How to Add Chat-bots to Contact Centers

With advances in A.I. or artificial intelligence, this is enabling companies to combine live support staff with automated bots or Chat-bots to create compelling and cost-effective chat-based interaction systems for their customers. Enterprise Chat-bots should have a few key capabilities. First, enterprise-grade Chat-bots should leverage A.I.  engine that is trainable by the enterprise. This way, the organization can easily teach the Chat-bot enterprise-specific information. Secondly, a Chat-bot with an A.I. engine that includes a natural language set of APIs relevant to the enterprise is critical. Chat-bots also need to provide a level of security and assurance with regards to the information pulled and pushed as requested, and delivered via the Chat-bot.

Chat-bots should be an essential part of your OmniChannel service approach. Call Center Pros has 6 OmniChannel Contact Center solution with A.I. and half include Chat-bot technology. Call Center Pros can also can recommend “Best-of-Breed” Chat-bots with A.I. that will also have APIs to pull info from your systems and push info to your systems. Start with the most frequently asked questions. Here are some steps to help ensure your Chat-bot plan will work smoothly:

Make sure customers can easily escalate to human-chat service without having to repeating previous questions, content and context.This is a critical necessity, because not only does it provide a smooth and seamless OmniChannel experience to the customer, but it also increases self-service adoption. In addition, email a transcript of the entire chat session to the customer.

Chat-bots can be effective in B2B customer service as well, although the technology has been traditionally used in B2C or G2C service (government-to-citizen). The company  ZipfWorks is building community centric shoppingapps. Go and innovate a new Chat-bot service, here are 11 examples of Chat-bots from the UK!

Give the Chat-bot, a persona that is suitable for your markets served. For example, many US-based clients often implement Chat-bots with outgoing personalities. A Japanese beer uses the face of a popular actor who features in their TV advertisements—the Chat-bot using that same voice reinforces the brand by leveraging that actor’s persona Technology and entertainment companies tend to use a sexy voice from Allison Smith for both recordings and Text2Speach. I had a Debt Consolidation call center who asked Allison Smith "Can you sound less sexy?"… they quickly mutually agreed to separate. You need the right persona, to match your clientele.

Use adaptive content management to sustain the relevance and performance of your content. Here the main adaptive content management factors:

• Device (operating system, mobile, tablet, desktop, screen resolution)
• Context (time, region, location, velocity, humidity, temperature)
• Person (age, gender, stage of life, language, relationships)

How are where to put a Chat-bot on your website:

• Place the Chat-bot near the top of the screen, but not at the very top. Customers expect advertisements at the top of the screen.
• Have the Chat-bot consistently (but discreetly) available on every page.
• If the Chat-bot has to be started with a button, label the button clearly.
• Very important, when a Chat-bot gives a web page, provide a link to that page.
• Make the chat text box large enough to contain a typical query so that users can see all of what they have typed without scrolling.
• Avoid a pop-up window for the Chat-bot. Consumers don’t like communicating with Chat-bots if the chat window obscures the web pages they are on.
• Make sure the Chat-bot accepts common SMS Slang as well as spelling and grammatical errors.
• Make sure you phrase error messages so they do not antagonize customers who are already frustrated, instead try "Tell me more about that" or "Is that what you think?" and not that they’ve made “errors”!
• Apply human-to-human communication best practices to Chat-bots. Implement Chat-bots that are emotionally intelligent and display empathy through expressions as well as language.

Eliza was the most famous and successful early Chat-bots and was developed by MIT in 1964-1966. Eliza was supposed to be a parody of psychotherapists at the time, asking open-ended and vague questions about everything the person said. "How do you feel about that?" "Why do you think you did that? "What do you think it means?" The questions just kept going and going. MIT’s subjects really responded to it. Many said that Eliza helped them, and some asked the people conducting the test to leave them alone with Eliza so they could discuss things in private. Eliza was so successful that people were proposing it as a low-cost way to handle people with mild psychological problems.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,
James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.comr
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson

Social Media in OmniChannel Contact Centers

Just when Contact centers were starting to get act together regarding multichannel mix of phone, IVR, email, chat and SMS, somebody goes and piles Social Media on top. I know many contact center professionals are tired of the hype surrounding social media’s impact on customer care; there is no denying that our industry is facing a game changer. This is not to say that social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube have turned contact centers completely upside down, but such sites are altering the rules of customer contact enough where organizations that ignore these channels place their brand and customer loyalty at significant risk.

We’re looking at much more than a passing fad, Google gets 3 billion searches a day and Facebook gets 2 billion searches a day. A large volume of interactions are coming into organizations directly via social channels. Increasingly, customers who start in a traditional servicing channel, such as a contact center, are turning to social media if they do not receive the response they want. These consumers skirt the traditional service channels, finding that their issues are likely to be addressed more quickly by "going social," because companies fear social media's ability to turn a small problem into a viral PR disaster. In a study conducted by the Society of New Communications Research (SNCR), 59% of respondents said they regularly use social media to "vent" about their own customer care frustrations - a pretty frightening finding (to corporations) when you consider that 72% of respondents said they used social media to research a company's reputation for customer care before making a purchase, and 74% choose to do business with companies based on the customer care experiences shared by others online.

As the primary customer touchpoint for most organizations, the contact center is the obvious choice for taking charge of and carrying out an enterprise’s social media strategy. The challenge is that most business have let Marketing have the Social Media and they sort of do a great job because they know and understand the importance of brand protection. However Marketing might be best to keep an eye out for new Social Media on the public side but need to flip the conversation to a Facebook messenger or Twitter DM and let the contact center keep up with their servicing strategy where it can be handled consistently and recorded properly.

