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CAM-X 48th Annual Convention & Trade Show October 16-19, 2012 Delta Ocean Pointe Resort & Spa, Victoria, BC For more info: 800-896-1054, www.camx.ca, or linda@camx.ca
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The American Teleservices Association (ATA) has announced its National Board of Directors for 2012 following their meetings at the Washington Summit. The ATA is excited to announce that Mike Rauscher, CMO of HomeServe USA, has been elected as the new chairman of the board. Mike brings six years of experience as an ATA Board Member and, with over 20 years of consumer marketing and contact center experience, is uniquely qualified to set the pace for ATA’s leadership team. The ATA 2012 Board of Directors includes:
Executive Committee:
Michael Rauscher, Chief Marketing Officer of HomeServe USA, Chair
Mark Boehmer, Senior Vice President of 360CRM, Vice-Chair
Dean Garfinkel, President of Quality Voice and Data – a QSC Company, Treasurer
John Nelson, Senior Vice President of Bank of America, Secretary
Lisa DeFalco, Chief Executive Officer of TPG TeleManagement Inc., Chair Emeritus
Board Directors:
Jane Bulman, Vice President,Telesales of COMCAST
James Danz, Managing Partner of Trident Business Management
Michael Eubanks, Senior Vice President and Counsel of Stonebridge Life Insurance Company
Lori Fentem, President of Synergy Solutions, Inc
James Maratea, Former Senior Vice President of the Allant Group, Inc
Derek Martin, Director, Relationship Care of American Express
Barb Merwin, Global Head of Protection Insurance of HSBC
Tim Searcy, Chief Executive Officer of Accent Marketing Services
Robert Simmonds, Vice President, Travel Operations of Disney Destinations
The members of ATA’s Board of Directors are dedicated to the success of the association members and about the direction the association is headed for 2012 and beyond, further establishing ATA as the leading organization promoting the effective use of contact centers as the primary means businesses communicates with their customers.
OnviSource announced Excella Plus, automated Quality Assurance (QA) and call analytics. Excella Plus integrates with OnviSource’s Explora speech analytics to deliver automated mass monitoring and analysis of recorded interactions. This allows automated monitoring and analysis of every call without having to add QA personnel. Analytics-based QA uses the automation of speech analytics to analyze 100% of recordings to identify those recordings that require a more in depth analysis for compliance, discovery, and quality management.
Excella Plus uses call recording intelligence to capitalize on hidden opportunities and insights, identify liabilities, and target training efforts. It can provide a comprehensive QA program and share business intelligence, making it economical to provide this as value-added service. Excella Plus products are integrated with the OnviCenter suite of workforce optimization and automation software products.
OnviSource offers a special service program to assist customers with implementation, deployment, and ROI recognition, including ROI analysis, application analysis, project planning, customization, pilot programs, and hands-on training, as well as, business continuity and assurance measures.
William Lane, CEO and president of Startel Corporation, announced that Bill Robertshaw has sold the company, which will be an employee-owned entity backed by private investor, Brian W. Stewart. Bill Lane and the Startel team will remain in place and the day-to-day operations of the company will not be effected.
“It was in the best interest of Startel Corporation, its employees and especially its customers to sell the company at this time. Bill Lane has done a superb job of leading Startel out of its post Comverse years and I am confident that Startel, with the support of Mr. Stewart, will be able to progress to the next phase in its corporate evolution,” said Robertshaw.
“Mr. Robertshaw, a financial genius, was the perfect advisor for the season of Startel where he helped guide us in focusing on becoming an ever more profitable company. He has always had the best interest of Startel and its customers at heart and selling the company is no exception,” said Lane.
Brian Stewart is a serial entrepreneur and has founded and built over 18 start-up businesses during his career.
Amtelco’s subscription-based on-call scheduler, miOnCall, is a secure cloud-based on-call scheduling application used to assign schedule coverage, view schedule coverage, and dispatch messages. It syncs with any calendar app that supports the iCalendar specification (RFC 5545), which includes Microsoft® Outlook® 2010 and 2007, Apple®, Google®, Hotmail®, and Yahoo® calendars. Many of these calendars are accessible using a computer, as well as from smartphones and mobile devices.
Amtelco President Tom Curtin stated, “The power, flexibility, and convenience of miOnCall is making it a popular and vital tool with a wide variety of uses. The easy accessibility with all the various calendar apps is helping keep even more people informed.”
In related news, Amtelco’s miSecureMessages, a subscription-based Smartphone paging and messaging application, reports includes all miSecureMessages traffic, including messages sent from Amtelco Infinity, Intelligent Series (IS), or miSecureMessages solutions, messages sent from devices back to Amtelco solutions, and messages sent from device-to-device. Reports can be exported to Excel or PDF, imported into billing software, or sent to clients.
