May 17, 2012

You are here: Home / Archives for Contact Center

3 Important Roles that SIP Plays in a Contact Center

May 8, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment
SONY DSC

Bookmark and Share
Anyone who runs a contact center has to be concerned about issues like disaster recovery, business continuity and smooth, reliable communications, including for call transfers and between applications. Increasingly, the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is playing a big role in enabling those capabilities and more in contact centers. SIP, as we’ve covered before, is a signaling protocol that handles call setup, tear down andsession management for a variety of call types, including voice and video but also extending to applications that may play into a call center environment, such as interactive voice response and recording systems. SIP also provides the… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Contact Center, Productivity, Telephony, VoIP Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Best Practices for Implementing a Multimedia Contact Center

March 22, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share
In an era where companies are trying to do more with less, the contact center is a good place to look for ways to improve employee productivity. In many cases, companies are relying too heavily on voice when they should be augmenting with technologies including chat, text, email and interactive voice response (IVR), says Zach Shankle, Director of Call Center Services for Carousel Industries. One customer Carousel worked with was quite proud of the service its call center provided, pointing out its great stats for call handling times and high customer satisfaction ratings. “But have you thought about how much… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Contact Center, IT Strategy Tagged With: , , , , ,

4 Steps to Effectively Planning a Call Center Upgrade

February 10, 2012 By Editor 1 Comment

Bookmark and Share
Too often, customers make upgrades to their Contact Centers in haste, often because a product will no longer be supported under a maintenance contract, or because a system is on the verge of failure. Consequently, they fail to get the full benefit of a potential upgrade. In order to avoid costly missteps, what’s required is a thorough assessment of contact center assets and requirements prior to upgrading, says Zach Shankle, Director of Call Center Services for Carousel Industries. He recommends customers take four steps when considering a call center upgrade. Conduct a call center inventory The first step is to… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Contact Center, Telephony Tagged With: , , , ,

The Red Sox and Carousel Industries: Great Teammates

February 7, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment
Fenway-in-winter

Bookmark and Share
I recently had the opportunity to do something I’ve always dreamed of doing. Walk up to home plate at Fenway Park and imagine myself blasting a shot over the Green Monster. (Note: It’s further than you think!) I had this rare experience when I was able to join Bob Harkins, Vice President at Carousel Industries, as we visited with Steve Conley, the Director of IT for the Red Sox in his Fenway Park offices. Carousel has been working closely with the Red Sox since 2003, when as Steve explained it, “We had a Centrex/Hybrid phone system running our call center… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Contact Center, Telephony, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, Visual Communications, VoIP Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Facing the Top Challenges Confronting IT: Avaya Podcast

February 6, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Bookmark and Share
As a leading vendor that supplies infrastructure and tools to help customers address business requirements around voice, data and unified communications, Avaya sees first-hand the biggest challenges companies are facing. But it also knows how to address them. In this information packed podcast, we caught up with Steven Bandrowczak, Vice President of Global Accounts at Avaya, to get his thoughts on what he sees as the most vexing IT challenges of the day. 3 Biggest Challenges Facing IT Without hesitation, Bandrowczak cites the bring your own device phenomenon as the # 1 trend, “in every industry, every size segment, every… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Contact Center, Industry Trends and News, Mobility, Network, Network Architecture, Podcasts, Social Media, Unified Communications Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Emerging Technologies Make for a More Effective Contact Center – and Happier Customers

January 26, 2012 By Editor Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share
The keys to running an effective contact center are keeping agents as productive as possible and increasing customer satisfaction. Accomplishing that, of course, has always been a challenge but companies are taking advantage of a number of technology trends to help raise the bar on both fronts, says Zach Shankle, Director of Call Center Services for Carousel Industries. Contact Centers Get Social Asked what sorts of new things are happening in call centers, Shankle doesn’t hesitate: social media integration. Companies are monitoring what people are saying about them on social media venues like Twitter and Facebook and having contact center… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Contact Center, Productivity, Social Media, Telephony Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Keys to Success in Building a Sound Contact Center

December 15, 2011 By Editor Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share
When customers call your contact center, there’s a decent chance they’re doing so because they couldn’t get what they needed from your Web site or other online avenues. So the way the call is handled may well be your last chance to make or save a sale – and a customer. If your contact center is using decades-old technology, the chances that you’ll satisfy that customer are severely diminished. And if you still call your contact center a “call center,” that’s a good clue that your technology could use some refreshing. Modern contact centers deal not only with phone calls… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Contact Center, Social Media, Telephony, Unified Communications Tagged With: , , , , ,

Trends in the Modern Contact Center: Zeacom Podcast Interview

August 15, 2011 By Editor Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Bookmark and Share
We’ve all had our share of nightmare customer service calls but Miles Valentine is on a mission to keep them to a minimum. Valentine is CEO of Zeacom, a leading provider of customer contact center and telephony integration software, and a Carousel partner. For the latest installment in our podcast series, we spoke to him about trends in the Contact Center area, including the adoption of unified communications technologies, the integration of social media into call centers and how call centers can affect the company brand, for better or worse.  In this information packed interview, we discuss all of these… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Contact Center, Industry Trends and News, Podcasts, Productivity, Unified Communications Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Jabra Podcast Interview: In a Unified Communications World, Voice is Still King

August 8, 2011 By Editor 1 Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Bookmark and Share
Imagine you’re viewing a webcast and the presenter runs into a glitch that prevents him from advancing to the next slide for a few seconds. No big deal, we’ve all seen that lots of times, right? You don’t give it a second thought. But what if the audio keeps cutting out, so you’re missing a few words every 30 seconds or so? That you can’t handle; it touches a primal annoyance button deep inside you. If it keeps up you’ll likely click on the X and be done with the whole thing. Such is the power of voice communications, even… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Podcasts, Telephony, Unified Communications Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Trends in the Call Center Marketplace

July 16, 2011 By Editor Leave a Comment
contact-center-representative

Bookmark and Share
With Carousel’s deep background in telephony and call center deployments, we are often asked about the new things that are happening in the Call Center space and trends to keep an eye on. In a recent conversation with Rick Houlihan, a Call Center/Contact Center expert at Carousel, we discussed some of the items on businesses’ radar when it comes to Call Center’s role in the enterprise. “At a top-level, the major theme is process automation,” says Houlihan. “How can we utilize technology to automate and improve activities in the call center so businesses have happier customers, drive more sales, comply with regulations… Continue Reading ›

Filed Under: Contact Center, Telephony Tagged With: , , , ,
« Older Posts