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Call Center Featured News

  • Tim Montgomery: 'Behavior-Centric Metrics' Will Increase Customer Satisfaction

    If you're a business owner looking to motivate your call center employees to respond to calls faster and deliver better overall performance, look no further; ACCE 2012 conference and expo speaker Tim Montgomery is going to tell you why he thinks companies should limit their use of what he calls "behavior-centric metrics," insisting companies instead focus on measurements, which he says will really lead to customer satisfaction. Read More»
    5/25/2012
  • Contactual's New OnDemand Contact Center Transforms Online Retailer Use

    Attention Retailers: we know you constantly face challenges in the rapidly growing customer service department. Every customer interaction provides a business with the opportunity to increase revenue and strengthen customer loyalty, but with issues such as missed calls, lengthy hold times and un-necessary call transfers, you'll find your customers unsatisfied and looking elsewhere to buy. Contactual has addressed these pertinent issues with the introduction of their OnDemand Contact Center, which covers all customer-facing aspects of your business by offering flexible, comprehensive, cost-effective features to improve both the quality and efficiency of every customer service interaction. Read More»
    5/25/2012
  • 8x8 Sees Record Results in Fourth Quarter

    8x8 Inc., a company specializing in VoIP services, video conferencing, cloud hosting and unified communications, has announced its financial report for both the full fiscal year of 2012 and fourth fiscal quarter of 2012. Some of these results were record breaking for the company, with the fourth quarter being particularly successful. Read More»
    5/18/2012
  • Contactual OnDemand Contact Center for the Efficient Help Desk

    The internal help desk serves as an important function to support all users within the enterprise, or an extended customer base relying on key technologies for efficient operations. To support such efforts, Contactual offers its OnDemand Contact Center to enable the full management of Travel, Facilities, IT and Human Resources help desks for a growing customer base. Read More»
    5/4/2012
  • Allegations of Theft and Fraud Rising among India-based Call Centers

    Handing over personal information, including address, birth date and credit card information, to call center agents in far-distant locations has always given some people pause. Now it appears some of these qualms may have a basis in fact. According to a report in Britain's Daily Mail, some Indian call center agents have been illicitly collecting personal and financial information provided to them. Read More»
    3/20/2012
  • New Technology Reduces Call Center Waiting Times for Callers

    Waiting for a call center agent to handle your call is an exercise most people would like to avoid. Whether one is calling to pay a bill, request information or report a problem with a good or service, having to sit around with receiver in hand listening to bland, but supposedly calming music or canned promotional recordings, is one of the banes of modern life. Read More»
    3/14/2012
  • Business Analytics Provide Leverage for Companies with High Data Usage

    In an interview at BeyeNETWORK, Dan Lahl, senior director of product marketing at Sybase, pointed out the need for companies to develop comprehensive platform strategies for handling business analytics and big data. Lahl noted that different users at company operations needed different types of data. For example, the needs of a data scientist are vastly different than the needs of an executive, and those are vastly different than the needs of a second line manager in retail who has to make a decision in the next 15 or 20 minutes about a product strategy at a store. Read More»
    3/12/2012
  • Call Center Boom Alters Work Habits in the Philippines

    According to an article on PhilStar.com, the rise of outsourced call center operations based in the Philippines has transformed labor practices in the country by introducing the concept of shift work, non standard and often changing work periods during the week. Read More»
    3/8/2012
  • VANAD Provides Translation Services to NexxLinx Call Centers

    The demand for international call centers is growing sharply. However, language barriers remain a significant barrier to some operations, since cross-border outsourced call center services must sometimes be conducted in a language completely different that the one used by the country in which the call center is actually based. In some areas, multiple languages are spoken by different populations residing in the same area or in close proximity. In order to remedy this, translation services can be outsourced to call and contact center operations. Such translation service outsourcers help call center operations transcend borders and handle foreign language callers. Read More»
    3/7/2012
  • Sound Telecom Opens Bilingual Colorado Call Center

    Provider of all-day telephone answering, call center and unified communication services Sound Telecom will soon open the first of three planned regional offices in Westminster, Colorado. The Seattle-based call center company will open regional sales and operations offices in the Mountain, Central and Eastern Time zones. A Denver-based Mountain States Regional sales office and bilingual telephone answering service and call center is currently nearing completion, the company said. Read More»
    2/29/2012
  • Consumer Cellular to Open Second Phoenix Call Center

