The ABC of Call Center

The ABC of

Call Center

An introduction to Call Center

by ZRG research division

Table of contents

A. All about call center

B. How to setup a Call Center?

C. How can ZRG help?

Customer centric organizations must deliver excellent customer service to sell products, attract and retain accounts, and establish long-term customer loyalty. In today's highly competitive environment, contact center solutions provide the difference these companies need to make in order to reach their revenue and profitability goals. This white paper explains the basic concepts of a call center, how to setup a call center and how an experienced solution provider can help you in achieving your call center objectives.

1. What is a call center?

customers can call for information or complaints n Customers can receive general

information about company, products and services n Subscribers can get account

specific information

n Customers can lodge complaints or inquire status of previous complaints

The Call Center Agents are responsible for answering calls and providing information and services to the customers. The call center supervisor provides assistance to the agents in delivering services, evaluating and improving quality and performance.

2. Who needs a Call Center?

A call center is required by any business that provides information, services and customer interaction over the phone. However, business functions listed below are the areas where a call center provides the most benefits:

n Help Desk, Information Desk n Complaint Registration Services n Customer Services and Support n Booking Centers

n Ordering Services

n Sales, Trading and Support Services

3. Roles of a call center

Call centers are gaining importance as a channel to deliver prompt support in a company. A call center can play critical roles to support and augment various functions of a business.

n Sales support

Provide information and answers, set appointments for the sales force

n Help Desk

Register complaints and forward for processing, resolve issue, loop close

n Product Support

Support for the products sold, maintain customer relations and loyalty

n Marketing Campaigns

Augment promotional campaigns, support product launch n Information Delivery

Provide announcements, messages and notification delivery

4. Benefits of a call center

The need to maintain customer loyalty amid increased competition has heightened the focus on call centers for the services industry. A call center improves the efficiency and productivity of customer services and support staff. It reduces cost per transaction and saves time by speeding up the operational flow of services. Call center supports new products and promotions and enables your call handling staff to provide a delightful experience to the caller. A properly equipped call center can provide valuable insight on the customer interaction and satisfaction level.

A call center provides two types of benefits, i.e. for the business that is setting it up and for the customers who will be using it. The following text describers each category:

Benefits for the business

n Improves customer satisfaction, personalized services and agent service quality

n Smart call routing and distribution to reduce caller wait time

n Reduce cost per transaction resulting in more efficient and profitable operations

n Identify most frequent callers, inquiries and complaints n Knowing the quality of service and the service level of

the customer services

n Measuring, monitoring and analyzing all functions of a call center

n Track any call, review customer interaction for conflict resolution & performance evaluation

n Complete documentation of call volumes, caller and agent activities

n Know your good agents and the agents that require improvement and training

n Comprehensive reporting on agent performance, call center performance etc.

Benefits for the Customer

n A one-window facility for receiving information and services

n Improved response time and quality of service by the service representative

n Personalized services for a delightful experience n Document each call interaction for future reference,

analysis, evaluation and monitoring n Receive latest announcement and updates n 24-hour access to information

B. How to setup a Call Center?

Over the years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of customer contact / call centers and consumers rely on more convenient modes of keeping track of their history. Organizations are actively considering the setup of call centers in order to provide personalized service to their customer base. Companies that already have working call centers are considering expanding in size and functionality to the growing customer needs and progressive diversity of products and services.

One of the most critical factors in the success of a call center is the planning aspect. If the call center is established without proper planning and vision, then the desired results in operations, growth and customer satisfaction cannot be achieved.

The goal of this white paper is to help you understand various aspects of planning a call center and to assist you in the definition of your call center specifications and requirements.

1. Key areas for consideration when setting up a call center 2. Selection of technology solutions for your call center 3. Access to your call center

Please find details on each of the above item.

1. Key Areas for consideration when setting up a Call Center

A call center can be established by setting up the following three areas:

n Physical infrastructure (premises, facilities)

n Technology components (telecom servers, workstations, call services, integration)

n Human resources ( call handling agents / supervisors / managers )

The infrastructure and human resources aspects are similar to the setting up of other type of business functions and departments.

2. Selection of technology solutions for your call center

The range and type of services to be offered are specified such as inquiries about product and services, customer account related information and complaint registration services. In other words, what kind of information, assistance and services will be available for the customer upon calling the call center. Next, the modes of services to be offered, i.e. self-service 24 hour access via interactive voice response facility and/or live agent based call handling are specified. Finally, the connectivity/accessibility is decided.

