In previous editions of this handbook, I detailed precise product offerings from the three main carriers. I’m not going to do that this time out, and here’s why. Information like that changes so rapidly that there’s no guarantee that they won’t have changed a brand name, feature set or pricing schedule by the time this book gets into your hands.
Instead, what you’ll find here are broad brush outlines of what kinds of things you can do with their services. Please don’t beat me up if you try to buy these services from the carriers and they’ve changed some from the way they’re presented here. For more details about exactly what they do offer, I recommend visiting their websites. In general here, I’m going to refer to these services as toll free, because that’s what call centers are most interested in. This isn’t a bias against outbound-based centers, it’s just a fact that inbound call routing is more complicated, a more feature-rich set of tools, and because it’s more expensive, you have to work harder to get exactly the right deal.
AT&T. AT&T has the most to lose in any competition for long distance or toll free services. By ridding themselves of Lucent, they said to the world that what they wanted to be was a transmission company, once again a true carrier rather than a phone systems company. And they did that after seeing exactly how cutthroat and expensive a battle for market share can be. So they must really mean it.
One of the more interesting things they’ve come out with is called Transfer Connect with Data Forwarding. Data Forwarding uses ISDN technology along with computer telephony integration to let your agents forward each customer’s data along with their calls. It lets the agent or voice response system that initially receives the call forward the customer information to the receiving agent. This information can range from name, address and account number, or application-specific data like frequent flier information, insurance plan specifics or personal IDs. The data instantly pops up on the receiving rep’s desktop.
They also offer Enhanced Announcements — essentially the ability to use the network to pepper your holding callers with promotional information. This is just one small way to use the power of the carrier network to manage calls. AT&T has tools that route calls based on caller input (what they call Recognition Routing), and those that let you balance loads between centers for optimum staffing.
Quick Call Allocator lets you make changes as often as necessary: routing percentage changes can take effect within five minutes, and your customers won’t experience any service interruptions. This feature is especially useful for call centers that have traffic patterns or staffing levels that constantly change — despite frequent fluctuations, Quick Call Allocator lets you maintain a superior level of customer service.
There are packages that let you route by time of day, geographic origin of the call (down to the exchange), and countless custom preferences that you set and reset any time you like.
Next Agent Available Routing lets you reroute toll free calls to up to 99 alternate locations if the primary location is “busy.” If the primary location is busy, calls are instantly rerouted to the first available termination, decreasing customer “on-hold” waiting time. You can customize NAAR to match your call volume needs: you determine what is considered a “busy” location by defining the Maximum Calls Allowed (MCA). You can set this value in advance and override it at any time. When the MCA threshold is met, all toll free calls will be automatically rerouted to an available termination.
With Network Queuing, you can automatically queue calls without investing in any additional equipment. This feature allows your call center to optimize call distribution and improve call completion rates. Calls can be queued for multiple call centers or for locations with a single queue. Network Queuing can help boost sales by preventing customer hang-ups and increasing call completion rates. Of course, you can do this with premise technology built off the ACD, so you have to plan in advance where you want your call control to be handled.
Sprint. Sprint’s basic toll free offerings are designed for companies whose calls terminate at one location. They are pretty basic, but they’ll suit the vast majority of single-site small- and mid-sized call centers. You get things like DNIS and ANI call identification popped to the agent screen. (A simple thing that can shorten calls by 10 to 20 seconds, and when you add that up, call after call, multiplied by dozens or hundreds of agents, that’s a lot of money.)
You can distribute calls across a trunk group (very rudimentary), and designate a secondary location for calls to terminate in case of overflow. Sprint also offers a Carrier Diversity program that helps manage and coordinate service provided by multiple carriers through a single point-of-contact. You can allocate calls to carriers by percentages you set or based on location, time of day, day of week and day of year. (Very sporting of them.)
More advanced service includes what they call Network Call Distributor, a sort of virtual call center facilitator. NCD collects activity information from each ACD in your system every 20 to 60 seconds. It then uses that information to automatically route your toll free calls to the best location at that time. They have another, similar feature that’s for Call Allocation, distributing calls to your toll free number across locations. You specify a percentage of the calls for each location, matching your call volume to each location’s capabilities.
SiteRP is something that’s been around since the early ‘90s, and it was revolutionary when they first came out with it. It lets you route your toll free calls on a call-by-call basis. You define the parameters, customizing the routing system to your specific needs. With SiteRP, you can identify new callers or repeat customers and route each to an agent trained to handle their individual needs. It was revolutionary because it was one of the very first times the carriers allowed call centers to manipulate the network themselves, using their local premise equipment. It was, in fact, a strong competitive feature until the others came out with similar services. This was the first sign that adding intelligence to the carrier network was a way around the free fall in per-minute pricing that went on through the 1990s.
MCI. MCI’s Enhanced Call Routing (ECR) product line provides automated voice response, voice processing, and call routing. It’s their network-based call handling service, and it doesn’t differ a great deal from those offered by the other carriers.
Since coming together with WorldCom, they have been much more active in connecting their data and voice networks, and creating odd and interesting service offerings based on that, than they have on upgrading their standard voice-only toll free and long distance services.
With MCI’s offerings you can move in baby steps from a call center with technology that is exclusively on-site to a call center with virtually no technology on-site. In between you can have some of your functions based in the network, while others are based in equipment on-premises.
MCI also offers extensive outsourcing and service bureau capabilities. From total management of a large call center to on-call service for weekend or holiday traffic, they can handle a variety of application sizes. Available services include direct response, customer service, help desk, order entry and fulfillment.
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