Contact centers must acquire a true OmniChannel Solution with A.I. to properly respond to Social Media and like email, chat and voice recording – push that contact history to their CRM. Contact centers can embrace social media to get closer to customers, spot trends, identify influencers, and create customer advocates, but they must align with social media norms and have faster response that reflect an understanding of the norm of these Social Media sites.
Embracing Social Media in the Contact Center

1. Executives: Social media is proving to be a game changer in business and customer support. Enterprises that ignore this new channel and the impact it has on customer advocacy do so at their own peril. Senior managers need to provide marketing with the proper Social Media Monitoring tools and the Contact center with True OmniChannel technology it needs to continuously keep its finger on the pulse of customer sentiment within social networks, and to effectively engage customers and solve issues via the new media. 
2.  
3.  Directors/Managers: Leaders in the Contact center are charged with defining the specific role the center plays in managing this critical new channel and developing new strategies and initiatives to ready itself for the emerging social media challenge. Such processes and programs as agent hiring, training, workforce management and quality assurance must be carefully analyzed - and altered, where necessary - to ensure success in the social media environment. And certainly an OmniChannel solution will be implemented. 
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5. Supervisors: The often unsung heroes in the Contact center, supervisors play an instrumental role in converting all the social media talk and strategy into action. This includes getting agents ready for the new role; helping agents to continually improve via coaching; and keeping staff engaged and motivated during this challenging transitional period. In addition, supervisors will be called upon to assist with such higher level processes as technology selection and customer satisfaction measurement and management as it relates to social media interactions.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has rapidly become one of the most familiar, and maybe should be phrased most hyped — expressions across business and technology. What is crazy, is the hype, is entirely justified and is backed up by the volume of data. Over 44 zettabytes of data will be created by seven billion people and 30 billion IoT devices connected to the internet by 2020, according to EMC. 


One zettabyte is equal to a billion terabytes and 2.8 zettabytes produced in 2012.

• One zettabyte is 1,000 exabytes.
• One exabyte is 1,000 petabytes.
• One petabyte is 1,000 terabytes.
• One terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes.

To meet their needs, enterprises need to focus on a number of core areas such as agile innovation, delivering real-time experiences and predicting new ways to serve customers. Gartner recently completed a IoT survey of business and IT executives noted manufacturing and retail are two sectors with particularly high expectations of the IoT. I thought of twelve IoT basic fields (I’m sure there are 100s more, but just there twelve will definitely revolutionize the traditional way of doing things.

1. IoT in Home Automation
2. IoT in Industrial Machines
3. IoT in Connected cars
4. IoT in Healthcare
5. IoT in Sports and Fitness
6. IoT in Wearables
7. IoT in Agriculture
8. IoT in Cities
9. IoT in Utilities
10. IoT in Traffic
11. IoT in Security
12. IoT in Identification

Clearly, the IoT will have a great impact on the economy by transforming many enterprises into digital businesses and facilitating new business models, improving efficiency and generating new forms of revenue. However, the ways in which BPOs can actualize any benefits will be diverse and, in some cases, painful. Enterprise Contact Centers and BPOs will need to make plans and preparations now or risk being left behind by their faster-moving competitors.

Every day our CSRs still fill out forms manually, restate the obvious on a call or embark on redundant data entry of information for the millionth time. These changes will lead to major opportunities for contact centers with OmniChannel with A.I.

Here are 10 examples for where IoT needs Contact Centers to make M2H connection:
1.     IoT software updates (call center will call IT team and schedule downtime needed time to update/upgrade (car, factory, oil drill, etc)
2.     IoT reporting outage (high value SLA (service level agreement) triggers an alert where call center must call human if email or SMS are ignored)
3.     IoT maintenance reminders (Customer service can call with emails have been ignored)
4.     IoT non use (Contact centers can proactively call a customer with instruction that were too difficult, or change dissatisfaction with satisfaction)
5.     IoT usage (Manufactures will pay for BPOs to design workflow based on: rpm, height, speed, location, distance, temp, etc)
6.     IoT safe driving (trucking companies need a workflow built to better understand: speed, breaking, acceleration, top speeds, average speed)
7.     IoT consumption (Copy machine contact center can call about a new copier based on actual usage. BPOs can design workflow based on: amount used, how much in inventory, Amount of customer’s inventory, days before reorder)
8.     IoT inventory (BPOs can make their customer’s workflows based on: when products go into use, location tracking)
9.     IoT agricultural crops (BPOs can make workflows for Seed, fertilizer and herbicide companies with the following info: water, Ph, root depth, density, color)
10. IoT agricultural livestock (BPOs can make workflows for corporate farms or feed companies based on: weight, height, feed, water)

A savvy BPO would need to find a great OmniChannel Contact Center solutions and make sure IoT is one of their channels. For their Enterprise customers they would create M2M reporting and M2M workflows with A.I. The programming would be billable, high value, professional service hours and ongoing there will be a cost per action. I believe the lack of a compelling business case is a major impediment to IoT growth for enterprises and BPOs. This is not so much because of a lack of a business case, rather than the IoT business cases for BPOs have yet to be discovered.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,

James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.comr
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson

Moving From MultiChannel Chaos, to OmniChannel

Companies that don't develop processes and internal structures for handling their OmniChannel strategy can fall short on serving customers through multiple communication channels. Experts say, businesses are rushing on impulse into a full OmniChannel offering because their customers are rushing there even faster. OmniChannel strategies are considered “less friction” because they enable companies to serve customers wherever they are, whether consumers communicate via a company's website, via email, by text message or social media platform. As the channels of communication increase and as customers move from traditional phone calls, this OmniChannel approach to customer service has often become a matter of company survival.

Companies have gotten aboard “MultiChannel” without really thinking about their next steps or a strategies with the rest of the company. As a result, companies that dive too quickly without examining in-house structure are often doomed to failure. Often, companies that view MultiChannel as a matter of simply having marketing to respond to Facebook and Twitter. Marketing is better at building a brand name and protecting the brand name. But after market removes conversation from public Facebook or public Twitter, the marketing strategy can get lost in a sea of tweets and comments without really addressing customer issues and creating the right customer experience. There are many great social media monitoring tools for marketing, but customer experience needs to remain with customer support. Just like you keep your recording, you keep your email, your keep your chat history, but you need a central place to keep these and also your Social Media interactions or you have chaos.

The two key differences in MultiChannel and OmniChannel is that the MultiChannel has separate silos of information. The CSR should be able to see from a single screen every channel of previous customer communications. OmniChannel should also have A.I. to help automate the additional channels. A Smart IVR will help move the customer to the right place using A.I. And customers expect that they shouldn't have to repeat basic account info, repeat their authentication and order information as they get bounced around between departments.

In a short amount of time, it's become critical to address this problem: of companies siloed channel structure, processes that require double CRM entry, communication gaps between departments and workflows without A.I., Call Center Pros can bring in the tested OmniChannel vendors, make the OmniChannel strategies are solid and connect data between communication points and get the necessary teams involved -- and trained to handle the different channels of information.
Here is a little more to think about: What customer experiences are we trying to create? How real-time does each channel need to be? What is the response expectation time of a tweet versus an email reply? If you don't have a plan, you may be opening yourself up to a huge problem. We all know, problems on the Internet can go viral very quickly.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,
James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.comr
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson

Will Smart IRVs and Bots Replace Human Customer Support?

