction
processing engine to an industry sector that needs it the most. This
combo will overly sensitive transactions, like electronic funds
transfers through the internet.
InterVoice has a presence in that industry, and experience with the
kinds of backend legacy data systems in use there. HP brings in a
''security-hardened" version of their operating system and a secure
web-transaction server. When it hooks into VisualConnect (the web
version of Inter Voice's IVR front-end), it lets customers browse their
way into legacy mainframes or enterprise databases for the same kinds
of things they used to have to call for: account balances, personal
financial information, and the performance of transactions that used to
require an agent.
Quick Tips
For consumers, the rule for giving out check numbers over the
phone is, as always, "caveat emptor," let the buyer beware.
There should be a caveat for potential users of this service
too: know who you are doing business with. Ask for
references and follow up on them. Compare the caliber of
those references to the image you want your own company to
present.

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This attention to transaction processing has also caught the attention
of network carriers like AT&T. Because when you think about it,
providing network services isn't quite the profit machine it used to be,
especially with long distance rates hanging perilously close to zero
cents per minute for volume users like call centers. No, what will
make money for AT&T in the first decades of the 21st century will be
value-added features and services, and prime among these is online,
network-based transaction processing and other "intelligent" services.
Their current package includes web hosting, secure online
transactions, "click-to-call" systems and phone consulting to get
companies set up with commerce-ready web sites. The bundle is
called the eCommerce Suite, and it combines elements of traditional
call centers with newer web-based purchasing.
On the web side, it's a fairly standard offering that includes
bandwidth, domain name, design assistance, reports, etc. The
consulting arm, known as the Business Assist Program, offers help on
the design and marketing ends. The real meat is in the SecureBuy
Service, a secure web transaction service that includes:
Back office infrastructure to electronically process credit cards
online;
High-speed links to two card processing services;
An encryption-protected server;
SSL technology and firewalls;
Optional private connections between the buyer, the website and
financial transaction networks;
"Digital couponing" to offer shoppers instant discounts and buyer-
specific pricing;
 And data reports relevant to these kinds of services.
Also impressive is the interactiveAnswers component of the suite,
which is a network-based "call me now" web/call center service. It
requires no premise equipment beyond the existing call center routing
system.
What's good about this is that it bundles many of the things that small
businesses want in web/call center integration, puts them into a
package that's generally affordable, and, if AT&T follows through,
should be manageable with just a bit of phone consulting to get it up
and running. The pre-packaging of e-commerce presages the coming
commoditization of just about everything done on the front end of a
call center sales or customer service operation, and it represents a
major assertion that the carrier network is capable of

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making it work, and not just for the Fortune 1000. This is something
that every small-and medium-sized business is grappling with; expect
other vendors to follow suit.

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PART VI
MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS
Call centers operate under two contradictory mandates: they are charged with
improving service (or sales, or revenue), and at the same time, they are under
pressure to reduce (or at least cap) the costs.

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Chapter 24
Workforce Management Software
Estimates vary, but all reports I've seen show a steady growth in the
call center industry that's been going on for the better part of ten years
now. As the industry grows, the skills involved in managing centers
have become their own specialty; being a call center manager is now
something portable, that a person can take with them from company to
company, even as that person changes jobs across industries.
At the same time, the number of people employed in call centers has
reached staggering heights. Some estimates (rumored to come out the
US Labor Department) say that perhaps two to three million people in
the US work in call centers.
By any measure, it's an industry that's saturated, and that has a
historically tough time attracting a steady supply of acceptable
workers.
However. The flip side of that very good news includes some down
side. Labor is very expensive, and in the US at least, very hard to keep
and maintain. A recent benchmarking study done by the Purdue
University Center for Customer-Driven Quality found that turnover is
a real problem industrywide (not just in your center). In fact, inbound
centers have an average annual turnover of 26% for full-time reps, and
33% for part-timers. Nearly half of centers said that part-timers handle
5% or less of their total calls.
The study broke apart the figures for full time and part time reps, and
had very few surprises but lots of hard data on the subjecthighly
recommended for info on lots of call center metrics.
Of course, high levels of turnover lead to higher training costs, which
in turn put pressure on the centers overall productivity.
In some sense, call centers are operating under two contradictory
mandates: they are charged with improving service (or sales, or
revenue, or whatever desirable metric), and at the same time, they are
under pressure to reduce

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(or at least cap) the costs. If done right, this dynamic can lead a center
and its company to be more efficient and more productive on all kinds
of levels.
But the fact is that the cost of hiring & training reps needs to be
brought under control if a call center is going to actually be the engine
of company productivity and regional job creation that people expect
it to be.
Where am I going with this? To the amazing fact that workforce
management software is found in only about 10% of call centers.
Workforce management is the art and science of having the right
number of agents at the right times, in their seats, to answer an
accurately forecasted volume of incoming calls at the service level
you desire. Naturally there is a whole class of software that
accomplishes this task, much of it quite good.
In fact, the whole notion of being able to accurately predict call
volume and then staff accordingly is so tantalizing that it almost
makes you wonder what the problem is? Why are so few centers using
it?
Let's caveat that first: it's likely that the 10% that are using it are
among the most advanced, highest volume, highest technology, and
productive of centers.
But it really does beg the question, if it works for them, why are so
few of the rest of centers actively using this technology?
The answers are a little murky, and not always verifiable by cold hard
fact and market research. Here are some of the thoughts:
WFM is thought of as a very high cost endeavor. And it's largely
true. Systems that predict call volume and match staff schedules to
that volume historically cost a lot of money. It could take anywhere
from $ 50,000 to $ 100,000 and up for a really advanced system,
especially one that spans multiple sites.
They're also thought of as high-maintenance babies. There's a
perception out there in the world that in order to run a fully configured
workforce management system, a call center is going to have to have
someone on hand, making schedules, feeding data in, going over the
data that comes out, literally babysitting the system at the cost of 3 4
agents, maybe more.
This perception is sometimes reality. The more complex the system,
the more training it's going to take to run it, especially when you are
scheduling and predicting across multiple sites.
There are "cultural" barriers to a greater market penetration. By
cultural, I mean that call centers have traditionally put more emphasis
on managing the call, and its flow through the system, than on
managing the workforce. This shows up in a historically high turnover
problem (there's that again), and something of a disdain for the
workforce that comes up every time labor and

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management talk about things like monitoring.
So there are many call center managers who are simply more
comfortable putting schedules together like the pieces of a mental
puzzle, or who can't see the justification in an expensive software
package. These are valid points of view, until someone comes along
and demonstrates the return on investment workforce software can
deliver, which brings me to the next point:
Lack of vision on the part of the vendors. The companies that make
this software have not done a terrific job articulating to the other 90%
of the market their vision of the benefits. Sometimes that comes from
complacency, as when a market leader doesn't see the need to bang
the drum for a technology. Other times it's from basic incompetence,
as in the case of one particular mismanaged vendor that bought up a
WFM company and then didn't know how to either improve the
product or sell it to customers, and in the process wrecked it.
Finally, there is a disjunction between the seeming simplicity of
creating a schedule, and the real complexity it takes to make it the best
of all possible schedules.
The typical call center manager has a range of options for creating a
schedule. He or she can cobble it together from back of the envelope
calculations. Or create formulas in a simple spreadsheet. Or buy one
of the $ 500 Erlang calculators that let you input your center's
variables. And so on, all the way up to the 5-or 6-figure full-fledged
programs. But to do something really productive really does require
some powerful software, and that's going to cost money.
The Benefits
The main benefit, of course, is more efficient scheduling. This should
go without saying, but we have to say it. More efficient scheduling
saves you money.
You can be prepared for sudden changes in call volume, those
annoying peaks and valleys that come along seemingly without
warning. Here's the takeaway: workforce management gives you
warning. This software is so good, it can see the patterns in your call
histories and discern the peaks and valleys that even the experienced
call center manager won't be able to see coming.
Holiday scheduling is a good example. Holidays are when the two
elements that most directly affect the call center go into a sudden
divergence of interests. Calls surge up in crazy ways. But they are
predictably crazy, if you know the patterns that drive them. People, on
the other hand, tend to want all sorts of counterproductive things, like
days off, flexible schedules, vaca-

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tions, time with families. Kids are home from school, and so on.
Workforce management software allows you to project the call load
for a given day from the historical data. You'll know at any given
moment how many calls are going to come in, and you can match that
most effectively to those human resources available, even in crazy
times. You can act quickly to handle any divergence between people
and calls, either days ahead of time, or within a shift.
This is just a small example of the efficiency and optimization it
brings. Everyone will have to do their own ROI calculations, of
course, based on
Quick Tips
A reader recently asked us whether we could think of any
practical measures for performance and optimization beyond
the usual service level and calls per head. In general, call
centers should tackle optimization and metric questions based
on a cool assessment of how the center relates to the rest of
the company, and what the company expects from that center
(vis a vis competitive pressure from the rest of the industry).
That is, airline call centers measure different things than
catalog order-takers, and that's fine.
You might want to think in terms of results that impact on
what your call center is actually trying to accomplish, and
how that impacts revenue: call duration, for example, can
impact both costs (telecom transmission charges) and
customer satisfaction (if you're using the time to sell the caller
some new offering).
You can measure center performance as a whole by using a
workforce management system and keeping track of schedule
adherence; the closer you are to the predicted schedule, the
more optimally you've staffed. It helps you keep costs from
ballooning out of control unexpectedly.
And you can measure the performance of individual agents
and groups by tying their metrics to actual customer
information. (This requires some CTI and/or backend
integration with customer data.) What I mean is, you might be
able to generate a revenue figure for each group or rep that
weighs their call length or number of calls taken by how
valuable those calls are. An agent that handles fewer calls, but
those calls are premium customers with a high lifetime value
to the customer, is probably more effective than an agent that
handles more calls in shorter time, but those calls are low-
impact customers, or not customers at all.
As we pointed out, all this will depend on internal factors
within your own company and your industry.

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internal factors, but the broad outlines are almost always going to
show an improvement in service level and call handling capabilities.
When exploded to take into account the harder variables that are
effected by worker morale, like turnover, training costs, it will look
even better.
And you can also create custom schedules for people with special
needs, like students, older people, parents, and people with medical
problems.
There are other good things about workforce management software:
Threshold alerts. Supervisors have instant information about intrashift
variations that could cascade through the day and cause problems
later. They can then adjust schedules on the fly.
Performance evaluation reporting. Take all the data coming from the
ACD and make it meaningful. Workforce management is not the only
place to collect this data, but it can be one of the most meaningful.
Having a coordinated real time and historical (short-term) view of
activity is better than spreading that information, and its analysis, out
among different software tools. This creates islands of information
that are harder to put back together later.
Learn why you're not meeting service levels. Answer baffling
questions like: was an entire group's abandon rate higher because
someone took lunch a little too early, or because you had too few
people on hand for an expected spike? Or, did you have too many
people, and have a perfect service level at an unacceptably high cost?
And, what would happen if you added ten people to that shift? Don't
pay overtime for people you don't need. And have the justification
calculations available when you really need to make the case for more
people.
Coordinate between sites. Pulling agents from multiple sites together
as one virtual center gives you all the workforce efficiencies you'd get
within a single center, with greater economies of scale.
Put power and information into the agents' hands. Schedules can be
worked out in ways that let the agents understand the why's and how's
of your decision making. When there's hard prediction about call
volume, and an automated scheduler that optimizes everyone's break
and time-off preferences fairly, there's fewer reasons for griping and
complaint.
Simulate conditions and changes. Workforce management, when
combined with simulation software, takes existing (or historical)
conditions and lets you tweak the parameters to see what-would-
happen-if? You can see the effects of adding people, subtracting them,
changing group dynamics, even of adding different technologies (like
an IVR system) to the front end.

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Competitive Advantages
So what's this do for you?
First of all, it's better to Know than Guess. To have a handle on costs,
calls and variables is to have the power to react to changing
circumstances.
Secondly, it enables you to have a better managed, more informed,
happier workforce. This makes you more attractive as an employer,
and makes it easier to attract reps in regions where workers are hard to
get, and hard to keep.
Third, penetration of this software tool is so low, that the simple act of
installing workforce management software automatically confers a
technology advantage on your over your competition. You force them
to do the same.
I think it's fair to say that it's is one of the least used, and most useful,
technologies available to the modern call center.
It may not be as sexy as something like web/call center combos, or
voice over IP agents, but it works, works well, works as advertised
(important when so many call center technologies now are so much
vapor), and it can save a lot of money and heartache.
Quick Tips
1. Simulate conditions: Do you ever wonder what would
happen if you let two agents go on vacation at once? Or if you
added a part-time agent for a few hours on Mondays? Or what
would happen if call volume increased? Using software to
create these what-if scenarios lets you know how high
abandons will shoot up and how long callers will be likely to
wait in queue. Find out the effects before you make the
changes.
2. Make the most of your reports. Try segmenting agents into
work groups based on similar salary levels and other attributes
so you can compare how each agent is performing relative to
others in the work group.
3. Some centers have supervisors and managers walk around
and tell agents the general status of queues and wait times.
When things get bad they run around and yell at agents. Using
readerboards to pass supervisor statistics on to agents
increases productivity. It gives agents a chance to monitor
themselves and decide when it may be okay to log out for
breaks and lunch. And it gives supervisors freedom to move
about the center, giving individualized assistance.

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Chapter 25
Monitoring Systems
You wouldn't train an agent without listening to his or her phone
technique, would you? Monitoring is a critical part of the process of
teaching a new rep how to deal with customers, how to handle
difficult situations, even simply how to follow a script and read a
screen full of complex information.
Feedback is important. Without it, reps don't improve. Even reps that
have been on the phones for some time need constant skills
assessment and further training. That's just common sense.
In most centers, you come at quality from two directions:
making sure you have the best agents possible, operating at the
highest level they can personally achieve;
and enforcing a consistent standard of quality for customer contacts,
from the customer's point of view.
Monitoring agents is still the best way to ensure that you achieve
quality from both-standpoints. If handled with sensitivity, monitoring
can be a benefit to agents because it helps them define and reach
career goals, assess strengths and weaknesses, and mark their progress
according to realistic standards.
Opponents of monitoring cite its possible negative effects, like stress
and reduction of employee privacy. But in products that monitor
agents, the emphasis is on how monitoring can help both agent and
manager can work together to improve performance.
Pros and Cons
It's possible that you have a monitoring system built right into the
switch. Some manufacturers, like Teknekron build in sophisticated
software for combined monitoring/quality assurance programs.

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Teknekron's AutoQuality and P&Q Review, for example, are tools for
collecting data about agent performance and assessing that data over
the short or long term. AutoQuality automates the scheduling of agent
monitoring for later review. Managers don't need to be present to
monitor, or to set up tapes.
Many headset vendors have training-based models available that add a
second jack on the amplifier, to accommodate a no-mic headset that,
presumably, the trainer could wear when sitting next to the trainee.
Or, as a really low-budget monitoring system, you could plug a tape
recorder into the jack.
The most obvious benefit of monitoring is that, if done right, it creates
an objective standard of behavior that. can be measured, and if found
good, repeated. It helps ensure that you deliver not only good service,
but consistent service. Consistent from each agent, and consistent
across agents.
From the agent's point of view, it creates a way to measure
performance that can be spelled out in advance and critiqued
intelligently. Results can be quantified and reps can see improvement
over time. Plus, it allows management to benchmark standards and
ensure that all reps are treated fairly, by the same standards.
Tools to Use
So what's out there? This is a surprisingly robust area, with
technology advancing rather more rapidly than you might think. For
one thing, the growth of the Internet is making it easier to store and
retrieve information across networks, even if that information is an
audio recording of a call.
For another, the kinds of data that are now routinely captured along
with the audio portionthings like the agent's screen activity, or the
web page that the caller was looking at when he completed the
transaction-are combined to bring a new kind of detail to the
verification and quality monitoring process.
Funk Software, for example, recently brought out something called
Proxy Remote Control Gateway, a screen monitoring and screen
recording system that provides tools for supervisors to evaluate the
interactions between call center agents and customers, evaluate agent
performance, and train new agents.
Supervisors using the Remote Control Gateway's screen monitoring
capabilities have several monitoring options: first, they can view in
real time one

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or more agent PCs at the click of a button, to see how an agent uses
the script, and if he or she is using the system correctly.
They can also use Gateway's ''cycle mode" to round-robin among
multiple PCs on the network, to systematically monitor a group of
agents. Gateway also provides a "stealth" monitoring capability that
lets supervisors monitor an agents' PC screen undetected.
Supervisors can record any agent's screen at the click of a button, and
view and record one or more screens simultaneously. Later, they can
play back these sessions, seek to any point in the recording, and play
them back at any speed. These sessions can also be archived to
accurately document performance on outsourced contracts, and
provide "proof of performance".
A new browser-based publishing tool makes collecting and sharing
customer data within the call center, and throughout the enterprise, as
easy as accessing a Web page. Envision Telephony's SoundByte
Enterprise Web Desktop lets centers publish customer contact
information in a browser page format or "web desktop." The new
format simplifies the transfer of customer information from the call
center to the enterprise. Web Desktop will be available in early June.
Departments outside of the call center can use Web Desktop to get
customized access to data necessary to make more strategic, timely
business decisions. The kinds of data at work here are primarily
digital call recordings and call center performance reports.
Executive management, marketing and product development, for
instance, can track customer response to promotions, monitor service
quality and query customers through this system. Web Desktop is part
of Envision's SoundByte Enterprise call center suite, an automated
call monitoring system that collects and publishes information about
customer contact with a company's agents.
Core elements of Web Desktop include call evaluations and graphical
comparisons of individual versus group performance. Supervisors can
also add training tools, demonstrate productivity reports, publish
department specific issues, and highlight morale topics. For example,
supervisors can feature "agent of the month", incentive programs, and
other events.
On the other hand, sometimes monitoring tools can be less than
helpful. As if call centers don't have enough trouble with turnover, an
Israeli company called Trustech has come out with a product called i-
Check, a voice analyzer that dynamically analyzes the speech flow of
either the agent or the cus-

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tomer, during a call.
That tells supervisors exactly how the agents are "feeling" during the
call. They represent an agent's "feelings" by reporting on stress levels
and other psychological indices. The theory being that this could then
be used to enhance the management of customer relations within the
call center. They apparently perceive that this could be used in
conjunction with a monitoring application that stores calls, retrieves
them on demand and runs them through the analyzer. It includes a
suite of tools that includes both real-time and off-line stress diagnosis.
But there's something really creepy about a product that detects stress
in an agent's voice and alerts supervisors. The CEO of Trustech said
in a statement that this product "greatly enhances the agent's
performance." We think that's hooey.
You think you have problems with agents and monitoring? Try telling
people that their performance is going to be evaluated based on their
emotional levels and their stress. Is there any agent who doesn't
experience stress? There are so many better ways to measure
performance and reduce tension in the call center workplace. Let's
stipulate that reps get stressed. Many of them even hate their jobs. But
the quickest way to turn the call center into a high tech sweatshop is to
give them a numerical score based on how stressed out they are.
What to Do
So in thinking about monitoring, and how it can be used well (and
badly), we come to some perhaps obvious conclusions.
Recording technology, which has been around since dinosaurs walked
the earth, has been improved twice in the last decade. First, when
digital recording replaced analog. (This makes it easier to store, and
then later retrieve, specific calls.)
Second, when CTI links made it possible to turn that digital recording
into a piece of data, and marry it to other information about the
transaction: screen scrape.
While those things fascinate, the debate about monitoring and its
effectiveness goes on. Because sometimes it's easy to forget that
monitoring is about judging people and their performance. And
recording technology by itself is not a sufficient tool for making
informed judgements.
One tool we like is Witness Systems' Performance Analyzer, software
that

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works in tandem with core recording systems to measure agent
performance against specific goals. Performance Analyzer helps solve
the problem of accessing disparate information throughout the
enterprise by serving as a central repository for information from
many sources, such as workforce management, human resources,
predictive dialers and ACDs.
Combining, assessing and exploring information from multiple
sources is critical to today's evolving contact center because no one
source has sufficient information to provide a complete performance
picture.
Previous tools have concentrated on analyzing just the data that comes
out of the recording system; this, more broad-based tool lets you
combine streams, let's you look at performance trends from a variety
of perspectives.
And unlike earlier tools, this lets you evaluate performance of agents
or groups. Or you can scale that analysis up the chain to look at an
entire center, or group of centers. Add information from accounts
receivable, order entry, and the like; then you have a picture that tells
you more than just: "Did this agent follow the script when we
randomly recorded him?" It can tell you how much money that agent
generates, and whether a particular campaign is in trouble.
Quick Tips
A reader recently asked: "How many times should a CSR be
monitored for quality through out the week?" We posed it to
several consultants and managers and got a mixed bag of
answers. So mixed, in fact, that no consensus emerged, other
than this: it's entirely dependent on the circumstances. That is,
it varies depending on how long that CSR has been on staff,
what kind of traffic he/she handles (inbound or outbound,
sales or service), the sensitivity of the kind of customer
interaction (i.e., financial services would monitor at a higher
rate than telemarketing, etc). And it also depends on what
kinds of technology are used to do the monitoring; the more
automation, the theory goes, the less you have to monitor
because you're more likely to get a true, random
representative sample; and if you can convince them that it's
truly random, then their behavior smoothes out and they are
less likely to vary their responses between calls. Whether that
works in practice as well as theory is, at least as far as I can
tell, anyone's guess.

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Simple monitoring, though useful, needs to be mitigated by data, by
thorough, rigorousand fairdata analysis tools like this one. The
successful monitoring plan is one that can gather all the dangling
threads of data that pass through and around a call center and turn it
into a rich tapestry of useful information.

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PART VII
OUTSIDE THE CENTER
It's hard enough to ensure that your own employees are doing the job right;
how do you make sure that someone from outside is?

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Chapter 26
Outsourcing
It's never easy to hire an outsourcer. Especially when what you are
asking the outsourcer to handle is that most precious asset, the
customer relationship. It's hard enough to ensure that your own
employees are doing the job right; how do you make sure that
someone from outside is?
Apparently, that fear is more widespread than we thought. A recent
study by Input, a market research firm in Mountain View, California,
found a disparity in the call center market. Users who were surveyed
about their centers reported higher satisfaction levels with in-house
call centers than with outsourced call center services.
Another report, from IDC, said that the worldwide call center services
market totaled $ 23 billion in revenues in 1998, and projected it to
double to $ 58.6 billion by 2003. (This is based on dividing the overall
call center service marketing into these segments: consulting, systems
integration and outsourcing.) Outsourcing is the largest segment, with
$ 17 billion in 1998, or 74% of the total market, headed for $ 42
billion in 2003.
Call centers will continue to grow at a strong pace (the Input study
forecasts that the call center operations market will grow 21%
annually, from $ 7 billion today to $ 18 billion in 2002). But that
growth does not come without a price. Input reports that users are
worried about things like "staff competence," "flexibility" and "the
caliber of operations'' at their outsourced centers.
Before accepting that at face value, let's remember that the
Outsourcing sector is a very large component of a huge industry. It's
also an industry undergoing a lot of change. Is their service awful?
Not as a rule. Could it stand improvement? Without question. What I
really think is happening is that the managers who decide they need to
go outside their organization for help with teleservices are realizing
how critical that customer relationship is, and

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are understandably nervous about losing control over it.
There's no question that the mere act of turning sensitive service and
revenue tasks over to an outside vendor creates stresses that
boomerang back as tentative satisfaction ratings. "As an industry, in
terms of keeping our own house in order, there's probably some truth
to that," says David Kissell of Alert Communications. "But the client
can't just hand off the account without paying attention," he says.
The fact is that the outsourcing business has boomed in this decade.
Companies need the service, the expertise and the technology that
outsourcers make available.
For the outsourcers themselves, this has been a strange time-people
are beginning to realize what a fragile business model call center
outsourcing is. Outsourcers are at the mercy of a customer base that
demands the highest levels of technology, that insists the outsourcers
provide incredibly sophisticated off-premise technology, and that they
integrate it into existing systems.
On top of that, outsourcers perform a service that, to most of their
clients, is a luxurythat during bad times will be scaled back to cut
costs, and that (I think) will prove to be very price competitive. Every
negative thing that affects call centers hits outsourced centers harder:
a shortage of qualified labor, the capital costs of keeping up with
demand and new technology, and the capricious introduction of
unproven innovations (like web/call center combinations) that the
market calls necessary but that are a killer to do properly. Is it any
wonder that the few outsourcers that are public, and hence report
earnings, have a devil of a time making money?
Sometimes, when a company is growing, the only way to keep up
with an expanding customer base is by getting help from outside.
Traditionally outsourcers served as a bridgehandling high call
volumes during peak seasons, for example, or during product
launches. Additionally, service bureaus are a good way for a company
to test something new without incurring capital expenses. A new
campaign can be tested on an outbound list without buying dialing
equipment, or hiring new workers. Outsourcers, to stay competitive,
often feature the latest technologies in the most sophisticated
implementations.
But just as the relationship between a company and its customers
needs constant managing, so does the tie between a company and its
outsourcer. "What we have to do is when someone brings us an
application, go through it from square one to identify their goals and
objectives," Kissell says. "The commodity mentality of the [service
bureau] product has changed things," he says.