The miSecureMessages log includes the message subject, content, the contact that message was sent from and to, the message sent, delivered and read timestamps, and replies with timestamps within the message thread; records can be filtered by date range, individual, or group. The billing report lists the numbers of messages sent and received by contacts or groups, and to or from which type of device, as well as total number of messages sent and received for any given individual and group.
The American Teleservices Association (ATA) has requested presentation/panel proposals for its 2012 Convention & Expo, April 29-May 2 at the Westin Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida. The sessions proposed should complement the Convention’s theme of “Managing Customer Experience in a Digital World,” which will be highlighted by the nationally recognized keynote speakers. A national marketing campaign will begin shortly and speakers will be highlighted.
CenturiSoft now meets HIPAA/High Tech requirements on voice and fax delivery via email. Using 256-bit AES encryption technology, CenturiSoft has been able to encrypt these messages before they leave the Centuri Messenger system. Having the actual file encrypted allows delivery to an unsecured device such as a smartphone. When a user accesses the file, they are prompted for the “password key” and are allowed access only if they have the proper credentials. This allows users to receive fax and voice messages the same way and satisfies the security and confidentiality of the message or fax to the end-user. Password key can be set or changed for individual subscribers as often as needed for compliance requirements.
Combined with our ‘Colia’ compliance, earlier this year, [this] signals yet another reason to have CenturiSoft in your customer requirements,” said John Pope, president of CenturiSoft. CenturiSoft is able to offer these capabilities to current contracted customers at no charge and requires no off-line time to update.
OnviSource announced the rollout of OnviCloud, a tiered on-demand and cloud-based services for telecommunication, hosted PBX, and contact center solutions. Cloud services are provided through company’s newly-established Texas data centers in Dallas and Plano. OnviSource has successfully deployed OnviCloud services for its own offices and contact centers in Texas and Oklahoma.
With a decade of experience OnviSource is positioned to offer a suite of on-demand and cloud-based services. OnviCloud opens the door for companies to rapidly deploy business telephony services, workforce optimization, and automation applications while preserving cash, lowering the total cost of ownership and mitigating the initial risks and challenges of owning and operating new technologies.
OnviCloud is supported by OnviCare Customer Lifecycle Assistance Services, a complete package of customer support solutions to initiate and manage customers’ operations that include trials, professional services, customizations, customer relation management and hands-on training.
In other news, OnviSource’s business process outsourcing services division was named 2010 Top Partner by CenturyLink, a major provider of telecommunications services. OnviSource earned the top honor by out-performing nearly 250 other partners and consistently exceeding its goals throughout last year. “We are honored by this award and are proud to achieve top ranking for our exceptional services and proven value as a strategic partner to CenturyLink,” said Ray S. Naeini, Chairman and CEO of OnviSource.
OnviSource, Inc. is headquartered in Plano, Texas, with an operations center in Oklahoma. OnviSource, provides customer interaction solutions for contact centers.
Professional Teledata added a “secure message” delivery method to its PInnacle Platform, in response to HIPAA/HITECH regulations requiring that sensitive information be secure during transmission from the call center to the recipient. Secure message functionality is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android smart phones and iPad and Android tablets.
Agents submit secure messages for delivery and then are notified when the message has been delivered to the device and again when it is read. Recipients of these messages can “reply” directly back to the call center. History for each message is updated with all activity to provide a detailed audit trail. As with all PInnacle delivery methods, secure message can be automatically sent to recipients without any agent interaction, streamlining the message taking and dispatch processes.
Pat Kalik, president of Professional Teledata said, “We are proud to make state-of-the-art technologies available to our users. These new features will allow PInnacle users to provide additional cutting-edge services to their customers, further strengthening the customer relationship.”
Professional Teledata provides systems and software products for the telemessaging and call center industries. Contact Karen Black 800-344-9944 x112 for pricing information.
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January 23-26, 2012 2012 Call Center Summit Hilton Hotel, Orlando, FL For more information: courtney.green@iqpc.com, 800-882-8684, or www.callcenterevent.com
Congratulations go out to Pat Vos of Intercon Messaging Inc. for winning the 2011 Tom Ryan Award for Ethics, Integrity, and Quality Above All. This honor was accepted at the 47th Annual CAM-X Convention and Trade Show held recently at the Hyatt Regency in Montreal, Quebec.