Right now, the demographic that holds the most buying power is the Millennial generation. These young buyers or Millennials seem to embrace anything that is self-service for customer service. This leads to the great debate of who will win in the end: man or robot?

Smart IVRs, Chat-bots and web-based self-service have made things easier. In some ways, it seems like customer service is turning more robotic than anything else. When dialing customer service phone numbers, it’s extremely rare to have a human being answer the phone rather than an IRV. You can often handle all of your transactions and get your questions answered without ever being put on hold or speaking with a representative. Many instances, you don’t even need to make a phone call. Once upon a time, you had to call airlines in order to make a reservation for a flight, but now you can do it online or through an app on your phone. Self-service machines are making it much easier to accomplish simple tasks. This makes things much easier on businesses as well. Business’ costs are dramatically cut when they are able to rely on a smart IRVs, Chat-bots and websites to handle mundane and repetitive work.

Humans Are Still Indispensable

However, this doesn’t mean that human beings are totally out of the picture. In fact, some would argue that humans are even more important than ever. One of the first rules of technology is, “If something can go wrong, it will.” When you run into a problem, there must be a backup plan, and your customers will want a human to take care of things. There are many times where the unexpected occurs and the IRVs, Chat-bots and websites will not be able to respond. Read this to see specific cases: The 10 Biggest Cloud Outages Of 2015. And when you’re dealing with tens of thousands of customers a day, when things go wrong they go really wrong. Delta Airlines flights were grounded by a global system outage two weeks ago,  that brought the airline to its knees. No flights, no boarding passes, no communications. When all's said and done, the smart IRVs, Chat-bots and websites of customer service could have been extremely useful, but it’s only useful until something goes wrong. When that happens, customers demand the help of a human beings. Any company that tries to do away with human CSRs entirely will lose business as a result.

• Tech outage (website, billing, booking, cloud, database, etc)
• Weather related outage (flood, snow, hurricane, volcano cloud, etc)
• Human related outage (labor strike, illness, bird flu, salmonella, etc)
• Marketing has unplanned product release
• Product update goes bad
• Product outage or shortage
• Product recall or defect

Don’t worry, Humans will still have jobs

A major concern in the robot vs. human debate is that automation is taking over human jobs, and pretty soon, the job market will plummet. But that hasn’t happened yet. If anything, it’s created better jobs. Although most companies need fewer CSRs answering the mundane, the CSRs will be answering the 20% of the more advanced questions. The CSRs will be answering the crisis calls that build brand loyalty. Business will need more people who can solve the problems of technology-gone-wrong. These jobs pay better and are often more comfortable than phone jobs.

In addition, this age of automation has led many businesses to recognize the power of humanization in their CX (customer experience). When automation and online experiences first became popular, businesses were struggling to create strong relationships with their customers. It’s difficult to engage on a personal level with empathy, relevance, and kindness when your entire operation is being run by smart IRVs, Chat-bots and websites.

There will always be people worried about robots taking over the world, but there’s no need to be concerned here. There’s more need for humans in customer service than ever before, and savvy businesses are making a strong effort to humanize every customer experience as much as possible.

Call Center Pros can bring the right OmniChannel software to your Call Center.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,
James W Wilson
Call Center Pros
james@call-center-pros.com
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson
1-404-936 4000

OmniChannel with IoT for BPO & BPaaS

In order to achieve maximum business efficiency and effectiveness, enterprises rely on industry standard processes that are supported by the latest in technology. However, disruptive technology, a low capital and shrinking budgets are driving more and more enterprises to adopt Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) or "OmniChannel with BPaaS" to achieve their goals.

The BPaaS delivery model, which is a part of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Services, now companies can take advantage of best-in-class technology and standardized business process services for customer support, without any major expenditure. With the help of OmniChannel solutions that support BPaaS, we have enabled global clients shift from a high-cost model to a much more flexible, consumption-based price model.

New Global delivery models, cloud-based solutions and best-in-class OmniChannel capabilities can offer flexibility in optimizing your customer service operations. IoT (Internet of Things) is the 4th Industrial Revolution, and BPaaS will need to embrace this technology or be left behind. Enterprise OmniChannel with BPaaS solutions provide a next generation customer experience platform, which can be used to efficiently manage customer service interfaces across: chat, email, web, voice, SMS, IoT and social media channels.

BPaaS need to prepare for IoT, as 5.5 million new Internet connect things are made every day. By 2020 it is estimated 100 billion IoT devices will be connected.BPaaS need to embrace OmniChannel including IoT and Social Media Monitoring. Yes, I understand your fear of Self-help, smart IVRs and Chat-bots cannibalizing your headcount. Yes, the Tier 1 support calls (80% of contact center calls are repetitive) are going away but will be replaced with more valuable Tier 2 support. BPaaS with OmniChannel capabilities including the IoT channel, will be able to build: Self-help, smart IVRs and Chat-bots for their customer. Being able to fix the the broken Self-help, smart IVRs and Chat-bots for their customer will also be needed, The BPaaS that invests in OmniChannel will be able to monitor Social Media as another channel. Today marketing departments are being overwhelmed by Social Media. These Social Media channels are not properly being staffed by marketing and these conversations are not being saved in the CRM. With IoT their will be critical alerts, recalls, SLAs and superior customer service coming from the IoT.

Some of the key features of OmniChannel with BPaaS service offerings include:

• OmniChannel with BPaaS uses foundational cloud services like PaaS, laaS and SaaS
• OmniChannel with BPaaS will fit your processes without impeding your productivity
• OmniChannel with BPaaS has most all APIs which enable a quick and easy connection
• OmniChannel with BPaaS supports multiple deployment environments and languages, so that a business process can be modified easily in the future, without any major alterations
• Omni Channel with BPaaS we recommend will handle massive scaling - from a few processes to thousands, as per your requirement

Why is OmniChannel with BPaaS an Effective Alternative?
OmniChannel with BPaaS is often automated and the pricing models are consumption or subscription based. Since business process solutions are cloud-based, they are accessed via an internet-based technology. OmniChannel with BPaaS is a multi-tenant delivery model uses a shared set of tools, which your enterprise can tap into on a pay-as-you-go basis. Through OmniChannel with BPaaS, you can leverage on premise solutions, cloud-based ERP solutions and other  applications that enhance global collaboration and connectivity in a streamlined manner.
O2I's BPaaS services can suit a multitude of business verticals, and is especially helpful to clients facing the following issues -

