Enabling Excellence With IP Recording

IP recording is coming into its own as a QA tool, with what users report are high quality
and functionality.

As September’s contact center recording article pointed out, IP applications have lower costs and can more easily support value-added solutions. Their suppliers have also incorporated features that may not be present in older legacy TDM software, such as agent self-monitoring and screen capture. Going to an IP environment, whether conversion or new installs which has driven IP recording, has also allowed contact centers to benefit from these new tools.

While there have been in a few instances some bugs to be worked out with IP recording, which there is with any new technology, its features, benefits and the functionality, along with the strong support of the suppliers have outweighed them. Here is a just a few of the many successful experiences contact centers have had in employing IP recording solutions:

Stark Area Regional Transit Authority’s Multi- Channel Solution

Call recordings can capture more than just contact center customer service, support, and sales. They are extremely valuable tools to obtain, for further review and action, interactions with other departments and not just by phone either.

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The Stark Area Regional Transit Authority (SARTA), which serves the Canton, Ohio area, offers an excellent example. SARTA has four small networked contact centers. Three handle customer service inquiries with one agent each per shift and are located at regional transit centers. The other books rides and provides customer care for SARTA’s ProLine paratransit service with three agents per shift, and is situated at the agency’s head office. There are two separate ACD queues for the general customer service and for ProLine.

SARTA records these calls as well as for the bus dispatch center, its head office, on a wireless conference call phone also used for recording meetings, and for radio transmissions between dispatchers and drivers. Calls and transmissions are recorded to assist with customer service, QA, and with legal compliance. There are approximately 1,500 recorded interactions at SARTA each weekday of which only a minority: 35 percent, are contact center. A large slice: 30 percent are for radio traffic.

To manage complex operations and to keep costs at the publicly- funded agency down, SARTA migrated part of its phone system to IP from TDM in early 2008. It upgraded its switch, a Toshiba Strata CTX 670 PBX to IP, which meant that it also required a new and IP-enabled recording solution.

“We needed a system that would record IP, digital, and analog signals, and allow desktop users to listen to calls and transmissions when they were recorded and to evaluate and report on those calls,” explains Information Systems Assistant, Jeffrey Heimberger. “Our old technology could not record IP channels nor did it have the desktop review and evaluation functionality that we sought.”

Fortunately, SARTA’s solution was close at hand. It has had since September, 2005 an OAISYS Strata ACD server and software package that was integrated with the Toshiba switch, which avoided having a separate license for phone system integration.

The new Tracer 5 recording software, whose beta version OAISYS had released in late 2007, replicated the phone switch information from the ACD server. Tracer 5 also introduced VOX recording for radio channels. Because the new Tracer software would give it the radio recording capability SARTA needed, the agency agreed to deploy the beta application.

The beta Tracer 5 took one week to deploy. Initial installation was easy compared with the old solution, reports Heimberger, thanks to Tracer 5 being written for Microsoft .NET. CCI’s professionals clicked on OAISYS’s site and downloaded the applications. The old voice recording application required loading CDs at each workstation.

SARTA has been pleased with the Tracer 5 recording quality and with the added granular security whereby Heimberger gives users logins so that they can only listen to a specific extension, and nothing else. There have been issues with making the recording and the IP solution work. For example the phone usage reporting capability available through Tracer 5 did not function with the first installation. This matter and others were resolved through software upgrades and the final release.

“We’re very happy with Tracer 5 now that the issues have been worked out,” says Heimberger. “It has enabled us to improve our customer service and quality by permitting staff to self-monitor and improve their performance. The contact center agents can share calls with managers in the interface. Managers can also monitor and share a portion of those calls with the agents, showing them ‘here’s how it sounds and here’s how it can be done differently, and better.’”

Evergreen Ends ‘He Says/She Says’ With Recordings

Collections, also known as accounts receivable management (ARM) is one of the most critical applications there is for call recording. Capturing these calls is a vital method to provide proof that debtors have promised to pay bills.

Evergreen Professional Recoveries, based in Bothell, Wash., offers ARM services for government, medical, retail and financial institutions, as well as legal services. It also handles outsourced medical billing, online check verification, credit risk evaluation and pre-collect notices. The firm has a 70 seat contact center co-located with its head office.

Evergreen had been selectively recording calls: up two or three calls per agent per day using a Web-based auto-dialer. Yet not all of the contact center’s seats are connected to the solution, which meant that only 25 percent of the agents’ interactions could be recorded. Unfortunately, the lack of call recording created gaps in agent training, compliance, and left the company vulnerable to sticky situations.

