Assessment Solutions' REPeValuator

Never mind the fancy software and Web sites. When deciding to offer on-line customer service and sales from live agents, the most important factor is ensuring that agents have the skills to assist customers. They must be able to identify service and sales opportunities, and they have to be able to communicate accurately and clearly in their on-line responses.

It is not always easy to determine whether agents possess the grammar, spelling and typing skills to answer e-mail and text chat messages. And agents who already handle calls in your center aren't necessarily the best people to serve on-line customers.

But something as simple a misplaced comma can radically alter the meaning of a sentence and potentially alienate a customer. You don't want to discover problems after agents answer e-mail or live text messages.

That's why we selected Assessment Solutions' (ASI; New York, NY) REPeValuator as one of the best products we saw at Call Center Demo and Conference 2000. This assessment tool, which ASI hosts from its servers, has become available at the right time.

REPeValuator runs candidates through 30-minute sessions that simulate text chat and voice over IP sessions with customers. The simulations include a variety of scenarios, such as inquiries about products, requests for technical support and service terminations. The types of hypothetical customers candidates deal with range from businesslike to confused and angry.

The software tests whether agents communicate accurately and how well they perform multiple tasks, such as answering live text messages and looking up information, at the same time. REPeValuator evaluates responses from individual candidates, individual agents, groups of agents and all agents at your center. ASI's criteria for scoring the results of the sessions are based on the company's proven Telephone Assessment Program.

REPeValuator is available for all types of call centers. ASI is working on a version of the product for centers within financial services companies.

The cost of the software ranges between $25 and $50 per session with a $350 set-up fee. For an additional $5,000, ASI can also show you how to use REPeValuator to evaluate and train agents who communicate with on-line customers.

800-584-5154, www.asisolutions.com.

e-talk's e-talk Advisor 3.4

e-talk's (Irving, TX) e-talk Advisor 3.4 software provides you with performance data for each agent at your call center. Advisor's new optional skills-mining module enables you to assign skills to agents by setting numerical values that indicate their proficiency with each skill. The module enables Advisor to update routing parameters for your center's ACD and for other call routing software. It then lets Advisor automatically adjust skill values for agents based on how well they scored on previous evaluations of similar calls. For example, you can set a sales skill value for agents at your call center, and the software can raise that figure for an agent every time the agent confirms a sale.

If agents don't handle a particular type of call successfully, Advisor lowers their skill values for this type of call and routes fewer calls of that type to them. Advisor's skills-mining module also integrates with Knowlagent's (Atlanta, GA) KnowDev 5.0 computer-based training software so that agents automatically receive additional training at their PCs if their skill values fall below a certain level. To monitor agents' progress, you can view a scorecard that displays each of their skills and values for these skills within a Web browser.

After agents complete each call, customers can fill out an on-line survey to rate the service they received from your Web site. Advisor then lets you generate customized reports based on the results of these surveys. Overall, we're impressed with how the software continually updates agents' skill levels to determine the most effective way to route incoming calls at any given time. There is no charge to upgrade to Advisor 3.4 from a previous version of the software, whose former name is P & Q Review, but you pay an additional $25,000 for the skills-mining module. Pricing for e-talk Advisor 3.4 with the skills-mining module starts at $45,000 for 100 agents.

800-835-6357, www.e-talkcorp.com.

Quintus' eContact Suite version 5.5

Quintus (Fremont, CA) upgraded two modules of its eContact Suite, a software package that routes phone calls, voice over IP calls, e-mail messages, live text messages, on-line forms or Web callback requests to the most qualified agents. The company added new features to QConsole, a module that lets agents view data from sources including customers' records, call scripts and Web pages. QConsole now enables agents to view text chat sessions, data from eContact Suite's knowledge base module or from another knowledge base. The software also lets agents view the same Web pages that customers are looking at.

We like how QConsole lets agents view information from different sources through the same screen. For example, more experienced agents at your call center can handle several text chat sessions at the same time by opening a series of text chat windows and the corresponding call scripts for each customer. The module gathers information from eContact Suite's knowledge base or from any ODBC-compliant database, and it organizes information in a tree diagram. Agents can also consult the knowledge base from a separate window if they need help answering customers' questions.

Quintus also improved QRouter, a module that you use to set up a flowchart for incoming calls and messages. QRouter now directs text chat requests and e-mail messages to agents, in addition to phone calls. You purchase QConsole and QRouter with eContact Suite. The complete eContact Suite with all modules costs $100,000, in addition to an extra $3,000 per seat. You install eContact Suite on servers running Windows NT or on most versions of Unix. You install QConsole on agents' desktops running Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT.

800-337-8941/510-624-2800, www.quintus.com.

Siebel Systems' Siebel eMail Response

Siebel Systems (San Mateo, CA) introduced numerous enhancements to its customer relationship management software (CRM), which it demonstrated at Call Center Demo and Conference 2000. Siebel eMail Response, which is available as a standalone product, particularly caught our attention at the show.

eMail Response exemplifies a growing trend among CRM vendors, which recognize the value of routing on-line messages using all the information call centers know about their customers to direct communication from customers to agents.

