Advanced Call Center Software: A Computer Answering Machine

Let’s accept the fact that the movement in technology is the main concern of most industries nowadays. The emergence of most advanced software whether it is a system, application, or a user software lead to a booming notion in the field of science and technology. In fact even those call centers established elsewhere in the world show a great interests in advanced call center software that may create a huge impact in their line of business.

Most advanced call center software varies from simple to the most complex advanced call center software, and one of the examples of those advanced call center software is the Answering Machine Software.

If you want to have an advanced call center software for your voice modem, Computer Answering Machine Software is the best for you. It is well-known as advanced call center software, yet simple-to-use software with its great Caller ID that lets you see and detect who is calling via screen pop-ups, distinctive rings and caller’s name announcement with speech synthesis. And if you are a greeting messages addict, this advanced call center software has personal greeting messages and can take your telephone messages while you are away. Amazing isn’t it?

The pleasure does not end there because advanced call center software is a full-featured answering machine software that will let you map personalized greetings to callers, organize data in phone books and even record conversations. This advanced call center software has labyrinthine features that include pager notification, sending call details and voice messages over e-mail, and you can even start an external fax program when an incoming fax is detected. Aside from that, you don’t need an extra effort of putting an extra speaker to the modem because advanced call center software can transfer actual time voice from telephone line to personal computer sound scheme.

Furthermore, the advanced call center software as a special breakthrough in the world of technology can run as a tray application when idle and uses minimum system resources. The advanced call center software can also directly detach the modem for an internet connection. The advanced call center software having Caller ID software will let you screen your calls, so the calls can be answered when you want to. Another amazing feature of the advanced call center software Caller ID is the ability to accept or reject calls by you or by the program itself. This advanced call center software can block unwanted calls, including blocked private numbers, out of area calls, and those calls that were not identified. And lastly, this advanced call center software appears just as excellent as it works!

Call Centers and Its Call Dynamics

Call centers is a word that is commonly heard but is seldom understood. It is often referred to some telephone companies having the same functions and service. But with this simple association, the essence of call centers is somewhat carried into the surface, only that there are certain characteristics the call centers carry than most of the simple telephone companies.

The call centers being a place that handles outsourcing solutions and is widely established anywhere else in the world has certain call dynamics that is worthy of attention. One of those important considerations in call centers is the types of calls. Usually, the call centers handle calls which are either outbound or inbound. Outbound calls are calls where the call centers agents perform the calls to a customer with the purpose of selling a particular product or service to that customer. On the other hand, the inbound calls are calls that are made by the customers to acquire facts, report a complaint or ask for help.

Aside from these facts about the call centers’ types of calls, the call centers staffs are also often organized in tiers. The first tier is composed of those workers who are not really skilled and are trained to provide solutions to a certain issue or problem with the use of a simple script. In most call centers, if this case happens, the unresolved issue is being forwarded to a more highly skilled worker who then belongs to the second tier. In some cases with most of the call centers, the third tiers or higher tiers are being organized for further support.

Just like any other institutions, call centers also have their critics. Some of the issues that most of the call centers’ critics handle are the nature of the work environment and the relationship of the people in that certain work atmosphere. Others point to the low rates of pay and certain unprofessional practices of some of the call centers’ agents. Moreover, the status of call centers have been the major point of controversy in most cases since there are certain call centers’ customers that throws complaints regarding the poor quality of service given by the call centers’ agent.

Moreover, most of the call centers have their monitoring practices for the call centers staffs’ activities and other things related to it. However, this sort of practice of most call centers to better plan the workload of the call centers’ employees, there are still some arguments about it. Considerably, the close monitoring and measurement by quantitative metrics despite its being beneficial can also lead to poor customer service.

So it is therefore important to consider that aside from the call centers highly technological nature of operations, certain rules must be followed not only to solve customers’ problems but to protect the image of the company as well.

Oracle Contact Center Anywhere’s flexible, parameter-based administration interface enables companies to:

• Queue, route and distribute customer inquiries to agents based on specific business criteria
• Customize call flows and create automated voice menus that gather call routing information and customer IDs
• Rate each agent’s skills and weight skill requirements on a workgroup basis to create a custom routing algorithm for individual campaigns
• Process voice calls, e-mail and Web-based transactions by a single group of agents, or route them to specialized agents in different groups

Contact Center Workforce Management System

Contact center workforce management (WFM) systems basically predict the volume of calls and allocate the optimum workforce to meet projected workload. While doing so it makes adequate provisions to meet any unavoidable eventualities such as employee leave due to sudden illness or any other technical snags. WFM ensures optimum recruitment of staff based on the workload forecast. Maintaining optimum employees is crucial for any organization so that it is neither overstaffed nor understaffed. While understaffing may diminish the standard of service where as the overstaffing may eat into company?s bottom lines.