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Instead of treating every client as if they were punched out by a
cookie cutter, service bureaus have to invest in a lot more handholding
with their clients. Outsourcers' problems tend to get magnified by the
attention those companies get in the press, and by the fact that in
recent years several high profile companies went public. In general,
service bureaus run centers that are larger than those run by
companies in house. They also tend to run more of them, often
connected into networks of interlinked centers. They tend to be as
afflicted by things like high turnover and employee burnout as any
other sector of the teleservices industry.
There are some things a company can do to make sure they get the
most out of their relationship with an outsourcer.
First, they need a clear view of what they expect the outsourcer to
accomplish. "They need to find an outsourcer that is a partner, and not
just paying them lip service, who makes a concerted effort to
understand what their goals are and what's going to make their
program a success," according to Kissell.
He points out that a lot of service bureaus make the mistake of
pigeonholing clients; that is, assuming that a single basket of services
will suffice for all catalogue retailers, another for hospitably
companies, and so on. "A lot of service bureaus will fail this way," he
says.
End-users should pay close attention to the specialty of the outsourcer
they're considering. Are they experienced doing the kinds of things
that you do, and if so, are they coming into the relationship with
preconceived notions of how you should be running your business?
Close attention includes checking references and calling into centers
to see how calls are actually handled. Ask the outsourcer about staff
trainingis there a regular program for refreshing the knowledge of
phone reps? And how about turnover?
They should be able to tell you what physical centers will be used for
your campaigns, and what the turnover rate is at those centers. You
have a right (and a duty) to find out how skilled, and how motivated,
those reps are. Ask what kind of career path is available for agentsdo
they get promoted to supervisor? How long is the average tenure?
Knowing the answer to those questions will tell you how bored the rep
is when he answers the phone and it's your irate customer on the line.
I suspect that the disjunction between satisfaction at in-house versus
outsourced call centers is due to more to "location comfort" than
anything else.

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You know the people who work in your own call center, their
strengths and weaknesses. You've probably already figured out how to
play to those strengths, deal with the weaknesses. Admitting that you
need to go outside for help, especially for the smaller, growing
company, can be dispiriting. Losing touch with the process of
customer contact, even if it's limited, can be unnerving.
Service bureaus need to emphasize the connection they offer between
the customer and the company. I think they have a perception
problem, not a real problem. They need to sell their experience, their
consultation. There are technical tools at their disposal that enable the
companies that hire them to come closer to the point of
interactionreal-time reporting tools, for example, that let a client see
the results of calls (inbound or outbound) without having to take those
calls themselves. There are monitoring and quality assurance systems
that deliver voice and data records to the client, if needed, of
everything that happens during a call. Outsourcers can beand should
be (and I think are willing to be) held accountable to their clients.
Most important, Kissell says, is that they talk through the relationship
before it even starts. "There should be handholding before the ink hits
the paper," he says.
Is Your Telco Your Next Outsourcer?
What if you ran a call center and your network carrier offered you the
same servicescall handling, transaction processing, and order
fulfillment? What if they offered to consult with you on creating the
most efficient center, and using the center to support your company's
strategic goals? Or offered you the chance to offload some or all of
your volume to their centers?
What if you could take it a step further, and use the carrier network
itself? After all, you may have an ACD, but they have better ones.
That's what the phone networks are made of. What if all the queuing,
routing and call processingin short, every touch of the customer from
the first IVR interaction to the faxing back of an order
confirmationwhat if everything could be handled by AT&T or
Ameritech or US West or MCI or even British Telecom? Wouldn't
that be at least as attractive a proposition as going through a
traditional outsourcer?
Carriers have a powerful incentive to get into this business. First, the
expertise is already there. They know how to handle calls and call
centers; some of their centers are among the world's busiest. The long
distance carri-

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ers have long used their own centers as test beds for their own new
technologies, including some of the enhanced network services that
make their entry into the outsourcing field possible.
Second, the economics are compelling. Carriers thrive by selling
telecom minutes to call centers (to others, too, of coursebut 800
number traffic, the bread and butter of call centers, is also a key part
of their revenue). Anything they can do to generate more usage of
their networks is money in the bank. If they offer a call center an off-
premise solution for IVR, for example, or a multi-site option that lets
the company hold calls in the network while waiting for an agent to
become available, that generates minutes. Maybe they'll craft you a
discount that brings your long distance costs closer to zero cents per
minute; they'll be able to do this because you're paying for the value-
add, the service that happens in their network.
This works best when carriers offer software-based services that don't
require them to spend on agents. But over time, the carriers will
evolve their call center offerings into as close to turnkey call
processing as anyone has ever gotten. Already we have seen carriers
get into the act as call center "consolidators"fitting together all the
technology pieces under one umbrella purchase. Come here, the sell
goes, and you can get up and running quickly with a center that we
will help you build, and you can pick from a Chinese menu of
hardware and software vendors to supply the applications you want to
run; we (the carrier) will certify that everything integrates happily,
that everything works together and you can call one number for
multivendor technical support.
Two of these umbrella offerings were unveiled by RBOCs about two
years ago; they even included traditional outsourcers as partners in the
mix.
But it's clear that the role of the carrier is coming to take on more of
what we traditionally expected an outsourcer to do. The carriers can
craft these offerings, and push other vendors into working
relationships, because 1. They are large; 2. They can set standards; 3.
They have a relationship with the call center that runs deeper than that
of the traditional outsourcer.
Of course traditional outsourcers are not going to go away. The fact
that carriers are superbly positioned to get into this business does not
mean that they will do so in any meaningful way. The fact that they
have had the means and the opportunity for six or seven years now
and we are only just beginning to have this discussion in the industry
means that the competitive advantage still lies with the traditional
outsourcer. Carriers are only now awaken-

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ing to the possibilities of enhanced services. But they are notoriously
bad at crafting products from technologies.
Carriers can be slow, cumbersome, anything but fleet of foot. They
can be danced around by clever competitors.
From the call center consumer's point of view, the more choices the
better. In the next few years there will probably be a tremendous
boom in the kinds of things a call center can outsource to a carrier
network. All the automated front-end transactions, especially IVR and
routing, will be well handled outside the call center. I think companies
will look to outsourcing as a specialty: if an application has more to
do with routing and automated call handling, the carrier will be a
better choice. But if it's more agent-based, and involves touchy things
like selling or servicing existing customers, a traditional outsourcer
will probably get the call.
It's virtually certain that we are in for a few years of amalgamation,
where the lines between different types of outsourcing blur. Who will
offer internet-based transactions, for example, or video-enabled call
centers? What's certain is that they will all compete to offer a wide
variety of new and improved services, and call centers will be better
off.
Ovum, an industry research group, recently reported that the biggest
growth segment in the call center market was for network-based call
center services. They say that these services will generate more than $
4 billion in annual revenues for telecom service providers by 2005.
(By contrast, current worldwide consumption of toll-free services by
call centers is put at $ 20 billion per year.)
On top of that, they say, 35% of call center agents worldwide will use
some type of network-based call center service, with nearly half of
those using network services as their primary call distribution method.
What do we mean by network-based services? Essentially, this refers
to any of agent-support systems that traditionally occur within the
center: things like call routing, transaction processing, database
lookup, screen pop, and so forth.
The interesting thing about all of these things is that they can beand
are beingdone by the network carrier in the telecom network, outside
of traditional premise-based call center equipment. Carriers see this as
a potential gold mine; they can drop the price of toll-free to just a
hair's breadth above zero, and more than make up the difference
selling you services as a value-add.

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The kinds of things that can be done in the network include what we
think of as virtual or distributed call centeringdispersing agents among
many centers and routing calls among them as if they were co-located
in one site. It also includes network IVR, grabbing the customer input
in the network, then using that to determine what to do with a call.
Maybe most important, web integration services hold a lot of potential
for this. Call centers are having trouble coping with both the technical
and human resources issues that are cropping up due to the explosion
of web access channels into the center. Adding things like live text
chat, call-me buttons and even simple e-mail create headaches for reps
and managers alike.
Putting some of these things in the network (particularly the IVR) is
something the telcos themselves have been doing for years. Add
Centrex ACD and the hunger for multi-site centers and you have a
tempting service market. From the call center's point of view,
network-based services that are paid for either by the month or by
transaction offer a way to be more flexible in the face of unpredictable
volume and varied access pathways,
The Ovum report suggests a future growth pattern that by 2000 2004
includes a lot of voice-over-IP, even at the desktop, and that predicts
that a "staff famine" leads to an increase in home-based agents in
some sectors.
They see pressure on both sides to move to network-based services.
For one thing, the growth of e-commerce will and "e-contact" will
make it extremely difficult to predict how many transactions will be
handled electronically, rather than by human agents. And carriers,
facing increased competition, are being forced to look at service
offerings as a way to differentiate themselves.
In the end, we think, this will be an opportunity for call centers to play
mix-and-match with their technology and outsourced services. We
think network-based services will offer an attractive alternative to
premise equipment for a lot of centers, and open the door to new ways
of managing centers.
What to Look For
We used to think of outsourcers as predominantly outbound entities,
doing mainly specialty telemarketing. That's not the case anymore. In
fact, the outsourcing functions of a service bureau now go far beyond
what we traditionally expect. Everything we think of as "back office"
is now fair game for an outsourcer: everything from inbound and
outbound call handling to customer tracking, quality assurance,
fulfillment, data processing and even help

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desk customer support.
Or should we say: especially customer support. More and more,
companies are turning over their help desks to outside experts. It's
easier than it's ever been, thanks to technology that assists in routing
and tracking calls. And it's more cost-effective.
As post-sales customer support becomes simultaneously more
important and more expensive, companies are looking for lower cost
alternatives that don't force them to compromise on quality. What do
you get with a service bureau? A few deceptively simple benefits:
Access to technology. Forget about the big capital investments in
switches, dialers, workstations. In upgrades to hardware and software.
Service bureaus are equipped with state-of-the-art call center systems.
They can spread the costs around multiple clients. Unless you devote
strong (and consistent) resources to your in-house call center, only a
service bureau will have the cutting edge technology you need to stay
competitiveand have it in a hurry.
Vertical expertise. These companies are specialists. In the needs of
banks. Or fundraisers. Or retailers. Whatever industry you are in, there
are outsourcers who know how that vertical market functions and how
to treat your customers.
Speed. You can respond quickly to seasonal (or even hourly)
fluctuations in the number of agents your program will need.
One of the surprising developments in recent years is the way certain
high tech companies are growing into major outsourcers themselves.
This is due to the need to provide intensely consultative service to
many of their own customers.
As call centers change (becoming more distributed, and taking on
more business functions) the companies that provide them with
services change too. There is much more emphasis on advanced
computer telephony integration technology at outsourcers these days.
And on technology for linking call centers with other back office
processes. Outsourcers are now, more than ever, the engine of growth
in the call center industry.
Outsourcing service bureaus face many of the same pressures as in-
house call centers. Here are some of the trends and technologies that
will affect how outsourcers do business in the next decade.
Outsourcers are a good gauge of the cutting edge. They've always
been in the forefront of technological and operational change in the
call center industry.
In fact, even before there was such a thing as a call center industry,
service

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bureaus were busy creating itcarving out an identity for call centers
that had less to do with the vertical market served than it did with the
techniques involved in handling calls.
What will service bureaus look like in five years? Not terribly
different, at first glance. While there are several trends pushing the
call center in virtualized, dispersed directions, the physical reality of
today's centersroomsful of people, talking into headsetswon't change
dramatically before the turn of the century.
The changes in service bureaus over the next few years mirror what's
going on in the rest of the call center industry. They all face the
pressure of improving productivity and delivering more services
directly to the end-user. And they are all scrambling to provide more
"self-serve" methods of interactionletting the customer search a
database for the answers to his own problems, for example, or use an
automated system to transfer funds, and most especially, they are
rushing like demons to offer internet front-end services, and to
integrate those services with backend database tools.
Available to all these centers will be an evolving basket of powerful
technologies, some new, some enhanced. The difference for
outsourcers is that they have even more pressure than the rest of the
industry to stay aheadto use those technologies to eke out even tiny
efficiencies. To make money in that small spread between what it
costs to handle calls, and what you can charge the client for that
service.
Specialty Niches
One other important reason to go with an outsourcer is to crack a
specialty niche for the first time. Are you prepared to market to the
Hispanic market with your current staff and configuration? How about
Europe? Or even Canada? There are service bureaus that specialize in
Spanish-language telemarketing or other multilingual options.
Others take on the needs of a particular industry, like fundraising,
collections or high-technology.

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Chapter 27
Disaster & Contingency Planning
As I write this, barely half a year to go before the turn of the calendar,
and it's pretty safe to assume that it's too late to make any meaningful
changes in your code or to your equipment in anticipation of Y2K
problems.
In fact, hoping that this book has a life in 2000 and beyond, it's
important to point out that Y2K, whether it fizzles or not, is just the
tip of the iceberg when it comes to call center disaster planning. It
does provide a perfect opportunity to create and drill on a call center
continuity plan.
Not to be alarmist or anything, but there are more reasons than just
Y2K for a call center to be prepared. In recent years centers have had
to shut down because of many problems, including weather (floods
and ice storms), power spikes, cable cuts, computer crashes and
network outages.
Most of the time these disturbances are localized and affect only a
small number of centers. But the cost to any center hit by a temporary
shutdown can be enormous.
That's why we think it's critical for all centers to invest in disaster
contingency planning. Not for Y2Kfor every day.
Here are some of the ways that centers (and vendors who supply those
centers with technology) can protect themselves.
1. Identify the key systems that are at risk. Most are obvious: the
switching technology, the data processing. But do you know how
vulnerable your business is if your package delivery service isn't
available? A lot of call centers found out the hard way when UPS was
hit by labor trouble several years ago. It's one thing to be able to take
orders by phone, but when you can't fulfill those orders, customers
may turn away.
External services that are outsourced are particularly vulnerable. For
better or worse, companies are bound to other companies in dependent
rela-

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tionships for critical applications like fulfillment, personnel supply,
even for service on internal equipment.
If you rely on outside services that you deem critical to continued
operation, you have two choices. You can single-source that service
and make certain that the vendor has enough redundancy (and extra
capacity) to handle a problem. Or, you can multi-source, giving
yourself a backup in case your main vendor has problems.
This applies to everything from package delivery to long distance
servicesif you rely on AT&T to bring calls into your center, and a
backhoe in New Jersey cuts all AT&T traffic, it's nice to know that
some of your customers can get through by using MCI or Sprint.
And if you are a service provider, let your customers know what
contingency plans you have in place to assure them of continued
service in case of snow or fire or other short and medium term
emergency.
2. Do a cabling/wiring/power assessment. We suggest you map out
every wire and connection in your centerand diagram the connections
between technologies.
What this will do for you is, first, allow you to check the power
protection status of every server, PC, switch and node in house. A
critical assessment will tell you which are covered by UPS units,
which have hot-swappable power supplies, and which need them. Do
you have phone sets that get plugged into bare outlets? Guess we don't
need to tell you how awful it's going to be when lightning shorts out
all the phone sets and headsets, leaving reps with working computers
and incoming ACD calls they can't answer.
It's that kind of thing, not a colossal Y2K failure, that can happen to
the average call center on any day of the week, any time of year.
3. Identify key personnel. It's important to know who will be on call
during a problem situation, and what those people's specific
responsibilities will be. It's even more important that they know what
they are supposed to do and where they should be.
It's going to be demoralizing to go around the center and the
organization looking for points of failure. But once you do this, you
have to marry the possible problems with the people who can do
something about them.
Any working group you convene for call center contingency planning

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should include members from outside the call center, especially
including people from IT and facilities management departments.
Share knowledge. They need to be made aware of the impact call
center failure could have on the entire company. (Often, amazingly,
companies are blind to the fact that a call center outage will affect
revenue.)
And those people outside the center need to provide coordinated
responses to problems that affect data processing, order processing,
shipping, human resources availabilitythe whole gamut of business
functions that are involved when you're trying to jump start an
operation as complex as a call center.
4. Identify manual workarounds. If the computers went down, could
you take orders by hand? Or would you have to tell customers to call
back later? Make sure there are enough copies of your current catalog
or product list for every inbound agent at all timesif they can't pull up
product info on the screen, at least they can give a caller basic pricing
and ordering information.
Do you have a plan for coping without a CTI link? Agents should be
trained on the procedures for handling customers when they don't
have access to customer data.
What about when the front-end crasheshow will you handle the
sudden flood of calls that come into the agent pool when the normally
reliable IVR or auto attendant doesn't siphon off half your calls?
Or the web? How will your center react to an inflation (or deflation)
of the contact volume through alternate means, like e-mail, or text-
chat? The more access methods you provide for customers, the more
points at which a sudden change can cause problemsnot true disasters,
perhaps, but certainly unintended difficulties.
On the other hand, the more avenues a customer has to get through to
you, the less likely you are to lose that customer to a disaster. You can
cross your fingers and hope that if all your call centers shut down for
three days, they'll still find you on the web.
5. Explore secondary sites. Sometimes, the only way to truly prevent
disaster is to replicate your call center functions somewhere else. If
there's a flood in your center but your people can still come to work,
you can continue to operate from another location.

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This could be as simple as using a non-call center assets (basic office
space, for example), or as complex as arranging to buy contingency
services from someone like Comdisco.
In fact, you can arrange (from a number of reliable vendors) to have
the entire call center run from alternative sites in any location, for a
hefty fee. These ''call centers on call" are different from traditional
outsourcing, in that you pay a retainer to have access to the services
on your schedule, but you only call on them when you really need
them.
These disaster-oriented services can provide equipment, temporary
(and sometimes mobile) facilities, and if you're inclined, data
processing and backup functions as well.
What's most important to remember about any of the options
described here (and we have only just scratched the surface) is that the
continued operation of your center depends on a complex set of
connected technologies, some of them very fragile. Some are
vulnerable to things you can't control.
What you absolutely must do, Y2K or no, is take some precautions to
assure a minimum continuity of function and connection to your
customers. How you do it will depend on your unique circumstances,
but that you should do it is unquestionable.
The results of any of those events could have devastating effects on a
company. The call center is one of your company's most vulnerable
segments because it is the nexus of several complex technologies.
Losing it means you are cut off from your customersso in any disaster
it should have top priority for recovery.
Power
Power protection is probably the most serious ongoing problem.
When a call center goes down, revenue stops coming in. Protecting
yourself from disasters is one of the least expensivebut most
neglectedaspects of call center management.
There is no such thing as "good" downtime. In a call center, downtime
means calls aren't coming, orders aren't being taken, customers are
getting angry, impatient, upset. Or they're simply calling someone
else, and you'll never know about it.
There are a lot of things that can bring your call center to a screeching
halt. (Actually, the halt will be very, very quiet. . . ) Natural disaster
can keep peo-

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ple from coming to workstorms, snow, flooding. A construction crew
digging two towns away can cut your long distance link to the outside
world.
Or, in perhaps the most common situation, problems with the
electrical power system can knock you offline in one form or another
without warning.
Your IVR system is a perfect example. Depending on how it's
implemented, IVR can quickly become a crucial part of your
enterprisehandling a substantial amount of your call traffic, promoting
customer satisfaction, generating revenue. In some cases the IVR
system actually touches all inbound calls, either handling them
outright or passing them back to the agents in conjunction with an
ACD. In this context, IVR downtime would be as damaging to
operations as a loss of phone service.
Some things you should know:
Power problems are the single most frequent cause of phone and
computer system failure. The average IVR system, for example, is hit
with a significant power fluctuation (spike, surge, brownout)
approximately 400 times a year. The problem is getting worse, as
regional power grids are forced to adapt to increased consumption.
Power-related damage is among the most difficult types of damage
to recover from. That's because it does two things: it cripples the
hardware, often necessitating a costly replacement (complete with
waiting time for delivery), and it wipes out data.
Multiple connections (to trunks, networks, peripherals, etc.) increase
the number of routes through which power surges can enter and
cripple an integrated call center. The more components you connect
together (and we count data sources here as a component) the more
vulnerable you'll be when something hits.
An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is a battery system that
provides power to your telephone switch or computer. Surge
protectors or arresters, clamp down on high voltages that can surge
down your power or telephone line, frying your delicate equipment.
Power conditioners remove noise, make up for undervoltages, and
generally deliver clean power to your telephone switch or computer.
Many high-end UPS systems roll all of these function into one unit.
The big news in power protection these days is power management
software, which lets you keep track of power conditions throughout
your network from your workstation, and gives the UPS more
sophisticated features, such as the ability to shut down your
equipment even when it is unattended.

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Many power protection systems (especially UPS systems) are
marketed specifically for telecommunications applications, but the
fact is, the same UPS can protect a telephone system as well as a
computer system.
Power protection is one of the cheapest forms of insurance you can
buy. The technology is solid. It's been proven to work. The added cost
of protecting hardware is roughly 10% to 25% of the hardware's
value. That does not count the value of the data. You could make the
argument (we often do) that a call center's data is far more valuable
than its hardware.
When you factor in the cost of potential losses, and weigh that against
the likelihood of problems, the cost of protection becomes negligible.
The Audit
There are two parts to a successful disaster strategy:
1. Contingency planning. Making sure that you've identified all the
people, processes and equipment that are critical to your operation.
Planning for their unavailability, with backup strategies for a variety
of situations.
2. Installing a technology net. Power protection. Backup power
supplies. Redundant trunks and carriers, etc.
Here's what we think you should do to protect yourself.
Document everything. From where your wiring runs to the home
phone numbers of all critical personnel. Put your plans down on
paperyes, paperso it survives a network crash. Rehearse them. Tell
everyone where they are. Think about how stupid you'll feel if you go
to the trouble to create a plan, then can't find the information in a
pinch.
 Identify risks. It's not the same for everyone. Geographically, you
could be more likely to encounter a snowstorm than an earthquake.
Also, it's important to identify exactly what you need to protect. In
every business, there are systems that are supercritical, and those that
you can live without for an hour (or a day). Establish your own
prioritiesis it more important to be able to take orders? Or provide
service? Thinking about these priorities will also give you useful
insight into the way your call center fits into the company's business
process.
Get a power audit. UPSs (uninterruptible power supplies) are
designed with the assumption that building wiring provides proper
routes to ground and has sufficient ampacity to sink diverted power
surges.

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But the best UPS in the world won't protect you if your building
wiring is crummy. Neither will the "guaranteed" insurance policies
that come with some power protection products (read the fine print).
Find an objective electrician to conduct a true power audit of your
premise wiring, and make necessary repairs and upgrades part of your
power protection program.
Protect everything. The object is to set up an island of protection
around each crucial piece of equipment. That means UPS protection
behind the system. And properly grounded surge suppressors on
network and phone connections, as well as cables and connections to
peripherals.
Other department managers can get away with focusing on one or two
critical elements, but your disaster recovery plan must cover the
protection and restoration of:
Telecom equipment (hardware and software),
Computer equipment (hardware and software),
Networks (voice and data),
Electric power.
And that's just the technology. A complete plan will also include
contingencies for your facilities and your personnel.
Telecom
Assume your phone system will fail, and at the most inopportune
time. We strongly urge you to get involved with your local phone
companies and the network carriers to create recovery plans. Most
outages occur on the local level.
Also, make arrangements with your equipment vendors to have
emergency replacement equipment available on short notice. There
are switch vendors who will take a machine off the assembly line for a
customer that's close to what's in the field and build it quickly into a
machine that's suitable to the loss.
Have lots of backup power supplies in place, because most
emergencies are due to disruptions of the power grid. That includes
batteries, generators and UPS systems.
There are four specific areas in which you need to be prepared:
Have a plan documented.
Maintain the call center's files and knowledge bases backed up,
current and off-site.