    Consumer Cellular wireless-phone-service will open a second Phoenix, Arizona-based call center, adding 300 customer-service jobs to the local economy, according to an article on AZCentral. The company's current Phoenix call center employs about 225 full time workers, the article said. Read More»
    2/29/2012
  • Call Center Looks to Home-Based Workers

    Colorado-Springs, Colorado-based Stellar Restaurant Solutions is a rapidly expanding provider of call center operations to the restaurant industry. According to an article in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Stellar has grown from 50 employees a year ago to more than 250 today. The increased staff requirements have prompted the company to add 20,000 square feet to its operations center, located behind Mr. Biggs Family Fun Center in downtown Colorado Springs. Read More»
    2/28/2012
  • U.S. Election Rhetoric Disturbs Indian Outsourcers

    Recent comments by President Obama regarding the loss of American jobs as U.S. companies push services like call centers and software development overseas have produced considerable irritation and uncertainty in India's business and government circles, according to Pran Kurup, writing at the Outside Edge blog of the Times of India. Kurup noted that the Indian software industry quickly voiced concern after President Obama appeared to call for penalties on companies that outsource jobs overseas in January's "State of the Union" address. Kurup quoted Indian Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, responding to President Obama: "Protectionism ultimately does not help the country that resorts to protectionism." Read More»
    2/27/2012
  • Work-From-Home Employees: Good or Bad for Your Organization?

    While many organizations have found a way to cut costs by allowing employees to work "virtually," or from their homes, many other organizations have rejected the model. While there are a lot of myths surrounding work-at-home employees ("they could be on the golf course for all you know!"), there are a number of companies who have had experiences, both good and bad, with the work at home model. Read More»
    2/2/2012
  • Call Center Performance Relies on 5 Key Categories

    Today's call center has a long list of metrics to meet to assure efficient productivity, but hitting optimal performance is more than just keeping the customer base satisfied. Internal customers are just as important for those organizations seeking perfection. Read More»
    12/28/2011
  • Washington D.C. Call Center Faces Two-Sided Debate

    The Special Education Division of Transportation (DOT) is a transportation entity that consistently provides safe and appropriate transportation services to eligible special education students. The DOT offers a special call center for parents in Washington D.C., answering about 330 calls a day. Read More»
    12/14/2011
  • NY Attorney General Wins Court Order Suspending Fraudulent Charity Call Center

    New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that he has won a court order that suspends and permanently bans a Connecticut-based call center company and its owner from soliciting charitable donations in New York. The company, which is based in Middlebury, Connecticut, operated a call center in the basement of a house in the Albany, New York area to solicit charitable donations from New York residents that would ostensibly benefit local organizations such as benevolent associations for police and fire departments. In some cases, workers for the company, called Stage Door Productions Inc., posed as firefighters or police officers to solicit fraudulent donations. Read More»
    12/13/2011
  • Webinar Discusses Strategies for Balancing Customer Engagement with Profitability

    If you've worked the phones at a call center for even an hour, you'd quickly realize one thing; every customer and call is unique. While most - if not all calls - go off without a hitch, every now and again you're going to get customers who need a little bit more than good service to be satisfied. When staffing is as large a portion of the budget as it is in the call center, the extra time that your agents spend servicing "escalated" customer concerns can seriously dig into your profitability. Read More»
    11/14/2011
  • Call Centers to the Rescue

    In today's economy, we have an excess of debt and a shortage of stability. With unemployment at an all-time high, peoples' confidence is wavering. Everybody is wondering if a) we'll get out of this recession and b) if there's any such thing as job security. Just in time for the holidays, some hope is coming from an unexpected place: call centers. Actually, in multiple sources naming the top ten careers for job security, telecommunications expert and customer service representative both make the cut, alongside pharmacists, judges and college professors. Read More»
    9/28/2011
  • 8x8 to Acquire Contactual

    8x8, a provider of cloud communications and computing solutions, has just acquired Contactual, a provider of cloud-based call center and customer interaction management solutions. The deal is expected to close on September 30, 2011. Read More»
    9/12/2011
  • It's a New Season; Is Your Call Center Tired or On Trend?