“We had no recourse when lawyers were calling with claims,” reports Ken Ross, CEO of Evergreen Professional Recoveries. “It became a ‘he said, she said’ situation, where there was no hard evidence to base a decision or dispute on.”

Also, while Evergreen implemented calling scripts, policies and procedures for staff to follow while completing calls, agent compliance was only about 75 percent. Training on the procedures was completed by managers during side-by-side monitoring and other educational sessions, but live calls were not always accessible for monitoring. Scheduling live sessions with 70 people was unwieldy with only two to three managers available for daily call monitoring.

Evergreen decided to find an always-available call recording solution. Upon the recommendation of its telephony consultant and reseller, it chose to implement an IP-based application that would permit 100 percent call recording without completely overhauling their phone system. Evergreen uses IP in its office.

Evergreen’s IT team worked with an independent consultant and a telephony reseller to source and implement CallRex Professional ™ from Telrex. The system went live March 2008.

CallRex utilizes packet-sniffing technology to identify and record IP traffic on the network. When calls are initiated or received, it begins to record the associated packets and enables real-time monitoring of the calls. Multiple search criteria enable users to quickly find the call or calls needed. Call recordings can be played back or exported and emailed as standard WAV files.

“I’ve meant to implement call recording technology for years,” explains Ross. “But I thought that the solutions were going to be too expensive for our mid-sized contact center. Instead we’ve found it to be affordable, provide value for money, and very easy to use. The software has proven to be a turnkey solution for us.”

With CallRex, managers can now set aside time to monitor calls and provide feedback to agents. Agent compliance is now above 90 percent as a result of the coaching sessions and call recording.

The ability to quickly search for recordings has proven to be a lucrative feature. Now, when potential litigation issues arise, managers can find and export them such as through e-mail.

That last feature has saved tens of thousands of dollars for Evergreen, as the calls can be used to clear up situations before issues go to litigation.

“Call recording has headed off at least two frivolous lawsuits in the past three months, which would have cost us at least $10,000 in fees,” says Ross. “CallRex has therefore more than paid for itself.”

Denver Newspaper Agency’s Transition To IP

Switching to or starting out from scratch on IP in contact centers can pose challenges in recording as well as routing.

The call quality has come a long ways but it is still not as pristine as TDM. On occasion packets do get lost or arrive in the wrong order, and calls do drop out. Yet as with any new and fundamentally sound technology, such issues can be or are in the process of being worked out.

The Denver Newspaper Agency publishes The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News under a joint operating agreement designed to preserve editorial competition while managing costs.

‘The Agency’ as it is known, which is equally owned by MediaNews and The E. W. Scripps Co, handles classified and display advertising, deliveries, and subscriptions as well as printing and distribution for both newspapers.

In late 2005 The Agency opened a new primary contact center in the Denver Tech Center with 100 seats. The new facility also supports an 80 seat contact center in the Agency’s headquarters. When the new center opened The Agency decided to upgrade its call recording solution that would serve all of its sites. It then selected Telstrat’s Call Parrot (now Engage). Then, in summer 2006 The Agency opened a new headquarters. With the move it switched from TDM/PSTN to IP.

“The existing recording tool was PC-based rather than server based, making it less versatile and had become too cumbersome to maintain, and it could not record all inbound and outbound calls,” explains Tim Myers, Assistant Manager - Telecom. “Telstrat had all the features we wanted and it was compatible with our Nortel CS1000 switch. It could also record both TDM and IP, which avoided replacing the entire phone system.”

The Agency initially installed Nortel TDM workstation phone sets at the contact center, which were hooked into the Telstrat server as it did not wish to cut its teeth on IP in a revenue center. The install took less than a week, including training.

The opening of the new center with TDM went smoothly. Telstrat’s TALC card allowed The Agency to record everything from any TDM phone in the contact center. When the site was ready to migrate to IP, in spring 2007, it upgraded Telstrat server.

Several issues soon arose following the IP conversion. Calls were randomly not being recorded but these were related with the network and IP telephony equipment rather than with the Telstrat solution. Also, unlike TDM, the Agency can only record two keys on a Nortel IP set, which meant that monitoring phone sets with multiple dial-out numbers is difficult, though the issue has not proven to be critical. Telstrat and Nortel continue to work together to resolve both matters.

“Even with these challenges the results have overall been very positive,” says Myers. “Telstrat is easy to use for our supervisors and provides them with an excellent coaching/monitoring tool. We are capturing more recordings than before and as such have been able to improve quality and service to our readers and advertising customers.”

 

 

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