InStranet's Contact Centers In Line (CCIL)
When information about products and services is distributed among a range of servers and databases, agents can have great difficultly tracking it, making it harder to serve and sell to customers effectively.
To overcome that problem, InStranet (New York, NY) offers its Contact Centers In Line (CCIL) application to manage large amounts of content and documents across multiple systems and databases.
Agents and managers log on to CCIL through a Web browser. Depending on skill levels, users can access different content and information. The software delivers relevant content about the customer or issue to agents' desktops, eliminating the need to search through different systems and screens. CCIL handles content in Microsoft Word or Excel documents, PDF files or XML files.
You can use several parameters to manage and present information. By integrating with CRM software, CCIL selects relevant documents based on information contained in customer profiles, such as purchase histories. For example, if an agent is taking a call from a customer who owns a DVD player, the agent might see the top ten documents related to DVD players, such as a technical alert.
CCIL also displays relevant promotional documents to assist agents in cross-selling and up-selling. Agents select a promotion by clicking on the offer button and then follow steps that take them through the sale.
We especially like the application's Analytics Engine, which tracks the effectiveness of suggested content and promotions, along with agent stats. CCIL presents this information in a graphical format in real time.
Version 3.2 includes out-of-the-box metrics, plus the ability to customize your own. For example, the application's awareness ratio metric lets you track agents' familiarity with content. Using our previous example, if your company is planning to launch a DVD player next week, you can find out what percentage of agents have read the documents related to this new product. If you see that only 40% of agents have read the required material, you might decide to schedule a last-minute training session or postpone the launch date.
The document effectiveness metric tracks documents that users access most often. You can segment this information based on different variables, such as agents' locations. Customizable metrics can range from measuring how successful specific promotions are to how well agents are meeting up-sell and cross-sell goals. You can also apply these metrics to business partners and resellers. 877-932-5826/646-473-0777, www.instranet.com
Kingsland Scott Bauer Associates (KSBA) Performance Design
Call centers are high-stress, high-density facilities that can benefit greatly from a targeted approach to pervasive problems such as poor air quality, lack of comfort control, poor lighting, stressful noise levels, poor ergonomics and inefficient workspace organization.
Architects and designers Kingsland Scott Bauer Associates (KSBA; Pittsburgh, PA) specialize in the design of call centers.
The company's Performance Design services enable clients to select appropriate design solutions based on hard research and business-case analysis that links design and corporate profit. The results: improved building and occupant performance either at no additional cost or, at modest, additional capital costs with respectable returns that often equal more than 300%.
KSBA pioneered the use of highly flexible, advanced building systems in ways that reduce capital costs, operating expenses, and tax liability while improving productivity.
Features include fully-integrated raised-access floor systems with cabling, sound masking and environmental air running under the floor. These systems provide cleaner air, superior temperature control and can be modified at very low cost.
By taking advantage of offsetting savings, KSBA has delivered these systems at the same capital cost of inferior overhead systems.
To make these better designs more affordable, the firm created a new division, Solidus, that offers clients a single source, turnkey installation of all under-floor components for about $2 less than conventional flooring systems.
One of the best examples of Performance Design is KSBA's first Sustainable Technology Business Center (STBC) in McAllen, TX.
This 75,000 square foot, modular building is designed as a highly flexible universal building for use as a call center and a variety of other high-tech uses. Developed by CentraTek LP, a division of Hunt Power in Dallas, it now houses a 660-workstation T-Mobile call center.
The project incorporates many of the advanced systems pioneered by KSBA including raised-access floors, large structural bays, high ceilings and so much natural light that the lights aren't even necessary on a sunny day. There are two more STBCs in the works, one in West Texas and one in Southern Virginia. 888-231-5722/412-252-1510, www.ksba.com
KnowledgeBase Solutions' KnowledgeBase Enterprise Edition 3.0
Like Knowledge Management, content management focuses on information about a company, rather than about its customers. These days companies share information about themselves with more employees and customers than ever. And as KM expands its scope, so too does the need to impose uniformity on how, when and to whom this information becomes available.
KnowledgeBase Solutions' KnowledgeBase Enterprise Edition 3.0 exemplifies a growing trend toward intertwining content management and KM. The software gives you various ways to display knowledge base items, such as lists of answers to frequently-asked questions (FAQs), drill-down menus, glossaries or collections of documents.
