To improve customer service, BPAS, a provider of retirement plan administration, actuarial, custodial and consulting services in partnership with over 170 financial intermediaries nationwide, has reportedly deployed Zeacom’s (News - Alert) Unified Contact Center in its call center.

According to a release, the company is running Zeacom’s on-premises call center software on the NEC Internet Protocol Server 2000.

BPAS markets its services nationally through partnerships with banks and trust companies, registered investment advisors, and broker/dealer firms. It currently administers about 1,800 defined contribution plans representing 270,000 eligible employees, 175,000 plan participants and $4 billion in plan assets.

The company has reportedly seen strong growth in recent years – both organically and through acquisitions. In addition its call center has seen increased activity due the recent volatility in the financial markets. As a result it saw a need to adopt a unified contact center system.

The new call center software will enable BPAS’ clients to use multiple modes of contact – including phone, chat, email and fax – all of which are supported on the Zeacom Unified Contact Center platform.

In addition the system will enable CSRs to quickly route contacts to other knowledge workers outside of the call center. The “presence” capability will enable CSRs to see the status of others on the network, so they can route contacts only to those workers that are “available.” What’s more, they can route any type of contact – and the customer’s information will be passed along with that contact as well.

 

As a result of the migration the call center now has a single queue for all in-coming contacts. The system evenly distributes the contacts among the CSRs, based on availability, and thus ensures "load balancing" of calls with next available routing to ensure timely, responsive service.

 

The system’s real-time management alerts and reporting let call center managers immediately identify and respond to bottlenecks by adding agents when needed. Its real-time reporting capabilities allow managers to generate up-to-the minute reports on average hold time, call abandonment, length of average call, and other standard call center performance measures.

 

To ensure quality of service, the system also records and archives all CSR (News - Alert) interactions, allowing call center managers to go back and listen to specific calls manually. If the company so chooses, it can use speech analytics software to “mine” this call data in its entirety, in order to uncover trends and gain insights into agent and/or customer behavior.

The system also sports the much-coveted customer call-back function, whereby a customer who is put on hold in the queue can opt to hang up and get a call back when the first CSR becomes available. This feature alone has been shown to help drive customer satisfaction and retention.

“Our charge at BPAS is to give financial intermediaries the best possible solution to take to the marketplace,” said Paul Neveu, senior vice president of sales and marketing for BPA, in the release. “When you can offer the technology of the largest bundled providers but under a refreshing, open architecture framework of investments and plan design, that is a potent combination. We look forward to the enhancements the new call center will bring to our financial intermediary partnerships, now and in the future.”

In March, Zeacom -- which sponsors the call center software channel on TMCnet -- introduced a new “ROI Calculator” to give its reseller and partners the ability to demonstrate the financial benefits of the Zeacom Communications Center (ZCC) software suite. This new tool will be of value to the more than 100 VARs and channel partners selling Zeacom’s call center software solutions worldwide. With it, they can show high level decision makers how Zeacom’s call center software can reduce operating expenses, increase revenue, boost agent productivity and improve customer service in a short amount of time.

In addition, TMCnet’s Brendan Read recently held a Q&A session with Zeacom President of Americas Ernie Wallerstein (News - Alert) on the benefits of UC for the contact center. To read the interview, click here.