    Something happens after Labor Day that somehow gets everyone thinking of change. Even if you live in a region that doesn't really experience the four seasons, there is some trigger that evokes renewed focus on new trends. It could be all the new gear kids need to go back to school because last year's stuff is outdated or just doesn't fit, or maybe it's the turnover in the flower beds or the fashion trends that bombard the airwaves, or perhaps its the new faces of sports teams, but the feeling of change is inescapable. So what happens when you walk into your call center? Does the same feeling prevail? Read More»
    9/9/2011
  • Integration with CRM Makes Hosted Call Centers a Powerful Solution for Businesses

    Contactual's hosted call center suites have helped many SMBs become more effective in handling customer communications. With the multichannel connectivity of Contactual's platform, even amateur call handling operations have the ability to take email, chat and SMS interactions from customers. As part of its ongoing support for SMBs, Contactual is making strides to incorporate deep CRM integration in its products. Read More»
    9/1/2011
  • 'Insourcing' Is the New Outsourcing for India

    There is much ado when it comes to discussions of outsourcing. In times of economic strife, organizations have looked to outsourcing as a means of cost savings by reducing scope and restructuring of employee overhead and being able to pay employees lower wages in countries where it otherwise would be acceptable. Read More»
    8/8/2011
  • Contactual Exec Wendell Black Talks Company's Current State, Plans for Tomorrow

    Hosted call centers have seen increased penetration as the need for inexpensive customer service technologies continues to rise. As one of the first in the hosted call center space and one of today's leaders in the industry, Contactual's presence has grown substantially over the 10 years they've been in business. TMC had a chance to speak with Contactual's vice president of Worldwide Sales & Marketing, Wendell Black, earlier this month. Black offered his thoughts on where the hosted call center space stands today, and where it's headed. Read More»
    7/28/2011
  • Contactual Celebrates Second Consecutive Quarter of Strong Revenue Growth

    Hosted customer interaction management solutions provider, Contactual, has announced another consecutive quarter of strong revenue growth. This continued performance and revenue acceleration demonstrates that cloud-based contact center solutions are rapidly being adopted throughout the global market. Contactual's position in the marketplace is helping to enable this transformation. Read More»
    7/28/2011
  • The Benefits of the Cloud Come to the Call Center

    The call center serves a unique function for the enterprise. It not only is the place to receive calls from customers who want to buy something, ask a question or gain support for a product you supply; it is also the place offering the perfect opportunity to connect with customers when you have something to sell. Read More»
    7/19/2011
  • Call Center Advances Adapt to a Hybrid System

    Contactual has designed an innovative call center solution that requires no additional equipment, staffing or time. Despite a challenging economy, the transition to replace an old PBX or ACD system can be easy for any enterprise. The on-demand contact call center solution allows companies to continue using their current system and remain productive. Read More»
    7/14/2011
  • Two Ways Hosted Solutions Improves the Call Center

    Current trends in the call center software favor the hosted solution and deep integration into social CRM. The hosted solution offers a number of distinct advantages over premise based solutions including flexibility to grow and constantly upgraded services. But there are two reasons above all else as to why hosted call center software is growing so quickly: its affordable for SMBs and it gives them a way to employ remote agents. Read More»
    7/6/2011
  • Social Media Becoming as Essential to Customer Service as the Call Center

    Convergys is a fully loaded provider of all things call center. Not only does the company offer BPO, technology and analysis, it also has presence in consultation, helping call centers throughout the world reevaluate processes and work more efficiently. At this year's Call Center Week, TMC checked in with Convergysys to discuss social media trends in the customer service realm and how they're affecting the way companies do business. Read More»
    6/20/2011
  • How Social Media Connects with Call Centers

    At this point it's become abundantly clear that social media isn't some just a passing trend teenagers use to hit on each other. It's a valuable asset and tool for collecting important information on your customers and addressing it more proactively. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media solutions offer an opportunity for increased customer visibility and allow you to connect with other businesses and organizations. Social media use is not likely to be curtailed any time soon which means now's the time to get your call or contact center in gear with its best uses. Read More»
    6/9/2011
  • Webinar to Explore Social Media in the Contact Center

    As the impact of social media continues to rock the world of all those Internet-loving folk out there, businesses are being forced to examine how best to leverage social media for improved customer service and sales generation. Call and contact centers have been a particular focus as contact center managers strive to better understand their customers and how to reach them in the optimal capacity. Read More»
    6/7/2011
  • What is a Call Center?