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Have a place to go to reestablish the call center, properly equipped
with computers and telecom equipment.
And critically: train your people.
Switch manufacturers build in disaster recovery features through
system redundancy, service options and fast turnaround on
replacement systems.
The favored way to protect your networks, especially your
telecommunications networks, is through route diversity.
Arrangements for network diversity are made with your local
telephone company, an alternative service and your long distance
carrier.
At the local level, you don't want all your traffic to be carried over the
local loop supplied by the local telephone company. The local loop is
vulnerable, as is any network connection, to breaks because of
construction (backhoe through the cable), destruction (a car crashing
in to a telephone pole) and other disasters.
Your local carrier can usually supply an additional loop. Make sure
route diversity extends all the way to the point where the trunk enters
your premises. Real routing diversity involves at least two entry
points into your buildings.
Some companies achieve diversity in their long distance service by
using two or more long distance carriers. And it's a tactic your carrier
may not tell you about. Long distance carriers have their own tactics
for network diversity that are worth asking about.
Of course, third party suppliers are available also. All of Comdisco's
recovery facilities are linked through a high-speed fiber backbone
network called CDRS Net. This network is also available to clients to
recover voice, data and image communication links between the
client's site and Comdisco's facilities.
Another point of concern is the interface between the telephone
network and your equipment. Not much of an issue on your home
telephone, but in a call center with several T-1s, you can't forget about
protection for all the sophisticated equipment that connects the T-1s
with your telecom equipment.
Protecting a telephone system from power disturbances that originate
on the AC electric line is common practice at many companies. What
is often forgotten, though, is that your telephone lines are also a power
source that can introduce voltage surges into your system or be
blacked out by lack of power.
With regular telephone service, the problem is that your telephone
switch

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has no power even though the telephone service itself is working.
There are protective devices on the market that let you bypass your
telephone system during a power outage by connecting preassigned
single-line station phones directly to the central office trunks.
This won't be much help in a large call center, but is just the thing to
let a small call center with only a few lines keep handling calls
through a power outage.

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Chapter 28
Telecommuting Agents
Faced with high turnover rates and a tight labor market for call center
labor, some in the call center industry are renewing an idea that
seemed all-but-dead just a few years ago: the notion of call center reps
working from home.
It didn't die because of feasibility. In fact, for most of the last ten
years it's been possible to wire up call center reps to the center from
just about anywhere, especially when access to ISDN was available.
(You don't need ISDN to make this happen anymore, thanks to the
internet.)
Several major ACDs were open to that kind of link, and the software
to remotely manage the agents could be had, albeit for a price.
No, what pushed it aside was the fact that it removed agents from the
direct control of their supervisors, and often it was difficult to show
quantifiable reasons why you should go out of your way to do that. In
any industry, letting people work from home is a giant step for
managerial culture. In call centers, it's the equivalent of an earthquake.
And yet, subtly the idea is catching on in the rest of society. One study
showed that in 1997 there were 11 million US telecommuters, up
substantially from just a few years before.
That same study (by the International Telework Association) suggests
that telecommuting's feasibility is enhanced by access to advanced
technologies, such as the Internet and personal computers. An
estimated 31% of telecommuters used the Internet, more than double
the average home usage rate, and 75% of them used personal
computers, up from 59% in 1995.
Two things to take away from that stat. First, it was for 1997, which
as we know, was only the beginning of the internet wave. We would
expect those percentages to be a bit higher now.
Second, that at the same time the internet is reshaping the nature of
"work," it is reshaping the organization of the call center. As these
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dovetail, the call center becomes a more attractive place to implement
creative job structuresif you can wean managers from having daily
physical contact with their reps.
There are powerful arguments in favor of having some portion of your
call center agents telecommute. One of the biggest is the morale
boostand the resulting money you'll save on training when they stick
around for a long, long time.
Call center workers are ideal candidates for telecommuting. Anecdotal
evidence suggests that most people who work from home do so
because they are employed by small companies with less than 100
employees.
One reason why smaller companies lead the way is their informal
management style makes testing the idea easier. The companies that
benefit most from having employees work from home are those which
have a workforce made up primarily of information workers or service
workers. Many call centers have employees that fall into both
categories.
Switches (and their software) have evolved to the point where agents
can log into an ACD and receive calls at home in exactly the same
fashion as if they were sitting at a desk in the center. Their desktop
can receive the same screen pop of data. And most important, the
agent appears on the supervisor terminal in real timeso they can be
counted, evaluated, monitored, and communicated with. Switches
from Aspect and Rockwell, among several others, offer advanced and
transparent home-agent capabilities.
Why Consider It?
Why would anyone spend even a penny to have agents work at home?
There are several good reasons.
1. Gain productivity. Trials have shown that workers are more
productive at home. The main reason for this may be that there are
fewer interruptions. The fact that the telecommuters are more
comfortable at home and are avoiding the stress of commuting may
also contribute.
2. Reduce training costs. There are many advantages to decreasing
turnover, but the bottom line benefit is the reduction of training costs.
One company saved over $ 10,000 per telecommuting employee. The
bulk of that was money saved on training.

 Page 255
3. Retain employees when they move. With two-career couples now
the rule, not the exception, it is easy to lose a valued employee
because a spouse's job requires relocation. Companies can retain the
knowledge and experience of these workers by having them
telecommute from their new home. (Obviously there are some
limitsyou don't want to create a continentwide network of agents,
that's just too unwieldy.)
4. Retain employees with family obligations. Today's workers have
obligations to both ends of the age spectrum. A worker may leave a
job to care for a child or elderly parent.
While working at home is usually not possible when young children
or seriously ill adults must be cared for, flexible work schedules let
telecommuters fit in part-time work when they are free from their
other responsibilities.
This also allows you to tap a hidden source for call center staffthe
spouses of your reps. They know your business, and may only need
minimal training before they are ready to serve as part-timers on-call
in a pinch.
5. Provide call coverage in emergencies. Earthquakes, snowstorms,
floods. Almost every region has experienced a natural disaster that
made it difficult or impossible for agents to reach the call center.
Agents can work at home temporarily when disasters disrupt roads or
damage call centers. It provides you with an instantly accessible
backup plan for many low-grade problems.
And because the overhead costs are so low, temporary at-home agents
are also a cost effective way to deal with peak periodswhether they are
expected or unexpected.
6. Provide a new source of employees. The largest call centers often
employ all qualified agents within a reasonable commuting distance.
But what happens when those call centers need to expand?
Adding at-home agents that are outside of traditional commuting
distance is one way of expanding the workforce without the expense
of opening another call center.
7. Comply with the Clean Air Act. This federal law requires
companies with more than 100 employees in high-pollution areas to
design and implement programs to reduce air pollution.
Telecommuting is a sure way to reduce auto emissions.

 Page 256
8. Comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Another federal
law gives disabled workers the right to employment in jobs they are
qualified for. Agents that can't commute because of their disabilities
can be accommodated through a work-at-home program. At-home
employment can also boost the productivity of other disabled workers.
One thing most companies with successful telecommuting programs
have in common is the ability to successfully manage their workers
remotely. The main reason companies don't explore telecommuting is
fear of lack of control. But with today's systems supervisors can
monitor agents' work as if they were sitting in the call center. It is
possible to randomly access both computer screens and telephone
calls as if the agent were in the same building.
Who Gets the Nod?
It is important for a company to put prospective telecommuters
through a selection process. Agents should earn the right to work at
home.
You should have stringent requirements for the selection of agents
that participate in a work-at-home program. First, reps should be
evaluated on work performance, including factors like attendance,
promptness and productivity. Then the agents' homes might be
inspected for size, electrical wiring and other factors important for
choosing an office site.
Experts all say that managing the expectations and feelings of those
workers "left behind" in the office is a key part of any successful
telecommuting program. It is not just managers who have to know
that the work-at-homer is producing. Co-workers must know also.
Obviously this is not something that every center should consider. It's
not right for every agent. But we think it's a good idea to have at least
some capacity to plug in agents from home, if only for redundancy
and peak coverage.
Imagine: a sudden call spike comes in at some strange, unpredicted
hour. You do not have the staff in the center, and it would take you at
least several hours to get enough people in the seats to cover it.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to call ten people at home and ask them
to log in from their PCs? Pay them a great overtime rate, and you've
solved a myriad of problems at one blow. Extra cash in their pockets,
better service level provided, your stats look great, and it's all
achievable with very little extra technology. Something to think about.

 Page 259

RESOURCES
CALL CENTER RESOURCES
This listingby no means completeincludes companies that sell
equipment, software and services into call centers. It's as current as we
could make it, given how fast things change in high tech industries. If
you have changes, find errors, or want more information, visit the
electronic version of this list at www.CallCenterNews.com. That's the
website of the Call Center News Service. You can update your own
listing there, as well.
1 800 Support
18277 SW Boones Ferry Rd.
Portland, OR 97224
(503) 684-2826
(800) 777-9608
Fax: (503) 639-3946
www.800support.com
General technical support outsourcing for hardware manufacturers,
software publishers, ISPs, and major corporations.
800 Direct
8130 Remmet Avenue
Canoga Park, CA 91304
(818) 713-1092
(800) 888-5524
Fax: (818) 713-8426
www.800direct.com
800 Direct is a full-service agency, providing one source for
telemarketing, including fulfillment, database management, inbound
and outbound telemarketing and interactive services.
AAA Best Mailing Lists
888 South Craycroft Rd
Tucson, AZ 85711
(800) 692-2378
Fax: (602) 745-3800
ABConsulting
(408) 243-2234
Fax: (408) 243-2236
Consulting services on fax, fax-on-demand and other fax/call center
issues.
Aberdeen Group
One Boston Place
Boston, MA 02108
(617) 723-7890
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
ABI Companies
2502 Rocky Point Drive
Suite 695
Tampa, FL 33607
(813) 289-8808
Fax: (813) 289-6628
www.abiinc.com

 Page 260
Construction, design and real estate services for call centers. They
have built a number of large and important centers, mainly in the
Southeast US.
Acacia Teleservices International
270 Oakway Center
Eugene, OR 97401
(541) 484-5545
(800) 225-4151
Fax: (541) 465-9406
www.acaciatel.com
Accelerated Payment Systems
Executive Plaza III
Suite 800
Hunt Valley, MD 21031
(800) 688-2230
Fax: (410) 584-9548
www.ncms.com
Automated check debiting system for call center transaction
processing. (That is, callers can pay by check and the transaction is
automatically verified, much like a standard credit card transaction.)
ACI Telecentrics
3100 West Lake Street
Suite 300
Minneapolis, MN 55416
(612) 928-4700
Fax: (612) 928-4701
ACI Telecentrics is a call center outsourcer, employing more than 800
telemarketing reps for telephone-based sales and marketing services
primarily to the publishing, financial, insurance, and
telecommunications service industries. They operate call centers in
seven cities: Twin Valley, MN; Devils Lake and Valley City, ND;
Redfield and Pierre, SD; Lombard, IL; and Merrillville, IN.
ACS Wireless
10 Victor Square
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
(408) 461-3270
(800) 995-5500
Fax: (408) 438-2745
www.acs.com
Now owned by GN Netcom. (See that entry for more information.)
Active Voice
2901 Third Avenue
Seattle, WA 98121
(206) 441-4700
Fax: (206) 441-4784
www.activevoice.com
Repartee voice processing and unified messaging applications. It's
actually one of the most popular voice mail systems around, enhanced
all the time. (They've popularized the ''1 for yes, 2 for no" interface.)
Also important is the TeLANophy system, which is essentially a
LAN/voice mail interfaceall your calls are viewable and listenable
through your PC. I've tried it, it works.
Acuity
(512) 425-2200
(888) 242-8669
www.acuity.com
Aculab
Lakeside
Bramley Rd.
Mount Farm
Milton Keyn
MK1 1PT, UK
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1908 273800
Fax: +44 (0) 1908 273801
www.aculab.com
Computer telephony hardware, particularly boards.

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Acuvoice
84 W. Santa Clara Street, Suite 720
San Jose, CA 95113-1810
(408) 289-1661
Fax: (408) 289-1201
www.acuvoice.com
Speech synthesis system and text-to-speech system. They've got an
expert system that takes text and parses it into voice sounds. They
point out that it delivers speech in natural sounding tones, not robot-
speech or the typical "drunken Swede" sounds (apologies to my
Swedish friends).
Acxiom
301 Industrial Blvd., P.O. Box 2000
Conway, AR 72033
(501) 336-1000
(800) 922-9466
Fax: (501) 336-3902
www.acxiom.com
Service bureau offering a wide variety of list management and data
management tools. They are active in direct marketing, data
warehousing and certain vertical applications of those technologies.
Adante
2141 Palomar Airport Road
Suite 200
Carlsbad, CA 92009
(760) 431-6400
(888) 827-5557
www.adante.com
Adante, which is essentially "ACD e-mail" as they described it to me.
Call center agents use their web browser to connect to an Adante
server (Win 95 or NT) which then gets them the "next e-mail in
queue". It gives you all the same kinds of routing criteria for e-mail
that you get with a voicebased ACD, including behind-the-scenes
integration with customer information. Interesting.
Adaptiv Software Corporation
18012 Skypark Circle, Ste. 150
Irvine, CA 92614
(949) 955-0499
Fax: (949) 955-0591
www.adaptiv.com
Workforce management software.
Adaptive Innovations
(905) 737-6388
www.adaptiveinno.com
Makes BrailleStream, software that takes the statistics and data
normally sent to an agent via an LCD readerboard or to a desktop
monitor and provides it to a blind agent through a voice synthesizer or
refreshable Braille display. BrailleStream allows call centers to
become ADA compliant.
Aditi Corporation
10940 NE 33rd Place, Suite 204
Bellevue, WA 98004
(425) 828-9587
Fax: (425) 897-2900
www.aditi.com
Software for transacting customer service over the internet.
Advanced Access
9395 Cabot Dr.
San Diego, CA 92126-4310
(800) 843-1144
Fax: (619) 530-2225
www.advaccess.com
Provides electronic commerce, call center and fulfillment solutions
including; multilingual capabilities, phone, fax, mail and electronic
order capture, credit card processing, upsell/cross sell, data mining,
pick-pack-ship and customer service.

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Advanced Recognition Technology
9574 Topanga Canyon Blvd.
Chatsworth, CA 91311
(408) 973-9686
Fax: (408) 973-9687
www.artcomp.com
Smart Speak voice recognition software.
Advantage kbs
1 Ethel Road, Suite 106B
Edison, NJ 08817
(732) 287-2236
Fax: (732) 287-3193
www.akbs.com
Problem resolution software and customer support applications. The
suite of products is called The IQSupport Application Suite.
Aegis Communications Group
5950 Berkshire Lane, Suite 1650
Dallas, TX 75225
(214) 361-9870
Fax: (214) 361-9874
Aegis provides outsourced telecommunications-based marketing,
customer service and call center management services in the US.
Affinitec Call Center Systems/AAC
18300 Von Karman Ave.
8th Floor
Irvine, CA 92715
(714) 756-2700
Fax: (714) 851-6286
www.aaccorp.com
Call center management software, readerboard drivers, call
accounting systems. Their products include TimeManager, Forecast-
Manager, ScheduleManager and AgentView. Readerboard systems
typically include both the display board and the ACD data extraction
and formatting tool that it needs. Hence, you can often use them to
extract data to a PC, in addition to (or instead of) the readerboard.
Ahern Communications
60 Washington Court
Quincy, MA 02169
(800) 451-3280
Fax: (617) 328-9070
www.aherncorp.com
A headset distributor that resells lots of brands, including Plantronics
and Uniden cordless, as well as speakerphones, videoconferencing
equipment and a variety of spare parts for headsets.
Alert Communications
5515 York Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90042
(213) 254-7171
(800) 333-7772
Fax: (213) 254-6802
www.alertcom.com
Service bureau and outsourcer of call center services. Alert operates
four call centers in the Southern California area. These centers process
both live operator and automated call processing applications,
including Some of Alert's areas of specialization include the catalog
order processing, software and hardware customer support, dealer
location referral services, and Internet call response.
Allen Systems Group
750 Eleventh St South
Naples, FL 33940
(941) 435-2200
(800) 932-5536
Fax: (941) 263-3692
Alltel
4001 Rodney Parham Road
P.O. Box 2496
Little Rock, AR 72212-2496
(800) 440-3262
Fax: (502) 220-6880
www.alltel.com

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Alltel offers comprehensive call center solutions including consulting,
implementation and dedicated or shared outsurcing.
Alpha Technologies
3767 Alpha Way
Bellingham, WA 98226
(800) 322-5742
Fax: (360) 671-4936
Power protection, CFR Series UPS. ALCI industrial line conditioners.
AltiGen Communications
45635 Northport Loop East
Fremont, CA 94538
(888) 258-4436
Fax: (510) 252-9738
www.altigen.com
AltiGen provides computer, telephony and internet solutions for small
to mid-sized businesses. The AltiServ phone system uses AltiWare
software to provide informal call center functionality in a single
Windows NT Server-based telecom platform that also includes PBX,
voice mail, e-mail, auto attendant and internet integration.
Amcom Software
5555 W. 78th St
Edina, MN 55439
(612) 946-7707
(800) 852-8935
Fax: (612) 946-7700
www.amcomsoft.com
CTI Smart Center: a suite of call center applications including auto-
attendant, voice response and various messaging features. All of
Amcom's products use ORACLE as the RDBMS system and use
Windows 95 as the GUI user interface. The next revision will use
Windows NT.
Amend Group
8150 North Central
Suite 1100
Dallas, TX 75206
(214) 696-6900
www.amend.com
Site selection assistance as well as commercial real estate services for
call centers. They do research on labor costs and economic incentives.
American Power Conversion
132 Fairgrounds Rd.
West Kingston, RI 02892
(800) 788-2208
Fax: (401) 788-2712
www.apcc.com
UPS, power protection & surge protectors. Power products can protect
telecom, computer and networking systems. They also sell a series of
desktop-based software that helps alert you to and manage power
fluctuations.
American Productivity & Quality Center
(800) 776-9676
www.aqpc.org
Organization that does benchmarking and other call center-related
research.
American Telemarketing Association
4605 Lankershim Blvd., Ste 824
North Hollywood, CA 91602-1891
(818) 766-5324
(800) 441-3335
Fax: (818) 766-8168
www.ataconnect.org
Industry association for inbound and outbound telemarketers.
Provides information, lobbies Congress, and has chapters around the
US.

 Page 264
Ameritech
30 South Wacker Dr., Ste. 3400
Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 364-4300
Fax: (312) 849-3611
www.ameritech.com
Telco that offers a branded, turnkey, "endto-end" call center system to
their customers. Basically, they work with a menu of hardware and
software providers to cobble together call centers that are certified to
have all the integrations work. This is the latest wrinkle in up-market
systems integration. Ameritech's roster of partners includes Nortel and
Rockwell for switches, APAC for call center services, TCS and
Mosaix for applications and Manpower (one of the world's largest
staffing firms). Working closely as well is IMC, a consulting firm that
specializes in optimizing call center performance.
Amtelco
4800 Curtin Drive
McFarland, WI 53558
(608) 838-4194
(800) 356-9224
Fax: (608) 838-8367
www.amtelcom.com
Both developer and more turnkey call center systems, including 1
Call, which offers modular ACD functions, directory systems,
departmental registry, and e-mail.
Analogic
8 Centennial Dr
Peabody, MA 01960
(508) 977-3000
Fax: (508) 977-6813
www.analogic.com
Speech recognition and text-to-speech systems. Also new is their IP-
Voice, a technology that sends voice over IP networks, bypassing the
public network and its annoying tolls.
Angus Telemanagement Group
8 Old Kingston Road
Ajax, ON L1T 2Z7
Canada
(905) 686-5050
(800) 263-4415
Fax: (905) 686-2655
www.angustel.ca
AnswerSoft
2201 N. Central Expressway
Richardson, TX 75080
(972) 997-8300
www.answersoft.com
Sixth Sense computer telephony automation software. They also offer
a variety of call center applications built on their CT platform: for
example, a routing app that automatically retrieves ad routing
customer data with calls. New: Concerto, an Internet/intranet CTI
system, along with several other flavors of Inter/intranet product.
AnswerThink
3200 Windy Hill Road, Suite 800 West
Atlanta, GA 30339
(770) 690-9700
Fax: (770) 690-9710
www.answerthink.com
APAC TeleServices
One Parkway North Center
Deerfield, IL 60015
(800) 688-7987
Fax: (847) 945-2938
www.apacteleservices.com
One of the country's largest service bureaus. They also own an 800
number that must make their competitors gnash their teeth in fury:
800-OUTSOURCE. Services offered include: technical support and
pre-sale services; marketing response tracking and media sourcing;
order capture and processing; up-selling and cross-selling; and
financial transaction services.

