Remote call forwarding for enterprises with local business branches might become a thing of the past. Verizon Business, today, announced a new service called Verizon VoIP Inbound with Local Originations.

The new voice-over-Internet-protocol service from Verizon allows businesses to create a local face using a local phone number that can direct overflow calls as needed to off-site (centralized) call centers adding a new level of personalization to businesses handling customer calls. "Enterprises may want to demonstrate that they have a local presence even though they use contact centers," explained Alla Reznik, Director of Global Contact Centers for Verizon in an interview with FierceVoIP.

Generally prior to this new service, companies would use the same toll-free number for all their branches, and if a company wanted to have a local number presence they had to employ a work around using remote call forwarding to route to a toll-free number and call center. "Remote call forwarding has been used very widely, to the point where managers didn't realize how inefficient it is," said Reznik. With the old remote call forwarding, enterprise customers must design the route, pay for local calls, pay for the toll free charges as well as other charges.

Additionally, the new service integrates with Verizon IP Interactive Voice Response, can deliver customer calls to either traditional or IP-based contact centers, and by being a network solution it can stay up in the event of local network outages.

Frost & Sullivan has named Alcatel-Lucent its EMEA Inbound Contact Routing Systems Market Penetration Leader for 2009. The Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Leadership Penetration is presented each year to the company whose product innovation, marketing and sales strategies have enabled it to gain the most market share in the past two to three years.


"Alcatel-Lucent is recognised for its clear understanding of EMEA's small- and medium-size business (SMB) contact center market requirements and its equally clear vision for addressing those demands," noted Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Joe Outlaw. "The company also leverages market-leading contact center technology from Genesys, a leader in customer service software, and a core part of the Alcatel-Lucent enterprise portfolio of which the company is commended for designing systems that are flexible, easy-to-use, and deliver lower cost of ownership - all critical SMB requirements."

Source: PR Newswire

Although the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector is still growing briskly after 10 years, labor supply remains to be a big concern of the industry.

A Call Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) study shows call centers have an attrition rate of 19 percent, with an employee acceptance rate of just 5 percent. Increasing attrition rates, higher demand for complex skills, and industry growth have intensified the demand for more specialized training services.

“The demand for skilled workers has risen as the BPO industry has become increasingly complex. We have seen training become a key differentiator among BPOs, as it drives talent acquisition, retention, and development,” says Jon Kaplan President of TeleDevelopment Services (TDS).

“We believe that successful companies in the industry are characterized not just by their technology, service offerings, and clients, but also by the skills of their workforce. As a BPO support services firm, we recognize our role in the development of a qualified workforce,” he explained.

Source : Manila Bulletin

A single negative experience with a customer call center would likely cause 68 percent of the respondents to take their business elsewhere, according to a recent survey released byTeleperformance ( News - Alert), an outsourced contact center vendor.

The results of the customer care survey, Teleperformance officials said, show that the quality of experience with a company's customer contact center determines consumer sentiment and brand loyalty.

Survey results also revealed consumers expect excellent service in return for brand loyalty, finding that 87 percent of people felt they had a right to a better contact center experience if they regularly spend money with a company or stay loyal to a brand.

Almost exactly half of people said the main reason for their dissatisfaction with a company is poor customer service or a bad contact center experience.

The survey was commissioned by Teleperformance and conducted by YouGov. Over 1,000 U.S. adult consumers completed the survey recently.

As its call center volume continues to dwindle, J.C. Penney is shuttering another facility. The general merchant will close its call center in Midlothian, VA, on March 26, according to company spokesperson Tim Lyons.

The Chesterfield County call center in employs 252 associates, who largely fill part-time positions, Lyons says. “Our call center network primarily handles incoming phone orders and customer service for our catalog business,” he says. “It's closing due to a continuing decline in call volume as customers continue to migrate to shopping online.”

J.C. Penney announced in November it will stop publishing its semiannual “big book” catalog. Instead, it plans to focus on specialty catalogs, and invest more in its Web store and digital services and social media.

Online orders already generate more sales volume than the paper catalogs, Lyons says. J.C. Penney’s online sales were about $1.5 billion in 2008.

The retailer shut down a catalog call center in Carmichael, CA, a year ago. It had closed a contact center in Scranton, PA, in 2008. Lyons says J.C. Penney has four other call centers--in Columbus, OH; Pittsburgh, PA; Grand Rapids, MI; Albuquerque, NM.

