Industry News

April 2008

Startel Corporation Announces Their Recent Acquisition by Bilrob LLC

Startel Corporation, a provider of integrated voice, data, and networking solutions for call centers, announced their recent acquisition by Bilrob LLC, an investment company controlled by Bill Robertshaw and his family. 

The Robertshaw family has a diverse portfolio of businesses including construction companies, commercial and residential real estate ventures, and interests in over seventy-five telemessaging call centers.  Bill has been a longtime advocate and supporter of Startel; many of his call centers utilize Startel products.  "I have always believed in the Startel products and the talented and committed employees who develop and support them.  I am very happy to be able to contribute to Startel's future success," said Mr. Robertshaw.

For more information on Startel Corporation and its products, visit their Website at www.startelcorp.com.

Amtelco Users Set Attendance Record at Conference

The recent NAEO 2008 Conference set an attendance record with more then 250 attendees from over 100 call centers.  Amtelco provided educational presentations and announced their latest innovations.  Kevin Beale, Amtelco's director of R&D Software, presented new releases; items generating the greatest interest included:

• Unity Voice Logger: an integral solution, using Infinity voice processing and conferencing resources for call recordings

• Infinity Real-Time Backup: allows the entire Infinity database to be replicated on a real-time basis to a backup Infinity Server, ensuring a current backup server if it is ever needed

• VoIP Technology: adds native VoIP services to Infinity with Amtelco's new XDS VoIP Board.  Uses include local and remote operator audio and SIP trunking to VoIP telephone carriers and PBXs

• Client Management Intelligence (CMI): integrates with Intelligent Messaging to automatically build a contact database of callers

• ANI Behavior: streamlines call screening and automated forwarding and caller lookup

• Contact-Based Dispatching: ensures message delivery

The day before the conference, Amtelco University hosted a well-attended seminar by Gary Kerner and Susan Kirkpatrick who presented the latest "Work Smarter, Not Harder" tips and tricks. 

Contact Amtelco at 800-356-9148 or info@Amtelco.com.

TASbiller Supports CenturiSoft Billing Data

TASbiller announced enhanced support for CenturiSoft billing data by accumulating statistics for all possible CenturiSoft call termination reason codes in addition to total calls and time used by most billing systems.  This enhancement will allow TASbiller users with CenturiSoft equipment to bill at different rates for the various voicemail services possible with the CenturiSoft product.

For more information about TASbiller (www.tasbiller.com), contact Randy Ripkey at ripkey@aol.com or 706-860-0868. 

For more information about CenturiSoft, visit www.centurisoft.com or contact John Pope, president, at 800-866-1929 x121 or john.pope@centurisoft.com.

2008 Call Center Coaching Clinics

CAM-X, the Canadian Call Management Association, will hold their Call Center Coaching Clinics in Toronto, Ontario April 18-19, 2008 and in Calgary, Alberta May 2-3, 2008.  Following the theme "Year of the Leader" as set out by the board of directors this past November, the two-day seminar will reinforce the importance of the leadership role of supervisory personnel.

In 2007 CAM-X launched CSR and supervisor certification at the coaching clinics with tremendous success.  This year's clinics will return to the more traditional style program, but will include breakout sessions on both days to accommodate delegates who wish to undergo CSR and supervisor certification. 

The schedule of events will include sessions covering: 

• Performance Management: Setting objectives; learning objectives, tools, and strategies; employee competence and commitments; becoming proactive in managing performance; dealing with misconduct

• Leadership from Within: By you and for you

• The Leadership Revolution at Work: Building a strength-based leadership team

The Call Center Coaching Clinics are an ideal resource for supervisors, managers, and team leaders.  These sessions are available for both CAM-X members and nonmembers. 

For more information, contact Linda Osip, executive director at 800-896-1054 or linda@camx.ca; you can also visit www.camx.ca.

ATA Supports Congress' Decision to Extend DNC

Congress recently addressed two bills affecting the future of the National Do-Not-Call Registry (DNC).  There are approximately 150 million people who have listed their phone numbers on the DNC Registry, and there has been a large political effort to ensure that consumers' information will not be purged from this list. 

H.R. 2601 was passed by a House vote and forwarded to the president to allow the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to continue to collect fees to support the DNC program.

H.R. 3451 would result in the DNC registry becoming permanent, eliminating the need for consumers to reregister their phone numbers after a specified period of time.  This bill is set to be approved by the Senate and then sent to the White House for review. 

