Office Depot Adopts Transera's Seratel for Contact Center

Transera (News - Alert) Communications has announced that Office Depot has adopted its cornerstone product, Seratel, as its contact center platform. By using an on-demand virtual contact center product, Office Depot officials say, they're able to reduce hold times, automate routine requests, and give customer service agents a 360-degree view of callers, providing "a more personalized customer experience."

 

By using Transera's software-as-a-service approach, Office Depot officials say they've minimized infrastructure expenses while benefiting from improved customer service.

 

As TMC's (News - Alert) Mae Kowalke reported in July, Seratel is part of "a new set of technologies that is radically changing the way in which agents work without affecting their ability to provide clients with customer service."

 

It's a phenomenon made possible by a number of things, primarily the widespread adoption of IP and a much lower attrition rate among home agents than among their brethren who drive to call centers to work.

 

"With Transera's Seratel product, we have improved the interaction experience of our customers while increasing operational efficiencies and internal productivity at the same time," said Kevin Buckley, Director of Operations for Office Depot's North American Business Solutions Division.

Office Depot officials say they're looking to use the Seratel product to diversify and grow their contact center operations with minimal technology investment, software installation or ongoing maintenance costs. Seratel officials say their product creates a virtual contact center capable of the necessary contact center functions, including call routing, centralized reporting, recording, monitoring, queuing and interactive voice response. 

 

Seratel officials say agents need only an Internet connection and a phone to respond to customer calls. Supervisors manage and monitor operations in real-time from any Web browser. Yes, you can use Chrome.

 

"Transera's software-as-a-service model has increased Office Depot's business agility, minimized technology investments and improved their visibility and control over distributed contact center operations," said Prem Uppaluru (News - Alert), co-founder and CEO, Transera.

 

The increasing popularity of home agents -- customer service reps who work from their homes -- is because, according to Kowalke, "many contact centers are finding they have  to obtain the technology necessary to enable home agents, or risk falling behind in a competitive market."