This article originally appeared in the Dec. 2011 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions

Fidelity Communications is a triple-play service provider with a solutions portfolio of services that transcends the traditional boundaries of high-speed broadband, cable and legacy telecommunications.In addition to facing fierce competition from service providers with nearly unlimited resources at their disposal, such as AT&T (News - Alert), the company must also adhere to government regulations that require its contact center agents to live answer calls from no less than 80 percent of its customers in 20 seconds or less.

Hindering the company’s ability to address the market competitive situation were:

• disparate call center sites across two different states;
• a contingent of remote workers operating in a vacuum;
• no reporting or agent monitoring; and
• rising costs and diminishing returns on the effectiveness of its business processes.

Following an extensive market search in 2006, Fidelity selected Zeacom (News - Alert) as the partner through which it would evolve its legacy call center into a truly next-generation contact center. The Zeacom Communications Center solution suite possessed the inherent flexibility, scalability, transparent reporting and ease-of-use that Fidelity needed.

The first deployment took place in Fidelity’s Missouri operations, encompassing more than 50 agents across 10 different locations. The rollout was seamless; the results were so overwhelmingly positive that Fidelity again used the Zeacom solution for its Oklahoma operations, which consisted of approximately 20 agents.

Zeacom’s reporting functionality was first and foremost among the differentiators that caught the Fidelity’s attention. It gives Fidelity insight on anticipating customers’ needs, and ensures that the appropriate agent is ready and available to respond promptly to those needs. Zeacom Desktop empowers agents with the ability to see – in real time –call load and allows them to route calls efficiently to the department best suited to handle the customer’s needs.

The solution’s skills-based routing and the agent desktop empower a seamless sharing of call flow and customer interaction across Fidelity’s contact center ecosystem. With advanced reporting and agent monitoring functionality, supervisors and managers are empowered with a clear view of all agents’ presence, activity, location and performance. Following deployment of ZCC, Fidelity customers not only receive the right service from the right agent in less than the government mandated 20 seconds, Fidelity also improved its contact center productivity and effectiveness, thereby eliminating any need for additional headcount.

Zeacom’s Agent Desktop allows contact center managers to view real-time information on queue and agent performance from their PCs. Because this information can be made available to any PC on the LAN, it can be shared with supervisors and the agents themselves. Agent Desktop is also a very powerful management tool, which addresses the need to monitor the performance of individual agents and queues increases, and delivers results and activity flow.

With Zeacom software in place, Fidelity is now able to account for employees’ effectiveness at all times, and track the work, breaks, lunches and location of staff.

Utilizing Zeacom skills-based routing enables Fidelity to apply a “lite” auto attendant, or routing based on a customer PIN to get them to a live person in less than 20 seconds. Customer service agents are better equipped and more efficient in resolving customer queries quickly, and Zeacom’s outstanding reporting features provide insight into customers’ calling patterns, which enables Fidelity to have right person online at the right time.

Mike Gorzik is service center supervisor for Fidelity Communications (www.fidelitycommunications.com).

Benefits of the Zeacom Solution

• Ability to view the status of an agent’s extensions (i.e. inbound queue call, outbound call)
• Current service levels achieved (per media)
• Increased operational efficiency and staff productivity
• Real-time graphical indication of how many calls each agent is currently attending to (per media)
• Real-time statistics on a per-agent basis via a tool tip
• Reduced hold times (88 percent of callers connect to live agent in less than 20 seconds, up from 70 percent)
• Reduced operating expenses