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  Amarveer Singh 10:55 PM on February 17, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: Call Center Setup, distributed dialer (2), Hosted call center, Risk Mitigation, SaaS (6)   

  Mitigating risks for new entrants in the Call Center Business 

  Setting a call center is a herculean task or rather it was a big challenge till 3Clogic introduced the Telephony Application Grid (TAG).  Any new entrant in the call center business is confronted with multiple risks and challenges, primary ones being

  • Huge initial setup cost of the Call Center
  • Expensive hardware
  • Hiring experts on the product for maintenance and support
  • Planning for scalability, which might result in buying expensive equipment in advance
  • Strategy to Ramp up and Ramp down quickly
  • Cost of minutes (Telecom minutes)

  These are just a couple of expenses, if we go on with the list, it is huge .  3Clogic fits in brilliantly as a risk mitigating solution to these complex business problems because

  • No expensive hardware required One just needs a Windows desktop PC to get the needful done.
  • With Hosted call center, no maintenance and support team required.
  • Scalable one can increase or decrease the number of agents as and when required.
  • Ramp up and Ramp down as per need. One does not need to invest in expensive hardware or more over purchase hardware that is never used.
  • Choose a provider, who gives you the best deal!
  • Keep many backup providers.
  • Strategise least cost routing using multiple providers for multiple destinations- big saving!
  • Office building not required as agents can work from home.
  • Pay as you go option

  Well, Do I still hear someone say “Risk”

   

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  Amarveer Singh 12:00 AM on February 10, 2010 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
  Tags: contact center (2), dialer ROI, distributed dialer (2), portable contact center, sales (2), Telephony Application Grid   

  Portable Contact Center – I knew you would say – Really? 

  “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” – Yeah, same old proverb, but can very easily be related to business management problem?
  Persistent Sales Inc, a contact center with 30 seats had a series of issues:

  1. The company had planned its annual off-site meet of agents with their families during month end at Las Vegas, Nevada
  2. The company had failed to meet its sales target for the month. They were already into week 3 and meeting next week meant losing account, if they failed to catch up last month.
  3. Agents were bored with monotonous work and off-site meet was company’s idea to break this monotony.
  4. The agents were really looking forward to this break at LA.

  Steve, the account manager was restless and worried. He is certain that he needs to cancel the company off-site trip knowing that would not go down well with the agents. He decides to break the news to the agents post lunch.

  Steve settles down for lunch and picks up a copy of the newspaper, flips around and hits upon an article on “Portable Devices” elaborating the way laptops, notebooks, mobile phones etc changed our life……and Bingo! He knows what needs to be done! 
The distributed dialer solution from 3clogic that his company incorporated a couple of months back was a solution to his business management problem!……..He thinks aloud in his mind – “For one week we are porting our contact center to Las Vegas”
So he proposes a deal to the agents:

  1. Morning 9AM to 2PM they make sales calls.
  2. Evening’s they enjoy Las Vegas.

  “So what do we need to carry with us?” questions an agent, Steve says “minimal equipment, one laptop per agent and a headset…..That’s it!”… Smiles, your browser may not support display of this image.

  The resort Bally’s, on the strip in Las Vegas,  where they proposed to stay had Wi-Fi connections in all rooms, that’s all they would need to get down to work, the central hosted management portal would still be able to do lead management, live monitoring and reporting!
Steve ran the contact center from Las Vegas for a week, coupled with team building exercise in the evening, they made 32% more sales than any week they had in the previous year and before I forget, yes they did meet the target.

  On the last day of the week, when Steve met his agents for dinner, he raised a toast with his bottle of beer … all he said was “Cheers!”

  Persistent sales still successfully runs the account and yes Portable contact centers is not fiction! Distributed Dialers and Telephony Application Grid from 3clogic, makes this a cake walk!

  Raj Sharma, and Tanvir Alam are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Tanvir Alam 2:03 AM on February 10, 2010 Permalink

    All you need a laptop,internet and headset, you are up and running. it’s a cool concept, It’s true callcenter in your bag.

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    Raj Sharma 10:14 AM on February 10, 2010 Permalink

    The work-at-home agent concept sounds great and it seems it s a no-brainer for large and small Call Centers. In the past it had not been that easy to implement. Even some of the pioneering companies like JetBlue have not completely moved to work-at-home agents. They allow their agents to work from home 2-3 days a week. This is because the technology is a barrier – virtual ports on their Call Center switch are expensive and complex to implement. With what you are describing, technology no longer poses a barrier. It is about time that more and more companies opt for virtual call centers.