Empire State Development today announced that a call center will  locate in Penn Yan and create 450 new jobs.
Data Listing Services, LLC,  parent company of The Connection—a leader in outsourced call center services—will expand its existing presence in New York state. The Connection will invest approximately $4.5 million in this new call center.  This facility will be the company’s third location in state, with operations presently in Jamestown and Olean.

The call center will ramp up over a three-year period.  These workers will be hired in three phases, 150 employees at a time. The first phase of hiring will be completed in the first quarter of 2010, with the third and final phase being completed by the end of 2011.

I don't know if the post title is even appropriate for the dozens of these recently popular English learning companies that have sprouted like mushrooms. Many are located in Makati, most are now in Ortigas center and some are inconspicuously isolated in locations you'd probably not even guess there would be such businesses like in your next door neighbor's vacant room. It seems these quasi-call centers are really doing good in business terms if not there wouldn't be so many out there and so many online teaching jobs available.

It has become a habit of mine to cruise along jobstreet regularly to find out if there are interesting stuff going on in the job market. The curious thing in this week's job openings is that Online English Teacher/Instructor jobs are posted left and right by several different companies. A brief browse of their company profiles reveal most are Korean-owned and/or has Korean ties in one way or the other. So I wondered what on earth could be the reason why so many Koreans are now so eager to learn the native language of Winston Churchill?

I found the answer in the ever reliable threads of the Pinoy Exchange forums. It turns out Koreans, especially kids in school, are require to pass a certain level of English proficiency in order to continue with higher education. At the same time, many Korean professionals are also now seeing the significance of having an edge of spoken English proficiency in their careers and the job market. It does seem that Koreans in general are not fond of learning English at all. However, it is an educational requirement they cannot opt out of.

How Korean "call centers" and jobs work?

You have to have a certain level of spoken English proficiency to get a job as an English Instructor. Once hired and trained, you are given a certain roster of "online" students in Korean that you have to spend 30 minutes teaching English to over a video chat program such as Yahoo IM or more popularly Skype. You are given certain English training curriculum books to base and guide your students through several days, weeks months of training. Your "online" student has access to the same books you are teaching them. At the end of every training session, you record your students "grade", monitor and report their progress to your management. Schedules are based in Korean time so most "online English teachers" usually start working as early as 5AM in the Philippines and some work early Korean evenings. Full time jobs are available while they also offer part-time work. In some job postings, salary ranges from 14,000 to as high as 30,000. Not bad if you have the patience and understanding to deal with persons who are naturally "under-literate" in English for 30 minute sessions every day. The non-monetary benefits in this type of job are below par compared against your typical call center since most companies like these are small and recently established. Some do offer medical reimbursements but expectations need to be set that these are not big companies able to offer anything else besides above-average salaries. An online English instructor can typically earn at least 500 pesos a day which is desirable enough if we consider the light work load and relatively less-stressed environment.

Home-based English Instructor work

If you have the hardware, software and stable broadband internet connection at home, you may also try and look at the possibility of doing this type of work at home by yourself. Two of the most popular sites were you can do such thing is ontue.com and and homebased-esl-teacher.com. There are other similar sites and the mechanics of how you get students, how you will teach and how you get paid are different. However, it is essentially the same thing you would be doing if you work for any other Korean-owned English teaching office. The pay is the same depending on your capacity to work as many hours teaching online at home, the number of students you can teach at a given day and also how much pay rate you set for yourself.

As with any other job, this isn't for everybody. You have to possess the understanding and patience to work with students of varying degrees of proficiency. However, working as an online English Instructor presents people with good alternative to BPO work. For those who are typically online all the time at home, this should be a good try. For those who would love to get the same "call center pay" while staying at home, this is a great solution. In my honest opinion, the pros outweigh the cons. :)

After the native language Tagalog, fluency in English as a second language has been the edge of Filipino call center agents compared to other outsourcing destinations for voice-related services. In fact, in recent years more and more call center companies have found that moving operations to a Philippine site provided better value for the customers and increased the quality of their interactions with customers solely because Filipinos have a better understanding of American culture and more neutral-sounding accent compared to other nationalities. Because the Philippines had been a former commonwealth of the U.S., the English language has been integrated in the educational system and for a long time been the medium of instruction for schools.