• Scarcity of capital investments, which limits your ability to take on large initiatives
• Unequal technology environments, which results in inefficiencies
• Limited or no access to best-in-class technology and processes
• Changing regulatory norms, that needs a fast reaction
• Benefits of OmniChannel with BPaaS

Call Center Pros offers global clients multiple carrier class, state-of-the-art infrastructure, professional and trained staff and streamlined, tested processes. Let Call Center Pros help with your requirement for the following benefits:

• Flexible pricing: A flexible pricing model that requires minimal capital expenditure while ensuring all your requirements are met
• Faster time-to-market: Drastically reduce the time spent in finding and deploying new processes and assets
• Immediate access to best-of-breed processes, technology and skills: Quick access to easy upgrades and efficient processes that are built into the technology platform
• Better control and compliance: Eliminate the need for long or complex change management transitions
• Reduced costs: Minimal costs during the course of the business engagement

Please contact Call Center Pros for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,
James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.com
www.call-center-pros.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson

5 Ways Better to CX with OmniChannel

Do you experience a mild sense of dread when you need to call a company you do business with to resolve a problem? If so, you’re not the only one. We’ve grown used to expecting less than stellar experiences when it comes to interacting with CSRs, and receiving timely, helpful, and courteous resolution to our problems.

In this always-on age, your company’s door is always open, and customers may choose to contact you through any support channel you’re willing to provide—including email, phone, web chat, social media, IoT, Chat-bots, and self-service IVRs. These OmniChannels aim to make things easier for the consumer, but for businesses some of today’s biggest challenges are a direct result of this newly added complexity. There are a few things that every organization can do to ensure that the human beings at the other end of any given service interaction receive the help and care they deserve. Here are five of the best:

1. Empower Your CSRs
CSRs need to be empowered with the right tools, which might include software that provides a complete view of customer interactions across all of your service channels. Before you buy any new tools, starts with your CSR staff—the people in your business who interact the most with your customers. If either a frustrated customer or a confused CSR is forced to escalate an interaction to a supervisor, you’ve already lost the battle. That’s why you have to empower your customer care staff with the training and autonomy they need to cut through that complexity and do their jobs well. Give even your most junior CSRs permission to use their best judgment, and then give them everything they need to succeed—then you’re going to see more happy faces.

2.Play to Your Workers’ Strengths
It’s always good to remember that your CSR staff consists of human beings. And that means, no matter how hard you may strive to iron out these differences to create a group of 50 or 500 CSRs. The best customer care managers find ways to use the human differentiation to their advantage, so you can then best match those skills to the appropriate caller or situation. Maybe that means assisting a customer in a different skill groups: language, up-selling a customer, or dealing with a particular tech support issue that some agents have more experience than others. If your company has a collection department; staff it with CSRs who are mainly adept at helping customers who are angry and upset. Certain people can defuse tension, respond to objections, or deal with upset people more effectively than others.

3. The Right Script for Unusual Circumstances
In the normal course of business, there’s rhythm at which customers make contact with your company, and it’s smart to staff your CSRs accordingly. But then there are the special occasions:

• A big product release
• A marketing campaign
• A natural disaster
• A technical interruption

If your customers received an email about a special promo and called in to request more info, and your CSRs continued with a scripted response to “unusual” request, this is not good but this happens all the time. You need a solution to empower the supervisor, to make the needed script changes.

4. “Grandmother Test”.
If your company’s OmniChannels are confusing or difficult to navigate, and the user experience that makes more sense to Engineers than to your actual customers, maybe it’s time to rethink your strategy. Try applying the “Grandmother Test”. Ask yourself, “Would my grandmother understand this?” If she wouldn’t understand your company’s OmniChannels, then you’ve just identified another obvious source of friction to eliminate. Just a few extra instructions for the human beings at the other end of your brand—will go a long way.

5. The Golden Rule
CSRs must always remember that they can’t choose which customers are going to contact them. To make your own life easier, I suggest you take the Golden Rule to heart: Whenever possible, offer customers the same care and courtesy you’d hope to receive as a customer.
In the end, providing great customer care is an evolving art, not a science. What works well for one company may backfire for yours. Hopefully to extend the best practices, like the ones I’ve described here, for a better foundation for a great human relationships. Call Center Pros can bring the right OmniChannel software to your Call Center.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,

James W Wilson
Call Center Pros
james@call-center-pros.com
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson
1-404-936 4000

Less Friction When Giving Your Customers the Channels They Want

It is important for enterprises with customer service operations to look for ways to reduce friction. Customers want to move between chat, voice, email, SMS without having to repeat their situation every time. Customers want to access more channels which improves the experience. And this reduces the friction, but only when the channels are not forced or in separate silos. Customer service reps can direct a caller to another channel when a traditional voice queue has long wait times. Or maybe offering self-service chat-bots with AI could help reduce friction for customers with the same monthly request. The newer OmniChannel contact centers offer more as messaging apps like Facebook messenger, Skype for Business, LinkedIn messenger or even the Sony PlayStation Messager because this is where some customer live. To the agent, they will see “chat windows” that look the same with a combined chat history of the customer’s past interactions but with a small logo indicating the customer’s channel path.

The Social Media channels allow free messaging but the benefits also allow include the sharing of photos. When contact centers pair up with Social Media, the customer service reps can receive a photo in the same channel or a different channel. Here are some examples:

• A photo of a defective product from electronic company.
• A photo of a broken product from major on-line seller.
• A photo of a fallen tree for your insurance company.
• A photo of a driver’s license for the Wine-of-the-Month Club.
• A photo of a receipt for the Hotel Booking company.
• A screenshot of a user’s error for tech support.

Some of these Social Media channels include video chat, for a closer human experience. The Social Media channel “Telegram”, is a post-Snowden app aimed squarely at the security conscious user, this might also benefit call centers when tighter security is needed.
Customers service at any point in their pre-purchase or post-purchase is not only improved with a choice of channels but through additional technologies:

• Scheduling a call-back for a customer while they are waiting in a long queue.  
• Visual IVR on mobile phones and a faster connection the right queue.
• Remote access of the customer’s devices can faster resolve technical issues. 
• Screen-sharing can improve sales with Insurance or financial call centers.
• Voice biometrics can passively authenticate without the multiple intrusive security questions.
• Some are not “out of the box ready” but with most OmniChannel solutions, these can be added GUI-drag-n-drop apps or professional services.