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Apex Voice Communications
15250 Ventura Blvd, 3rd Fl.
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403-3201
(818) 379-8400
(800) 727-3970
Fax: (818) 379-8410
www.apexvoice.com
Specializes in high-density, scalable systems for Enhanced Services,
call centers and CTI apps. systems for network service
operators/telephone companies, OEMs and VARs. Products include:
OmniVox, an app gen; OmniNet, a Web-accessible network services
manager; APEX Messaging System, a messaging system for
telephone network operators (wireless/wireline).
Applied Innovation Management
46500 Fremont Blvd., Bldg. 706
Fremont, CA 94538
(510) 226-2727
(800) 942-7754
Fax: (510) 226-7990
www.aim-helpdesk.com
Applied Innovation Management's help desk product Online
SupportCenter is a webbased software system for managing external
product support. It's a combination of what you'd expect from classic
help desk (a problem resolution engine, customer and call tracking,
etc.) with a web front end.
Applix
112 Turnpike Road
Westboro, MA 01581
(508) 870-0300
www.applix.com
Appro International
446 South Abbott Avenue
Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 452-9200
(800) 927-5464
Fax: (408) 452-9210
www.appro.com
Industrial grade computer platforms for critical applications. Like call
centers. Includes hot swap fans, hot swap power supplies, temperature
monitoring systemsall the good stuff.
Apropos Technology
One Tower Lane
Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181
(630) 472-9600
Fax: (630) 472-9745
www.apropos.com
Apropos' Version 4 Total Interaction Management is an integrated
suite of switch-independent call center applications, including soft-
ACD (skills routing), intelligent call and message distribution (skills
and data directed routing of e-mail, Web and lax), IVR, and CTI.
Aptex Software
9605 Scranton Road, Suite 240
San Diego, California 92121
(619) 623-0554
(888) 623-0554
Fax: (619) 623-0558
www.aptex.com
Ara Training
Po. Box 6584, Etterstad
Ole Deviksvei 4
OSLO, 0254
Norway
+1 (47) 23039600
Fax: +1 (47) 23039601
www.ara.no
Delivers training for call centers in Europe in english and the
Scandinavian languages.
ArelNet
850 Third Avenue, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10022
(212) 935-3110
Fax: (212) 935-3882
www.arelnet.com

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Arial Systems
3 Hawthorn Pkwy, Ste. 255
Vernon Hills, IL 60061
(847) 573-9925
Fax: (847) 573-9926
www.arialsystems.com
Arial View system: ceiling-mounted "nodes" receive ID signals from
infrared transmitters embedded within personnel badges and tags. As
people move around a faculty, the system knows where they are. Calls
can be sent to the nearest phone set.
Ariel Corporation
2540 Route 130
Cranbury, NJ 08512
(609) 860-2900
Fax: (609) 860-1155
www.ariel.com
Designs, manufactures and markets DSP-based data communications
hardware and software products. The company's Rascal and T-1
Modem product families are remote access and modem pool solutions
providing ISDN and 56-kbps modem remote access.
Artisoft
5 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142
(617) 354-0600
(800) 914-9985
Fax: (617) 354-7744
www.artisoft.com
Telephony systems including TeleVantage, a PCbased phone system
with call center features including "group call distribution". Visual
Voice, a telephony toolkit for creating Windows-based applications,
and InfoFast, a data retrieval tool for fulfilling customer info requests.
Aspect Telecommunications
1730 Fox Drive
San Jose, CA 95131
(408) 325-2200
(800) 541-7799
Fax: (408) 451-2746
www.aspect.com
CallCenter ACD, Agility voice processing system, EnterpriseAccess
software for linkage between applications. Aspect's switches are
recognized as high-quality, high-volume ACDs. For several years,
they've been actively enhancing the value of the switch. First, through
an aggressive and widely-adopted partnership program with
application software developers Then, through software and hardware
enhancements of their ownAgility, as an integrated IVR front-end to
the switch, then through several iterations of data management
products. These software systems take the data spit out by the ACD
and format reports, funneling them through a pipeline that allows
people outside the call centerin management, or MIS, for exampleto
view the data according to their own needs and from their own
perspective. These tools need upgrading in light of the rapid
deployment of Intranets and browsers, but it's a pretty good bet that
will happen soon.
Association for Services Management International
1342 Colonial Blvd Ste 25
Fort Meyers, FL 33907
(941) 275-7887
(800) 333-9786
Fax: (941) 275-0794
www.afsmi.org
An industry association of executives, managers and professionals in
the services and support industry.
Astea
455 Business Center Dr.
Horsham, PA 19044
(617) 275-5440
Fax: (617) 275-1910
www.astea.com

 Page 267
Customer Enterprise Series (PowerHelp, PowerSales, Dispatch-1) for
help desks. Strong in the field service and internal help desk
environment. They also offer the Heat help desk system, acquired
through Astea's acquisition of Bendata.
AT&T
295 N. Maple Ave
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
(800) 222-0400
Fax: (908) 221-3188
www.att.com/business/global
Long distance, toll-free and call center consulting. Recently spun off
its telecom hardware business into Lucent (and computers into NCR).
They also feature a variety of network-intelligence call routing
products and service offerings. What else can you say about one of the
largest corporations in the world? They have a huge impact on the call
center industry, and have an enormous well of expertise on the
subject.
Atio Corporation
7301 Ohms Lane Suite 600
Edina, MN 55439
(612) 837-4055
www.atio.com
CyberCall is a modular call center solution. The modules include
Inbound telephone call, IVR (interactive voice response), email, fax
and web capabilities (web callback, text chat and Voice over IP).
AuBeta Telecom
4160 148th Ave. NE
Redmond, WA 98052
(425) 869-1700
www.aubeta.com
AuBeta Telecom's iQueCall is an out-ofthe-box family of call center
systemsfor NT and IP networks. IQueCall integrates with host of
client/server databases for single-or multi-site call centers with
between 5 and 300 agents. Functions supported include; CTI/PBX
interface, SQL database interface, ACD, Universal Messaging ACD,
host interface, IVR, predictive dialer, faxing, letter management,
documentation access, problem resolution, agent monitoring, call
recording, on-screen prompting and followup.
Aurora Systems
33 Nagog Park
Acton, MA 01720
(508) 263-4141
Fax: (508) 635-9756
www.fastcall.com
FastCall computer telephony software (middleware). Allows you to
hook client/server and LAN apps to your phone system through TAPI
and/or TSAPI standards. The product is sold exclusively through
distribution partners (companies like Nortel, Norstan, Harris, etc.).
Aurum Software
2350 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 986-8100
(800) 683-8855
Fax: (408) 654-3400
www.aurum.com
Aurum's Customer Enterprise is an integrated suite of applications
that encompasses a company's enterprise-wide processes of field
sales, channel sales, telesales, telemarketing, corporate marketing and
customer service. The Aurum Customer Enterprise implements a
"closed-loop" flow of information, automating and integrating "front
office" sales, marketing, and customer service functions with "back
office'' finance, manufacturing, and order entry applications. The suite
is modular, built around a set of components for each application.

 Page 268
Automatic Answer
100 Mill Plain Road
Danbury, CT 06811
(714) 661-2660
(800) 410-2745
Fax: (714) 661-0778
www.taa.com
Sells automated attendants and voice processing systems based on
industrystandard PC platforms.
AVT
11410 N.E. 122nd Way
Kirkland, WA 98034-6927
(425) 820-6000
Fax: (425) 820-4040
www.avtc.com
Makes a line of "open systems based advanced computer telephony
products," specializing in fax and call processing, unified messaging,
and call center productivity and customer service.
Balisoft
970 Lawrence Ave.W Suite 505
Toronto, ON M6A 3B6
Canada
(416) 256-1419
Fax: (416) 256-0706
www.balisoft.com
LiveContact, a web/call center integration suite that has collaborative
tools, as well as text-chat and real-time agent connections.
Banksoft
2600 Michaelson Dr Ste 1468
Irvine, CA 92715
(714) 975-0796
www.banksoft.net
Small call center system called VoiceSolution, which (under
Windows platforms) provides call processing and backend data
processing with the major industrystandard databases. They'll do
software-only, hardware-only, or a turnkey package.
Bard Technologies
RD 4
Bedford, NY 10506
(800) 997-4470
Fax: (914) 234-3028
www.bardtech.com
CallLab ACD Simulator. System that models activity in a call center,
projecting future activity (in aggregate) and allowing you to
experiment with changing call center parameters. A good way to
model the behavior of skills-based routing (and other "random"
activities that bedevil Erlang calculations).
Barnhill Associates
12150 E. Briarwood Avenue
Suite 140
Englewood, CO 80112
(303) 792-9500
Fax: (303) 792-5800
www.bamhill.com
Systems integrators and consultants on "process reengineering."
BCS Technologies
8400 E. Prentice Avenue
Englewood, CO 80111
(303) 713-3000
Fax: (303) 713-3030
www.bcstechnologies.com
PBX/ACD for small call centers. The DSP1000 is an open
architecture, standardscompliant switch with standard routing
capabilities and both real-time and historical reporting. BCS also
provides systems for CTI, skills-based routing, intelligent
announcements and "3-D graphic displays and reports" for call centers
from 5 to 750 agents.
Belgacom
320 Post Road West
Westport, CT 06880
(203) 221-5280
Fax: (203) 222-8401

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The Belgian national telecom carrier, which is actively engaged in
assisting companies in locating their call center operations in that
country.
Berkeley Speech Technologies
2246 Sixth St
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 841-5083
Fax: (510) 841-5093
www.bestspeech.com
Formerly independent speech rec company; now part of Lernout &
Hauspie.
Bicom
750 Main St Bldg 3
Monroe, CT 06468
(800) 766-3573
Fax: (203) 268-3404
Bigby, Havis & Associates
12750 Merit Dr., Suite 660
Dallas, TX 75251
(800) 283-6055
Fax: (972) 233-3154
www.bigby.com/callcenters.htm
Consultants for the HR needs of call centers. Makes a pre-
employment selections software package.
Blue Pumpkin Software
800 W. El Camino Real
Mountain View, CA 94040
(650) 429-6300
Fax: (650) 429-6411
www.blue-pumpkin.com
PrimeTime workforce management software. PrimeTime's advantage
in this market is that it incorporates the most important features
needed to get a workforce schedule up and running, at a reasonable
entry price point. The Win 95 or NT product is the easiest scheduler to
use that I've seen. A supervisor can put a roster together in minutes,
play what-if sce narios, and use templates to make it fast on an
ongoing basis. In order to make it fast and cheap, BP sacrificed some
of the features others offer: adherence, for one, and historical
projection. It won't go looking at three years of records to predict what
your volume will be next Friday. But if you know what your volume
is likely to be in various scenarios, you can set up templates to
identify each kind of week that occurs. I think this product will shake
up the moribund product categoryit focuses on what call center
managers actually want, acts as an aid to what they already have to
do, without forcing them to swallow (and pay through the nose for) a
lot of useless features. This is scheduling made easy.
Bogen Communications
50 Spring St.
Ramsey, NJ 07446
(201) 934-8500
Fax: (201) 934-9832
Messages-on-hold, digital announcers, voice loggers and recorders.
Bosch Telecom
121 Corporate Blvd.
South Plainfield, NJ 07080
(908) 769-8700
Fax: (908) 226-8787
Boston Communications Group
100 Sylvan Road, Suite 100
Woburn, MA 01801
(617) 692-7000
www.bgci.net
Call center outsourcing services, particularly to the wireless telecom
and prepaid telecom industries.
Boyd Company
(609) 890-0726
Consultant specializing in call center location and site selection.

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Brady Group
14679 Midway Rd., Suite 115
Addison, TX 75001
(972) 404-0800
Fax: (972) 404-0834
thebradygroup.com
Planning, design and implementation of customer service strategies,
work processes and technologies. Consulting on call center and
telecom networks.
Bramic Creative Business Products
5205 Sideline 14
Claremont, ON L1Y 1A1
Canada
(905) 649-2732
Fax: (905) 649-2734
Ergonomic furniture for call centers. (People tend to forget how
important this stuff is.)
Brigade Solutions
212 Sutter Street, 5th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 217-7555
Fax: (415) 217-7558
www.brigadesolutions.com
Internet customer support outsourcing.
Brightware
350 Ignacio Blvd.
Novato, CA 94949
(415) 884-4744
Fax: (415) 884-4740
www.brightware.com
Web-based customer interaction systems; software that automatically
answers customers' web and e-mail inquiries and routes those that
need agent attention to the right rep.
Bristol Group
100 Larkspur Landing Circle
Suite 200
Larkspur, CA 94939
(415) 925-9250
Fax: (415) 925-9278
www.bg.com
Large scale faxing systems, with software that runs on a Sun platform.
Brite Voice Systems
250 International Parkway
Heathrow, FL 32746
(407) 357-1000
www.brite.com
Voice processing and IVR systems that integrate voice, fax, CTI and
Internet capabilities.
Broadbase Information Systems
172 Constitution Dr.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
(800) 966-8085
Fax: (650) 614-8301
www.broadbase.com
Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) systemsanalytic
applications that optimize business performance in the enterprise.
Brooktrout Technology
410 First Avenue
Needham, MA 02194
(781) 449-4100
Fax: (781) 449-3171
www.brooktrout.com
Fax, voice and telephony products, mainly at the component level. TR
series of fax and voice boards, and Show N Tel, a voice processing/
IVR platform. Subsidiary known as Brooktrout Software
(www.brooksoft.com) makes NT computer telephony app gen
systems.
Buchanan E-Mail Limited
3, Candacraig Square
Strathdon
Aberdeenshire, Scotland AB36 8XT
United Kingdom
+44 (19756) 51741
Fax: +44 (171) 681 1218
www.buchanan.co.uk

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Buffalo International
400 Columbus Avenue
Valhalla, NY 10595
(914) 747-8500
Fax:(914)747-8595
www.opencti.com
OTS NT (Object Telephony Server); this is the latest version of their
Open Architecture Telephony Server, a high-performance, flexible
telephony platform with predictive dialing, ACD, ICR and voice
processing capabilities built in.
Business Telecom Products
PO Box 997, 32970 E Entwistle
Carnation, WA 98014-0997
(800) 457-7287
Fax: (425) 333-6535
www.btpi.com
Distributes professional-quality headsets.
BWT Associates
P.O. Box 4515 Turnpike Station
Shrewsbury, MA 01545
(508) 845-6000
Fax: (508) 842-2585
Disaster recovery consulting and services.
CACI Products Company
3333 N. Torrey Pines Court
La Jolla, CA 92037
(619) 824-5200
Fax: (619) 457-1184
www.caciasl.com
Makes the Call Center Maximizer, a tool that lets you set up a model
of staffing and volume, add routing and other parameters, and play out
various scenarios to make it most efficient.
Call Center Network Group
P.O. Box 1728
Arlington, TX 76004-1728
(817) 275-5853
(800) 840-2264
Fax: (817) 275-5530
www.ccng.com
Membership organization for call center professionals.
Call Center Solutions
632 Federal Road
Brookfield, CT 06804
Fax: (203) 740-3536
www.callcenters.com
Predictive dialers and call blending equipment.
Call Center University
5410 Maryland Way
Brentwood, TN 37027
(615) 221-6850
Fax: (615) 221-6885
www.callcenteru.com
Professional organization created as a separate business unit of TCS
Management Group to promote certification programs and call center
management standards. offers seminars and courses that arm call
center professionals with a fresh perspective on critical management
concerns and keep them up-to-date on the practical applications of
new and emerging technologies. Call center managers demonstrating
mastery of core knowledge and skills may earn professional
certification.
Call Interactive
(800) 428-2400 www.callit.com
IVR and call center outsourcing.
Call One
8810 Astronaut Blvd.
Cape Canaveral, FL 32920
(800) 749-3160
Fax: (407) 799-9222
www.call-1.com
Distributes headsets, conferencing equipment.

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Call Ontario-Bell Canada
483 Bay St., 9NY
Toronto, Ontario M5G 2E1
Canada
(800) 917-1917
Fax: (416) 971-6581
CallCenter Technology
63 Heritage Drive
Seymour, CT 06483
(203) 881-2869
Fax: (203) 840-0209
www.callcentertechnology.com
Makes a supervisor and call center knowledge management tool that
lets users combine and view at the desktop, multiple data sources
within the call center. ACD statistics, workforce management data,
quality performance scores and other call center data can be
monitored, modified and reported in any format the user desires.
Thresholds can be set on all data to alert users of potential problems
and event status is uniquely displayed with the call center's floor plans
making it easy to spot location requiring assistance.
Callscan Australia
700 Blackburn Road
Clayton North
Victoria, 3168
Australia
+61 (3) 9253 1000
Fax: +61 (3) 9253 1099
www.callscan.com.au
Provider of call center products and services to the Australian and
New Zealand markets.
CallWare
2323 Foothill Dr
Salt Lake City, UT 84109
(801) 486-9922
(800) 888-4226
Fax: (801) 486-8294
www.callware.com
Software for integrating voice, fax, e-mail, IVR.
Calonge & Associates
19919 Encino Cove
San Antonio, TX 78259
(210) 497-2320
Fax: (210) 497-4116
www.ca-script.com
Scripting and script consulting for businessto-business and businessto-
consumer marketing campaigns.
Carnegie Group
(412) 642-6900
www.cgi.com
Consulting, application development and systems integration for call
centers. Also recently bought Advantage kbs. Then Carnegie was
itself bought by Logica Inc.
CAS Marketing
616 S. 75th St
Omaha, NE 68114
(402) 393-0313
(800) 524-0908
Fax: (402) 390-9497
List management services, as well as phone number appending and
other lookup services.
Cascade Technologies
333 Thornall Street
Edison, NJ 08837-2220
(732) 906-2020
Fax: (732) 906-2018
www.cascadetechnologies.com
Cascade makes software mainly for employee benefits and human
resources, like recordkeeping systems for defined contribution plan
administration. The company also develops and markets a suite of
interactive communication systems designed to automate workflow
and

 Page 273
employee service requests using voice response, fax, email, the
Internet and employee call centers.
Castelle
3255-3 Scott Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 496-0474
(800) 289-7555
Fax: (408) 492-1964
www.castelle.com
Fax systems.
CCL-Hansen Limited
8-10 Southgate Court, Old Bridge Road
Hornsea, East Yorkshire, HU18 1UE
United Kingdom
+44 1964 536939
Fax: +44 1964 536823
www.hancorp.com.au
Creates workforce management systems for call centers.
CCSTrexCom
6529 Jimmy Carter Blvd.
Norcross, GA 30071
(770) 441-3114
(800) 227-7227
Fax: (770) 263-0487
www.ccstrexcom.com
A hardware and software combo platform for IVR called FirstLine
Encore.
CCT Group
2 Popham Lane
Scarsdale, NY 10583
(888) 522-2483
Fax: (914) 722-0229
www.cctgroup.com
Call center support tools and full-service call center consulting.
CellIT
8300 NW 33rd St., Suite 200
Miami, FL 33122
(305) 436-2300
www.cellit.com
Makes CCPRO, a call center system with blended multimedia
support, inbound (ACD), outbound predictive dialing, IVR, call
logging, messaging and unified SQL reporting. Can deliver media to
the desktop over a single IP or ATM interface.
Center Partners
4401 Innovation Drive
Fort Collins, CO 80525
(970) 206-8498
Fax: (970) 206-8434
www.centerpartners.com
CenterCore
1355 West Front St
Plainfield, NJ 07063
(908) 561-7662
(800) 220-5235
Fax: (908) 561-0911
www.centercore.com
Cubicles and agent workstations (the physical desks, not the
computers on the desks) for call centers. They make a space-saving
cluster design. And their modular workstations are fully equipped to
hold (and hide) wiring, etc.
CenterForce Technologies
7200 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 501
Bethesda, MD 20814
(301) 718-2955
Fax: (301) 718-3667
www.cforcetech.com
Call center optimization system for outbound campaigns.

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Centigram
91 East Tasman Dr & N First St
San Jose, CA 95134
(408) 944-0250
Fax: (408) 428-3722
www.centigram.com
Voice processing equipment. Makes the Series 6 communications
server, which is the basic IVR platform, and a multimedia messaging
product called One View.
Centrepoint Technologies
1410 Blair Place, Suite 300
Ottawa, ON K1J 9B9
Canada
(888) 332-9322
Fax: (613) 742-7666
www.ctrpoint.com
Makes computer telephony systems for the SOHO market.
Century Telecommunications
208 S. Guadalupe St.
San Marcos, TX 78666
(512) 353-1155
(888) 888-8757
Fax: (512) 754-5678
www.cticallcenter.com
Call center outsourcer that began life as the excess operator services
capacity of a Texas telco.
ChiCor
300 S Wacker Dr.
Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 322-0150
(800) 448-8777
Software for disaster planning and recovery.
Chordiant Software
1810 Embarcadero Road
Palo Alto, CA 94303
(650) 493-3800
(888) 246-7342
Fax: (650) 493-2215
www.chordiant.com
Software for managing customer data, including transaction data,
customer histories, and the business processes that determine how you
are going to handle any given transaction.
Cicat Networks
9900 Main St., Suite 301
Fairfax, VA 22079
(703) 383-1400
Fax: (703) 385-3788
www.cicat.com
ISDN specialists, including line ordering and help with provisioning
for ISDN equipment.
Cincom Systems
55 Merchant Street
Cincinnati, OH 45246
(513) 612-2300
(800) 224-6266
Fax: (513) 612-2000
www.cincom.com
CTI-enabled call center application called Encompass. It supports
telesales, telemarketing, customer service and customer support call
center environments.
Cintech
2100 Sherman Ave.
Cincinnati, OH 45212
(513) 731-6000
(800) 833-3900
Fax: (513) 731-6200
www.cintech-cti.com
Cintech is a provider of ACD for small and mid-size call centers.
Departments, branch offices, small offices and informal environments
can reap the benefits of ACD with their family of solutions for users
of Nortel's Norstar and NEC's NEAX 2000 IVS switches.

 Page 275
Cisco Systems
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134
(408) 526-4000
Fax: (408) 526-4100
www.cisco.com
Networking systems; one of the core companies of this industry.
Recently bought Geotel.
Clarify
2125 O'Nel Drive
San Jose, CA 95131
(408) 428-2000
Fax: (408) 428-0633
www.clarify.com
Help desk software that has moved beyond backend problem
processing into that fuzzy realm where they can claim to being a total,
enterprise-wide sales and service tool.
ClearVox Communications
(408) 371-8400
Fax: (408) 559-6760
www.clearvox.com
ClearVox manufactures hands-free headsets for PCs, cordless phones,
the Internet and other applications.
Clientele Software
8100 S.W. Nyberg Road
Tualatin, OR 97062
(503) 612-2773
Fax: (503) 612-2973
www.clientele.com
Customer service software for organizing, tracking and sharing
customer information from the agent workstation.
Com2001 Technologies
2035 Corte Del Nogal
Suite 200
Carlsbad, CA 92009
(619) 314-2001
Fax: (619) 314-2009
www.com2001.com
Makes the InternetPBX, a telephone system (also called
communications server or UnPBX) that runs in a Windows 2000 (NT)
server and delivers corporate PBX, digital conferencing, GUI PC
phones, unified messaging locally or over the Web, one number
follow me, voice over IP (a company Intranet or the Internet) and a
speech-recognizing, text-to-speech-reading personal assistant (call in,
make calls, answer emails).
CoMatrix
1831 N. Raymond Ave.
Anaheim, CA 92801
(714) 992-5982
(800) 888-7822
Fax: (714) 992-5980
Supplier of used telecom equipment from major vendors, including
Norstar, AT&T and Toshiba. They also distribute for Voysys and
other voice mail systems.
Comdial
1180 Seminole Trail
Charlottesville, VA 22901
(804) 978-2200
(800) 347-1432
Fax: (804) 978-2230
www.comdial.com
LAN-based ACD through their QuickQ software product, plus a
variety of interesting software and combo products that bring
advanced features closer to the middle end of the market.
Comdisco Disaster Recovery
6111 North River Road
Rosemont, IL 60018
(800) 272-9792
Fax: (847) 518-5340
www.comdisco.com
Disaster recovery and service assurance programs. They can literally
set up an entire

 Page 276
center for you if something bad happens (earthquake, flood, etc.). Or
something less extensive if your problem is less dramatic.
CommercePath
15575 SW Sequoia Parkway
Suite 180
Portland, OR 97224
(800) 600-4329
www.commercepath.com
An EDI-to-fax system that extends a company's EDI to suppliers and
trading partners not equipped for that transaction system. Quite useful,
if a bit specialized. CommercePath is a subsidiary of Applied Voice
Technology.
Commetrex
6400 Atlantic Blvd.
Suite 190
Norcross, GA
(770) 449-7775
Fax: (770) 242-7353
www.commetrex.com
Computer telephony boards, particularly the MSP ("Media Stream
Processor") DSP resource board. These boards support voice, fax,
speech recognition, etc. for call center applications.
Communication Service Centers
(800) 537-8000
Communications Managers
Association
1201 Mt. Kemble Avenue
Morristown, NJ 07960-6628
(973) 425-1700
(800) 867-8008
Fax: (973) 425-0777
www.cma.org /
CommuniTech
321 Bond St
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007
(847) 439-4333
Fax: (800) 783-7800
www.communitech.com
One of the largest distributors of headsets around. Stocks ACS,
UNEX and VXI. Also is the sister company of CommuniTech
Services, a systems integrator.
Comport Distributions
100 Oakland Avenue
Port Jefferson, NY 11777
(800) 789-0090
Fax: (516) 473-2246
Computer Sciences Corporation
30 Lothrop Road
Acton, MA O1720
(617) 332-3900
Fax: (617) 332-2864
www.csc.com
Computer Talk Technology
225 East Beaver Creek
Suite 310
Richmond Hill, ON L4B 3P4
Canada
(800) 410-1051
Fax: (905) 882-5000
www.icescape.com
Server-based ACD (with digital switching and built-in CTI), and a
newly announced Internet ACD.
Comverse Information Systems
234 Crossways Park Drive
Woodbury, NY 11797
(516) 677-7400
(800) 967-1028
Fax: (516) 677-7399
www.cominfosys.com

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Digital recorders and voice loggers, and monitoring systems.
Connected Systems
126 West Figueroa Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
(805) 962-5066
Fax: (805) 962-5044
www.connectedsystems.com
Conner Group
2021 Calvin Court
Duluth, GA 30097
(770) 622-3987
Fax: (770) 622-3987
Consolidated Market Response
(800) 500-6006
Fax: (217) 348-7060
Inbound and outbound telemarketing and teleservices, including
backend stuff like fulfillment and database management.
Contact Dynamics
205 W. Randolph St.
Suite 1245
Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 345-1344
Fax: (312) 345-1880
www.contactdynamics.com
Software and services for interactive internet communications;
tracking of visitors to a web site, text-based communication between
the rep and the customer.
Convergys Corporation
201 East Fourth Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202
(513) 723-7000
Fax: (513) 421-8624
www.convergys.com
Outsourcer of billing and customer management solutions, for things
like targeting, acquiring, serving and retaining customers on behalf of
its clients.
Conversational Voice Technologies/ConServIT
CVTC Center
4205 Grove Avenue
Gurnee, IL 60031
(847) 249-5560
(888) 343-2882
Fax: (847) 249-9773
www.cvtc.com
Inbound service bureau.
Copia International
1220 Iroquois Drive, Ste. 180
Naperville, IL 60563
(630) 682-8898
(800) 689-8898
Fax: (630) 778-8848
www.copia.com
Develops of business fax / voice software. FaxFacts Fax Server is a
scalable fax server for Windows NT client or server.
CoreSoft Technologies
768 S. 400 E.
Orem, UT 84097-6322
(801) 431-0070
(877) 611-9090
Fax: (801) 431-0079
www.coresoft.com
Multi-function telephony equipment that purports to connect all the
disparate communication devices (fax, phone, pagers, etc.) into one
environment.
Cortelco
4119 Willow Lake Blvd
Memphis, TN 38118
(901) 365-7774
(800) 866-8880
Fax: (901) 365-3762
www.cortelco.com
Switching systems, ISDN equipment, and software to manage it.