One of KnowledgeBase's greatest strengths is its workflow editor, which allows you to establish various steps for vetting knowledge base items.
KnowledgeBase is extraordinarily flexible, a trait that extends to the diversity of ways you can put together your information. The software lets you select which features you "snap in" (to use KnowledgeBase's terminology). You can opt to incorporate certain types of items, like FAQs, or specific types of reports, like workflow histories.
On a granular level, KnowledgeBase gives you control of whether users can e-mail, print or rate knowledge base items. The software lets you decide if you want to provide users with related items or links to these items.
As a total package, KnowledgeBase is easy to use, and with the help of the on-line documentation, easy to learn. The software is best at breaking down processes of creating and maintaining knowledge bases into tasks, an approach that's especially effective with content management. 800-831-7881, www.knowledgebase.net
Symon's Symon Enterprise Server (SES)
Readerboards are among the most reliable systems for communicating with groups of agents or an entire center. When there's something agents must know about right away, readerboards are the perfect tools to help convey it using a palette of colors, fonts, graphics and even sounds.
Yet for the past few years, vendors have mostly emphasized new software that works with or complements their readerboards. Over time, this software has begun to morph into a new kind of middleware. One of the first examples of this is Symon Enterprise Server (SES) from Symon (Plano, TX).
The software comes in three variants. Series I, true to its readerboard roots, lets you project information from a single data source, such as an ACD, onto an unlimited number of physical electronic displays from Symon. SES Series I also allows you to send information to unlimited instances of DeskView, Symon's real-time reporting and messaging software for agents.
With Series II, SES enables you to define rules that entail more complexity beyond the thresholds you normally set up with data you present on readerboards. If your call center determines where to direct calls based on information customers enter from your IVR system, SES Series II can act as a repository for that information as it traverses your network.
But the versatility of SES is most apparent with Series III. In addition to accommodating multiple data sources, the software serves as the underlying information clearinghouse for Vista, Symon's real-time reporting software for managers, and Contact Center Community, Symon's workforce management system.
Series III also consolidates data for practically any type of historical or real-time report. And whether your company has one call center, or a network of centers, you can use SES Series III as middleware with your routing software.
Subsequent versions of SES will enable you to replicate the software on multiple servers to ensure SES keeps running even if one of your servers doesn't. 972-578-8484, www.symon.com
TigerPaw Software's Tigerpaw Business Suite 9
Given a crowded CRM marketplace, particularly for apps serving call centers with hundreds or thousands of agents, some developers have found a niche catering to mid-size call centers that employ from 50 to 150 agents. Tigerpaw Software's Business Suite 9 is a versatile new twist on that "small-scale" CRM. It lets agents handle sales and customer support requests; draft invoices and complete forms detailing customer support cases; and check inventory. Business Suite 9 was also easy to install and use. In sum, the product is as competitively positioned as any CRM suite for mid-size call centers.
The suite comprises four modules: Pursuit; Quotes; Service & Repair; and Parts Inventory Control and Purchasing. The first two provide agents with information to confirm sales and look up pricing. The last two help agents ensure that customers receive service or repairs. They also let agents order parts.
Pursuit displays customers' contact information and provides a history of customers' purchases and service requests. Quotes lets agents find prices for company products and services, including applicable discounts. The module also lets you generate forecasts to predict sales trends, invoices for customers' purchases, and work orders for repairs that customers request.
Using Service & Repair, agents can create service orders for customers who request repairs. And you can assign technicians to handle repairs from a graphical calendar. Parts Inventory Control and Purchasing lets agents check inventory and complete purchase orders for parts or materials necessary for repair jobs.
When we tested it out, we were able to quickly set it up and get it going (without using the extensive manual), With the Quotes module, we created a work order from a price quote. Work orders let agents fulfill customer orders and can include information about shipping, billing, and packaging expenses. After easily creating and printing a service order, we created an invoice for the customer based on the service order before progressing to the Service & Repair module.
We also created a service contract for each customer to detail the terms of service, including an analysis of the work performed, the cost of service and the customer's preferred method of payment. By selecting the New Contract option, we prepared the contract within one minute. Overall, we were impressed with the way it provides a thorough range of practical CRM options for most call centers. 800-704-9009, www.tigerpawsoftware.com