The Tom Ryan Award is presented annually in memory of one of the contact management field’s most ardent advocates, Tom Ryan. This industry-specific award pays homage to companies that exhibit quality service while adhering to a mandate based on commitment to ethics and integrity above all else. Also taken into consideration is the company’s overall dedication to maintaining a cohesive working environment, practicing ongoing internal and external customer service initiatives and continuous involvement in industry and community programs.
Based in Grimsby, Ontario, CAM-X (Canadian Call Management Association) is an industry trade association for the call management.
Amtelco’s Innovation Machine provides an on-line forum for Amtelco customers to submit ideas for new products and suggestions for improvements to existing products. Users can enter ideas, search the database, and rank the usefulness of ideas submitted by others. The Innovation Machine is based on Amtelco’s Infinity Intelligent Series web scripting feature.
When a user submits an idea, the script dispatches an immediate reply that the idea has been received. The script also automatically sends follow-up emails when other users react to and rank the idea, and as Amtelco staff read, react to, and move ahead with the suggestion.
Amtelco customers have used it to submit 224 ideas and Amtelco’s software department has implemented 65 of those customer ideas, with more in the works. The Innovation Machine has increased in popularity as Amtelco customers recognize the value accorded to their ideas by the software development team.
For more information on Amtelco’s Innovation Machine, contact Amtelco at 800-356-9148 or info@amtelco.com.
Etech Global Services, a global business process outsourcer, has received the ATA-SRO Seal of Accreditation. The ATA-SRO incorporates aspects of governmental regulations and consumer protection rules for contact centers. The goal of the ATA-SRO is to assure a positive teleservices experience for consumers and provide an objective system that reinforces companies’ commitment to government compliance.
Companies seeking the highest caliber of customer care, best practices and compliant behavior can apply to receive the ATA-SRO Seal of Accreditation. Knowing that Etech’s contact center is providing the highest level of care and compliance protects both Etech and its clients from potential fines, penalties, attorney fees and resource costs resulting from non-compliant behavior.
"We are highly committed to quality customer care and compliancy," said Matt Rocco, President of Etech Global Services. "The ATA-SRO Accreditation process took over a year and will be a large commitment to maintain. However, this is just one of a number of steps we are taking to ensure that Etech Global Services provides best practice support to our clients."
Etech Global Services (www.etechgs.com) is one of only fifteen contact centers in the world to achieve this impressive accreditation.
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With Hurricane Irene bearing down on Virginia Beach, Professional Answering Service owner Angelo Celesia moved his agents to hotels on higher ground and out of harm’s way when he was told to evacuate the building. Agents also brought their laptops so they could continue processing calls using the hotels’ Internet service. Angelo also enlisted the help of some other call centers using the same platform but who were not affected by the hurricane. They were glad to help when the area went black.
In another instance, when Quick Connections in Greenbelt MD had all of their phone lines cut by a backhoe, their phone company told them it would be one week to get service restored. They rerouted their traffic and begin processing calls on their backup system hosted.
Both call centers used Professional Teledata’s hosted service, PInnacle Freedom. Pat Kalik, Professional Teledata president added, “These two success stories prove that the hosted concept can bring significant piece of mind knowing that you are protected from disasters and you can have mutual agreements in place for help at a moment’s notice.”
Amtelco’s Pro Show automated appointment reminder solution is now available as both a premise installation or as a subscription service. Pro Show is an automated appointment reminder solution that delivers appointment reminders by IVR phone calls; it has been available as an on-premises system for several years.
Amtelco’s hosted Pro Show appointment reminder service is housed and operated concurrently at two fully redundant data centers located 275 miles apart in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Both locations are served by multiple connections to the Internet and the public switched telephone network. The hosting data centers are SAS 70 Type II compliant, are equipped with system-operability monitoring software, and are staffed by experienced and bonded service personnel 24/7. The Pro Show system infrastructure, including all hardware, software, and database components, is fully mirrored at both locations.
In other news, Amtelco’s Red Alert automated notification system is compliant with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) information technology security guidelines defined in SP 800.53 and FIPS 199. Amtelco has documented this compliance in the SCAP NIST certification and accreditation package approved by the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation. This provides HIPAA regulation compliance. Amtelco is using the same information technology security guidelines for HIPAA compliance for other cloud-based products such as miSecureMessages, and miOnCall.
For more information, contact Amtelco at 800-356-9148, or email info@amtelco.com.
To receive email notifications each time a new issue is posted, enter
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allow you to also be notified of other relevant information as
well. Alternately, you may use our Atom or RSS news feeds.
To subscribe to Connections Magazine, sign up at our website.
The paperless distribution of Connections Magazine is made possible by CAM-X.