 Page 278
CosmoCom
300 Wheeler Road
Hauppauge, NY 11788
(516) 851-0100
Fax: (516) 851-1005
www.cosmocom.com
CosmoCom offers live, one-to-one, integrated multimedia customer
service for Internet and telephone callers by combining the functions
of ACD, CTI, IVR and unified messaging in one totally IP-based
system.
Crystal Group
850 Kacena Road
Hiawatha, IA 52233-1120
(319) 378-1636
(800) 378-1636
Fax: (319) 393-2338
www.crystalpc.com
Industrial grade ''fault resilient computer systems, the kind that keep
mission critical applications like call centers running all the time.
CSI-Data Collection Resources
165 Burnside Avenue
East Hartford, CT 06108
(860) 289-2151
Fax: (860) 289-4662
www.csiworld.com/dcr
CSI-Data Collection Resources is a developer of automated voice and
data products for call centers. Products include: "ACD Data
Collection and Reporting System" and "ACD Agent Monitoring
System."
CT Solutions
8998 Route 18 North
Old Bridge, NJ 08857
(732) 360-2863
(800) 724-0802
Fax: (732) 360-2879
www.solutions4ct.com
Computer telephony equipment VAR for a variety of manufacturers.
CTL
(203) 925-4266
Fax: (203) 925-4267
www.ctlinc.com
VoiceSupport voice processing system for the low end of the market
(2 ports) and the Interactive Support IVR system for higher end users.
Curasoft
39355 California Street
Suite 301
Fremont, CA 94538-1447
Fax: (510) 795-6109
www.curasoft.com
Customer Support Consortium
1601 Fifth Avenue
Suite 1900
Seatte, WA 98101
(206) 622-5200
Fax: (206) 667-9181
www.customersupport.org
Industry association to develop techniques and spread information for
the service and support call center professional.
Cyntergy
(301) 208-3895
www.cyntercorp.com
International outsourcer.
Dakotah Direct
9317 East Sinto
Spokane, WA 99206
(509) 789-4500
(800) 433-3633
Fax: (509) 789-4706
www.dakotahdirect.com
Outsourcing call center service bureau specializing in outbound,
inbound and "comprehensive account management". Industries served
include telecom, finance, insurance, high tech and utilities.

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Dakotah Direct designs and implements nationwide teleservices for
national clients in the financial, telecommunications, insurance,
utilities, and high-tech industries.
Daktronics
331 32nd Ave.
Brookings, SD 57006
(605) 697-4468
(888) 325-8766
Fax: (605) 697-4700
www.daktronics.com
InfoNet multiline readerboards with custom and standard interfaces.
Data Processing Resources Corporation
801 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 650
Glendale, CA 91203
(909) 444-9476
Fax: (909) 444-9269
www.dprc.com
Their Call Center and Telecommunications Practice focuses on the
applications and technologies used in call centers, network, and
telecommunication organizations. DPRC develops strategic and
technology plans; designs, develops and implements applications,
networks, and systems; and provides management and operations
support for call center systems, networking solutions, and
telecommunication systems.
Database America Companies
100 Paragon Dr
Montvale, NJ 07645-0419
(201) 476-2300
www.databaseamerica.com
One of the largest database and list management firms. They recently
merged with American Business Information to form one of the most
fully-featured data companies in the industry.
Database Systems
1118 East Missouri Ave
Phoenix, AZ 85014
(602) 265-5968
(800) 480-3282
Fax: (602) 264-6724
www.dsc1.com
TeleMation telemarketing software.
Datamonitor
One Park Avenue
14th Floor
New York, NY 10016-5802
(212) 686-7400
Fax: (212) 686-2626
www.datamonitor.com
Datapoint
8410 Datapoint Drive
San Antonio, TX 78229-8500
(210) 593-7000
(800) 733-1500
Fax: (210) 593-7518
www.datapoint.com/
Computer-based communications solutions, including client-server,
video communications and integrated telephony applications.
Davox
6 Technology Park Drive
Westford, MA 01880
(978) 952-0200
(800) 480-2299
Fax: (978) 952-0201
www.davox.com
Predictive dialers, as well as a CTI/blend system called SCALE. Also
offers the Unison suite of call center management solutions
incorporating predictive dialer systems, inbound CTI solutions, and
advanced integrated inbound/outbound call blending systems
compatible with major ACDs and PBXs.

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Decisionkey
1155 Elm Street
Manchester, NH 03101
(603) 622-8080
(888) 609-5980
Fax: (603) 622-8282 www.decisionkey.com
Expert system problem resolution engine for support call centers.
Dees Communications
4130 148th Ave NE
Redmond, WA 98052
(800) 663-5601
Fax: (604) 946-8315
Universe Centrex ACD for Nortel switches. Mediator Direct ACD,
routing system for centrex.
DialAmerica Marketing
960 Macarthur Boulevard
Mahwah, NJ 07495
(201) 327-0200
(800) 526-4679 www.dialamerica.com
Telemarketing outsourcing firm.
Dialogic
1515 Route 10
Parsippany, NJ 07054
(973) 993-3000
(800) 755-4444
Fax: (973) 993-3093
www.dialogic.com
Voice cards, SCSA hardware, GammaLink fax boards. CT-Connect
CTI Software accessible through HP's Smart ContAct.
Dictaphone
3191 Broadbridge Avenue
Stratford, CT 06614-2559
(800) 447-7749
Fax: (203) 386-8595
www.dictaphone.com
CTI-enabled recording/monitoring systems.
Digisoft Computers
369 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10017
(212) 687-1810
Fax: (212) 687-1781
www.digisoft.com
Telescript, call center software for PC based networks, manages
multiple inbound/outbound/blended projects simultaneously. Features:
scripting with advanced logic & branching; inbound with ANI/DNIS;
predictive dialing.
Digital Software International
101 State Place, Suite K
Escondido, CA 92029
(760) 741-8800
Fax: (760) 741-2693
www.digisoftware.com
Centergy Scriptbook allows non-programmers to create scripts for use
by agents in outbound or inbound call centers.
Unlimited branching, seamless interfacing to foreign databases and
programs through ODBC and OLE. The script on the agent's desk
appears like a "notebook" with tabs. As the agent enters data on the
script, it automatically branches to the next correct scriptpage. Digital
Software also has software products for monitoring agent productivity
and supervision.
Digital Techniques
402 W Bethany
Allen, TX 75013
(972) 727-1200
Fax: (972) 727-4243
www.digitaltechniques.com
DTI designs and manufactures telephony products for the call center
and operator center market.

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Direct Marketing Association
1120 Avenue of the Americas
NewYork, NY 10036-6700
(212) 768-7277
Fax: (212) 768-4546
www.the-dma.org
Industry association focusing on call centers as an offshoot of direct
marketing. When they get involved it is mostly from the point of view
of outbound telemarketing. They run many seminars and shows all
over the US.
Direct Marketing Solutions
(800) 688-2367
Discovery Training & Development
10 West Madison
Phoenix, AZ 85003
(602) 258-9500
Fax: (602) 258-9555
www.discoverytraining.com
Distributed Bits
> 125 N. Halsted St., Ste 201
Chicago, IL 60661
(312) 207-1500
Fax: (312) 207-0041
www.dbits.com
Makes an e-mail tracker and response automator for call center use
called ResponseNow.
DP Solutions
320 W. Broad Street
Bethlehem, PA 18018
(610) 317-9181
Fax: (610) 317-9491
www.dpsol.com
Help Desk and customer support software.
DPC Computers
20 Robert Pitt Drive
Suite 214
Monsey, NY 10952-3330
(914) 426-3790
Fax: (914) 426-6275
www.salestax.com
They make a useful and inexpensive piece of software that shows
sales taxes for any locality during a telephone transaction. A must for
the small center.
Drextec
733 East Route 70 Suite 402
Marlton, NJ 08053
(609) 596-8285
Fax: (609) 596-8447
www.drextec.com
A PC-LAN-based open predictive dialing and telemarketing software
system, for call centers of 12 to 144 agents. Based on the Buffalo
International OADPC dialing engine.
DSP Group
3120 Scott Boulevard
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 986-4300
Fax: (408) 986-4490
www.dspg.com
Speech compression technology, optimized particularly for
conferencing and internet telephony applications.
Dytel
321 Bond Street
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007
(847) 439-4333
Fax: (847) 439-3456
www.dytel.com
Automated attendants. Features include interactive queueing,
estimated wait times on hold and routing by ANI/DNIS.
ESpeech Corporation
www.espeech.com
Speech recognition, in particular, tools that recognize the
pronunciation of peoples' names. Used in Speechworks speech rec
products.

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E-Voice Communications
1250 Oakmead Parkway, Ste. 312
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(408) 991-9988
Fax: (408) 991-9630
www.evoicecomm.com
E-Voice Communications develops voicemail systems that
incorporate unified messaging technology. Their systems are based on
the open Windows 95/NT platforms.
Easyphone SA
1900 McCarthy Blvd, Suite 310
43, 8, 1600
Milpitas, CA 95035-7440
(408) 965-1700
Fax: (408) 965-1712
www.easyphone.com
Portuguese firm that makes the CallPathbased EasyPhone Call Center
Management Software system for NT. Incorporates CTI, software-
based predictive dialing and scripting/database features. Worth a look.
EasyRun
30 Louise Lane
Tenafly, NJ 07670
(201) 541-1855
Fax: (201) 541-8333
www.easyrun.com
Developer of desktop computer telephony systems. Products include:
ECC, a suite of call center applications featuring integrated IVR,
voice mail and skills-based routing. It provides MIS application for
real-time and historical reports, agent station application and
readerboards. ETSC is a telephony switching system running on a
network of desktop PCs. It provides the entire feature set required by
a mobile switching system (MSC) and follows the GSM standards.
The system works with a 'dumb-PBX' to provide a complete switching
platform for specialized telephony.
Edgewater Technologies
(781) 246-3343
Fax: (800) 233-7997
UnPBX's. (A k a, the WhiteCap communications server system.)
Edify
2840 San Tomas Expy
Santa Clara, CA 95051
(408) 982-2000
(800) 944-0056
Fax: (408) 982-0777
www.edify.com
IVR and workflow software for backoffice processing of call center
transactions.
Edward Blank Associates
71 West 23rd Street
NewYork, NY 10010
(212) 741-8133
Inbound and outbound service bureau.
eFusion
15236 NW Greenbrier Parkway
Beaverton, OR 97006
(503) 207-6300
Fax: (503) 207-6500
www.efusion.com
An "Interactive Web System" for self-service that allows customers to
retrieve information in a way that mimics IVR interaction. It's a
platform for application creation (they cite "Internet Call Waiting" as
one possibility) that exploit combined voice and data networks for
enhanced customer interactions and e-commerce.
eGain Communications Corp.
624 E. Evelyn Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(408) 737-8400
(800) 603-4246
www.egain.com

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EGain develops customer service solutions for electronic commerce.
EIS International
555 Herndon Parkway
Herndon, VA 20170
(703) 478-9808
(800) 274-5676
Fax: (703) 326-6621
www.eisi.com
Predictive dialers. Outbound and integrated inbound/outbound
applications for call centers. EIS provides systems for telemarketing,
customer service, fund-raising, market research and collections. EIS
recently adopted CORBA (Common Object Request Broker
Architecture) as a platform for future products.
Energy Enterprises
1606 North Hale Avenue
Fullerton, CA 92831
(877) 743-6374
Fax: (714) 525-6716
energyenterprises.com
Call center training and consulting services.
Engel Picasso Associates
(800) 241-8092
Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum (ECTF)
39355 California Street
Suite 307
Fremont, CA 94538
(510) 608-5915
Fax: (510) 608-5917
www.ectf.org
Vendor-membership organization for developing interoperability
standards among computer telephony devices.
Enterprise Integration Group
3180 Crow Canyon Place
Suite 101
San Ramon, CA 94583
(510) 328-1300
Fax: (510) 328-1313
www.eiginc.com
Services geared to CTI; things like project management, IVR design
and testing, business process analysis, training, etc.
Entertainment Technology
500 Front Street W.
Toronto, ON M5V 1B8
Canada
(416) 598-2223
Fax: (416) 598-5374
Call center display board system (called FRED) that actually works
with TV monitors; in addition to displaying ACD stats and other
traditional kinds of data, it also allows you to mix in video and other
kinds of messages.
Envision Telephony
615 Second Ave, Ste. 632
Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 621-9384
Fax: (206) 621-7525
www.envisiontelephony.com
Makes a product called SoundByte Enterprise 97, which is monitoring
and quality assurance software for call centers. Win 95/NT platform,
it's composed of three parts: SoundByte Server, Supervisor and Agent.
Used by major centers like those in Hewlett-Packard, Nordstrom and
Harte Hanks.
Envox
(941) 353-6587
(888) 368-6987
www.envox.com
Envox Script Editor for developing multimedia call center and CT
apps.

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Epigraphx
965 Terminal Way
San Carlos, CA 94070
(650) 802-5858
Fax: (650) 802-5850
www.epigraphx.com
Fax-on-demand and, lately, internetenabled fax/web combos that call
centers can use to further reduce call volume.
eShare Technologies
51 Mall Drive
Commack, NY 11725
(516) 864-4700
(888) 374-2734
www.eshare.com
Web-based customer service and support, customer self-service, live
conferencing and events, distance learning, chat, threaded discussion
forums, and custom integration tools.
Estech
2601 Summit Ave.
Plano, TX 75074
(972) 422-9700
Fax: (972) 422-9705
Makes the IVX telephone/voice mail product. Not really a call center
product except at the very low end, if you need something that will
make a departmental center with rudimentary ACD features.
Evolving Systems
9777 Mt. Pyramid Ct.
Englewood, CO 80112
(303) 802-1000
Fax: (303) 802-2799
www.evolving.com
Operational support systems for IP, including IP billing, IP call agent,
network inventory, work order management, and fault/performance
management.
Exacom
99 Airport Rd
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 228-0706
Fax: (603) 228-0254
www.exacomusa.com
Automated messaging system (MessageMaxx); digital recording
systems.
Exchange Applications
One Lincoln Plaza
89 South Street
Boston, MA 02111
(617) 737-2244
Fax: (617) 443-9143
www.exapps.com/
Executive Call Centers
(800) 888-3188
Executone Information Systems
478 Wheelers Farm Rd
Milford, CT 06460
(203) 876-7600
(800) 808-1305
Fax: (203) 882-0400
www.executone.com
Integrated Digital System platform. ACDs, predictive dialers.
Expert Systems
1301 Hightower Trail
Atlanta, GA 30350
(770) 642-7575
Fax: (770) 587-5547
www.easey.com
Ease IVR development product. Latest platform supported is
Windows NT.
Exsys
1720 Louisiana Blvd. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87110-7019
(505) 256-8356
Fax: (505) 256-8359
Expert system software and services.

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Eyretel
7777 Glen America Dr, #220
Dallas, TX 75225
(214) 363-1756
Fax: (214) 363-1674
www.eyretel.com
Quality monitoring and multimedia recording systems.
FaceTime Communications
(650) 574-1600
www.facetime.net
Internet/call center systems.
Far Systems
7898 High Ridge Road
Fort Atkinson,WI 53538
(920) 563-2221
(800) 805-0082
Fax: (920) 563-1865
www.farsystems.com
Interactive voice response application generation software and
systems.
Fax2Net
2275 Research Blvd. Suite 320
Rockville, MD 20850
(301) 721-0400
Fax: (301) 721-0083
www.fax2net.com
FaxNet
98 N. Washington Street
Boston, MA 02114
(617) 557-4300
Fax: (617) 557-4301
www.faxnet.com
Enhanced fax services, including long distance service, that
specializes in delivery of fax over IP networks (including the
Internet).
FaxSav
399 Thornall Street
Edison, NJ 08837
(732) 906-2000
(800) 828-7115 x2330
Fax: (732) 906-1008
www.faxsav.com
Internet fax systems.
FaxStar
4001 Westerly Place
Suite 106
Newport Beach, CA 92660
(714) 724-0806
(800) 327-9859
Fax: (714) 752-7980
FaxStar, enterprise-wide fax server system.
Figment Technologies
4950 Yonge Street
Suite 1008
North York, ON M2N 6K1
Canada
(416) 225-7913
(888) 292-5089
Fax: (416) 225-7845
www.unimessage.com
UniMessage, a unified messaging product.
Flashpoint Solutions
(619) 220-0065
Fax: (619) 220-0001
www.flashpointsolutions.com
Custom and generic music and messages on-hold CDs and service.
Also has professional voice talent to record custom voice mail
messages.
France Telecom
(212) 332-2135
www.francetelecomna.com
French national carrier, wants to attract call centers to that country.

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Franklin Telecom
733 Lakefield Road
Westlake Village, CA 91361
(805) 370-0409
(800) 372-6556
Fax: (805) 373-7373
www.ftel.com
Systems for voice-over-internet communications.
Frost & Sullivan
2525 East Charleston Road
Mountain View, CA 94043
(650) 961-9000
Fax: (650) 961-5042
www.frost.com
Market research on technology, much of it focused on IT, telecom and
call centers.
Fujitsu Business Communication Systems
3285 Willard Street
San Diego, CA 92122
(888) 322-7284
Fax: (602) 921-4800
www.fbcs.fujitsu.com
Offers a wide variety of call center tools, starting with core switches
and moving up through CTI links and specific applications and
services.
Funk Software
222 Third Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
(617) 497-6339
(800) 828-4146
Fax: (617) 547-1031
www.funk.com
Remote control technology that incorporates screen monitoring, and
screen record and playback, for help desk, network administration,
call center, and training applications.
Fuseworks
105 Hotel de Ville, Suite 301
Hull, QC J8X 4H7
Canada
(819) 771-8182
Fax: (819) 771-5258
www.fuseworks.com
Fuseworks offers a "live" Internet marketing solution: Call center
agents can track Web site visitors in real time, match profiles against
historical data, and engage them in collaborative multimedia sessions.
Gannett Telematch
6883 Commercial Drive
Springfield, VA 22159
(800) 523-7346
Fax: (703) 658-8301
www.telematch.com
Telematch provides database marketing services which include
residential and business telephone number appending, data
enhancement, database management, data processing, and laser
printing services.
GBH Distributing
540 W. Colorado Street
Glendale, CA 91204
(818) 246-9900
(800) 222-5424
Fax: (818) 246-5850
www.gbhinc.com
Headsets for a variety of applications, including call centers.
Genesys Telecommunications
1155 Market Street, 11th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 437-1100
(888) 436-3797
Fax: (415) 437-1260
www.genesyslab.com
Call Center Manager: Combined inbound/outbound call processor.
And the

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Genesys T-Server, a CTI server that provides connectivity between
data and telephone networks. Through Genesys applications, you can
put call center features on your network, like skills-based routing, or
predictive dialing.
GeoTel
900 Chelmsford St.
Tower II
Lowell, MA 01851
(978) 275-5149
Fax: (978) 275-5399
www.geotel.com
Intelligent CallRouter (ICR), networkbased ACD router. They have
one of the most interesting ways of implementing virtual call centers
(but by no means the only one). Recently acquired by Cisco.
GM Productions
2001 Westside Parkway
Suite 290
Alpharetta, GA 30201
(800) 827-3366
Fax: (770) 237-5522
www.gmpvoices.com
Professional recording of voice prompts and other kinds of
announcements, including on-hold systems.
GN Netcom
77 Northeastern Blvd
Nashua, NH 03062
(603) 598-0488
(800) 345-8639
Fax: (603) 598-1122
www.gnnetcom.com
Headsets, wireless and corded. Has acquired the formerly separate
headset companies Unex and ACS Wireless.
Graybar
P.O. Box 7231
St. Louis, MO 63177
(314) 512-9200
(800) 825-5517
www.graybar.com
Distributor of telecom and call center products along a wide spectrum
of technologies, from a lot of manufacturers. Their catalog is worth
looking at.
Greater Houston Partnership
1200 Smith
Suite 700
Houston, TX 77002-4309
(713) 844-3600
Fax: (713) 844-0200
www.houston.org
Organization of government and business resources for companies
that are locating in Houston, with an eye to business development and
attracting call centers to that area.
Group 1 Software
4200 Parliament Place
Suite 600
Lanham, MD 20706-1844
(800) 368-5806
Fax: (301) 731-0360
www.g1.com
Software for mailing and other direct marketing efforts.
Hammer Technologies
205 Lowell Street
Wilmington, MA 01887
(978) 661-4800
Fax: (978) 988-0148
www.hammer.com
Testing for call center telecommunications systems, CTI and Voice
over IP applications.

 Page 288
Harris
300 Bel Marin Keys Blvd.
Novato, CA 94949
(415) 382-5000
(800) 888-3763
Fax: (415) 883-1626
www.harris.com
Switching systems & PBXs, particularly VoiceFrame, a
programmable switch with an NT server.
Hello Direct
5893 Rue Ferrari
San Jose, CA 95138
(408) 972-8155
(800) 444-3556
www.hello-direct.com
Major catalog distributor of headsets and other consumer telephony
devices.
Help Desk Institute
1755 Telstar Drive, Ste. 101
Colorado Springs, CO 80920
(800) 248-5667
Fax: (719) 528-4250
www.helpdeskinst.com
Industry organization devoted to the inbound, mainly support-based,
call center. They do a fairly good amount of targeted research, publish
some interesting studies, and are generally pretty helpful.
Hewlett-Packard
3000 Hanover Street
PaloAlto, CA 94304-1185
(650) 857-1501
Fax: (650) 857-5518
www.hp.com
HTL Telemanagement
3901 National Dr., Ste 270
Burtonsville, MD 20866
(301) 236-0780
Fax: (301) 421-9513
www.htlt.com
Hills B calculator for simulating call center conditions.
Human Resources Dimensions
1304 West Abram
Suite 200
Arlington, TX 76013
(817) 801-5100
Fax: (817) 801-9079
www.hrdimensions.com
Specializes in filling management positions for call centers across all
functional areas for clients engaged in inbound or outbound customer
service, telemarketing, credit & collections, telesales, help desk,
fulfillment, verification, etc.
I-BUS
9174 Sky Park Court
San Diego, CA 92123
(619) 974-8426
(800) 382-4229
www.ibus.com
OEM PC manufacturer.
IBM/Early Cloud
(401) 849-0500
(800) 322-3042
Fax: (401) 849-1190
www.earlycloud.com
CallFlow, distributed software for large-scale call center automation
that allows companies to automate customer contact applications such
as customer service, telesales, account management and collections.
CallFlow lets you build scalable applications in high transaction
volume client/server environments. CallFlow provides application
generation, business workflow, computer telephony integration,
contact management, fulfillment and call result reporting. It enables
access to corporate data systems throughout the enterprise through a
unique object-driven technology.

