Call Center News

How to Switch to Avaya VoIP

Avaya Phone Systems has taken several steps to ensure a smooth transition traditional, circuit-based phone systems to VoIP phone systems. The company views the evolution to converged network as a three-step process: (1) Install IP architecture, laying the foundation for a wireless network capable of supporting data, voice, and video on a single cable, (2) Incorporate applications, taking advantage of features that increase your productivity and efficiency and, (3) Employ IP telephony, connecting all branches and locations of your business, making the conversion from an outdated, inefficient network, to an industry-standard one.

It's About Time: You Don't Have Any and Big Business Counts on It

Have you ever called a major corporation’s 800 number only to be trapped in a maze of automated questions that have to be answered all over again if you ever actually reach a real person? Of course you have and you didn’t like it at all. However, as much as you don’t like that experience, corporations know that you like listening to hold music even less.

INFONXX Officially Opens Kansas Call Center

Governor Hails Company, Direction and Nearly 1000 New Jobs for Wichita

Wichita, Kansas -- 2/22/2006 -- With the well wishes of elected officials, business and education leaders, and customers, INFONXX officially opened its sixth U.S.-based call center here today. "Moving into a community is a choice.  Becoming part of that community takes common goals and interests. It's all about people connecting with people," said Margaret Scholl, INFONXX North America CEO.  "And we connected right away with the people of Wichita."

Offshore Employee Leasing Option: A Boon For Beleaguered Employers

Most of the employers cutting across geographical boundaries go through the common - even though too an unwanted - process of hiring new employees, training and investing in them only to later find some such employees ditch them for another company(s) with, perhaps, better benefits and attractive incentives. Employees in America are switching jobs at a rate not seen in the past three years, according to the third quarter 2005 survey on the manpower statistics conducted by the American Institute of Human Resource Management.

A total of 240 companies participated in this survey, covering over 98,000 employees. The overall turnover rate in the third quarter of 2005 was 1.92%, higher than the second quarter and 8.64% higher when compared with the same period last year. The Information Tech. (14.7%) and Retail (12.5%) sectors recorded the highest turnovers.

Contact Centers Now on Boardroom Agenda

HAUPPAUGE, NY -- Dimension Data, a $2.7 billion IT solutions and services provider, today announced results from its annual Contact Center Benchmarking Report. According to the Report, organizations are increasingly understanding the significance of the contact center in creating customer value and achieving commercial returns. This is evident by the finding that now 70% of contact centers report to director level, including 25% now reporting directly to the CEO.

The eighth Global Contact Center Benchmarking Report reveals that organizations are placing higher importance on contact centers, as they interact with an organization's most important resource -- its customers. As such, contact centers and their strategies are slowly maturing with 51% of participants in the study aligning their contact center development strategy with the corporate strategy.

Qwest Opens New Call Center in Logan, Utah

Logan, Utah -- Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc. is opening a new call center in north Logan and hiring 600 workers to accommodate growth in its 14-state service region. Qwest, which is the dominant telephone service provider in Utah with more than 1 million residential and business access lines, will open its third Utah call center at 2250 N. Main St. in Logan in early summer. Of a total of 15 customer sales and service centers nationwide, Qwest has two call centers in Salt Lake City including one catering to Spanish speakers. It has 2,500 workers in Utah.

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Call Center Outsourcing Frustrates Some

Pearl Haimowitz would like to boycott companies that outsource their customer service to India. The Great Neck, N.Y., resident said the representatives are difficult to understand, don't have the leeway to solve problems, and speak over poor telephone connections. But Haimowitz, who has dealt with Indian customer service representatives working for Dell, AOL and American Express, said she thinks a boycott would be fruitless if not impossible because so many companies have sent their work abroad, where labor is cheap.

"A couple of years ago, if you talked to an American customer representative, you would find that American Express was always good at taking care of whatever it was you had a problem with," Haimowitz said. But, she said, Indian customer service representatives "don't have the latitude, and there is a language barrier, and they're probably working in the middle of the night."

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Stream Tops List of Best-Performing Call Centers

RICHARDSON, TX, February 15 -- Stream, a global provider of technical support and customer service, announces it has been ranked first in call center performance in Global Services' annual report, the Global Services 100 (GS100). The report recognizes the most innovative outsourcers of business and technology services, in addition to the top 10 companies in each of 10 service delivery areas.

Is It Time for Call Centers To Ditch the Script?

Having to deal with a disinterested, robotic voice on the other end of the phone is frustrating enough. It is even worse when that voice belongs to a human who is sticking rigidly to an inflexible script. Mindful of the irritation this causes, Lloyds TSB recently scrapped scripts after research revealed that 90 percent of customers were infuriated by its call center staff's use of prompts.

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911 Call Center Bombarded By 'Nuisance' Calls

Officials Call For Non-Emergency Call Center

HYATTSVILLE, MD -- Public safety officials in Prince George's County, MD say 911 operators are being bombarded with "nuisance" calls. Officials said people are calling 911 to ask for everything from help with their computers to the phone number for their favorite pizza parlor. The center receives about 4,000 calls per day, and while officials say most are legitimate, four in 10 are not and those frivolous calls are overloading the system and frustrating officials.

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