These technologies are available today in some of the OmniChannel contact solutions. As first time resolution increases and friction decreases through OmniChannel, this builds positive memories for your enterprise’s contacts. Call Center Pros can bring the right OmniChannel software to your Call Center.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,
James W Wilson
Call Center Pros
james@call-center-pros.com
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson
1-404-936 4000

Customer Service Metrics is Different with IoT

Ask any manager in the contact center business and they’ll tell you that they live and die by the identical metrics reports they were using when they started the business: average handle time, first-call resolution, etc. And why not? If you handle a million calls a year and chop an average of 20 seconds off each call, that’s five full-time employees and a ton of money saved. If your goal is to minimize your support costs, you’ll be a hero. Except…is that really the best goal?

What if you added 2 minutes to each call and thereby stopped a 100,000 product returns? Sure, you’d have to spend another million dollars on customer support, but if by doing so you can add six million dollars to the bottom line… Isn’t it worth it? And that’s not even counting the additional value of extra sales from the hundred thousand customers who are now loyal followers to your company by the extra time invested in the personal care your customer support people gave.

That might sound like a crazy alternative universe back when we were supporting nothing but widgets, but in the interconnected world of the IoT (Internet of Things), when things are bought online and easily returned this situation is not only sensible, but now its compulsory. Yes, things are easier to return than ever before, and an astounding percent of products are being returned for refunds that are in perfect working condition but buyers couldn’t figure out how the new Smart Home devices worked. Since smart devices can “phone home,” it can be clear to a company when a device is experiencing technical issues or simply isn’t being used at all. Even before a customer calls to complain or attempts to return a product, the device can message the info to the OmniChannel contact center.

The only way of turning this around is to alter the current method of customer support. Instead, customer service can call the customer preemptively with a full understanding of what is wrong with the product or the knowledge that the customer doesn’t appear satisfied. From there, a conversation can ensue to create a positive customer experience, potentially even creating a brand advocate from a scenario that was simply unheard of prior to the IoT. To do that, we need to stop looking at contact centers as an expenditure and start seeing contact centers by the additional benefit they provide to the larger business.

Today above 80% of buyers of consumer electronics come upon some problem, and we can figure it costs 6-10 times as much to attract a new purchaser as it does to keep an existing purchaser. Roughly half of consumers say that they have returned at least one product because of no or low customer service. So spending money to make sure that the 80% end up pleased isn’t a necessary evil; it’s a required outlay in the most important metric of all: customer retention.

We are not saying to make your support operation as efficient as possible. Of course you do: Getting the same result at less cost is, quite literally, money in the bank.

What you don’t want to do is lose sight of the big picture by focusing too much on the cost side of support. Remember, it’s the benefit-cost ratio that makes customers happy.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,
James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.com
www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson

IoT Needs Contact Center

The IoT or “Internet of things” is a growing topic of conversation both in the office and outside of it. IoT is a concept that probably impact how we live but also how we work in a contact center.
But what precisely is the “Internet of things” and is it going to impact you?
Let’s start with understanding a few basics. Broadband is become more widely available everywhere. The cost of connecting to broadband is decreasing. More devices are being created to broadband and have Wi-Fi and sensors built into them. Technology costs are going down on most everything. Smartphone penetration is sky-rocketing. All of these ingredients are creating a “perfect storm” for the IoT.

Basically, the IoT is the concept of connecting any device with an on and off switch to broadband and maybe to each other. This includes everything from mobile phones, coffee makers, refrigerators, door bells, lamps, thermostats and almost anything else you can think of.  This also applies to inner workings of machines, for example an engine in a car or the drill bit of an oil rig. Remember, if it has an on and off switch then chances are it can be a part of the IoT.

It was recently estimated that nearly 15 billion IoT-connected devices will be sold this year and by 2020 there will be over 26 billion connected devices… That’s a lot of connections (some even estimate this number to be much higher, over 100 billion).  The IoT is a giant network of connected “things” (which also includes people).  The Human/Machine relationship will be: H2H, M2H, and M2M.

Contact centers used to be commonly used to referred to as “call centers” that handled well, calls, from, well, human beings and calls were distributed using ACD to available agents.  Now Call Centers are fast changing into Contact Centers as many advances allowed them to handle multiple new “Channel” sessions such as Chat, SMS  and Social Media messaging. But also the IOT is providing new digital information, so IoT is M2H channel.  Now and more and more IoT messages will to come agents with live updates from many different IoT sources. Humans in contact centers will have to handle the IoT data and process, analyze, classify and then assign it into the correct action bucket.

Here are some M2H examples of call centers getting new information from IoT channels and agents will analyze and sort for follow-up for better customer service:

• A moisture detection IoT senses a leak in a boiler, the alert triggered a call center to dispatch a plumber to the leak in the mission critical area.
• A"smart" refrigerator that figures out the condenser coil is failing and sends a message to the manufacturer's contact center. Allowing the agent to proactively call the owner to prevent the pending refrigerator's disaster
• ThyssenKrupp Elevator wanted to go beyond the industry standard of preventative maintenance, to offer predictive and even preemptive maintenance, for guarantee a higher uptime percentage.
• IoT-enabled solutions such as the Ava bracelet, help women improve their chances of getting pregnant. A contact center may call before “the time” as an additional reminder.
• A city has all its parking meters with IoT, pay a fine via an app or a contact center.
• A thermostat on the Good Cents Program locks the home owner from adjusting their temperature higher or lower that the agreed amount. In return the homeowner gets reduced energy cost per KW on their electric bills. They can call a call center a few times a month for an override.
• There are many automotive examples; Progressive Snapshot gathers info on driver habits. When the customer calls the call center, they might receive a safe driver credit or maybe the call center will have to cancel her insurance (I’m joking or maybe not).

IoT will be revived and re-energized but there are two big ifs. The first one is if the contact center modernizes. Contact centers will handle much more IoT data if IP pipes that connect IoT to the backend have evolved to sustain the increasing flow of data. Those are two big ifs. The key to giving better customer experience in this exciting world of IoT is the human in the contact center. Contact centers with IoT are the bridge from M2M to M2H.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,
James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson
#IOT_GA #IOTGA

Call Center Pros is Connected to Most Every USA Carrier

Call Center Pros has connections to almost every USA carrier, unlike going direct with one or two carriers we can offer multiple carriers. Call Center Pros, knows that there are some carriers that are stronger in different regions and we also knows when some carriers are currently not performing as well as they had in the past. Most all call centers have multiple business locations, and these cannot best be served by one carrier. Usually it is the last mile; below the national carriers, are some regional carriers.