Tim Searcy, the chief executive officer of the American Teleservices Association (ATA), said, "We are in support of a permanent Registry, but we would like the assurance that it is being appropriately updated.  We would encourage the FTC or Congress to require phone companies to provide a record of all disconnected numbers so they can be removed from the DNC – making the list more accurate."

Visit ATA at www.ataconnect.org.

VLR Announces Recorder for Small and Medium-Sized Call Centers

VLR Communications announced the availability of a feature-rich call center recorder aimed at small and medium-sized call centers that have not been able to afford recording or monitoring in the past.  This system, which has been used throughout the country for over two years, is accessed via a LAN or Web with no licensing cost.  In fact, call center customers can actually monitor calls and retrieve their own recordings via the Web.  This is important for call centers whose customers want to listen in to calls being made. 

The recorder capacity starts at sixteen analog channels and grows to sixty-four.  For digital station recording, the capacity goes from eight to ninety-six channels.  Recording sources can be mixed, recording analog and digital stations on the same recorder. 

Contact VLR Communications at sales@vlrcommunications.com or 800-369-8273.

Telemanagement Search Releases 2008 Call Center Salary Guide

Call center recruiting firm Telemanagement Search has updated its annual National Salary Guide for the call center, telesales, and customer service positions.  Now in its twenty-third year, the guide provides information about twenty-five key call center positions, including average base salary (as well as the high and low numbers, which allow a salary range to be ascertained).  Also included is a basic position description and a list of common responsibilities for each title.

Where applicable, the guide breaks positions down between inbound and outbound.  It also provides regional variations for each state, as well as major metropolitan areas, including Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

The guide begins with an overview of how to use and interpret it and concludes with an explanation of Telemanagement Search's methodology, which is designed to remove the number of distortions commonly associated with salary surveys conducted by mail.

This guide is concise and easy to use.  The full report with twenty-five job descriptions and salary ranges is available to companies for $45 and may be ordered online at www.tmrecruiters.com.

Amtelco University Announces Technical Seminars

Amtelco University upcoming seminars, Telephony 101 and 201, will be held in Columbus, OH and Hartford, CT.  These hands-on, interactive sessions are held on a regular basis throughout the year.  Different levels are provided for beginning, intermediate, and advanced Amtelco product users. 

Telephony 101: Provides an in-depth explanation of telephony and interfaces from early analog up to and including T1.  It includes a hands-on lab demonstrating the use of the tools of the trade; workbooks are included.

Telephony 201: Covers T1 up to and including VoIP and SIP trunking/networks, providing a better understanding of how and when this interface benefits call centers.  Workbook and handouts are included.  T101 is a prerequisite for this course.

The purpose of these courses are to educate personnel that have more recently joined the industry and not gone through the progression of analog circuits to digital interfaces.  Courses also serve as a great learning aid to a better understanding of newer interfaces. 

For more information about Amtelco University seminars, contact Amtelco at 800-356-9148 or AmtelcoU101@Amtelco.com. 

Startel Corporation Teams with XLScheduler to Offer WFM

Startel Corporation announced that it has teamed up with XLScheduler AB to become a value-added reseller (VAR) of XLScheduler software.  XLScheduler AB is a Swedish-based company that develops workforce management (WFM) systems based on Microsoft Excel.  Their XLScheduler product is a powerful call center scheduling system that uses graphical presentation and diagrams to make complex planning situations easy to understand.

"Startel is delighted to partner with XLScheduler AB.  Combining the statistics generated by the Startel systems with the power of the XL Scheduler program to manage staffing costs allows business owners to positively impact their bottom line," stated Alice Reuter, president of Startel.

"We are thrilled that Startel has decided to include XLScheduler as part of their solution.  We look forward to working with Startel in offering their clients a wider range of products for added business value," said Annika Heaver, president of XLScheduler AB.

For more information, call Dan Feis, Startel director of sales at 800-782-7835, extension 714 or visit www.startelcorp.com.

Lori Fentem Contributes to Career Ideas for Kids

Lori Fentem, president of Synergy Solutions, Inc., a provider of outsourced teleservices, contributed to the Career Ideas for Kids Who Like Talking book, designed to provide career possibilities for kids in grades five through nine with good communication skills and who enjoy verbal interaction. 