The Spanish language, although still taught in some schools and universities, have become less popular and only taught as an elective subject. After centuries of colonial occupation by Spain, many Filipinos back in the early 20th century felt getting rid of the Spanish language in society is a great way to promote nationalism.

However, those centuries of Spanish rule made a lasting mark in the Filipino culture particularly in language and more specifically dialects in the Southern part of the Philippines. A Spanish-based creole language called Chavacano is still widely spoken by millions of Filipinos in the south particularly in the Zamboanga province which makes them a perfect destination for outsourcers looking for Spanish-speaking call center agents.

BPO and call center companies in Mindanao mainly in Davao city have steadily grown their business solely due to the fact that operational costs in the southern part of the Philippines are considerably lower compared to a more Metropolitan area like Manila. However, my gut instincts tell me only a handful to none of these organizations has taken advantage of the "Spanish" speaking talent pool of the Chavacanos.

Zamboanga City, a predominantly Christian province has its share of well-qualified college graduates who are tri-lingual (Tagalog, English and Chavacano) with focus being on the Chavacano language it is their local dialect. Apart from comparably lower cost to operate in this part of the world. The Chavacano language, with most of its dialect words derived from Spanish, should give Zamboanga call centers an edge in landing contracts with companies requiring a pool of Spanish-speaking call center agents.

Some of Idaho’s hard-to-find hiring activity can be found at customer service centers, often referred to broadly as “call” centers.

Some have come, gone or changed, but the need for the service that they provide does not disappear when the economy contracts.

Staffing services firm Manpower Inc. about two years ago conducted research that identified Boise as a hotbed for call centers, said Wendie Gregory, branch manager in Boise.

Factors included a comparatively low cost of living that suits many centers’ pay ranges and a talent pool that gained experience working in one of the city’s many established call centers. When one call center closes – Dell, for example, this year announced plans to close a center in Twin Falls – another often opens, she said.

“It seems like call centers are where the need is greater right now,” Gregory said. About 60 percent of Manpower’s job placements lately are in customer service call centers compared to a traditional mix of 60 percent industrial, 30 percent clerical and 10 percent call center positions, she said.

Many companies are going to business models in which customer service call centers play a larger role, she said. The companies may use them to replace walk-in service areas where customers paid bills and asked service-related questions, she said. Call center employees may place or field calls, take orders or execute technical tasks in a help-desk setting depending on the business that the company is in and how it sets up its service centers.

read more.......

If you’re an inbound call center manager, you can probably relate to the following customer “types:”

There’s the “Pokey Peruser,” the person who dials into the call center all the time, but never buys anything. This customer poses a serious challenge for the call center because they tend to eat up gobs of agent time with trivial, sometimes even downright silly, questions -- or sometimes just to “chat” with someone -- yet there’s no way to determine whether they will eventually, one day, start buying and turn out to be a worthwhile customer.

Then there’s the “Sporadic Spender.” Like the “Pokey Peruser,” the “Sporadic Spender” also tends to dial in with a lot of questions – yet they only buy something once in a blue moon – raising the question, how much costly live service should be devoted to this customer?

Then there’s the “Surging Shopper.” This is the customer that buys occasionally, yet based on their demographic could potentially become a very good regular or “premium” customer. You want to provide this customer with prompt and knowledgeable service, because they could one day be one of your best customers.

Then there’s the “Champion Customer.” This is the loyal and satisfied customer who always comes back for more. Thus they deserve the highest quality customer service you can provide, so as to ensure they remain loyal.

read more......

In an effort to streamline and improve services to the public, Louisville Metro Police are merging the anonymous crime tip line and the Telephone Reporting Unit into one call center.

The center will provide alternative methods for handling calls for service. In some cases, reports may now be taken over the phone instead of dispatching officers.

The center’s main number — 574-LMPD — will be available and staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Officials expect the volume of calls to at least double at the new center from about 4,600 per month to between 8,000 and 10,000.

Nearly 250 Lexington workers will be losing their jobs when Verizon closes its call center there in March.
The Lexington Herald-Leader reports the company told employees at the center about its plans on Monday.

Communications Workers of America Local 3372 President Joey McCarty says the facility has 230 hourly workers represented by CWA and about a dozen managers.

McCarty says workers will be offered two types of severance packages under their contract. He says the facility's final day of operation will be March 28.