After we narrow it down to two vendors, we can have them both present their product, Call Center Pros can join by phone or be there in person to help moderate each carrier, separately. Every telecom company has a direct sales channel and they also have a reseller channel, we both have the same floor price. Meaning their direct team cannot undersell Call Center Pros floor price and we cannot undersell their floor price. You know that working with certain carriers at times may be…well…frustrating. When you work with Call Center Pros, you often have access to better contracts, better rates, and better support. As independent reseller, Call Center Pros have no specific loyalties to one carrier over another carrier. We are not focused on pushing a specific product or service in order to meet Carrier's monthly goals. Without this added pressure, Call Center Pros can provide a business with unbiased opinions, allowing the business to make an informed decision.

Data Networks and Internet Solutions

Call Center Pros provides reliable and secure data connectivity between your Call Center locations and to the Internet. By understanding your needs, we can recommend the best solutions to meet your requirements. Call Center Pros has a deep understanding of our partners’ technical offerings and we understand what needs to be done to implement services quickly and with minimal disruption to your business.

Multi-Site Connectivity

Carriers provide multiple options to connect your call center multiple locations. Call Center Pros Solutions can assist you in determining what solutions work best for your needs. Whether it is MPLS, VPLS, Metro Ethernet, or any other emerging technology, Call Center Pros will evaluate the options and provide recommendations that meet your technical and financial parameters. Call Center Pros does not try to fit your connectivity requirements into a particular product set; rather, we find the solution that best aligns with your call center needs.

Point-to-Point Connectivity

To connect two locations for secure connectivity or data replication, Call Center Pros can assist in determining what options are available for your sites. Regional access fiber connectivity is a key component in determining what carrier may be the best fit for your company. Our engineering team has access to fiber maps and other tools so we can work with you to make informed decisions.

Benefits of Call Center Pros Data and Internet Services

• Strong understanding of the products/services available to your call center
• Technical solutions designed to meet your needs
• Alignment with carrier personnel to ensure that we can be your one point of contact for all of your connectivity needs

SIP Termination

SIP has enabled businesses to leverage data networks to deliver reliable voice services with advanced features. Call Center Pros will work with you to understand what product or product combinations will meet your needs. For call center termination there are conversational telecom carriers and if you try to slip in short duration calls, you will be penalized or cut off. There are specialized short duration telecom carriers we can also recommend.

SIP Origination (DIDs and Toll Free)

In the last I wrote about LCR (least cost routing) for Toll Free (and Redundancy). Another important topic is having DID for outbound and there are a few strategies that require a good telecom that knows what they are doing. One other option that is had to get is AT&T toll free delivered via SIP. AT&T might be a bugger to connect to and they do not seem to want new carriers and they do not want customers on SIP Trunks. But there are a few great Tier 2 carriers that offer 100% AT&T.

SIP Trunk

Consolidate your local voice needs and reduce or eliminate the need for POTS lines and PRI circuits throughout your enterprise. SIP trunk provides unique failover and local phone number features that were not possible in traditional voice solutions. Provide a single circuit to meet your data and voice needs with the Integrated Access product – we are experts in migration to SIP, making your transition smooth and worry free.

Cloud-based PBX

Cloud-based PBX solutions that provide the functionality of Unified Communications without the heavy capital outlay for premise-based PBX equipment. Cloud-based PBX  lets enterprises focus on their business while still having a fully managed, robust voice environment. Regardless of which IP-PBX solution you choose, the benefits are similar. You can provide users access to IP telephony, the Internet, and the PSTN through one cable per person. And you can expand the ease of three- or four-digit extension dialing beyond the main office. So if you’re in the Connecticut office and you want to call someone in the Pennsylvania office, you simply dial the extension -- and avoid paying long-distance charges.
These are some carrier, but not all.

Traditional US Carriers or Bandwidth

• ACC
• ANPI
• AT&T
• Brighthouse
• Broadview Networks
• Centracom
• CenturyLink /Savvis
• Charter
• Cogent
• Comcast
• COX
• EarthLink
• Evolve IP
• Fiberlight
• Frontier
• Fusion
• Globalinx
• GTT
• Integra
• Intelepeer
• Level 3
• Light Tower
• Masergy
• Megapath/Speakeasy/Covad
• PacNet
• Sprint Embarq
• Star2Star
• Telepacific
• Telnes
• Thinking Phones
• Tonaquint
• TW Telecom
• Veracity
• Verizon Business
• West IP
• Windstream
• XO
• Zayo

Regional Fiber

• Allied Telecom Fiber and LEC- DC, Baltimore, MD and Philadelphia, PA
• Comlink Michigan based Fiber provider. Chicago, Northern, Indiana and Ohio.
• DukeNet Ashville, Atlanta, Birmingham, Charleston, Charlotte, Columbia, Greensboro, Greensville, Huntsville, Knoxville, Nashville, Raleigh, Wilmington
• Enventis Terrestrial Fixed Wireless - broadband technologies to an approximate population of 267,588 (of a total population of 323,785,881)
• FiberLight Transport, Dark Fiber, IP, Metro Lit services. 50 Mb and up. GA, DC, Baltimore, Miami, Boca Raton, Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Texas, Birmingham, AL, Nashville, TN
• FiberTech Fiber 10 Mb + N.E. USA, OH, IN, PA, NY, MA, CT, NJ, DE, VA
• Hudson Fiber Low Latency Provider. Dense in NJ, NY. Then Chicago, Toronto, London, Slough, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo.
• IDC Global Fiber Reseller. Collocation.
• Metro Optical Fiber and Network Reseller – strong in the NE
• Mosaic Fiber Reseller. Very Strong in the Metro National.
• Pinpoint Transport, IP. 50 Mb + CO, KS, NE, IA, IL TN, MS, LA
• Sidera Fiber 10 Mb + Chicago, NY, DC, Boston, Philly, Toronto and Northeast.
• Southern Light Fiber 10 Mb + N Florida. Louisianna, Mississippi
• Sunesys Dark Fiber Only. Chicago, LA, San Jose, San Fran, Philly, NJ, NY (not  Manhattan), Atlanta, Florida
• US Signal Fiber, Transport, DIA T1 and up, MPLS, Colo. MI, IN, OH, IL, WI

International Carriers

• Belgacom (BICS)
• Bharti Airtel
• BT Global
• Cable & Wireless
• China Unicom
• ChinaTel
• Elite
• Focus
• GT-T
• Hibernia
• IFX Networks
• KDDI
• OneStream
• PacNet
• PCCW Global
• PLDT
• Reliance
• SingTel/Optus
• TaTa
• Telecom Italia
• TelMex
• Telstra

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,

James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson

Why You Need a Smarter IVR

IF your CRM and business systems know everything about your customer’s actions.