    Traditionally speaking, the call center would consist of agents, telephones, computers and desks. Agents would take calls, place orders and customers would be satisfied. Sounds like an ideal situation, but this is rarely the reality for the call center today. While a simple order satisfaction can still occur, it is really just the tip of the iceberg in this industry. Read More»
    6/2/2011
  • Taking the Call Center to the Virtual Level

    The call center has traditionally been that physical location that housed a number of agents and phones and event computers in order to handle the issues brought by customers via live calls, e-mail, fax or chat. The physical center was a must-have to provide the infrastructure and the hardware to support all customer interactions. Is it possible this physical location is not longer needed? Read More»
    6/2/2011
  • Taking the Call Center Virtual

    The constant move to cloud computing and virtualization is making the center in your call center much more obsolete. You no longer need the four walls of the call center to drive customer service as a PC with a Web connection, a telephone and talented agents are all you need to develop an effective call center. Read More»
    5/20/2011
  • Contactual Announces Its Co-Sponsorship of NetSuite's SuiteWorld 2011 Event

    On-demand contact center solutions provider Contactual has announced it is a Silver Plus sponsor for NetSuite's first-ever global conference for customers, partners and developers - SuiteWorld 2011. San Mateo, California-based NetSuite is a provider of cloud-based business management solutions. The event, which runs from May 8 to 12 in San Francisco, will offer attendees the insight, inspiration and training they need to run their business faster and smarter "in the cloud." Read More»
    5/18/2011
  • AmEx Study Says More U.S. Companies Failing the Math: Great Service = More Sales

    Americans are making service as a factor in deciding how much they will spend reports the new American Express Global Customer Service Barometer. Seven in ten Americans (70 percent) are willing to spend an average of 13 percent more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service. This is up substantially from 2010, when six in ten Americans (58 percent) said they would spend an average of nine percent more. Read More»
    5/3/2011
  • Contactual Enjoys Growth in Call Center Space

    The economic recession may be turning the corner in the call center space as Contactual has announced a dramatic surge in growth during the company's first quarter of 2011. This growth has been seen in both direct and indirect channels and the rate and revenue acceleration is thought to strengthen the company's leadership position in the hosted customer interaction management and contact center solution industry. Read More»
    4/18/2011
  • CALL CENTER: TAKE THE EXTRA STEP FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE

    Imagine that every single person in your business feels like they are personally accountable for the satisfaction of every customer. Imagine how hard every employee would work in that case. Now visualize that there is a way that you can track not only the service calls but the service tech that handled the call, right to the last detail. Read More»
    4/5/2011
  • The Benefit of Home Agents in Your Call Center Strategy

    With the advent of easy to deploy, hosted and virtualized contact solutions, call center operators have more options than ever for developing new hiring and workforce strategies. Chief among these are home-based alternatives, which employs a number of geographically dispersed agents to form well trained support for your operation. Read More»
    3/30/2011
  • Call Centers: Back to Customer Service

    Call center customer service strategies often get tied up in trying to do too many things on top of what they should be doing-Serving customers. While it can generate revenue, requiring agents to cross sell and up sell to customers can be a quick way to alienate and annoy them into cutting ties with your operation. This is especially true when you're not performing due diligence on the issues they've initially called with. Read More»
    3/23/2011
  • Integration Between CRM and Telephony Drives Effective Call Center Performance

    What purpose does your call center aim to serve? Is it designed to provide a platform for chit chat for customers or is it designed to resolve customer interactions quickly and with satisfaction for the caller? This recent Contactual blog explored the difference, stressing that the call center is in place to solve a problem for the customer, allow them to buy something from you or challenge you to move the relationship forward. With so much opportunity rolled into one interaction, it is vital that you leverage it correctly. Read More»
    3/17/2011
  • Virgin America Selects Reval's SaaS Solution

    Reval, the global leader of corporate financial risk management solutions, recently announced that domestic airline Virgin America has selected Reval's Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution to support the derivative risk management and hedge accounting of its commodities portfolio. Read More»
    3/9/2011
  • Call Center Success Driven By Technology