Contact Center Compliance (www.DNC.com), an industry leading provider of "Do Not Call" compliance solutions, announced today the availability of SmartBlock (TM), a new "Do Not Call" compliance solution created for teleservices companies to improve sales agent productivity while eliminating the risk of sales agents contacting a consumer who has been listed on a Federal, State or Internal Do Not Call list.

Santa Rosa, CA (PRWEB) January 12, 2010 -- Contact Center Compliance (www.DNC.com), an industry leading provider of "Do Not Call" compliance solutions, announced today the availability of SmartBlock (TM), a new "Do Not Call" compliance solution created for teleservices companies to improve sales agent productivity while eliminating the risk of sales agents contacting a consumer who has been listed on a Federal, State or Internal Do Not Call list.

Under the current “Do Not Call” laws, consumers who have listed themselves on the Federal or State Do Not Call lists can no longer receive unsolicited telemarketing phone calls from for-profit businesses except where a pre established relationship has been established. If a registered consumer is called, the guilty telemarketer can be subject to penalties of up to $16,000 for each number that is called in violation.

Read More..

The census is coming and so are some much-needed temporary jobs
During the next eight months, roughly 1,500 Utahns will help ensure the accuracy of the official 2010 U.S. Census by answering questions phoned into a call center opening next month in Sandy
Only a few of those positions have been filled so far, and three Salt Lake Valley temporary-staffing agencies have been retained by U.S. Census Bureau contractors to fill out the ranks.
"It's quite exciting to land a deal like this that comes around only once every 10 years," said Dallas Larson, owner of Quest Staffing Services in Taylorsville.

His small business, along with Remedy Intelligent Staffing and Synergy Staffing Partners, will supply about 500 employees to the call center, which is in a building that formerly served as a call center for Discover Card.

Source : http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_14175254

Call centers Services are something outdated. In this consumer-driven market and with the convenience of high-speed Internet, the clients are no longer choosing call centers for solutions. They are impending for contact center solutions by means of email, texts, IM etc. Getting calls from clients and giving answers is no longer sufficient to keep your clients loyal to you, and it is time to be more pro-active in your dealings to maintain customer relationships and give solutions to their problems for making any sales deal.


The global community for giving contact center solutions is increasing furthermore offshore outsourcing to the India has manifested into a major globalization of this industry with considerable cut in prices. If you are thinking of building a prosperous business, you’ll require having the right location, the right people to man your center, the superb facilities, the capital to invest, and the right business intelligence software to make a good impact among your potential clients.

What You Need for Having Your Own Contact Center:-

People:-
In order to giving contact center solutions, this is the nearly all significant feature when you’re considering setting up your own offshore contact center. The necessary factors would be to decide the correct location and exploring the pool of workforce available there. You should also seem at the population in the area with the cause being that a location in Asia would provide you with the service with less labor or general pay expenses compared to the United States or any of the European countries. While you study to pool of workforce at hand, there, you should be considering the education level of the people available in that locale. India is a large country with accessible skilled people and also the Philippines.

Cultural Affinity:-
One of the vital reasons to decide locations in the Philippines and India is that most of the population in these two countries is good familiar with the English language, and these two countries also have cultural affinity being under British and American rule respectively in the earlier period. As long as spoken English is concerned, while mutually countries are well conversant with English there are some differences in the pronunciations with Indians swaying a bit towards the Continental side and the Filipinos are versed in American English and culture. This is crucial if you are in look for of giving contact center solutions from offshore points.

Low Cost:-
For a contact center business the next most crucial part is cut-down price significantly. Building contact centers in the Philippines and India would certainly decrease staffing cost, and with the right business logic in place, you may be saving more cutting down on idle time of the agents. The supposed labor expenses and low salary in these two countries have fascinated several organizations to build up business in giving contact center solutions.

A call center or Call Center is from the standpoint of the company, a deal that effectively combines voice communications and data processing technology to enable an organization to implement critical business strategies or tactics for the purpose of reduce costs or increase revenues.

Physically, a call center is a place where a group of people manage large columns of incoming and outgoing calls for purposes of sales, marketing, customer service, technical support or other specialized business activity. The group of people are operators or agents, which are equipped with data terminals or telephone terminals and PCs from a private telephone exchange (PBX).

CCI, Call center Service company providing its quality services with the necessary elements for, with a centralized telephone, establish mutually beneficial relationships with customers, suppliers, etc.