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ICB Toll Free Consultancy
160 East 26 Street, Suite 6E
New York, NY 10010
(212) 684-7210
Fax: (209) 391-9400
www.800consulting.com
Source of toll-free information and support, advising corporate users,
call centers, marketing firms and trade associations, on applicable
marketing, regulatory and legislative issues. ICB is a SNAC
(SMS/800 Number Administration Committee) member.
ICM Conferences
3 Illinois Center, 20th Floor
303 East Wacker
Chicago, IL 60601
(312) 540-5693
Fax: (312) 540-5690
ICT Group
800 Town Center Drive
Langhorne, PA 19047-1748
(215) 757-0200
Fax: (215) 757-4538
www.ictgroup.com
Telemarketing service bureau.
IEX
2425 North Central Expressway
Richardson, TX 75080
(972) 301-1300
Fax: (972) 301-1200
www.iex.com
Call center management software, workforce management software.
Imagine (USA) Ltd.
5300 Oakbrook Pkwy, Suite 350
Norcross, GA 30093
(770) 921-5433
Fax: (770) 921-6271
www.imagineusa.com
Impact Telemarketing Group
15 East Centre Street
Woodbury, NJ 08096
(609) 384-1111
(800) 793-2345
Fax: (609) 853-6859
www.impacttele.com
Inbound and outbound teleservices, including account management,
outbound telemarketing, accounts receivables, mailing and fulfillment
services.
Incoming Calls Management Institute
38 Southgate Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21401
(410) 267-0700
(800) 672-6177
Fax: (410) 267-0962
www.incoming.com
Training seminars, consulting, newsletter and other publications for
call center managers.
Industrial Computer Source
6260 Sequence Drive
San Diego, CA 92121-4371
(619) 677-0877
Fax: (619) 677-0615
www.indcompsrc.com
IBM-compatible industrial computers, rackmount chassis, single-
board CPUs, I/O, networking, peripherals and accessories for
computer telephony, telecommunications, factory automation and
other mission-critical, high-availability applications.
Inet
1255 W. 15th Street
Plano, TX USA 75075
(972) 578-6100
(800) 969-4638
Fax: (972) 578-6113
www.inetinc.com

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Inference
100 Rowland Way
Novato, CA 94939
(415) 615-7900
Fax: (415) 615-7901
www.inference.com
CBR Express, case-based problem resolution engine for help desks.
Infinet
4316 Beltwood Pkwy S.
Dallas, TX 75244
(972) 701-9484
www.infinet1.com
Local and Wide Area Networks; CTI; remote office connectivity;
network management; sales service support.
Infinite Technologies
11433 Cronridge Drive
Owings Mills, MD 21117
(410) 363-1097
(800) 678-1097
Fax: (410) 363-3779
www.ihub.com
E-mail, internet and remote access products.
Info Group
46 Park Street
Framingham, MA 01701
(508) 628-4500
(800) 544-7687
Fax: (508) 628-4566
www.infogrp.com
Telemanagement and call center information systems.
Info Systems
1110 Finch Avenue W.
Suite 906
Toronto, ON M3J 2T2
Canada
(416) 665-7638
(800) 825-5434
Fax: (416) 665-4193
www.talkie.com
DOS and NT-based voice processing application generator called
Talkie-Globe.
InfoActiv
202 Union Wharf
Boston, MA 02109
(617) 557-4066
(888) 226-6286
www.infoactiv.com
InfoActiv provides consulting and systems integration in call center,
computer telephony, interactive voice response, voice messaging,
enterprise and operations management.
Infobase Services Inc. (ISI)
5601 Corporate Way, Ste. 320
West Palm Beach, FL 33407
(561) 681-7061
(800) 775-5898
Fax: (561) 688-9410
www.ctiguys.com
CTI systems. CTI-Link integration system, Monitoring and routing
systems. Systems integration services.
Information Gateways Corp.
(703) 760-0000
Fax: (703) 760-0098
Criterion line of ''switchless" call center platforms that incorporate
ACD, PBX, IVR, dialing, scripting and campaign management
functions.
Information Management Associates (IMA)
One Corporate Drive, Ste. 414
Shelton, CT 06484
(203) 925-6800
(800) 776-0462
Fax: (203) 925-1170
www.imaedge.com

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Enterprise customer interaction software (called Edge) for call centers
used for sales, marketing and customer service applications. The
company also offers a range of professional consulting, technical
support, and education services.
Inforte
(312) 540-0900
www.inforte.com
IT/systems integration consultancy.
InfoServ USA
28 French Meadow Lane
Rochester, NY 14618
(716) 242-0371
Fax: (716) 242-0617
www.infoservusa.com
Specializes in the design of IVR systems and applications for vertical
markets, including automotive ("Auto Credit Hotlines"), finance
("Loan by Phone") and real estate.
Innings Telecom
1241 Denison Street
Unit 31
Markham, ON L3R 4B4
Canada
(800) 363-4223
Fax: (905) 470-8114
www.innings.comInova
Inova
100 Whitewood Road
Charlottesville, VA 22901
(800) 637-1077
Fax: (804) 973-2305
Input
1881 Landings Drive
Mountain View, California 94043
(650) 961-3300
Fax: (650) 961-3966
www.input.com
InTech Group
305 Exton Commons
Exton, PA 19341-2450
(610) 524-8400
Fax: (610) 524-8440
www.intech-group.com
Intecom
5057 Keller Springs Road
Dallas, TX 75248
(972) 855-8000
(800) 468-3945
Fax: (972) 855-8533
www.intecom.com
ACD and PBX functions on a single comm platform; the Intecom E is
a server-based, standards-based comm platform with unlimited
geographical network capabilities with a single database and central
administration. it can sustain 3 million CTI messages and more than
500,000 calls an hour. CallWise is the real-time call management
system for call routing, CTI, reports, screen sync and call blending.
It's modular and upgradable.
Integre Tel
(408) 362-4000
www.integretel.com
Billing and collection services for the telephone industry; call center
outsourdng.
Intek Information
396 Earhart Way
Livermore, CA 94550
(800) 720-5432
Fax: (510) 371-3187
www.intekinfo.com
Custom-designed "high-end" outsourcing services and technology
consulting.

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Intellisystems
6490 S. McCarran Blvd.
Suite 33
Reno, NV 89509
(702) 828-2803
(800) 637-8400
Fax: (702) 828-2828
www.intellisystems.com
Intellisystems markets an interactive expert system that provides self-
support on the phone and on the Web. The IntelliSystem guides
callers through a series of diagnostic questions and delivers trouble-
shooting, much like a human expert. Self-support with the
IntelliSystem helps callers find their own answers, reducing the
number of issues to be resolved by live agents. This technology is
being used successfully to deflect calls from live support at Intuit,
Netscape, Gateway 2000, Broderbund, Iomega, and Adaptec.
Interactive Communication Systems
611 North Weber Street
Suite 102
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
(719) 444-0554
Fax: (719) 444-0150
www.icstelephony.com
Custom services for computer telephony deployment, including things
like debit and credit card processing systems, international callback,
internet telephony, etc.
Interactive Digital
11 Avalon Circle
Smithtown, NY 11787
(516) 724-2323
Fax: (516) 724-2262
www.easytalksoftware.com
EasyTalk add-on software for reducing call duration on Interactive
Voice Response Systems. Available for Dialogic/WinNT and MS-
DOS Platforms.
Interactive Intelligence
3500 Depauw Blvd./Suite 1060
Indianapolis, IN 46268
(317) 872-3000
www.inter-intelli.com
Develops a computer telephony product for enterprises and call
centers called the Enterprise Interaction Center. EIC is a Java-based
communications system bringing for corporate LANs and Intranets.
EIC replaces boxes like PBXs, ACDs, VRUs, IVRs, voice mail
systems, fax servers, and CTI gateways with a single Windows NT
server. Internet integration includes on-line chat, video and VON call
back, as well as push technology and automatic Web page generation.
Interactive Quality Services
4930 West 77th Street
Suite #230
Minneapolis, MN 55435
(612) 820-0778
Fax: (612) 835-2355
www.iq-services.com
Quality assurance consulting and testing services for computer
telephone integration and e-commerce systems.
Interalia Communications
10340 Viking Drive
Suite 135
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
(612) 942-6088
(800) 531-0115
Fax: (612) 942-6172
www.interalia-inc.com
Announcement and messaging systems. The XMU Digital Calll
Processing system supports up to 63 ports with ACD announcements
and automated attendant features. Lots of ways to configure custom
announcements through various soft parameters: time of day,
holidays, etc.

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Interfax
5050 Quorum Drive, Suite 700
Dallas, TX 75240
(972) 447-9295
Fax: (972) 447-7606
www.interfax.uk.com
International network services via the Internet. Through a proprietary
UNIX-based network, they offer fax services at discount rates as a
wholesale-only provider.
Interior Concepts
18525 Trimble Court
Spring Lake, MI 49456
(616) 842-5550
(800) 968-3201
Fax: (616) 846-3985
www.interiorconcepts.com
Furniture systems for call centers; they integrate all the power and
cabling connections into their pre-fit systems.
International Customer Service Association
401 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611-4267
(800) 360-4272
www.icsa.com
International Quality & Productivity Center
(800) 882-8684
www.iqpccom
Seminars and other educational events.
Interprise
13455 Noel Road, #2300
Dallas, TX 75240
(972) 385-3991
Fax: (972) 788-2441
www.ntrpriz.com
An architectural interior design firm that specializes in call center
design and development. Provides planning, design, construc tion
documents, project management, and furniture procurement services.
Works nationwide on call center development in new buildings,
adaptive reuse or existing facility renovation.
InterVoice
17811 Waterview Parkway
Dallas, TX 75252
(972) 454-8862
Fax: (972) 454-8905
www.intervoice.com
Advanced call and business process automation systems. One Voice
software agent multi-application platform incorporates auto attendant,
IVR. voice messaging, and fax processing. Their systems "allow
customers self-serve access to information and transaction processing
with database information from a variety of devices including
telephones, multimedia PCs, display phones, smart cards, and the
Internet."
IntraNext Systems
9725 E. Hampden Ave, #330
Denver, CO 80231
(303) 751-1340
(800) 928-6398
Fax: (303) 751-5726
www.nextsys.com
Invest In Britain Bureau
845 3rd Ave.
New York, NY 10022
(212) 745-0300
Fax: (212) 745-0456
britain-info.org/bis/invest/invest.htm Location assistance and
incentives for American companies looking to place call centers in
Britain.

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ISC Consultants
14 East 4th Street, Suite 602
New York, NY 10012-1141
(212) 477-8800
Fax: (212) 477-9895
www.isc.com
Call center consulting and optimization.
ITI Marketing Services
902 North 91st Plaza
Omaha, NE 68114
(800) 562-5000
Fax: (402) 392-9423
itimarketing.com
Customer care, service, retaining and growing existing client bases.
Also, customer capture, prospecting, selling, and processing sales.
Jabra
9171 Towne Centre Drive
Suite 500
San Diego, CA 92122
(619) 622-9955
(800) 327-2230
Fax: (619) 622-0353
www.jabra.com
Headsetstheirs is a special "in-the-ear" model that combines the
speaker and the mike into one tiny piece called the EarSet.
Kaset International
8875 Hidden River Parkway
Tampa, FL 33637
(800) 735-2738
Fax: (813) 971-3511
www.kaset.com
Customer service training programs.
Kathy Sisk Enterprises
(209) 323-1472
(800) 477-1278
Fax: (209) 323-9151
www.telenews.com
Key Voice Technologies
1919 Ivanhoe St.
Sarasota, FL 34231
(941) 922-3800
(800) 419-3800
Fax: (941) 925-7278
www.keyvoice.com
Small office and corporate voice systems.
King TeleServices
(800) 793-8745
Kirvan and Associates
(609) 228-7525
Disaster recovery consultants and services.
Know Dev
430 Tenth Street, NW Suite S-009
Atlanta, GA 30318
(404) 881-1411
Fax: (404) 881-1852
www.knowdev.com
Systems for agent training and evaluation.
Knowlix Corp.
352 West 12300 South, Building C
Draper, UT 84020
(800) 784-3060
Fax: (801) 924-6110
www.knowlix.com
Knowlix builds knowledge tools that seamlessly integrate into the
existing workflow of internal help desks and customer support
centers.
KSBA Architects
3441 Butler St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15201-1312
(412) 252-1500
Fax: (412) 252-1510
www.ksba.com
A Pittsburgh, PA-based firm specializing in architecture, planning,
interior design and project management of call centers with

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emphasis on "Performance Design," the link between facility design
and profitability.
Lernout & Hauspie
10 Mall Rd.
Burlington, MA 01803
(617) 238-0960
(888) 537-6688
Fax: (617) 238-0986
www.lhs.com
Speech recognition, text-to-speech, speech-to-text systems. Featuring
speaker independent recognition, barge-in, echo cancellation and line
adaptation.
Line4
1320 Harbor Bay Parkway
Alameda, CA 94502
(510) 748-1564
Fax: (510) 748-1534
www.line-4.com
CTI middleware software.
Linkon
140 Sherman Street
Fairfield, CT 06430
(203) 319-3175
Fax: (203) 319-3150
www.linkon.com
Makes a variety of interesting products, including voice boards with a
truly unique "universal port" architecture that support a wide range of
advanced voice processing apps; and an all-in-one VRU/IVR combo
called Escape, that scales well and is a robust, easily upgradable
system.
Locate In Scotland Call Center
www.scotcall.com
Assistance in setting up call centers in Scotland.
Locus Dialogue
460 Sainte-Catherine Street West
Suite 800
Montreal, QB H3B 1A7
Canada
(514) 954-3804
Fax: (514) 954-3805
www.locus.ca
Speech recognition system incorporated into a "virtual attendant."
Longview Economic Development Corp.
410 North Center Street
Longview, TX 75601
(903) 753-7878
(800) 952-2613
Fax: (903) 753-3646
www.ledco.com
Lucent Technologies
600 Mountain Avenue
Murray Hill, NJ 07974
(800) 372-2447
www.lucent.com
AT&T telecom systems spinoff. The inheritor of all that was call
center hardware coming out of AT&T: ACDs, voice processing
systems, and so on. The home of Conversant and Definity. Latest
offerings include "CableConnect Solutions", including the PathStar
Access Server, 7 R/E Packet Solutions, NetCare Services and Kenan
Software (to allow MSOs to deliver telephony over IP, high-speed
data, and video over cable wire).
MaiSoft
23272 Mill Creek Dr., Ste 350
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
(949) 699-6590
Fax: (949) 699-6591
www.maisoft.net
Unified messaging systems.

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Malibu Software
23852 Pacific Coast Hwy S #909
#909
Malibu, CA 90265
(310) 455-3327
Fax: (310) 456-6225
Manitoba Call Centre Team
155 Carlton Street
12th Floor
Winnipeg, MB R3C 3H8
Canada
(800) 463-6360
Fax: (204) 943-0031
Economic development organization for call center industry in
Western Canada.
Manpower
5301 N. Ironwood Road
Milwaukee, WI 53217
Fax: (414) 906-7837
www.manpower.com
Human resources; training and staffing for call centers (among many
other industries they serve).
Maritime Tel & Tel
P.O. Box 880 Station Central
RPO Halifax, NS B3J 2W3
Canada
(902) 421-5884
Fax: (902) 429-4983
Economic development organization for call center industry in
Eastern Canada (The Maritime Provinces).
MarkeTel Systems
#226-1055 Park St
Regina, Saskatchewan S4N 5H4
Canada
(800) 289-8616
www.predictivedialers.com
Predictive dialing systems.
MarketFax
1 Bridge Street
Irvington, NY 10533
(914) 591-6301
Fax: (914) 591-0017
Mastermind Technologies
1054 31st St., NW, Suite 314
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 298-8500
(800) 644-7605
Fax: (202) 298-8501
www.mastermindtechnologies.com
MasterVox telephony application development platform. Develops
computer and internet telephony, internet, switching, and interactive
voice response products and services. Products run on Natural
MicroSystems hardware only.
MasterWorks
34 Audubon Rd.
Wakefield, MA 01880
(800) 726-4790
Fax: (781) 246-1328
www.masterworksinc.com
MasterX Corporation
282 Main Street Extension
Middletown, CT 06457
(860) 343-6024
Fax: (860) 343-6028
www.masterx.com
Offers CM-Link and DataMit, two tool suites that facilitate the real-
time transport of data from EIS's Call Manager system into
Microsoft's SQL Server. (That is, from a Unix environment into
Windows NT, where data can be analyzed using a much richer set of
tools). Provides lots of benefits, including centralizing data (one point
of access for reporting, backup and administration) and associates
migrated data with digital voice recordings.

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MATRAnet
230 Twin Dolphin Drive
Redwood Shores, CA 94065
(650) 598-4777
(650) 598-4799
www.matranet.com
Internet software for e-commerce applications.
Matrixx Marketing
201 East Fourth Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202
(513) 397-6864
(800) 628-7499
Fax: (513) 723-9030
www.matrixx.com
MATRIXX Marketing provides outsourced customer management
solutions.
Maxxar
23800 Industrial Park Dr.
Farmington Hills, MI 48335
(248) 615-1414
Fax: (248) 615-4499
www.maxxar.com
Centrum 9000 platform for running call center and computer
telephony apps, like voice response systems, IVR, etc. The system is
NT-based. Also makes the MaxxARTS graphical application
generator.
MCI Call Center Solutions
Six Concourse Parkway, Suite 3200
Atlanta, GA 30328
(770) 284-4557
(800) 211-8007
Fax: (770) 284-5979
www.mci.com
Offers a full spectrum of services for the call center industry, ranging
from the obvious long distance and toll-free services, to intelligent
network services and call center consulting. Their own call centers are
some of the most advanced in the world.
MCK Communications
130 Bowness Centre N.W.
Calgary, ABT3B 5M5
Canada
(800) 661-2625
Fax: (403) 247-9078
www.mck.com
Remote-voice systems. That is, products that enable remote workers
to access corporate data and voice resources from off-site.
MediaPhonics
12035 Shiloh Rd. Suite 300
Dallas, TX 75228
(214) 321-5130
Fax: (214) 321-7421
www.mediaphonics.com
MediaPhonics designs hardware, firmware and software CTI
architectures and products for computer telephony applications.
Mediasoft Telecom
215-8600 Decarie Blvd.
Montreal, QB H4P 2N2
Canada
(514) 731-3838
Fax: (514) 731-3833
www.mediasoft.com
Computer telephony and web systems as a strategic technology
partner to OEMs, systems integrators and application developers.
Offers a PC-based PBX called Office Telephony 2000-an integrated
suite of applets and visual tools for the small to medium-sized
business.
Melita International
5051 Peachtree Corners Circle
Norcross, GA 30092
(770) 239-4000
Fax: (770) 239-4489
www.melita.com
Predictive dialing systems. Melita was one of the first outbound-
oriented companies

 Page 298
to try to "retro-fit" their image and their products for the increasingly
inbound-centric call center world. The major result: call blending, the
mixing of inbound and outbound agents, which Melita's PhoneFrame
dialer does very well.
Mentor Networks
Purdy's Wharf Tower 1
Suite 600
1959 Upper W
Halifax, NS B3J 3N2
Canada
(800) 585-3129
Mercom
1050 Wall Street West, Ste. 640
Lyndhurst, NJ 07071
(201) 507-8800
Fax: (201) 507-5554
www.mercom.com
Audiolog voice logging server system.
Meridien Research
2020 Commonwealth Avenue
Newton, MA 02166
(617) 796-2800
Fax: (617) 796-2850
www.meridien-research.com
Merlin Systems Oy
Smimaentie 10 A
Espoo, 02630
Finland
+358 (9) 52577138
Fax: +358 (10) 5257738
www.merlin.fi/
Value added services for Call Centers, PBX's, Lan PBX's, VoIP
services etc. A Finnish company.
META Group
208 Harbor Drive
P.O. Box 120061
Stamford, CT 06912
(203) 973-6700
Fax: (203) 359-8066
www.metagroup.com
Market research, much of it call center related.
Metasound
1700 Wyatt Drive, Suite 15
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 654-0300
(800) 276-2322
Fax: (408) 654-0304
www.metasound.com/
Messaging on hold systems.
Metromail
1 E. 22nd St.
Lombard, IL 60148-4924
(708) 574-3800
(800) 927-2238
www.metromail.com
List and lookup services. Acquired by GUS of Great Britain in 1998.
Micro Computer Systems
2300 Valley View Lane
Suite 800
Irving, TX 75062
(972) 659-1514
Fax: (972) 659-1624
www.mcsdallas.com
Makes a product for routing inbound e-mail to reps in support
environments. Keeps track of the e-mail and the customer data
associated with it.
MicroAge
2020 N. Central Ave.
Phoenix, Arizona 85004
(800) 246-4322
Fax: (602) 366-1775
www.microage.com

 Page 299
Technology sales and distribution company that runs a lot of call
centers.
MicroAutomation
5160 Parkstone Dr. #140
Chantilly, VA 2015l
(703) 378-7000
www.microaut.com
Call management software called the CallCenter Millennium, which
does screen pop, voice/data transfer, routing, etc. on NT, OS/2 or
RS/6000/AIX; also makes a statistical analysis and reporting package
for same.
Microlog
20270 Goldenrod Lane
Germantown, MD 20876
(301) 428-9100
Fax: (301) 540-5557
www.mlog.com
IVR systems for the UNIX and DOS worlds.
Mitel
350 Legget Dr.
Kanata, ON K2K 1X3
Canada
(613) 592-2122
Fax: (613) 592-4784
www.mitel.com
PBXs that have the ability to spin off and run ACD groups for small
call centers.
Molloy Group
Four Century Drive
Parsippany, NJ 07054
(973) 540-1212
Fax: (973) 292-9407
www.molloy.com
Knowledge Bridge is an "enterprise knowledge management software
solution for customer support". Integrates with client/server call
management systems, or standalone problem resolution.
Mosaix
6464 185th Avenue NE
Redmond, WA 98052-6736
(888) 466-7249
Fax: (206) 558-6001
www.mosaix.com
Predictive dialing systems and customer relationship management
software. Recently purchased by Lucent.
Multi-Channel Systems
4545 Westgrove
Addison, TX 75242
(972) 447-9181
(800) 724-8340
Fax: (972) 640-0088
www.mcsmk8.com
Makes the MARK VIII PC-based predictive dialer: 8 lines, 5
operators for small telemarketing call centers.
MultiCall
3255-1 Scott Blvd
Suite 104
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 748-1245
Fax: (408) 748-1257
www.multicall.com
MultiCall made small call center systems, called CallFlow. Now they
seem to be gone, with their suite sold to an Israeli concern called
Network Programs International Ltd.
Music Telecom
254 B Mountain Avenue
Hackettstown, NJ 07840
(908) 684-1300
Fax: (908) 684-0426
www.music.com
Mustang Software
6200 Lake Ming Road
Bakersfield, CA 93306

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(661) 873-2500
Fax: (661) 873-2599
www.mustang.com
E-mail management solutions through a combination their Web
Essentials tools and its e-mail management tools that include the
Internet Message Center, ListCaster and FileCenter.
N-Soft
1600 Golf Road, Suite 1200
Rolling Meadows, IL 60008
(847) 981-6805
Fax: (847) 981-5006
www.n-softna.com
Etrog is a family of CTI modules and a CT development environment.
National Data Systems
Vlak & Treu Street
Selby, Johannesburg, 2001
South Africa
+27 273734324
Fax: +27 273734346
Call centers and cc solutions.
National Service Direct
4151 Ashford Dunwoody Road
Suite 675
Atlanta, GA 30319
(404) 256-4673
www.nsdi.com
National TechTeam
835 Mason, Suite 200
Dearborn, MI 48124
(800) 522-4451
Fax: (313) 277-6409
www.techteam.com
Computer and customer service solutions including call center
services, training, systems integration, and technical staffing.
Outsourcing.
Natural MicroSystems
100 Crossing Blvd.
Framingham, MA 01702-5406
(508) 620-9300
(800) 533-6120
Fax: (508) 650-1351
www.nmss.com
A major supplier of voice boards and voice processing platforms for
use in call center and CTI applications.
NBTel/New Brunswick
One Brunswick Square
POB 1430
Saint John, NB E2L 4K2
Canada
(506) 694-6022
(800) 824-7449
Fax: (506) 658-7827
www.callcenter.nbtel.nb.ca
The Canadian Province of New Brunswick and that area's telephone
service provider, which is trying to attract call centers to come and
locate there.
NEC America
1555 W Walnut Hill Lane
Irving, TX 75038
(800) 338-9549
www.nec.com
Net Perceptions
11200 West 78th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55344
(612) 903-9424
(800) 466-0711
Fax: (612) 903-9425
www.netperceptions.com
Netaccess
(800) 950-4836
www.netacc.com
ISDN and modern technology; cards to fit a variety of platforms.

