The Connection, a U.S.-based outsourced contact center, announced the addition of a new 340-seat contact center to be located in Penn Yan, New York.  The facility is expected to be up and running in March of 2010 and will bring up to 450 new jobs to the area.  The Connection is expanding in order to meet the needs of its growing client base in the areas of wireless telecommunications, healthcare, financial services, and retailing.  Services that will be supported in the Penn Yan facility include live operator inbound voice, email response, live web chat customer service, sales, and tier-one and tier-two customer/help desk support.

Over the last four years, The Connection has opened two other contact centers in the Western New York area.  The first was a 300-seat facility which opened in Jamestown, New York in 2006 and the second was a 350-seat facility in Olean, New York in 2008.

Chris Twigg, of Mail-N-More, announced that their new invoice printing and mailing services can cut the cost of bill printing and mailing by up to fifty percent, as well as speed up receivables.  Additionally, Mail-N-More can:

• track bills (via the USPS Website link) from Mail-N-More's post office, to the recipient's local mail sorting center, and even to the mail carrier's bag,
• split a billing file into bills to be mailed, faxed, and emailed,
• provide optional online payment capability,
• track faxes and emails to delivery, and
• bar code all information required by a bank so that if the remittance address is the sender's bank lock box, the bank scans the bar code and emails a daily report of who has paid; this can be uploaded into an accounts receivable program.  

Mail-N-More currently sends invoices for the AnswerNet group of companies including AnswerNet, Signius, Answer America, and Cerida.  
Contact Chris Twigg at 321-729-9972 or info@bizmailservice.com.

Marife Zamora, Convergys Vice President and Country Manager and other senior executives welcomed US Ambassador Kristie Kenney to the Convergys One facility in Makati City.  The Convergys executives also took the ambassador on a tour of the building highlighting Convergys' specialized communication training tools and career opportunities available to employees.

During her visit, Ambassador Kenney visited several production floors where she spoke with contact center agents about their experiences working for Convergys and their future aspirations as participants in Convergys' Talent Management program.

Recently, Her Excellency, President Maria Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Ambassador Kenney were the guests of honor as Convergys celebrated the opening of its largest contact center facility in the Philippines, which will bring approximately 3,500 new jobs to Metro Manila.  Convergys has twelve contact center facilities in the Philippines — seven located throughout metro Manila, three in Cebu City, one in Bacolod City, and one in Santa Rosa, Laguna.  

In other news, Convergys is partnering with IBM to help provide contact center support in handling the five million estimated telephone calls expected to support the validity and accuracy of the 2010 Census data.

OnviSource announced the availability of OnviNet Ensura Backup and Disaster Recovery Solution packages for its customers using their OnviCall and AccuCall platforms.  OnviSource is offering Ensura Backup and Recovery Solutions to its customers to protect their business and assist in restoring operations in the event of unforeseen disaster or problematic circumstances.

Ensura offers critical backup, standby, and redundancy packages designed to facilitate the fastest possible recovery.  Each level of protection is configured to accommodate a variety of customer needs.  Ensura Basic offers protection from potential hardware failures.  Database replication and hardware redundancy make up Ensura Standard.  For customers seeking the most comprehensive backup and recovery protection, Ensura PRO offers full redundancy, database replication, redundant application licenses, and one-click switchover to secure continuous operation.

To assist customers in choosing a backup and recovery package that will best satisfy their operating requirements, OnviSource is offering a free System Requirements Assessment service to consider the unique requirement of each customer.  OnviCall is part of the OnviCenter 6 suite of solutions in workforce optimization (OnviCord), workforce CRM automation (OnviCall), and workforce communication automation (OnviNet).

Amtelco Intelligent Soft Agent System with Asterisk and ACD Connectivity: Amtelco released the Intelligent Soft Agent for installation in the call center market.  The Soft Agent application is specifically designed for use with Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) based telephone switching systems, integrating with Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) enabled PBX equipment from Asterisk, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Nortel, and Siemens, as well as Amtelco's Infinity ACD system.  SIP-VoIP technology provides call centers with the ability to establish low-cost, efficient, direct connections to their clients' PBXs and ACD systems.

Amtelco Increases Infinity Conferencing Seats to 64: Expanded voice conferencing is available with the Infinity Conference Bridge module.  Conferences are created with or without operator assistance; operators or the conference moderator can initiate audio recording, with the resulting WAV file emailed to them.  Moderators can manage and view their conference via a Web interface.  Conferences can be secured with a moderator password.  Multiple conference bridge IDs can be pre-defined, allowing each staff member to have his or her own conference bridge.  This is available in Infinity v5.51.

Amtelco Adds Auto-Connect Option to Soft Agent: Amtelco has added a configurable auto-connect option to its Intelligent Soft Agent operator application.  The auto-connect option enables incoming calls to be answered immediately as they ring into an agent workstation, eliminating the need for them to manually connect to calls.  Auto-connect calls are preceded by a discreet audible tone as they are connected, alerting operators that new calls have arrived.  The feature saves time and eliminates missed or delayed calls when agents are not looking at their workstation.