    What do you believe contributes to the success of the call center? Is it completely the attitude of its occupants or is it the sheer effort that is put into handling calls? According to this Contactual blog, experts suggest that the success of the call center is 90 percent human ability and 10 percent technology availability. Read More»
    3/3/2011
  • Telephony and CRM Integration Almost Essential to the Call Center

    Call Center technology evolves pretty glacially all things considered. Since there's really only two things that a company really needs to run a call center (phones and agents) the addition of all those acronyms you sort though on a daily basis are more of a catalyst for communications than an absolute need. This means that the technologies evolution in the market can be disjointed and staggered, with little need to upgrade one item but replacement of another being mission critical. Read More»
    2/23/2011
  • Beacon offers Call Center and Help Desk Support to SAIC Customers

    Beacon Enterprise Solutions Group, which helps in the implementation and management of Information Technology Systems (ITS) infrastructure solutions, announced it signed a new joint marketing agreement with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to offer Call Center and Help Desk support services to SAIC customers. Read More»
    2/17/2011
  • 24/7 Customer Announces Wow!px, First Online Predictive Customer Service on iPad

    24/7 Customer, a Sequoia Capital-funded predictive experience solutions company, introduced the first online predictive customer service app, Wow!px, on the iPad. The service app has been launched as part of 24/7's B2B twitter analytics tool, 24/7tweetview. The app also includes TweetViews, which is a destination for blogs, articles and links to insights on the impact of social media on consumer-facing businesses. Read More»
    2/17/2011
  • IQOvertime Offers Legal Advice for Nebraska Overtime Law

    Overtime laws can be a tricky subject, and particularly in a busy call center where employees are expected to work late, the process of recovering additional pay can be challenging. In Nebraska as with most states, hourly workers breaking 40 hours for the week are entitled to time-and-a-half pay for every hour over. Because the landscape of overtime can be difficult to navigate IQOvertime.com has been established to offer legal counsel to call center workers that have questions or concerns about recouping overtime wages. Read More»
    2/8/2011
  • Your Call Center's Ten New Year's Resolutions

    Upgrade your quality monitoring program. Whether or not you have a recording system for quality monitoring, most contact centers would like to add to their existing capabilities. Whether its web-integration, instant call retrieval, screen capture, integrated scoring, or other capabilities, a better QA system can improve your ability to track and improve agent performance. Read More»
    1/14/2011
  • Kanoo Travel Opens Women Only Call Center

    The Saudi travel agent, Kanoo Travel, opened a call center with women employees only. As per a report in Arab News, around 20 women employed by Kanoo Travel have completed telephone operation training and are now operating the company's first and exclusive ladies-only call center. Read More»
    12/29/2010
  • Top Ten Resources For Contact Centers

    Contact centers are complex, demanding fast-changing environments. Managers must balance the rapidly morphing needs and situations of users: whether customers, prospects, clients, patients, debtors and employees with available staffing, training and technology resources, the budgeted allocations for which keep changing (and are rarely enough). And at the same time comply with ever more complex laws and regulations. Read More»
    12/23/2010
  • Sitel Brings Call Center Services to Nicaragua

    Latin America, and Nicaragua, in particular, has emerged as a call center hot-spot due to the region's ability to offer culturally aligned, multilingual talent for a wide range of U.S. consumer markets. To leverage these benefits and further expand the service in the region, Business process outsourcing (BPO) provider Sitel will open an additional call center in Managua, Nicaragua. Read More»
    11/24/2010
  • AT&T Wins Contract To Provide Solution For Social Security Administration Contact Centers

    AT&T Government Solutions has announced that it has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Social Security Administration to build a contact center solution for the agency. The contract was granted through the government's General Services Administration's (GSA) Networx Universal contract system. The Networx program is designed to recruit telecommunications services via new technologies and partnerships via private companies and government agencies. Networx allows agencies to focus their resources on building seamless, secure operating environments while ensuring access to the best technology the private sector has to offer. Read More»
    11/19/2010
  • Using a Virtual Call Center to Promote Customer Satisfaction

    Virtual call centers provide companies an easy way to get the utility they need for a contact center without having to deal with maintenance and startup costs of installing a premise based solution. Though this take care of the more technical aspects of the companies communications, the success of that department still hinges significantly on the level of service offered by the agents who work there. Read More»
    11/12/2010