Assessment Solutions' REPeValuator

Never mind the fancy software and Web sites. When deciding to offer on-line customer service and sales from live agents, the most important factor is ensuring that agents have the skills to assist customers. They must be able to identify service and sales opportunities, and they have to be able to communicate accurately and clearly in their on-line responses.

It is not always easy to determine whether agents possess the grammar, spelling and typing skills to answer e-mail and text chat messages. And agents who already handle calls in your center aren't necessarily the best people to serve on-line customers.

But something as simple a misplaced comma can radically alter the meaning of a sentence and potentially alienate a customer. You don't want to discover problems after agents answer e-mail or live text messages.

That's why we selected Assessment Solutions' (ASI; New York, NY) REPeValuator as one of the best products we saw at Call Center Demo and Conference 2000. This assessment tool, which ASI hosts from its servers, has become available at the right time.

REPeValuator runs candidates through 30-minute sessions that simulate text chat and voice over IP sessions with customers. The simulations include a variety of scenarios, such as inquiries about products, requests for technical support and service terminations. The types of hypothetical customers candidates deal with range from businesslike to confused and angry.

The software tests whether agents communicate accurately and how well they perform multiple tasks, such as answering live text messages and looking up information, at the same time. REPeValuator evaluates responses from individual candidates, individual agents, groups of agents and all agents at your center. ASI's criteria for scoring the results of the sessions are based on the company's proven Telephone Assessment Program.

REPeValuator is available for all types of call centers. ASI is working on a version of the product for centers within financial services companies.

The cost of the software ranges between $25 and $50 per session with a $350 set-up fee. For an additional $5,000, ASI can also show you how to use REPeValuator to evaluate and train agents who communicate with on-line customers.

800-584-5154, www.asisolutions.com.

e-talk's e-talk Advisor 3.4

e-talk's (Irving, TX) e-talk Advisor 3.4 software provides you with performance data for each agent at your call center. Advisor's new optional skills-mining module enables you to assign skills to agents by setting numerical values that indicate their proficiency with each skill. The module enables Advisor to update routing parameters for your center's ACD and for other call routing software. It then lets Advisor automatically adjust skill values for agents based on how well they scored on previous evaluations of similar calls. For example, you can set a sales skill value for agents at your call center, and the software can raise that figure for an agent every time the agent confirms a sale.

If agents don't handle a particular type of call successfully, Advisor lowers their skill values for this type of call and routes fewer calls of that type to them. Advisor's skills-mining module also integrates with Knowlagent's (Atlanta, GA) KnowDev 5.0 computer-based training software so that agents automatically receive additional training at their PCs if their skill values fall below a certain level. To monitor agents' progress, you can view a scorecard that displays each of their skills and values for these skills within a Web browser.

After agents complete each call, customers can fill out an on-line survey to rate the service they received from your Web site. Advisor then lets you generate customized reports based on the results of these surveys. Overall, we're impressed with how the software continually updates agents' skill levels to determine the most effective way to route incoming calls at any given time. There is no charge to upgrade to Advisor 3.4 from a previous version of the software, whose former name is P & Q Review, but you pay an additional $25,000 for the skills-mining module. Pricing for e-talk Advisor 3.4 with the skills-mining module starts at $45,000 for 100 agents.

800-835-6357, www.e-talkcorp.com.

Quintus' eContact Suite version 5.5

Quintus (Fremont, CA) upgraded two modules of its eContact Suite, a software package that routes phone calls, voice over IP calls, e-mail messages, live text messages, on-line forms or Web callback requests to the most qualified agents. The company added new features to QConsole, a module that lets agents view data from sources including customers' records, call scripts and Web pages. QConsole now enables agents to view text chat sessions, data from eContact Suite's knowledge base module or from another knowledge base. The software also lets agents view the same Web pages that customers are looking at.

We like how QConsole lets agents view information from different sources through the same screen. For example, more experienced agents at your call center can handle several text chat sessions at the same time by opening a series of text chat windows and the corresponding call scripts for each customer. The module gathers information from eContact Suite's knowledge base or from any ODBC-compliant database, and it organizes information in a tree diagram. Agents can also consult the knowledge base from a separate window if they need help answering customers' questions.

Quintus also improved QRouter, a module that you use to set up a flowchart for incoming calls and messages. QRouter now directs text chat requests and e-mail messages to agents, in addition to phone calls. You purchase QConsole and QRouter with eContact Suite. The complete eContact Suite with all modules costs $100,000, in addition to an extra $3,000 per seat. You install eContact Suite on servers running Windows NT or on most versions of Unix. You install QConsole on agents' desktops running Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT.

800-337-8941/510-624-2800, www.quintus.com.

Siebel Systems' Siebel eMail Response

Siebel Systems (San Mateo, CA) introduced numerous enhancements to its customer relationship management software (CRM), which it demonstrated at Call Center Demo and Conference 2000. Siebel eMail Response, which is available as a standalone product, particularly caught our attention at the show.

eMail Response exemplifies a growing trend among CRM vendors, which recognize the value of routing on-line messages using all the information call centers know about their customers to direct communication from customers to agents.