For more information, call 800-356-9148 or 608-838-4194.

Chuck Boyce and TAS Source have partnered with Business and Executive Coach Candy Myura.  Her company, A Better You Coaching, focuses on leadership development, while helping individuals and businesses grow.  Candy brings nearly 20 years of executive experience to the table for TAS Source, including serving as COO of Appletree Answers, and MBNA, a fortune 500 financial institution.  Her business experience and training as a professional coach provides a perfect balance and blend.

Candy's industry experience, business acumen, and executive coaching and business coaching experience will form an invaluable part of TAS Source's strategy in the coming years.  She brings an affiliate perspective and many tools and resources into the conversation.  Additionally, Candy will speak at the TAS Source Marketing Summit 2010, taking place at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando Florida.

For more information, contact Candy Myura at 302-383-4344 or cmyura@ABetterYouCoaching.com; Chuck Boyce can be reached at 302-352-9488 or chuck@tassource.com.

In 2009, while the broad Communications, Media, and Technology (CMT) sector recovered almost half the market value lost in 2008, the communications sector's recovery sputtered; even traditional sources of growth like consolidation, customer demand, and globalization showed signs of drying up.  The five-year-long growth enjoyed by mobile telecom operators, especially those operating in emerging markets, slowed in 2008 and reversed in 2009.  For many telecom companies, the search for new sources of value growth has never been tougher.

These are the key findings of Oliver Wyman's 2010 Communications, Media, and Technology State of the Industry Report.  The report analyzes the top 450 publicly quoted companies worldwide in CMT.  "While our research found that there still remained some mileage in raw subscriber growth, it was only true for those that have or can get exposure to the right markets," said Robert C. Fox, a Partner in Oliver Wyman's Communications, Media, and Technology practice.  "There are still opportunities to generate profit from new services; but operators need to be more flexible, 'double-betting' to increase the chances of success.  Beyond this, intensively managing individual customer value to slow down the pace of revenue decline, and aggressively restructuring the cost base will remain critical levers for many operators," he added.

The report identifies 10 emerging markets where there is still a high level of raw subscriber growth potential.  One of its conclusions: While India and China offer the biggest opportunities, Mexico, Ethiopia, and Brazil also make the list of countries that offer growth.  "Firms with exposure to these markets stand to gain, but in many markets the downward pressure on pricing limits the upside," said Mr. Fox.

Telescan has introduced the integration of automatic message delivery notification between Centuri Messenger and Telescan's Spectrum.  This jointly developed software integration allows the Centuri system to notify Spectrum of the delivery of a message with a date and time stamp.  This new feature eliminates the need for call center agents to periodically check for message delivery, saving time and improving accuracy.

Marcy Hewlett, President of A Better Connection, was the test site for the new Telescan/CenturiSoft integration.  She said, "The marriage of Telescan's Spectrum with CenturiSoft's Centuri Messenger has been a blessing for us.  The automatic filing of messages that have been taken by our operators and delivered to our clients via voice dispatching has given both our clients and our dispatchers peace of mind."

"We are excited to have Telescan further leverage the capabilities of the Centuri Messenger" stated John Pope, President of CenturiSoft.  "Now our clients who own both CenturiSoft and Spectrum benefit from this partnership with increased accuracy and saving time every day."

How to Hire Better Call Center Agents
Thursday Jan. 28, 2010, 10:30 PST
WSTA Educational free Webinar – David Filwood, presenter
Click here to register


Other Upcoming Webinars include:

Contact Center Business Development
January 25th, 2010, 10am CST
Call Smarter, Inc. Webinar
Register at www1.gotomeeting.com/register/492608681

Supervisors Role in Customer Service
February 25, 2010, 1 pm CST
STA Educational Webinar
Register at www.sta-assoc.org/calendar.html

CSR Training, Coaching & Evaluating Customer Service
March 18, 2010, 1 pm CST
STA Educational Webinar
Register at www.sta-assoc.org/calendar.html


See the current Webinar schedule.

Avaya unveiled its vision for the future of communications and a roadmap that integrates products and services from the recently acquired Nortel Enterprise Solutions (NES).  "The integrated roadmap we're outlining today supports Avaya’s commitment to providing customers with the advanced communications capabilities they need to manage and grow their organizations," said Alan Baratz, senior vice president and president, Global Communications Solutions, Avaya.  The roadmap highlights include:

Unified Communications: The centerpiece is Avaya Aura, a SIP-based communication platform.  The roadmap expands the Avaya Aura with the addition of the Nortel Agile Communications Environment (ACE).

Contact Center: Avaya Aura is at the center of Avaya's contact center portfolio.  The integrated roadmap extends the combined Avaya and Nortel Enterprise Solutions portfolio with capabilities for agent desktop, work assignment, experience management, and analytics.

Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Communications: Avaya IP Office, BCM, Norstar, PARTNER and Integral 5 all remain for sale with a plan to converge the platforms to the company's flagship hybrid IP offering, IP Office.

Data Products: As previously announced, Avaya will adopt the current roadmap of NES data products in its entirety.