And your IVR knows what your CRM and business systems know about your customer’s actions.

Therefore, your IVR knows everything about your customer’s actions with you.

If your customer just made a payment or a purchase, your IVR knows it. If your customer had a recent support experience that didn’t end in FCR (First Call Resolution), your IVR knows it. If there have been changes to your customer’s account, or if your customer has a late payment, or even if your customer abandoned an online shopping cart, the IVR knows it—because your CRM and business system knows it.

Why, then, do so many IVRs treat their callers like they know nothing at all about them? As if each call was the first time they ever heard of their 20-year, Platinum Account customer. As if the IVR was a perpetually erased slate?

Here are some of the things your IVR should know, and what it can do with that knowledge.

Personal Information
No IVR should fail to know the caller’s name, as long as they can gather it from the ANI and authentication. But there’s a lot more it can say than just name; it can go a long way towards growing the personal connection between the caller and the IVR.

We see you have a birthday this month. Happy Birthday Mr. Wilson.

Recent Actions
The IVR should know about the most recent actions that the customer has taken. If he recently made a purchase or bought a product that’s in delivery, that’s the first thing to ask:

Are you checking on your recent purchase?
Would you like for us to email the tracking number?

Habitual Behavior
If your customer calls on a regular basis to question statements or bills (some do that like clockwork), that’s something the IVR can be proactive about.

Are you calling for questions about your statement, can we read that to you?

Alerts
The IVR may know something about the account—an unusual charge, a low or negative balance, or an updated and improved credit score.

You’ve earned mileage points this month. Would you like to hear your balance?

Opportunities
Don’t forget to do some selling—when the time is right. Make it relevant—a caller who buys, for instance, a case of dog food a month will save $X if they buy three (which will also save you shipping costs). If you see it’s your customers wedding anniversary this month, offer them a discount on jewelry or flowers.

Your HVAC is ready for a 6-month service. Should I make an appointment for you?

Your IVR can’t do as much with customer information as a live agent can. But that doesn’t mean it should act as if the customer is a stranger. Call Center Pros can bring the right OmniChannel software to your Call Center.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,
James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson

OmniChannel Contact Center Solutions for Financial Services

Your customers do business across all your channels, sometimes to complete a single task. Do you need help finding which OmniChannel software developers can actually integrate your channels into a single OmniChannel for all your services and product offerings?





The Problem
Financial services customers access their accounts on every available device: mobile, telephone, online, kiosk and others. More and more, they use more than one channel to accomplish a single task. When your channels operate in silos, customer frustration grows when they have to repeat steps and reenter information as they move from channel to channel.

The Solution
Bring all those channels together into a single OmniChannel. Customer convenience and satisfaction is at the center of a great solution. But that’s just the start. OmniChannel lowers costs: when customers can complete a task across multiple channels, customer service calls are reduced. OmniChannel helps grow revenue too. An analysis of your customers’ behavior across all channels increases targeted selling opportunities. And with the right OmniChannel platform, it’s very simple to do.

We have OmniChannel providers who can integrate with your existing channels, systems, and processes (no rip and replace required). OmniChannel will also analyze the data generated by those channels for smarter planning and forecasting. Fully hosting OmniChannel in the Cloud will lower cost, increase redundancy, future proof scalability, without the demands on internal budget and resources needed for an on-premise system. Once OmniChannel is in place, it unifies data across all channels to consistently deliver personal and relevant customer interactions and improve service and satisfaction levels.

• Change your business to deliver a consistent, personalized and delightful customer experience to every customer.
• Unify your infrastructure and avoid costly launch delays, system replacements and vendor commitments.
• Get unprecedented insights into customer behavior – improve satisfaction, increase sales, brand loyalty for lifetime customer value.
• Build a robust and scalable environment while limiting additional software, IT and training costs.
• Scale quickly and add more power with less effort and more impact.
• Optimize each customer interaction and streamline your efforts to lower costs.
• Unify your CRM, ERP and other proprietary databases for real-time insight and faster decision making.
• Get accurate, actionable business intelligence to continuously improve the customer journey.
• Refine cross-channel engagement for faster customer acquisition and higher retention, satisfaction and brand loyalty.
• Increase efficiency: implement changes quickly while keeping IT staff focused on strategic tasks.

Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,
James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson

Engagement with Employees, 6 Ways to Add Retention

In the call center industry, employee dissatisfaction is a major hot-button issue. Too many companies hire good people only to let them flounder once they come aboard. Employees who are content with their current position are actively seeking greater meaning and engagement from their positions; an attitude and activity that must be nurtured and encouraged.

1. People want to be valued, cared about, listened to, appreciated, respected, and involved. These values directly relate to basic human needs that, if nurtured, will contribute to an employee that exhibits ‘leadership from the heart’. 
2. ‘Face to Face’ appreciation for a job well done carries clout and strengthens workplace relationships. 
3. People need to feel that their work is valuable and makes an impact.
4. Create a healthy work environment by committing to positively blend the different generational needs and values of the workforce to leverage their diverse strengths of knowledge and skills towards productive activity.
5. Set reasonable expectations for work-life balance and affirm them with positive reinforcement and incentives.
6. Encourage creative out-of-the box thinking.  Let employees know you’re receptive to new ideas.

Your employees directly affect client experience and the bottom line. The moral of the story is if a company does right by the employees, they will do right by the clients, and new business will follow as a consequence.  A simple statement that requires a complex approach.

Please contact Call Center Pros for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.

Thank you,

James Wilson, CEO
Call Center Pros
+1-404 936 4000
james@call-center-pros.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson

The Customer Choosing the Channel is the Key to Great CX

The biggest challenge faced by the advances of technology is not getting them right in separate silos; it is bringing them together into an unfailing, holistic customer experience. The challenge is no longer to merely create a great product or service, with good customer service offering and a functional/helpful website; it is to flawlessly join up an increasing number of different touchpoints. Many business find themselves having to integrate their products and services, brick and mortar stores, transactional websites, self-service kiosks, Smartphone apps, social media content and contact centers and maybe also across different countries their individual languages.

Getting this kind of OmniChannel customer experience right is a colossal challenge, but indispensable. The expectation of fantastic customer experience is huge, so the consistently of information across the all the different channels is essential. If your customers must hop from isolated website, to the call center, to the shop and then back to the call center again to solve a simple problem is more than infuriating. Customers now want and expect personalized customer experiences; customers want them delivered in the channel that best suites the customer. The customer having control through OmniChannel is the key to great customer experience.