 Page 301
netDialog
2755 Campus Dr., Suite 350
San Mateo, CA 94403
(650) 372-1200
Fax: (650) 372-1201
www.netdialog.com
Web-based customer interaction front end for call centers.
NetManage
10725 North De Anza Blvd.
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 973-7171
Fax: (408) 342-7870
www.netmanage.com
Their Emerging Technology Group develops visual connectivity
solutions. These products allow people to see each other's screens
over the internet, which would be used in a support application by a
rep to view or control the customer's screen. Also used in screen-
scrape monitoring apps.
NetPhone
313 Boston Post Road West
Marlborough, MA 01752
(508) 787-1000
Fax: (508) 787-1030
www.netphone.com
Makes CTI servers, boards and applications for NT.
Netphonic
(415) 962-1111
Fax: (415) 962-1370
www.netphonic.com
They make something called the Web-On-Call voice browser, which
claims to integrate the Internet with an IVR system.
Netrics.com
3511 N.E. 22 Avenue, Suite 200
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308
(954) 567-0477
Fax: (954) 567-0479
www.netrics.com
Analyzes and measures the traffic to your web site with log analysis
software for web servers. Also, monitors and reports on employee
internet surfing patterns with log analysis software for proxy servers.
NetSpeak Corporation
902 Clint Moore Rd., Suite 104
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2846
(561) 998-8700
Fax: (561) 997-2401
www.netspeak.com
Network Associates
3965 Freedom Circle
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 988-3832
Fax: (408) 970-9727
www.nai.com/
Software company for help desk, data security, etc. Owns Magic
Solutions.
Neuron Data 1310 Villa Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
(650) 528-3450
(800) 876-4900
Fax: (650) 943-2752
www.elements.com
Makes a call center automation system that applies business rules to
call center processes. Product is called Elements.
New Metrics Corporation
8151 Clayton Road, S-200
St. Louis, MO 63117
(314) 725-6550
Fax: (314) 725-0307
www.newmetrics.com
Work force management solutions and services for call center
managers.

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NexCen Technologies
30 Nagog Park
Acton, MA 01720
(978) 929-9620
Fax: (978) 929-9621
www.nexcen.net
NexCen's customer care product integrates existing billing, network
management, trouble ticketing and order management systems for
CLECs.
NICE Systems
200 Plaze Drive, 4th
Secaucus, NJ 07094
(201) 617-8800
(888) 577-6423
Fax: (201) 617-9898
www.nice.com
Digital call logging systems that integrate with all major switches and
CTI servers, and that scale up to 5,000 channels. They also make a fax
management system and unified messaging.
Noble Systems
4151 Ashford Dunwoody Road
Suite 550
Atlanta, GA 30319-1462
(888) 866-2538
Fax: (404) 851-1421
www.noblesys.com
Customized Call Center Automationthat is, a system with inbound,
predictive dialing, and blended call management.
Norrell Corporation
3535 Piedmont Road NE
Atlanta, GA 30305
(404) 240-3000
Fax: (404) 240-3959
www.norrell.com
Call center outsourcing services. (Under the Norcross Teleservices
subsidiary.)
Nortel
2305 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 988-5550
(800) 466-7835
Fax: (408) 565-3474
www.nortel.com
Switches, ACDs, software. Latest offering is Symposium, a portfolio
of products and services for that provide multimedia call center
systems.
North Highland Company
550 Pharr Road NE Suite 850
Atlanta, GA 30305
(404) 238-0699
Fax: (404) 233-4930
www.north-highland.com
Management and technology consulting including call center
consulting services.
Nuance Communications
333 Ravenswood Ave., Bldg 110
Menlo Park, CA 94025
(415) 462-8200
Fax: (415) 462-8201
www.nuance.com
Speech recognition system that has a large vocabulary and a pretty
good natural language processing system. Schwab has used it for their
phone-based stock quote and trading service.
Nuera
10445 Pacific Center Court
San Diego, CA 92121
(619) 625-2400
Fax: (619) 625-2422
www.nuera.com
Makes digitical circuit multiplication equipment.

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Octane Software
(650) 295-6200
Fax: (650) 357-0295
www.octanesoftware.com
Internet/call center front-end products.
Olsten Corp.
175 Broad Hollow Road
Melville, NY 11747-8905
(516) 844-7800
Fax: (516) 844-7363
www.olsten.com
Omtool
8 Industrial Way
Salem, NH 03079
(603) 898-8900
(800) 886-7845
Fax: (603) 890-6756
www.omtool.com
Makes an Internet/intranet fax server system for enterprise-wide
faxing across multiple platforms.
OnQueue Call Center Consulting
P.O.B. 424
Jamison, PA 18929
(215) 491-4636
Fax: (215) 491-4636
Provider of workforce management services to call centers.
Ontario Systems
1150 West Kilgore Ave
Muncie, IN 47305-1588
(800) 283-3227
Fax: (317) 751-7198
www.ontario.com
PC-based predictive dialers.
Onyx Software
330 120 Avenue NE
Suite 210
Bellevue,WA 98005
(425) 451-8060
Fax: (425) 990-3343
www.onyx.com
Oracle
500 Oracle Parkway
Redwood Shores, CA 94065
(650) 506-7000
(800) 672-2531
www.oracle.com
Database software, and more recently, the purchaser of Versatility.
Orion Market Intelligence
+613 9654 4233
Fax: +613 9654 4811
www.omi.com.au
Computer Aided Telephone Interviewer that uses the Microsoft
BackOffice pack.
Outreach Technologies
9101 Guilford Rd.
Columbia, MD 21046
(410) 792-8000
Fax: (410) 792-8008
www.outreachtech.com
Conferencing technology that is an add-on to Microsoft Netmeeting.
Ovum
1 New England Executive Park
Burlington, MA 01803-5005
(781) 272-6414
(800) 642-6886
Fax: (781) 272-7446
www.ovum.com
Consulting and market research about technology.

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PakNetX
11 Red Roof Lane
Salem, NH 03079
(603) 890-6616
Fax: (603) 870-9395
www.paknetx.com
Internet-based ACD systems.
Panamax
150 Mitchell Blvd.
San Rafael, CA 94903
(415) 499-3900
(800) 472-5555
Fax: (415) 472-5540
www.panamax.com
Surge protectors and line of power related systems for protecting
phone systems, networks and PCs.
Para Systems
1455 LeMay Drive
Carrollton, TX 75007
(972) 446-7363
(800) 238-7272
Fax: (972) 446-9011
www.minuteman.com
Power protection devices.
Parity Software Development
Three Harbor Drive
Sausalito, CA 94965
(415) 332-5656
Fax: (415) 332-5657
www.Parity.com
Software tools and hardware components for developing computer
telephony applications.
PaylinX Corporation
8675 Olive Street Road
St. Louis, MO 63132-2503
(314) 692-0929
Fax: (314) 692-0805
www.paylinx.com
Real time credit card authorization software for call center, IVR,
Internet, and POS applications.
Peachtree Software
1505 Pavilion Place
Norcross, GA 30093
(800) 247-3224
Fax: (770) 564-5888
www.peachtree.com
Pegasystems
101 Main Street
Cambridge, MA 02142-1590
(617) 374-9600
Fax: (617) 374-9620
www.pegasystems.com
''Customer interaction solutions": voice and data integration, screen
pop, etc.
Pelorus Group
33 Second Street, Suite J
Raritan, NJ 08869
(908) 707-1121
Fax: (908) 707-1135
www.pelorus-group.com/
Perimeter Technology
540 N. Commercial St.
Manchester, NH 03101
(603) 645-1616
(800) 645-1650
Fax: (603) 645-1424
www.perimetertechnology.com
A centrex and SL-1 ACD product, plus an ACD Management
Information system for those telecom platforms.
Periphonics
4000 Veterans Memorial Parkway
Bohemia, NY 11716
(516) 468-0800
Fax: (516) 981-2689
www.peri.com

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Voice processing, IVR that also includes transaction processing
capabilities and application development tools. And the Internet.
Phonetic Systems
67 South Bedford Street, Suite 400W
Burlington, MA 01803
(781) 229-5823
Fax: (781) 229-5876
www.phoneticsystems.com
Speech-enabled, telephony-based directory search solutions.
Picazo Communications
61 Daggett Dr.
San Jose, CA 95134
(408) 383-9300
Fax: (408) 383-0136
www.picazo.com
PC-based phone system that includes ACD and goes up to 192 ports.
Includes various CTI options as well.
Pipkins
1031 Executive Parkway, Suite 110
St. Louis, MO 63141
(314) 469-6106
Fax: (314) 469-0841
www.pipldns.com
Call center management software, workforce management. Merlang
("modified erlang") is their version of the calculating algorithm. They
claim to be able to schedule through skills-based routing, which, if
true, is quite a feat.
Plantronics
345 Encinal Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(408) 426-5858
(800) 985-9816
Fax: (408) 425-8053
www.plantronics.com
Headsets.
Platinum Software Corporation
8100 SW Nyberg Road
Suite 400
Tualatin, OR 97062
(800) 883-4582
Fax: (503) 612-2800
www.clientele.com
Platinum Software develops client/server enterprise resource planning
software, including customer service, sales automation, financial
accounting, budgeting, manufacturing, and distribution for mid-
market corporations worldwide. Their Clientele Products Division
provides customer service and sales force automation software.
Platinum Technology
1815 South Meyers Road
Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181-5241
(630) 620-5000
(800) 442-6861
Fax: (630) 691-0718
www.platinum.com/
Point Information Systems
20 William Street
Suite 137
Wellesley, MA 02181
(781) 416-2710
Fax: (781) 416-2730
www.pointinfo.com
Portage Communications
49206 SE Middlefork Rd.
North Bend, WA 98045
(425) 888-5320
(888) 844-5320
Fax: (425) 888-6475
www.portagecommunications.com
Call Center Designer and SimACD, Windows-based software tools
for modeling and predicting the operations of an inbound call center.
Call Center Designer is for planning the number of people and

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inbound trunk lines needed for any call volume and desired level of
service. You tell Call Center Designer your call volumes, average call
lengths, service level goals, and call center costs; Call Center
Designer tells you how many staffed agents and trunks you need. Call
Center Designer also tells how well your call center is doing and how
well it can do by day, hour and minute.
PrairieFyre Software
18100 Lakeview Drive, Suite 101
Brookfield, WI 53045
(414) 794-0110
Fax: (613) 599-7677 www.prairiefyre.com
ACD Management Information System, the Cyber ACD Software
Suite.
Precision Response Corporation
1505 Northwest 167 Street
Miami, FL 33169
(800) 666-4772
Prestige International
150 E 52nd St. 10th Fl.
New York, NY 10022
(212) 317-9333
Fax: (212) 317-9555
www.prestigein.com
Multi-lingual and international call center company. Applications:
Customer Service, Help Desk, Direct Response, Order-taking,
Emergency Resonse, Outbound Telemarketing, Concierge/Traveler
Assistance, Insurance Advisory Service, Roadside Assistance, Travel
Reservations.
PriceInteractive
11800 Sunrise Valley Drive
Suite 820
Reston,VA 20191
(703) 620-4700
(800) 341-7800
Fax: (703) 758-7108
Offers a third-party verification service for telemarketing applications.
PRIMA
14 Place du Commerce
Suite 510
Nuns' Island, Quebec H3E 1T5
Canada
(514) 768-1000
Fax: (514) 768-7680
www.prima.ca
System integration professional services for the IVR and CTI markets.
Primus
1601 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1900
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 292-1000
Fax: (206) 292-1825
www.primus.com
A provider of problem resolution and knowledge management
software that enables customer support organizations to capture,
share, and manage knowledge. Primary products: SolutionBuilder, a
knowledge management and administration app for senior support
professionals with solution authoring responsibilities;
SolutionExplorer, a Webbased tool for frontline support professionals
and remote service providers such as VARs and system integrators;
and SolutionPublisher, a Webbased tool that provides customers with
self-service support on a corporate Intranet or Internet site.
Priority Fulfillment Services
500 North Central Expressway, 5th Floor
Plano, TX 75074-6763
(888) 330-5504
Fax: (972) 509-7813
Inbound telemarketing, order entry and fulfillment, credit card
authorization, cus-

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tomized reporting, and outbound telemarketing service offerings.
ProAmerica
959 E. Collins
Richardson, TX 75081
(800) 888-9600
Fax: (214) 680-6134
www.proam.com
Service Call Management help desk software.
Product Line
2370 S.Trenton Way
Denver, CO 80231
(303) 671-8000
(800) 343-4717
Fax: (303) 696-7300
Provides live agent inbound and outbound call handling services,
IVR, fulfillment services and transaction processing (credit cards,
checks, etc.) to a variety of vertical markets. Primarily involved in
customer support and direct marketing applications.
Professional Help Desk (PHD)
(203) 356-7700
(800) 474-3725
Fax: (203) 356-7900
www.phd.com
Help desk software, featuring call management, call tracking, asset
management, problem resolution (via the Help Desk, intranet and
Internet), and customized reporting. Professional Help Desk is
Windows-based and fully ODBC compliant, seamlessly integrating
with virtually any database and systems architecture.
ProMark One Marketing Services
(800) 933-0233
Promodel Corporation
1875 S. State, Ste. 3400
Orem, UT 84097
Fax: (801) 226-6046
www.promodel.com
Simulation product and systems.
Pronexus
260 Terence Matthews Crescent
Kanata, ON K2M 2C7
Canada
(613) 271-8989
Fax: (613) 271-8388
www.pronexus.com
VBFax fax server, and VBVoice IVR app gen; VBVoice supports up
to 192 lines, MVIP and SCSA, and Visual Basic for development.
TAPI 2.1 compliant.
ProSci
(970) 203-9332
www.prosd.com
Protocol Communications Services
(800) 564-1444
Proxy
(800) 776-9980
PTT Telecom Netherlands US
1270 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 2212
New York, NY 10020
(212) 246-2130
Fax: (212) 246-1905
National telecom carrier of the Netherlands, active in seeking US
companies that want to open call centers in that country.
PulsePoint Communications
6307 Carpinteria Ave.
Carpinteria,CA 93013
(805) 566-2255
Fax: (805) 684-2848
www.plpt.com

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Purdue University Center for Customer-Driven Q
1532 South Campus Courts
Building E
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1532
(765) 494-8357
Fax: (805) 937-4383
www.CallCenterCoach.com
PureSpeech
100 Cambridge Park Dr.
Cambridge, MA 02140
(617) 441-0000
Fax: (617) 441-0001
www.speech.com
Speech recognition product suite for high volume apps.
Q.Sys
(513) 745-8070
Fax: (513) 745-8077
www.qsys.com
Call Producer telephony server.
Qronus Interactive
1325 Borregas Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
(408) 822-5200
Fax: (408) 822-5515
www.qronus.com
Testing systems for CTI products.
Quality Call Solutions
3003 Bunker Hill Lane #202
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 367-8800
Fax: (408) 367-8804
www.quality.com
Turnkey system integrator of IVR and CTI for call centers. Services
include: IVR application design and development, customized MIS
reports, voice engineering, implementation, validation and training.
Quintus Corporation
47212 Mission Falls Ct.
Fremont, CA 94539
(510) 624-2800
(800) 337-8941
Fax: (510) 770-1377
www.quintus.com
Broadbased suite of frontend software for call centers. Offers a web-
enabled product with advanced data "publishing" features in the latest
version. Owns Nabnasset & Call Center Enterprises.
Racal Recorders
480 Spring Park Place, Ste. 1000
Herndon, VA 20170
(703) 709-7114
(800) 553-8279
Fax: (703) 709-9529
www.racalrecord.com
Offers the WordNet voice logger, with up to 96 channel capacity.
Available with ISDN PRI or BRI, PCM30 and PCM32 digital
interfaces. A Workstation app provides full replay and system
administration.
Reese Brothers
925 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
(800) 365-3500
Registry
5605 Glenridge Dr.,
Suite 250
Atlanta, GA 30342
(800) 255-9119
www.tri.com
Remedy
1505 Salado Drive
Mountain View, CA 94043
(650) 254-4919
Fax: (650) 903-9001
www.remedy.com

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Help desk and customer service software.
Renaissance Consulting
1000 E. Woodfield Road, Ste. 102
Schaumburg, IL 60173-5921
(847) 706-6740
Fax: (847) 706-6742
www.consultrenaissance.com
Management consulting firm providing strategic planning and
business development services to electronic commerce firms.
Resource Center for Customer Service Professio
P.O. Box 401
Western Springs, IL 60558
(708) 246-0320
Fax: (708) 246-0251
www.the-resource-center.com
Educational books, videos, seminars, and conferences for call center
and customer service professionals.
Response Design Corporation
5541 Simpson Avenue
Ocean City, NJ 08226-1258
Fax: (609) 399-5311
www.responsedesign.com
Response Interactive
21 St. Clair Ave. E., #300
Toronto, ON M4T 1L9
Canada
(416) 969-7890
www.responseinc.com
Response has a software product called WebExchange. This provides
a live link between visitors to a web site and the appropriate agents
from a company's call center. There is a client and server application,
as well as a www component. WebExchange uses (optional) a
Dialogic board for making audiotext calls, and performing certain
telephony functions.
Right Now Technologies
1320 Manley Road
Bozeman, MT 59715
(406) 582-9341
(888) 418-3400
Fax: (406) 586-9626
www.rightnowtech.com
RightFax
6303 East Tanque Verde
Suite 200
Tucson, AZ 85715-3858
(520) 320-7000
Fax: (520) 321-7456
www.rightfax.com
Makes a line of enterprise fax servers.
RMH Teleservices
40 Morris Avenue
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
(610) 520-5300
(800) 367-5733
Fax: (610) 520-5356
Rockwell
300 Bauman Court
Wood Dale, IL 60191-8007
(630) 227-8000
(800) 416-8199
Fax: (630) 227-8186
www.ec.rockwell.com
Integrated call center platform technologies, including ACD, CTI and
information management tools. Galaxy ACD, Spectrum ACD and the
Gateway Architecture for Call Centers. Rockwell's ACD systems are
good high-volume inbound switches. They are often found in the
largest call centers, including the punishingly busy reservation
centers. (One ACD, taken out of service last year, is said by Rockwell
to be the industry's first ACD25 years old, and still in working order,
at Continental Airlines.) Rockwell's VarCTI is the CTI server system

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that lets the Spectrum and Galaxy switches process outbound dialing.
It lets you add inbound queueing stats to predictive dials, an
increasingly sought-after feature. (There are other CTI links available
from them.) The company is also active in the drive to marry Web-
capabilities to the inbound switch, through their Internet ACD system.
Integrated call center platform technologies, including ACD, CTI and
information management tools.
ROI International
16040 Christensen Road, Suite 316
Seattle, WA 98188
(206) 248-5000
Fax: (206) 248-5005
www.roi-intl.com
Executive search firm specializing in the telecommunications and call
center industry.
Ron Weber And Associates
185 Plains Road
Milford, CT 06460
(800) 835-6584
Royalblue Technologies
1 Exchange Plaza
55 Broadway 17th Floor
New York, NY 10006-3008
(212) 269-9000
Fax: (212) 785-4327
www.royalblue.com/
Ruppman Marketing Technologies
2001 Ruppman Plaza
Peoria, IL 61614
(800) 787-7626
Fax: (201) 812-1961
Sage Research 220 North Main Street
Natick, MA 01760
(508) 655-5400
Fax: (508) 655-5516
www.sageresearch.com
ScheduleSoft Corporation
2611 East Johnson Street
Madison, WI 53704
(800) 416-9006
Fax: (608) 244-8423
www.schedulesoft.com
Scalable personnel scheduling solutions.
Sento Corporation
808 East Utah Valley Drive
American Fork, UT 84003
(801) 492-2000
(800) 868-8448
Fax: (801) 492-2100
www.sento.com
Offers something very interestinga "phoneless" phone center, all IP-
based.
Service Ware
333 Allegheny Avenue
Oakmont, PA 15139
(412) 826-1158
(800) 572-5748
Fax: (412) 826-0577
www.serviceware.com
Software for knowledge management and packaged content for
technical support.
Shark Multimedia
3040 Oakmead Village Drive
Santa Clara, CA 95051
(408) 987-5420
(800) 800-3321
Fax: (408) 987-5424
www.sharkrmm.com
Voice messaging and data/fax communications system for "all-in-
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Siebel Systems
1855 South Grant Street
San Mateo, CA 94402
(650) 295-5000
Fax: (650) 295-5111
www.siebel.com
SFA and enterprise-wide customer management systems, and now the
owner of Scopus (one of the many help desk-turned-CIS vendors).
Includes application software for field sales, customer service,
telesales, telemarketing, field service, third-party resellers and Internet
based e-commerce and self service.
Siemens
4900 Old Ironsides Drive
Santa Clara, CA 95052-8075
(408) 492-2000
(800) 765-6123
Fax: (408) 777-4988
www.siemenscom.com
Switches, large, high-end ACDs, software for call routing.
Signature Telemarketing
200 N. Martingale Road
Schaumbert, IL 60173
(800) 521-6202
Silknet Software
50 Phillippe Cote Street
Manchester, NH 03101
(603) 625-0070
Fax: (603) 625-0428
www.silknet.com
Silknet's eService 98 is an Internet-based customer service
application.
SiteBridge
54 West 21st St., Ste 903
New York, NY 10010
(212) 645-8700
Fax: (212) 352-2079
www.sitebridge.com
Sitel Corporation 13305 Birch Street
Omaha, NE 68164
(402) 963-6810
(800) 257-4835
Fax: (402) 963-3004
www.sitel.com
Outsourced telephone based customer service and sales.
Skywave
195 B North Sunnyvale Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(408) 245-1771
Fax: (408) 245-1769
www.skywave.net
IP telephony gateway for service providers, as well as a control
interface product and a network manager (for things like billing, etc.)
Smallwonder!
(703) 771-3333
www.smallwondersoftworks.com
Small call center dialers and CTI systems; recently bought by Melita.
Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals
801 N. Fairfax St., Ste 404
Alexandria, VA 22314
(703) 519-3700
Fax: (703) 549-4886
www.socap.org
Society of Telecommunications Consultants
13766 Center St
Carmel Valley, CA 93924
(800) 782-7670
Fax: (408) 659-0144
www.stcconsultants.org

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Softbase Systems
1664 Hendersonville Rd.
Asheville, NC 28803
(800) 669-7076
www.netlert.com
Makes Netlert, a non-intrusive desktop messaging system for intranets
originally developed for call centers.
Soundlogic
(604) 291-9989
Fax: (604) 291-9949
www.soundlogic.net
Help desk system.
Spanlink
7125 Northland Terrace
Minneapolis, MN 5428
(612) 362-8000
(800) 452-8349
Fax: (612) 362-8300
www.spanlink.com
Internet call center products and services. FastCall Enterprise, a voice
processing CTI combo.
Specialized Resources
640 International Parkway
Richardson, TX 75081
(972) 664-6600
(888) 774-2400
Fax: (972) 669-2471
www.sritelecom.com
Telecom consulting, systems integration and systems maintenance.
Spectrum Consulting
10100 Reunion Place Suite 120
San Antonio, TX 78216-4153
(210) 349-4380
Fax: (210) 349-4389
www.sgc-inc.com
Spectrum Corp.
10048 Easthaven Blvd.
Houston, TX 77075
(713) 944-6200
(800) 392-5050
Fax: (713) 944-1290
www.specorp.com
Wallboards used to communicate ACD info to agents in a call center.
More than 20 models of color and LED wallboards, with real-time
stats, color alerts, and user-programmable messages.
SpeechSoft
32 Manners Road
Ringoes, NJ 08551-1714
(609) 466-1100
(800) 878-8117
Fax: (609) 466-0757
www.speechsoft.com
Speech Master IVR and app gen system.
Speech Works
695 Atlantic Avenue
Third Floor
Boston, MA 02111
(617) 428-4444
Fax: (617) 225-0322
www.speechworks.com
Interactive speech systems for automating telephone transactions.
Speech Works, a software development environment for building
advanced telephone-based speech recognition applications. Speech
Works' provides developers with the ability to "speech-enable" a
broad range of transaction processing, information exchange, and
messaging applications.
Sphere Communications
Two Energy Drive
Lake Bluff, IL 60044
(847) 247-8200
(888) 774-3732