Lori Fentem introduces children to the world of telemarketing by sharing her career story, which began as a telemarketer at age fifteen; today she serves as founder and president of Synergy Solutions, an outsourced teleservices provider with seven locations and over 1200 employees.  Reading her profile, kids "get acquainted" with Ms. Fentem.  They "take a trip" and cruise down the telemarketing career highway, exploring career options in the call center services industry. 

Ms. Fentem said, "I am honored to be able to contribute to Career Ideas for Kids Who Like Talking.  There are few formal educational programs available to introduce children to these career options, and I sincerely hope that my experience of starting on the phones and working my way up will inspire children to explore a career in the call center industry."

Contact Lori Fentem at 800-547-0504, info@callsynergy.com, or visit www.synergysolutionsinc.com.

Appletree Leads PCI Growth Rate Index

The Private Company Index (PCI) announced that Appletree Answering Service is its 2007 Top Growth Company.  A $12 million company today, the twelve-year-old, Wilmington-based business, which offers live answering and call center services, experienced an average annual revenue growth of 65 percent over the past three years.  

The PCI measures monthly revenue-growth trends in the under-$100 million sector of private companies.  In 2007 the index saw an increase of 33 percent, which means that the diverse portfolio of PCI companies grew that amount on average.  Appletree not only doubled PCI performance, but also sustained consistently high growth for three years running.

"It's hard to believe when you put it in that context.  We just get up and do it everyday, so it doesn't seem like a big deal to us," said Appletree CEO John Ratliff.  He attributes this significant growth to a combination of acquisition and organic development.  Though they acquired ten companies between 2006 and 2007, Ratliff insists that acquisitions are not the silver bullet to revenue growth that people may think.

For more information about PCI, visit www.privatecompanyindex.com.  Appletree's Web site is www.appletreeanswers.com and their phone number is 800-914-9666.

WW-Outsourcing Welcomes Jeff Brooks as Project Manager

Doris Primicerio, president of WW-Outsourcing International Services, Inc (WW-OISI) and A Courteous Communications Inc, announced the addition of Jeff Brooks as project manager for WW-OISI.  Jeff comes to WW-OISI with over twenty-five years experience in the call center and telemessaging industry and had been for ten years president and general manager of Palm Beach Business Services, Inc. in West Palm Beach.

"Outsourcing will play an enormous role in the level of success achieved by call centers and telemessaging companies, not to mention other industries that already take advantage of these talented and inexpensive agents," said Jeff Brooks.  "I'm very excited about bringing the technology to our colleagues that already saves A Courteous Communications thousands of dollars every month."

"With Jeff's entrepreneurial background and experience, he understands the needs of call centers today and the impact our outsourcing services can have of their bottom line," said Doris Primicerio.  "Jeff's primary objective will be to bring a number of ‘win-win' options to our colleagues."

For more information, contact Doris Primicerio with WW-Outsourcing International Services (www.ww-oisi.com) at 800-785-4766.

Amtelco Announces Greg Strehlow as Sales Rep for Western States

Amtelco announced that Greg Strehlow has been added to its sales representative force.  Greg will be covering the west coast locations of Amtelco's 1Call Hospital and Higher Education division and assisting Nora Farber with the Call Center division.

Greg received a degree in nuclear physics with a minor in technical communications from the University of Wisconsin.  Previously, he played a major role in the development of the Infinity Intelligent Series (IS) scripting capabilities and was an Amtelco trainer.  He has been with Amtelco for five years. 

Gary Kerner, director of Call Center Sales, stated "Greg was the primary IS trainer for many installations on the west coast.  Greg's insider knowledge of the IS benefits and familiarity with existing customer's operations has already proven to be a great asset to Amtelco and its west coast customers."

For more information Amtelco, contact Amtelco at 800-356-9148 or 608-838-4194, or visit http://callcenter.Amtelco.com. 

AnswerNet Network Launches Blog

The AnswerNet Network is taking a new step in the digital world with the introduction of its all-new blog: www.answernet.wordpress.com.  The blog will serve as a way for AnswerNet employees, customers, and Web surfers of all kinds to participate in any number of topics.

Aside from discussing industry hot buttons, best management practices, and current events affecting the business community, the blog will serve as a direct connection to the entire AnswerNet community.  Along with Gary Pudles, president and CEO of AnswerNet, employees of all levels will be sharing insight on a virtually limitless number of topics.

More information about AnswerNet Network can be found at www.answernet.com.