Posts Tagged ‘contact center’

Why do I need 3CLogic if I already have CRM?

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

You are using Salesforce or another type of CRM software to help you manage your sales team. You can view the history of interactions with customers, every product they have purchased, all opportunities in the pipeline and every sale you have won/lost. You can also run some neat reports that you can share with your management team.
However, there has been no increase in sales after you implemented the CRM system. Not only were the setup costs high, but your sales associates were bogged down with training for almost a week. These prices in addition to recurring monthly installments can add up to significant amounts. To understand why you have not been able to take advantage of the productivity software, answer the following questions about your sales team and process:
S. No Question about sales process Answer
1 Each sales rep follows their own sales cycle to close T or F
2 Each sales rep has their own scripts for calls T or F
3 The sales team has met or exceeded sales expectations in the last month, quarter year T or F
4 Face to face meetings with customers are critical for closing sales T or F
5 The sales reps capture all interactions with customers on CRM T or F
6 I have full visibility into their daily activities; how many calls they make, if they are busy on calls or doing other work T or F
7 I know how many of these calls were conversations versus busy, no-answer, leaving a message on answering machine or the customer saying, “call me back at a better time” T or F
8 I have access to all my ‘Sale’ calls including recordings and can use them for training T or F

If you have answered False to most or all of the questions, the problem is not with your CRM software but how you manage your inside sales team. You need to augment your CRM system with a contact center which gives you the inside view into your sales team.
Would you like to know:
S. No Question Y or N
1. How many calls they make: daily, weekly and monthly without relying on the self-reporting by reps?
2. How many calls are conversations where the sales process is moving forward?
3. How much time they spend making calls, chatting with customers, emailing customers?
4. If they are following the scripts and sales process that was give to them as part of expensive training?
5. If they are busy making frequent calls to their girlfriends/friends using the phone system or making customer calls during office hours
6. If you can listen to live calls that your agents are having with the customers to see if they are following the script?
7. If the follow-up calls moving the sale forward or backward?
8. If you can coach the rep on live calls to close a deal before it is too late?
9. If there is a way to download the call or chat recordings and use them for training purposes?
10. How there would minimal or no cost for training reps when implement the contact center solution?
If the answer to most of these questions is ‘yes’, then you need to look at 3CLogic’s contact center software hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to help manage your sales team actively and increase sales. Integrating this multi-channel software with your existing CRM solutions will provide the necessary productivity gains for you; guaranteed.

For more information, please contact 3CLogic at 800-350-8656 or info@3clogic.com. http://www.3clogic.com.
About 3CLogic:
3CLogic, headquartered in Rockville, Md., is a leading provider of cloud based call center and social media applications for interactive e-commerce transactions. 3CLogic adds voice, chat and text capabilities to any e-commerce transaction on social media networks and combines them with a cloud based contact center solution. 3CLogic’s Inbound Cloud Call Center and Hosted Predictive Dialer, combined with cloud technologies, helps companies of all sizes increase sales and provide better customer service. For more information, please contact 3CLogic at 800-350-8656 or info@3clogic.com. http://www.3clogic.com.

Media Contact
Taryn Cheatham
3CLogic
tcheatham@3clogic.com

# # #

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

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

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

  1. The company had planned its annual off-site meeting of agents with their families during the end of the month in Las Vegas, Nevada
  2. The company had failed to meet its sales target for the month. They were already into the third week and meeting next week meant losing that account if they failed to catch up to last month’s pitfalls.
  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 thought to himself, “Would we be able to port our contact center to Las Vegas for one week?”
After this internal deliberation, Steve proposed a deal to the agents:

  1. Every morning 9AM to 2PM, agents would have to make sales calls.
  2. 2. During the evenings they would enjoy Las Vegas.

“So what do we need to carry with us?” questioned one of the agents. Steve smirked at the agent and replied with “minimal equipment, one laptop per agent and a headset. Nothing more, nothing less!

The resort Bally’s, on the strip in Las Vegas where they proposed to stay, had Wi-Fi connections in all rooms. This was all that was required in order for Steve’s agents to get work done. The central hosted management portal was still able to administer lead management, live monitoring and reporting!
Steve ran the contact center from Las Vegas for a week, coupled with his team building exercises in the evening. Steve’s contact center business ended up making 32% more sales than any week they had in the previous year; far exceeding their target revenues.
On the last day of the week, 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!

Social Media in Contact Centers: Another Channel or Another Force Fit

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

Social media is not just abuzz, but it is also being used to create a lot of buzz about everything. Let’s take a peep into how social media can play a significant role in next-gen contact centers. From a contact center’s perspective that is providing customer service, taking orders, or doing outbound telemarketing campaigns, social media is another channel that ensures contact with customer. Just like phone, e-mail, Instant Messaging and fax channel, social media is yet another platform to get in touch with the end customer.
Treating social media as just another channel can be deceiving for the call center as it is a new channel and its use may not be properly understood by the call center. There is a viral element to social media that can have ramifications; both positive and unwanted. Social media when used as another channel in contact centers can certainly provide a 360 degree view of a company’s client base if it is managed properly and is part of an overall strategy to enhance customer touch.

For contact center technology vendors such as 3CLogic, social media provides an opportunity to bring new capabilities to contact centers. Optimizing the use of social media channel in contact centers requires integration of social media capabilities into existing call center platforms. New agent and supervisory skills are essential for the social media channel to work effectively in contact centers. Continuous monitoring of buzz and chatter on net combined with the appropriate reaction and response from the call center is paramount to the success of social media as a channel in contact centers. The speed with which the contact center must respond to the buzz and chatter cannot be underestimated. Adoption of social media in contact centers can be challenging and overwhelming for their decision makers. Technology vendors like 3CLogic can help call centers take the next step in the right direction.