March 1999
Ready For The Call At SNET's Call Center
BY ERIK D. LOUNSBURY, C@LL CENTER Solutions
Since beginning outsourcing operations the first week of March 1998, SNET Call Center
Services has been a beehive of activity. The Call Center Services subsidiary of Southern
New England Telecommunications Corporation (SNET) is situated on three floors in an
unassuming office building in the heart of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Presiding calmly over
the bustle of activity is Call Center Services President Cathy Bradley.
Ms. Bradley explained to me that SNET created this separate subsidiary to sell to
wholesale and retail customers that were large businesses within the state, with a focus
on selling long-distance telephone service. SNET launched its call center by making calls
to sell SNET's long-distance services, but soon started offering its services as an
outsourcing teleservices center providing high-end inbound customer service.
"We are a quality provider with brand equity," said Bradley. Backing up this
claim is a number-one position in a 1997 J.D. Powers and Associates ranking for customer
satisfaction among mainstream users of residential long-distance service. "The demand
is for 24 x 7 and multiple access - and we provide around-the-clock services for Web,
e-mail, voice mail and inbound calls," continued Bradley. Among its current duties is
responding to e-mail from the SNET Web page (SNET.com) and routing them to the correct
department. Their policy is to respond to all e-mail within one hour.
While a natural extension of its SNET call center operations is calling for other
telecoms, the SNET Call Center Services is also targeting health care and financial
services providers to deliver support for key accounts in Connecticut. In these areas,
SNET Call Center Services has among its clients Yale New Haven Hospital (for which it
provides patient information and physicians' answering and emergency paging services) and
United Health Care. It also is the outsourcing partner for a competitive local exchange
carrier (CLEC) in the Los Angeles area. Among its inbound, third-party verification, and
billing inquiry/repair services, SNET Call Center Services provides help desk services for
Message Works and has wireline, wireless and overflow for wireless services. Bilingual
reps receive inbound calls from South and Central America for assistance with
long-distance payments. These bilingual services are also available to support other
customers with bilingual programs.
Unlike many call center operations, SNET Call Center Services hasn't experienced large
turnover churn. One reason is that SNET puts its agents on a career track - 18 out of the
original 20 agents have been promoted. "Jobs are seen by employees as growth
opportunities. They are a visible statement of achievable goals," emphasized Bradley.
Another reason is that many of the agents are part of a program sponsored by the State of
Connecticut that is aimed at providing viable jobs for former Welfare recipients. The
program is providing an incentive to these workers, and they are responding
enthusiastically at the opportunity to be able to provide a source of income for
themselves and their families as well as work in a job that provides a sense of pride in
accomplishment and a chance to build a career.
Bradley and her management team consider themselves lucky to have been able to attract
the representatives who staff their call center. Currently they have more than 150
courteous and well-trained agents. They train 10 new employees every two weeks and are
looking to expand in the near future. There are two on-site training rooms that can
accommodate 20 agents each. These stations can also be put online in case they are needed.
All agents are monitored both regularly and randomly for performance and training
purposes. Reports from SNET's performance monitoring system from NICE Systems indicate
that SNET's representatives are doing as well as or better than the competition.
Supporting the agents is an excellent teleservices infrastructure put together by a
team led by Senior Specialist in Telecommunications Tom Gilmore, who told me of the
details of the setup of the call center.
The call center has a variety of ISDN, PRI and T1 lines. An AT&T Definity G3 system
provides automatic call distribution for calls coming into the center. CTI functions are
provided by ATT CallVision and NabCTI (which is capable of call blending) from Nabnassett.
To guard against any calls being lost, dual processing in Definity and between Definity
and CTI servers cover failover.
Outbound preview dialing is provided by DAVOX's UNISON program. Scripting (such as
different rates for different customers) is built into the desktop for outbound calling
programs.
For inbound calls, the teleservices structure has the ability to capture automatic
number identification (ANI) and dialed number identification service (DNIS). IMA's GEO
provides screen pops of customer information based on DNIS, so when a call arrives at the
agent's desktop, the agent is armed with knowledge of who is calling, previous
transactions with the call center, and which offer the customer was responding to.
Detailed customer information resides on an Informix relational database running on a RISC
6000 platform.
For internal use, the call center has a 100MB Ethernet LAN running on a NT server and a
voice mail system from Octel. In cases of power shortages, a generator provides backup
power.
On their desktops agents have teleservices software from IMA, which includes GEO, EDGE
and AdvantEDGE. IMA's Cyber EDGE is used for Internet services.
Among the services agents perform using these various software packages is coding
callers as to their potential or status as high-end customers. The system also provides
lists of disposition codes for call status. Cognose software can tailor a variety of
campaign reports to customer specifications.
A large, clean visual workspace is provided on 21-inch monitors that sit on all of the
agents' desktops, which are run on PCs with Pentium ProII 64MB RAM and a 3.4MB hard drive.
All agents have access to a directory of frequently called numbers and corporate directory
on their desktop.
As Kathy Bradley explained, "It's our job to help our customers perform better by
finding what problems the customer is having with a campaign." SNET Call Center
Services provides its clients with thorough statistics that benchmark sales and close
rates so they can apprise customers as to how a campaign is going and provide consulting
services as to how to improve the campaign.
From technology to human resources to consulting services, the SNET Call Center has it
all in place to provide its clients satisfied customers. |