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Fax: (847) 247-8290
www.spherecom.com/home.htm
Sprint
5420 LBJ Freeway
Dallas, TX 75240
(913) 624-3697
Fax: (913) 624-3080
www.sprint.com
Long distance and consulting services for call centers.
SPS Payment Systems
2500 Lake Cook Road
Riverwoods, IL 60015
(847) 405-3400
Fax: (847) 405-4856
www.spspay.com
Call center outsourcing that includes a variety of services that centers
could use: help desk and technical support, order management (with
reps trained in cross-selling and up-selling) and customer service.
They handled 65 million customer contacts for clients in the last year.
Square D EPE Technologies
(714) 557-1636
Power protection systems.
St. Lucie Chamber of Commerce
1626 S.E. Port St. Lucie Blvd.
Port St. Lucie, FL 34952
(561) 595-9999
(888) 785-8243
Fax: (561) 335-4446
www.co.st-lude.fl.us
Staff Planning Tools
R.D. #1 Box 263
Falls, PA 18615
(570) 333-4913
home.earthhnk.net/~nevshea
Involved in staff-resource planning issues.
StarVox 2880 Zanker Road, Suite 109
San Jose, CA 95134
(408) 383-9900
www.starvox.com
StarVox's StarGate Server, from StarVox, is a business-to-business
VoIP system for enterprise wide deployment. Integrates traditional
PBX features with public switched telephone network (PSTN)
reliability over a corporate WAN.
State of the Art
640 South San Vicente Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(213) 782-7200
Fax: (213) 782-7506
www.hispaniccallcenter.com
Call center outsourdng service bureau specializing in hispanic/Spanish
language marketing.
StepUp Software
10445 Countess Dr.
Dallas, TX 75229
(214) 352-9424
Fax: (214) 357-3884
www.stepupsoftware.com
Simple helpdesk for small centers.
Steve Sibulsky Productions
(208) 765-4957
(888) 664-6536
Fax: (208) 667-9792
www.onhold6.com /
Message-on-hold production services.
Strategic Telemedia
(800) 365-8642
Summa Four 25 Sundial Avenue
Manchester, NH 03103-7251
(603) 625-4050
(800) 544-3440

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Fax: (603) 668-4491
www.summafour.com
Open programmable switches.
Sun Microsystems
901 San Antonio Road
Palo Alto, CA 94303
(650) 960-1300
www.sun.com
Sunburst Software
23440 Hawthorne Blvd., Ste. 210
Torrance, CA 90505
(310) 791-5060
Fax: (310) 791-5062
www.sunburstsoftware.com
SunGard Data Systems
1285 Drummers Lane
Suite 300
Wayne, PA 19087
(610) 341-8700
www.sungard.com
Disaster recovery and service assurance programs.
Swisscom
+41-31-34-20202
Fax: +41-31-34-23917
www.swisscom-na.com
Swiss national telecom carrier, which provides call center solutions
(consulting, engineering, support and finance) as well as services and
call center products.
Switchview
801 E. Campbell Rd., Ste. 330
Richardson, TX 75081
(800) 845-9989
Fax: (972) 918-9969
www.switchview.com
Sykes Enterprises
100 North Tampa Street, Suite 3900
Tampa, FL 33602
(813) 274-1000
Fax: (813) 273-4545
www.sykes.com
Outsourcing company.
Symon Communications
10701 Corporate Drive
Suite 290
Stafford, TX 77477
(281) 240-5555
(800) 827-9666
Fax: (281) 240-4895
www.symon.com
Readerboards, and middleware for all sorts of client/server
applications that run in call centers, including networking among
multi-vendor ACD environments. Interesting stuff.
Syntellect
1000 Holcomb Woods Pkwy, Ste. 410A
Roswell, GA 30076
(770) 587-0700
(800) 347-9907
Fax: (770) 587-0589
www.syntellect.com
Voice processing, IVR, predictive dialing and web-related call center
products. They also run a voice and data processing outsourcer
(Syntellect Interactive Services) and through the acquisition of
Telecorp Systems, they offer Home Ticket Intelligent ANI, a pay-per-
view ordering processing
Systems Modeling
504 Beaver Street
Sewickley, PA 15143
(412) 741-3727
Fax: (412) 741-5635
www.sm.com

 Page 315
They make Call$ im, a simulation tool for modeling call center
performance over the medium and long term, helping you figure out
what the impact of change will be. Not exactly a workforce
management tool, But increasingly simulators are having to stand in
for workforce planners because of the complex (and non-random)
nature of call delivery systems.
Sytel Limited
2, High St
Chesham, Bucks, HP5 1EP
United Kingdom
+44 1494 793200
Fax: +44 1494 772960
www.sytelco.com
Providers of Softdial Plugin, a predictive dialer, and Oceanic, a high
speed campaign simulation and workforce management tool.
T-Netix
67 Inverness Dr. East
Englewood, CO 80112
(303) 790-9111
(800) 531-4245
Fax: (303) 790-9540
www.t-netix.com
TAB Products
1400 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA
(650) 852-2400
(800) 676-3109
Fax: (650) 852-2687
www.tabproducts.com
Call center facilities and design systems.
Talx Technologies
1850 Borman Court
St. Louis, MO 63146
(314) 434-0046
Fax: (314) 434-9205
www.talx.com
Tandem Computers
19333 Vallco Parkway
Cupertino, CA 95014-2599
(408) 285-6000
(800) 666-7867
Fax: (408) 285-0505
www.tandem.com
High-reliability servers and platforms for running call center
applications. Company is owned by Compaq.
TargetVision
1173 Pittsford-Victor Rd.
Pittsford, NY 14534
(716) 248-0550
Fax: (716) 248-2354
www.targetvision.com
TargetVision provides employee communication systems (i.e.,
readerboards) and services and software that allow you to create,
manage, and distribute company news in a timely slide show format
through TVs, LANs, and intranets.
Taske Technology
500-300 March Road
Kanata, ON K2K 2E2
Canada
(613) 591-9267 x3000
Fax: (613) 592-7979
www.taske.com
Call center management software for Mitel, InterTel, and Iwatsu
telephone systems.
TCIM Services
1011 Centre Road, Suite 403
Wilmington, DE 19805
(800) 333-2255
TCS Management Group
5410 Maryland Way
Brentwood, TN 37027
(615) 221-6800
Fax: (615) 221-6810

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www.tcsmgmt.com
Workforce management system called the TCS SeriesFive. Forecasts
call volume, creates work schedules, and tracks productivity for an
unlimited number of agents and sites, including those using skill-
based routing. Company is an independent, whollyowned subsidiary
of Aspect.
Team Alberta
5th Floor, 10155-102 Street
Edmonton, ABT5J 4L6
Canada
(403) 422-7201
(800) 745-3823
Fax: (403) 427-5924
www.edt.gov.ab.ca
Team Alberta is the agency responsible for marketing Alberta to the
call center industry as an attractive location for call centers.
Technology Solutions Company
205 North Michigan Avenue
Suite 1500
Chicago, IL 60601
(312) 228-4500
(800) 759-2250
Fax: (312) 228-4501
www.techsol.com
TSC is an international consulting and systems integration firm. They
have relationships with many key call center suppliers, service
providers and analysts. Recently spun off a division into eLoyalty,
delivering specialized services in the areas of operations including the
internet, call centers, marketing channels, sales force optimization,
customer service and field service and logistics. (This spinoff can be
reached at
www.eloyalty.com.)
Teesland Group
27 College Gardens
Belfast, Northern Ireland BT23 4GH
United Kingdom
+44 (1232) 382122
+ (800) 83375263 (in UK)
Fax: +44 (1232) 382118
www.teesland.co.uk
Call Centre property/facilities developer and investor. Teeslands
develop flexible, efficient and economical and build-to-suit facilities.
Teesland works closely with many government agencies and can
assist in procuring valuable packages of selective financial assistance.
Teknekron Infoswitch
4425 Cambridge Road
Fort Worth, TX 76155
(817) 262-3100
(800) 835-6357
Fax: (817) 262-3300
www.teknekron.com
Call center software for job applicant screening, agent monitoring and
evaluation.
Tekno Industries
795 Eagle Dr.
Bensenville, IL 60106
(708) 766-6960
Fax: (708) 766-6533
Call center network management system; reports on status, service
level.
Tekton
(910) 855-3112
(800) 888-1778
Fax: (910) 855-3220
www.tekton.com
NiceLog digital voice logging systems for recording and archiving
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TelAthena Systems
96 Morton Street
NewYotk, NY 10014-3326
(888) 777-7565 x3717
Fax: (212) 206-1963
www.telathena.com
Tele-Serve Call Center
409 Main Street
Eau Claire, WI 54701
(715)-834-3442
Fax: (715) 834-5991
www.tele-serve-1.com
Specializes in call center applications, answering services,
telemarketing and other telemessaging functions.
Telecom Ireland
1010 Washington Blvd
Stamford, CT 06901-2202
(800) 445-4475
Fax: (203) 363-7176
www.telecomireland.com
Telecorp Products
2000 E. Oakley Park Rd.
Suite 101
Walled Lake, MI 48390
(810) 960-1000
(800) 634-1012
Fax: (810) 960-1085
www.telecorpproducts.com
AgentWatch, ACD management system with readerboard.
TeleDirect International
5510 Utica Ridge Road
Davenport, IA 52807-2939
(800) 531-6440
Telegenisys
3478 Buskirk Ste 350
Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
(510) 210-8900
Fax: (510) 256-6660
www.telegenisys.com
Call processing systems that include CTI apps, predictive dialing and
IVR.
Telegenix
26 Olney Ave.
Cherry Hill, NJ 08003
(800) 424-5220
Fax: (609) 424-0889
www.telegenix.com
Telegra Corp.
783 The Alameda
San Jose, CA 95126
(408) 970-9200
Fax: (408) 970-9242
www.telegra.com
Telegra makes the FaxTrace series of fax test equipmentit analyzes
Internet fax, fax servers and networks that carry fax traffic. Also
available is the Fax Collector, a system for archiving and retrieving all
traffic from machines and serversan excellent idea for fax-based order
processing applications.
Telemarketing Company
7900 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Niles, IL 60714
(800) 777-6348
TCT House
6 Leapale Road
Guildford, Surrey GUI 4JX
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 01483 888 288
Fax: +44 (0) 01483 888 678
WWW.TCTC.CO.UK
Consultancy, training, recruitment and performance audit company.

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Telephonetics
4330 N.W. 207th Drive
Miami, FL 33055-1250
(305) 625-0332
(800) 446-5366
Fax: (305) 625-3026
www.telephonetics.com
Algorhythms music and message on hold service, with audio
production and programming.
Telequest Teleservices
1250 East Copeland Road
Arlington, TX 76011
(817) 258-6500
(800) 833-4443
Fax: (817) 258-6505
www.telequest.com
Inbound and outbound telemarketing and teleservices. Call center
management, and bilingual capabilities.
Telerx
723 Dresher Road
Horsham, PA 19044
(215) 347-5700
Fax: (215) 347-5801
www.telerx.com
Teleservice bureau.
TeleSales
(978) 694-4100
Fax: (978) 694-4850
www.telesalesinc.com
TeleService Resources
4201 Cambridge Road
Fort Worth, TX 76155
(800) 325-2580
Telespectrum Worldwide
443 South Gulph Road
King Of Prussia, PA 19406
(610) 878-7470
www.telespectrum.com
Inbound & outbound telemarketing, customer service, interactive
voice response, customer care consulting, call center management,
training and consulting services.
TeleSynergy Research (USA)
3777 Stevens Creek Blvd #330
Santa Clara, CA 95051
(408) 260-9970
Fax: (408) 260-2601
www.telesynergy.com
Makes PBX/Voice/Fax boards, application generator and CT solutions
for small-to medium-sized business.
TeleTech
1700 Lincoln Street, Suite 1400
Denver, CO 80203
(800) 835-3832
Fax: (303) 894-4208
www.teletech.com
Teloquent
4 Federal Street
Billerica, MA 01821-3594
(508) 663-7570
Fax: (508) 663-7543
www.teloquent.com
Distributed Call Center (DCC), ISDN-based remote-agent ACD. This
product is a technological marvel. It lets you place agents wherever
you wantanywhere you can get an ISDN line to them. Small satellite
centers, home agents, all become possible with their very clever
architecture. Check out the topology diagrams on their home page.
Telrad
135 Crossways Park Dr
Woodbury, NY 11797
(800) 639-7466
Fax: (516) 921-8064

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Telstra
242 Exhibition Street
Melbourne, Victoria 3000
Australia
+ (613) 9634 8014
Fax: + (613) 9634 1189
www.telstra.com
Australian telecom carrier.
Teltone Corporation
22121 20th Ave. SE
Bothell,WA 98021
(425) 487-1515
(800) 426-3926
Fax: (425) 487-2288
www.officelink2000.com
A variety of telecom call center products, including interesting
telecommuting and agent-at-home systems. Their systems extend the
features of digital, proprietary phones (ACD terminals) to remote
agents, based upon a ''digital softphone", similar to Aspect's Winset
or Rockwell's Convergence. They aim for the integrated PBXACD
market, emulating Lucent, Nortel and Siemens digital phones. All
their technology resides at the central-site, within a Windows NT
server. All that is needed at the remote site is a TCP/IP-connected PC,
and an analog telephone device.
Telus Marketing Services
Floor 2
112 28 Street SE
Calgary, ABT2A 6J9
Canada
(888) 867-8498
Fax: (403) 207-2139
www.tms.telus.com
A provider of call center services to businesses, specializing in
inbound and outbound sales and customer service marketing
programs. They also provide IVR, con sulting and market research
through The Advisory Group, a division of Telus.
Teubner & Associates
623 S. Main Street
Stillwater, OK 74074
(405) 624-8000
Fax: (405) 624-3010
www.teubner.com
Teubner & Associates makes an advanced fax system called FaxGate,
a central fax processing system that is extremely connective and
modular. It sits at the intersection of multiple host environments and
communication devicesSNA mainframes, for example, orAS/400s,
LANs, TCP/IP networks, really as broad a set of hosts as you can ever
hope to use. It's a compete system for automating fax applications,
and for adding fax to all of a company's back-office transaction
processing apps.
Texas Digital Systems
512 West Loop
College Station, TX 77845
(409) 693-9378
Fax: (409) 764-8650
www.txdigital.com
QuickCom Visual Message Alert System (readerboard). QuickNet
software for networking the workstations to the board.
TMSI
9321 Midlothian Tpke., Suite C
Richmond, VA 23235
(804) 272-6900
Fax: (804) 272-6950
www.tsb.ca
InterLynx CTI suite for call center applications.
TNG TeleSales and Service
9240 Heatherton
Duluth, GA 30097-2490

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(770) 798-9466
Fax: (770) 798-9552
www.worldshowcase.com
Outbound and inbound telephone-and web-based marketing services.
Toshiba America Information Systems
P.O.BOX 19724
Irvine, CA 92713-9724
(212) 596-0600
Fax: (714) 583-3499
www.toshiba.com
Trellix Corporation
51 Sawyer Road
Waltham, MA 02154
(781) 788-9400
Fax: (781) 788-9494
www.trellix.com
Tripp Lite
1111 W. 35th Street
Chicago, IL 60609
(773) 869-1111
Fax: (773) 869-1329
www.tripplite.com
Power protection products, including UPS systems, surge suppressors,
line conditioners, power inverters and network management
accessories.
TriVida Corporation
3524 Hayden Avenue
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 736-3700
Fax: (310) 736-3701
www.trivida.com
Data mining products.
Trustech
Makh-Shevet House
28 Arlozorov Street
Herzliya, 46448
Israel
+972 (9) 9513848
Fax: +972 (9) 9513844
www.truster.com
Voice analysis software, with call center monitoring applications.
TSB International
5399 Eglington Avenue W, Ste 115
Toronto, ON M9C 5K6
Canada
(416) 622-7010
Fax: (416) 622-3540
www.tsb.ca
PBX data and networking products, including CTI middleware, call
accounting and service bureau systems, and PBX data and network
management.
Unica Technologies
55 Old Bedford Road
55 Old Bedford Road, MA 01773
(781) 259-5900x125
Fax: (781) 259-5901
www.unica-usa.com
Services and software for customer management in and through call
centers.
Uniden
4700 Amon Carter Blvd.
Ft. Worth, TX 76155
Ft. Worth, TX 76155
(817) 858-3300
Fax: (817) 858-3401
Product that interfaces with PBX and desk set telephone to provide
wireless headsets.
Unimax Systems
430 First Avenue N., Ste. 790
Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 341-0946
(800) 886-0390
Fax: (612) 338-5436
www.unimax.com

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Makes 2nd Nature, a database and "information control" system for
PBXs and voice mail systems. Allows you to manage multiple
systems from a single access point, and consolidate reporting. Also
helps make moves, adds and changes a bit easier.
Unitrac Software
141 East Michigan Avenue
Kalamazoo, MI 49007
(616) 344-0220
Fax: (616) 344-2027
www.unitrac.com
Unitrac's software applications include: customer service,
inbound/outbound telemarketing, campaigns, mass mail management,
sales force automation, and fulfillment processing. Scripting is
integrated, including inbound scripts that can be used to capture
information for call reports, enter data for new prospects and
customers, conduct surveys, review accounts, etc.
US West
200 South 5th Street, Room 495
Minneapolis, MN 55402
Fax: (612) 663-3682
www.uswest.com
USA 800
(800) 821-7539
Utopia Technology Partners
125 E. Sir Francis Drake Boulevard
3rd Floor
Larkspur, CA 94939
(800) 786-4778
Fax: (415) 956-4260
www.utosoft.com
Utopia help desk software.
V*Channel
3080 Olcott St., Ste. 135C
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 980-9999 X102
Fax: (408) 492-9999
www.vchannel.com
FAXLinkNT interactive voice and fax server.
Vanguard Communications
100 American Road
Morris Plains, NJ 07950
(973) 605-8000
Fax: (973) 605-8329
www.vanguard.net/
Vantive
2455 Augustine Drive
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 982-5700
Fax: (408) 982-5710
www.vantive.com
Help desk software, now known more broadly as "front-office
automation software"functions more like an integrated customer
management system than anything else.
Venture Development Corporation
One Apple Hill
Natick, MA 01760
(508) 653-9000
Fax: (508) 653-9836
www.vdc-corp.com
Call center market research and consulting.
Venturian Software
4812 E. Tanglewood Ave
Anaheim, CA 92807
(612) 931-2450
Fax: (612) 931-2459
www.venturian.com
IVR; CyberCall web/call center integration system.

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Viking Electronics
1531 Industrial St.
P.O. Box 448
Hudson, WI 54016
(715) 386-8861
Fax; (715) 386-4349
www.vikingelectronics.com
Fax/data switches, auto attendants, digital announcers, toll restrictors,
auto dialers.
VIP Calling
121 Middlesex Turnpike
Burlington, MA 01803
(781) 229-0011
Fax: (781) 229-7701
www.vipcalling.com
VIP Calling is a carrier that uses the internet to provide wholesale
international telecom services.
VIPswitch
8 Commerce Place, Suite 200,
Brossard, QC J4W 3H2
Canada
(450) 923-4040
(800) 638-2677
Fax: (450) 923-4882
www.VIPswitch.com
High performance Ethernet/Intranet switches and communications
platforms.
Virginia Southwest Promise
P.O. Box 1060
Lebanon, VA 24266
(540) 889-0381
(800) 735-9999
Fax: (540) 889-1830
www.vaswpromise.com
Virtual Corporation
(973) 927-5454
(800) 944-8478
www.virtual-corp.net
Virtual Hold Technology
304 N. Cleveland Massillon Road
Akron, Ohio 44333
(330) 666-1181
Fax: (330) 666-3869
www.virtualhold.com
Vision Quebec
500 Sherbrooke St.W. #380
Montreal, QB H3A 3C6
Canada
Fax: (888) 288-6884
www.visionquebec.com
Visionyze.com
3000 Executive Parkway, Suite 510
San Ramon, CA 94583
(925) 867-3300
Fax: (925) 867-3400
www.visionyze.com
Packaged analytical application solution software for customer service
centers. CSA is web and internet enabled. The analytical modules in
the appliation include: Satisfaction Analyzer, Customer Analyzer,
Knowledge Analyzer, Operations Analyzer and Financial Analyzer.
Visual Electronics
2170 South Grape Street
Denver, Colorado 80222
(303) 639-8450
(800) 622-9893
Fax: (303) 639-8416
www.digital-fax.com
Readerboard systems.
Vitrix
20 East University, Suite 304
Tempe, AZ 85281
(602) 967-5800 x201
Fax: (602) 967-5444
www.vitrix.com
Time & attendance software for call centers connected via Lan, Wan
or Peer to Peer.

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VocalTec Communications
35 Industrial Pkwy.
Northvale, NJ 07647
(201) 768-9400
Fax: (201) 768-8893
www.vocaltec.com
IP telephony systems and gateways.
Vodavi
8300 East Raintree Drive
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
(602) 443-6000
Fax: (602) 998-2469
www.vodavi.com
Key Telephone Systems, Web-based Unified Messaging, ACD, CTI,
Internet Telephony, Voice Processing, and IVR.
Voice Control Systems
14140 Midway Road
Dallas, TX 75244
(972) 726-1200
Fax: (972) 726-1267
www.voicecontrol.com Speech recognition toolkit.
Voice Processing Corporation
1 Main St
Cambridge, MA 02142
(617) 494-0100
Fax: (617) 494-4970
www.vpro.com
Speech recognition.
Voice Systems Research
4095 Delmar Avenue, Suite 10
Rocklin, CA 95667
(800) 967-4877
Voice Technologies Group
2350 North Forest Road
Buffalo, NY 14068-6700
(716) 689-6700
www.vtg.com
PBX integration products, unified messaging and other CTI systems.
Voice Technology Ltd
PO Box 8686
Symonds Street
Auckland, 1001
New Zealand
+64 (9) 356 5555
Fax: +64 (9) 356 5550
www.voicetechnology.com
Call control/CTI/IVR systems for call centers. A New Zealand-based
company.
Voiceware Systems
1109 Old Okeechobee Rd.
Ste. 11
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
(561) 655-1770
Fax: (561) 655-2104
www.voiceware.net
Call processing systems integrator.
Voysys
48634 Milmont Dr.
Freemont, CA 94538
(510) 252-1100
(800) 786-9797
Fax: (510) 252-1101
www.voysys.com
Computer telephony products for small centers, especially IVR.
VXI
One Front Street
P.O.B. 490
Rollinsford, NH 03869
(603) 742-2888
(800) 742-8588
Fax: (603) 742-5065
www.vxicorp.com
Manufactures headsets and microphones for computer and telephony
applications.

 Page 324
WebDialogs
175 Littleton Rd, Suite 8
Westford, MA 01886
(978) 589-0979
www.webdialogs.com/
Capabilities include internet-initiated telephony, IP telephony, chat,
computer to computer collaboration and full e-commerce based
reporting.
WebLine Communications
One Burlington Woods
1st Floor
Burlington, MA 01803
(781) 272-9979
Fax: (781) 272-9989
www.webline.com
A Web-based call center adjunct that combines telephone connectivity
with the Web. Core is a Java-based client/server app that lets agents
deliver visual info to the customer's Java-enabled browser.
Wesson, Taylor, Wells & Associates
P.O. Box 12274
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2274
(800) 833-2894
Fax: (919) 941-0082
West TeleServices Corporation
9910 Maple Street
Omaha, NE 68134
(402) 571-7700
(800) 542-1000
Fax: (402) 571-7000
Western Direct
(800) 400-4042
WildFile
3070 Ranch View Lane
Plymouth, MN 55447
(612) 551-0881
Fax: (612) 551-9998
www.wildfile.com
Witness Systems
1105 Sanctuary Pkwy., Ste. 210
Alpharetta, GA 30004
(770) 754-1900
(888) 394-8637
Fax: (770) 754-1888
www.witsys.com
Witness Systems is a developer and supplier of client/server quality
monitoring software for call centers. The company's Witness software
is deployed by call center managers to enhance enterprise quality,
agent efficiency and supervisor productivity.
WorkForce Management Group
P.O. Box 2975
Delray Beach, FL 33447
(561) 243-0440
Fax: (954) 450-5484
www.wfmg.com
Company provides services focused on the selection, implementation
and optimization of workforce management systems. WFMG also
provides schedule outsourcing services.
Wygant Scientific
813 SW Alder Street, Floor 8
Portland, OR 97205
(503) 227-6901
(800) 688-6423
Fax: (503) 227-8501
www.wygant.com
Wygant makes SmartAnswer, a voice processing application that
informs callers of their position in queue and how long they can
expect to wait. It also is a building block for other applications like
intelligent