For help with your contact center, feel free to call.

James Wilson, CEO

+1-404 936 4000

James@call-center-pros.com

True OmniChannel for Call Centers

The only way to effectively combat your customers’ game of channel pinball, is to implement an OmniChannel approach. This way, your brand story is able to consistently unfold the way it was intended. Deploy new services seamlessly without headaches. Many OmniChannel companies offer modular APIs, to give you exactly what fits your business needs and integrates your current systems and other business applications with ease. To help you keep up with constantly changing consumer behavior, we found the OmniChannel Solutions that work the best. These are engineered to support innovative technology; enabling you to expand your partner ecosystem and add new revenue streams.

We found many call centers are seeking OmniChannel solution. We have researched many “OmniChannel” solutions and most of them fall into what we call MultiChannel. A true OmniChannel solution will enable agent to read the history no matter the channel (Chat, SMS, Facebook Messenger, Twitter DM and other Social Media). And with true OmniChannel there must be intelligence - either workflow systems or AI or Analytics for intelligence. Without the intelligence on the back end, it is MultiChannel. Many companies are claiming to offer OmniChannel but when each channel is in a silo, then it is MultiChannel.

The choice of OmniChannel Call Center platforms we qualified, houses all the essentials that are core to a true OmniChannel experience. With the ability to plug in new services as you want, the possibilities are endless. What are the true one-to-one OmniChannels today for Call Centers:

• Voice
• Email (automation)
• Chat
• SMS / Text
• Self Service (through Chat, SMS or Social Media)
• Desktop sharing

Or social media channels:

• Facebook Messenger
• Twitter DM
• WeChat
• WhatsApp
• Instagram

Agents eliminate the need to switch between countless number of application screens. We find “win-win-win” solutions, so our clients are happy, your agents are happy and your customers are happy. We find solutions that are simply the best experience for everybody.

OmniChannel Benefits

• Reduce call center traffic

Reduce inbound voice call load into contact centers at peak and off-peak times, by providing alternative channels to voice, to quickly communicate with agents.

• Reduce operational costs

OmniChannel is a low-cost option and helps reduce operational costs. The average SMS/Text session is up to 75% cheaper than the average voice call, and Facebook Messenger chat and other Social Media chat are effectively free.

• Reduce agent attrition and absence

Agents that use text chat are buffered from angry customer voice calls. Auto-blocking of expletive chat text also gives agents a more pleasant, less stressful experience.

• Increase customer satisfaction

Providing a fast, convenient way to reach agents is a great way to improve satisfaction. 64% of consumers would prefer to use SMS instead of voice as a customer service channel.

• Increase agent productivity

Agents can manage multiple inbound customer service or sales conversations simultaneously; ensuring voice is used at the right moment to drive the best results.

• Increase outbound sales success

Agents can ‘warm up’ prospects before calling, using text chat, to agree the best time to call. This results in a 50–60% increase in call pickup, a faster sales cycle, and conversion.

Toll Free with Least Cost Routing and Redundancy

For many years it’s been known by carriers, very large call centers and other heavy users of long distance that the Least Cost Routing (LCR) for outbound calls is an effective way to reduce your usage rates and have redundancy and disaster recovery in case your primary carrier were to fail. But what you may not know is that LCR is also available for Toll Free traffic as well. The technology has been around since 1993 but hasn’t been widely adopted in the past. Savvy carriers and call centers have realized the value of putting in other carriers that are not Tier 1 providers because the call quality is so close among most Tier 2 providers that the risk has been removed.

Last September CenturyLink was down 15 hours or longer, call centers had to wait for CenturyLink’s porting person (only one person) to point Toll Free numbers to another carrier while their entire network was down. Their network was down because they were forced by the FCC to convert all customers Toll Free using TDM to SIP. Something went very wrong in the update to the new platform. The call centers on CenturyLink had moved all Toll Free numbers to another carrier. This new Toll Free carrier might only have one person doing their porting too. It was very frustrating to say the least. Before this happens to you, your call center must prepare and diversify your Toll Free carriers and empower you to fully control your Toll Free numbers.

You can implement LCR for Toll Free numbers by becoming your own RespOrg, but it can require hours to manage so if that is not an expense you want to invest in there are a few specialized providers who will provide the LCR for you at a very nominal charge which is more than offset by the savings in utilizing their multiple carriers. Is it worth the effort for setting up LCR for Toll Free? It all depends on your situation. If your mix of usage is some USA and mostly International it might not be right for you, but if your usage is mostly USA or the portion that is USA traffic is in the thousands of dollars per month then the ROI of the time & effort is a fast payback. You can typically expect to pay $0.0060/min to $0.0080/min with Toll Free LCR. You should add 2 carriers, the new LCR can only take 33,000 NPA NXXs of the 170.000 NPA NXX in the RespOrg system.

Call Center Pros arranged an Independent RespOrg that has affordable tiers for call centers, so your call center is no longer dependent for a single carrier and trapped on that carrier’s RespOrg ID. Today most call centers have Toll Free numbers on 2-3 different carriers for a back-up plan. CCP can also introduce you to a reliable AT&T, Level3 and Verizon resellers, that deliver diversified Toll Free via SIP better than AT&T, Level3 or Verizon can deliver themselves. Everyone loves AT&T’s zero trouble tickets, but do not like AT&T’s big company mentality. Once you have an independent RespOrg, CCP can help develop a template. Every business has different Toll Free callers, every call center will have a different template. We will need a month of CDRs, to compile the top 33,000 NPA NXX from a month of CDRs for a big sampling. From AT&T, Level3 and Verizon we will find the least cost route for your Toll Free. Then we will look at the lesser used 140,000 NPA NXX and find one of the three carriers to take that traffic. Sometime there is an old commitment where one carrier might need more minutes. This bucket of 140,000 lesser used NPA NXXs can also be percentage based routed, maybe 50% to AT&T, 25% each to the other carriers.  The way this works, you will have Toll Free redundancy from three carriers; your RespOrg will be under your company’s control, and through your RespOrg interface your company can repoint the NPA NXXs which are down, to one of your other carriers. This system does not work if your carrier has flat pricing. The Toll Free LRC saves on your cost per minute and a gives better redundancy plan.

For a free analysis & evaluation of your call center voice traffic please call +1-404-936 4000.