The technology components for a call center are acquired by defining and specifying the following three areas:

I. Selection of services

The services, nature of information and type of assistance you want to offer

II. Tools and resources required at the call center

The resources and tools required for operating and managing a call center include:

n Call Distribution and Routing Component

n Self-Service Interactive Voice and Email Response Component

n Call and Agent Monitoring and Supervision tools n Quality Assurance tools and Call Center Reporting tools n Contact Management, Complaint Tracking and Customer

Relation Applications

n Agent PC workstations, Databases and Data Network n Connectivity with Telephone network, Integration of calls

with databases

3. Access to the call center

How customers will reach your call center?

Domestic Call Traffic:

You have the option of connecting your call center with 800 type of toll free access or with a city-based UAN access. For the toll free setup, your customers from anywhere in country can call you without any call charges. All call related costs are borne by the receiving party. With UAN, as it is a city-based service as a local call, you will need to get UAN in each of the city where the coverage is desired. These individual UAN will have to be forwarded to a central

Our Vision

Our vision is to transform the technological advancements into flexible and optimal solutions in the area of business communication.

Our Mission

Our mission is to help our clients achieve their customer acquisition, support, retention and profit goals by providing cutting edge and innovative customer interaction and call handling solutions.

Our Company

ZRG is the leading Contact Center Solutions provider and consulting organization. We are highly focused in the area of Computer-Telephone Integration (CTI) and Customer Contact handling solutions. We are experts in all facets that make up successful telephone and Internet based Customer Contact Centers: program design, planning, deployment, operational processes, technology solutions and management.

ZRG has the highest number of call center implementations in the region and holds an excellent reputation for the robust solutions, technical strength and project management capabilities.

Our Team

We have a dedicated team of professionals that possesses a demonstrated and proven capability of designing and launching advanced telecommunication systems that are custom-built from the scratch according to the specific requirements of our clients.

We are staffed by specialists, whether their skills lie in telecommunications, marketing, product development or client liaison. The emphasis is on professionalism and the bringing together of disparate skills to form a unified team.

Our Success Stories

ZRG International is known in the market for being an innovative and dynamic organization that has introduced many first-of-its-kind solutions and techniques in this region. We are associated with the following success stories:

Call Center & Contact Management Solutions

Our Technical Expertise

CTI and Telecom Systems VoIP and IP Telephony

1st Call Center Solution Exporter of Pakistan

ZRG is the first Pakistan based telecom solutions company to have exported advanced Call center solution to the international market. ZRG successfully implemented the solution at Mobitel - an Africa based cellular company and has received expansion orders since then. This event has placed Pakistan on the map of Telecom system exporting countries.

Solution selected by INTEL as a case study

ZRG is proud to be the first company from Pakistan to be listed on the success story web site of Intel Corporation, USA. Intel carried out a case study of ZRG call center solution implementation at Mobilink GSM - the largest cellular operator in Pakistan. Due to the advanced feature set and the innovative technology implementation, Intel Corporation listed the results of the case study on their success story web site.

Our Most Popular Solutions

ZRG is known in the market for our innovative solutions that incorporate next-generation technology and deliver accuracy, reliability and high performance. Our accurate series of call processing platform offers the following solutions using a modular and scalable architecture:

AccuPath - Call Distribution Server

AccuLink - Intelligent CTI Server

AccuLog - Conversation Recorder

AccuTalk - Interactive Voice Response Server

AccuCall - Outbound Dialing Manager

location and therefore, the call forwarding charges will be borne by you.

International Call Traffic (VoIP):

For the international call centers, the customers overseas dial a local number for services. This call is transported to the remote call center over the data lines using VoIP method for reduced cost call transport. Once received at the call center, this call is given to the next available service representative who picks up the call and provide information and services to the caller.

ZRG Advantages

Because of our previous project experience, we are able to share a wealth of knowledge with our customers in various telecom areas and related issues. The lessons we have learnt from working on previous projects translate into instant benefits and cost-saving recommendations for the clients.

100% success rate on all projects undertaken World-class products, excellent local support Standards based open system solutions Best price/performance ratio

Mature and Scalable solutions Ongoing Research & Development

Ingredients that make up ZRG

In-depth Project Experience Appreciation for hardwork and talent Wealth of knowledge

Solid Track Record of Performance A Dedicated Team

A Technically Oriented Leadership Consistency

Desire to build long term relations Total Commitment

Some of our prestigious clients

Mobilink GSM Faysal Bank Paktel GSM WorldCALL Broadband Bank Al Habib Bank Alfalah Soneri Bank Metropolitan Bank Standard Chartered Instaphone

KASB Bank PICIC Bank Prime Bank Askari Bank MasterCard Pakistan State Oil

SSGC

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