Implementing WFM is one of the most challenging exercises for many contact center managers. The methodology used for scheduling tasks is not common in most contact centers. Many of them use their own systems that are customized according to their unique environment and operating methodologies. The scheduling approach differs from one organization to another depending on various factors. In most organizations their operating environments and local regulations influence the particular type of scheduling methodologies.

However, the WFM vendors have come up with systems that can be adopted with any type of organizations, irrespective of their working environments. Over the years WFM vendors have innovated new ideas and technologies and have come up with simplified applications that can perform most of the functions of workforce management easily. There are WFM applications they can handle forecasting and scheduling for multiple locations and channels.

WFM applications can deliver innumerous benefits both qualitative as well as quantitative to contact centers, customers and employees. WFM forecasting and scheduling helps in increasing the productivity and efficiency of agents by eliminating and minimizing idle and unproductive time. WFM increases the customer satisfaction levels and decreases the handling time as skill base allocation of resources are done according to the forecast and estimated traffic. WFM can provide better working environment as it eliminates the favoritism and unfair scheduling. Agents can handle their own scheduling and this empowers motivate them perform well.

WFM applications address various functionalities of contact centers. The most common functionalities found in all leading WFM applications include administration, forecasting, scheduling, intra-day capacity, Real Time Adherence (RTA) & Reporting. Administration is basically to configure the application and define the rules for agents and also address the security issues. Forecasting modules estimates the incoming call traffic. Scheduling module helps to determine the optimal schedules. Intra-Day capability modules serve as an effective tool for the managers to monitor the daily activities performance. RTA module detects the discrepancies between the scheduling and real time performance. Finally, reporting module provides the reporting function. It gives all standard as well as ad hoc report as and when required.

The recent study by DMG Consulting Contact Center shows that WFM market growth is steady at 15% in 2007. According to this study WFM solutions are making their impact in contact center industry. Many organizations embracing WFM are realizing the immense benefit it can deliver to them.

The Different Call Center Software Products of Promero

The official name for the line of business Promero is engaged in is the Application Software Service Provider and Software Reseller industry. In plain language, Promero sells software made by other software manufacturers like Oracle and also Promero-authored software products as well. At present, Promero has six types of call center software as part of its service to the call center industry.

First off in the Promero arsenal of call center software products is the Oracle offering dubbed Contact Center Anywhere which can transform your contact center into a bonafide virtual call center. With this award-winning product, your call center may benefit from its total range of call center applications (inclusive of the Predictive Dialing application, and a host of other features, namely the ACD, the IVR, the Call Center Management Reporting, and the Call Recording and Monitoring features.) This call center solution aims to integrate the Inbound plus the Outbound functions of your call center by relying on the format known as Hosted On Demand, or as the CPE format, or the Hybrid type of customer owned licenses of the Promero software management system.

But what happens if you merge the Contact Center Anywhere call center solution with another software called the ProStar Lead Manager, plus integrate these two into the SugarOpenSource CRM Open-Source architecture? You wind up with a Hosted CRM Software (or Customer Relationship Management program) called ProStar CRM instead. ProStar CRM happens to contain important contact center software features (like the Dynamic Web Form Design aspect, the Real Time Intelligent Lead Distribution aspect, and the Campaign Management feature that can apply either to traditional media and online media.)

Now, Promero has also come up with the ProStar Smart8 which allows your organization to automatically route Inbound 800 calls based on the business requirements of each client. This is possible because the ProStar Smart8 can function as an intelligent call routing dealer locator that does not need any special software or hardware to be functional. In fact, you can use the ProStar Smart8 with every phone system currently being used by your organization. The call center technology of the ProStar Smart8 permits the sharing of browser-based reports by users, simply by accessing the Internet, so that campaigns can be gauged based on real-time results.

If on the other hand your organization requires lead sharing based on Internet access, then you might need the Promero hosted software called the ProStar Lead Manager instead. If your call center business staff and executives are constantly doing lead sharing, then the ProStar Lead Manager is the perfect hosted call center software for your needs.

There are two more call center software applications that are on the Promero list of call center solution products that you may need. These are the ProStar On Demand call center solution, and the ProStar Chat call center solution. The ProStar On Demand allows one hosted platform to contain the three different types of programs contact center operators would need (namely, the Contact Center Software Lead Management Software; the Customer Relationship Management Software; and the Sales Analytic Software.) On the other hand, there is also the totally Web-based ProStar Chat which was designed to boost sales for your call center yet keep operational costs at a minimum.

Whichever of these you opt for, you can be assured that Promero stands by its products so that you (the call center operator) will only get the best software package you really need for your call center.

Founded in 2001, Promero www.promero.com is a Certified Partner in the Oracle Partner Network and is a leading application service provider of Internet-based call center, CRM and lead management software. Promero’s products include Oracle’s Contact Center Anywhere [a hosted virtual call center/predictive dialer software], ProStar CRM, Smart8 Call Routing and ProStar Lead Manager.

Telephone: 954-935-8800

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