Industry News

June 2008

ATSI Announces Convention Expo Vendors (6/08)

The Association of Teleservices International (ATSI) has announced that the following vendors have been confirmed as participating in the ATSI 64th Annual Convention & Expo:

The event will be June 18-21, 2008 in St. Louis at the Hyatt Regency Union Station. 

For more information, visit www.atsi.org or call 603-362-9489.

Enjoy Breakfast with Professional Teledata at ATSI Convention (6/08)

Professional Teledata will host a series of solutions seminar breakfasts at the annual ATSI convention in St. Louis.  "Each year, we strive to give our clients the best experience possible at the annual ATSI conference and expo," said Pat Kalik, vice president of Professional Teledata.  "This year, we are once again offering solutions seminars to teach our clients new ways to use their system to improve profitability." 

"Our clients have always embraced the system and the additional training we provide, and it has helped a lot of our clients to experience tremendous growth," added Kalik.  "We are hopeful that our clients and anyone interested in learning about our system will join us at one or all of these breakfast seminars to see how they can use the Professional Teledata product lineup to improve profitability."

The solution seminars will be held Thursday, June 19, Friday, June 20, and Saturday, June 21 at 7:30 a.m. at the 64th Annual ATSI Conference & Expo in the Texas Boardroom.  All are encouraged to attend, and breakfast will be served.

For more information, visit www.professionalteledata.com, or contact Karen Black at 800-344-9944 x112 or kblack@proteledata.com.

Startel Announces Organizational Changes (6/08)

Dave Amorde has accepted the position of director of strategic product planning.  A twenty-six-year Startel veteran, Dave's experience and expertise position him well to lead planning efforts for their next-generation platform.  Dave reports to Elaine McMaster, vice president of research and development.

Shamess Twardy has been promoted to director of field service.  Shamess has been with Startel for two years as a systems engineer and has ten years of industry experience.  Shamess will be responsible for managing the field engineers and training team.  In addition, Shamess will be working with Sharon Takaha on implementing customer installations and system upgrades.  Shamess reports directly to Sheryl Denny, vice president.

Alex Wong has been promoted to quality assurance manager.  Alex joined Startel in 1999 as a CSR and quickly moved into technical support.  Alex's Startel systems experience and technical expertise will serve him well in his new capacity.  Steve Abadie, quality assurance analyst, will assist Alex to ensure that products meet specifications.  Alex also reports to Elaine McMaster.

For more information, call Dan Feis, Startel director of sales, at 800-782-7835 x714, or visit www.startelcorp.com.

Amtelco Releases Pro Show Appointment Reminder (6/08)

Call centers can help their clients eliminate "no shows" with Amtelco's Pro Show appointment reminder application.  Pro Show allows call centers to offer enhanced notification services that are completely automated or require minimal agent involvement.  In addition to appointment reminders, Pro Show can send meeting reminders, class reminders, or any type of notification needed.  In addition, Pro Show can help with generating mailing lists for reminder letters or postcards. 

Pro Show features seamless integrations and importing capabilities with existing appointment-taking software; it works with other applications that can supply information in the form of a file, a database connection, XML, CVS, or HL7 notification.  Pro Show can notify appointment holders as many times as needed, by a variety of methods: phone call, email, and pager.

The Pro Show scheduler automates the notification process by analyzing the data it receives to determine when to initiate the reminder service and what method should be used for each reminder.  It keeps track of the outcome of each notification attempt and includes message reporting based on call and message statistical data.

For more information Pro Show contact Amtelco at 800-356-9148 or send an e-mail to info@amtelco.com.

Annual CAM-X Convention to Color Outside the Lines (6/08)

The 44th CAM-X (Canadian Call Management Association) Annual Convention and Trade Show will be held at the beautiful Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Ontario, just north of Toronto.  The event will run from September 23-26, 2008.  The theme for the convention is "Leadership: Color Outside the lines."  It will provide the setting for a fun-filled, educational, networking opportunity, offering attendees the tools necessary to promote continuous growth of their businesses.

Founded in 1896, Deerhurst Resort (www.deerhurstresort.com) shares the landscape that inspired the Group of Seven, Canada's best-known painters.  In the late 1980s the Deerhurst stage inspired another emerging artist, superstar Shania Twain.  Today, the resort that introduced championship golf to Muskoka stays ahead of the curve with Canada's first ESPN Golf Schools and the Canadian National Pond Hockey Championships.

Muskoka (www.discovermuskoka.ca) is one of the most visited regions in Canada for corporate meetings, incentives, and retreats.  Fall in Muskoka is spectacular; the hiking trails are busy with activity, and the golf courses are in great shape.  

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

Mastar Telemessaging Increases Their Star Family (6/08)

KisStar, named for KISS (Keep It So Simple), is a simple, stand-alone, completely paperless messaging telephone answering application that performs all the essentials for any telemessaging call center.  The design is by Rod Minarik, who, after twenty-two years of installing and supporting such systems, is releasing several new Mastar products.

KisStar can manage accounts, clients, information, and messages with various delivery modes, such as page, email, fax, and phone text.  The system is simple and intuitive to use, requiring minimal agent training.  It is driven by the FileMaker engine and is ideal for start-ups.  KisStar is configured along with one of several Mastar applications, including the PollStar for DID or the IdStar for VoIP.

For more information, call 541-461-5235 or visit www.mastar.com.

Professional Teledata Celebrates Twenty-Five Years (6/08)

Professional Teledata will celebrate twenty-five years in the industry at the upcoming ATSI Convention in St. Louis.  "I am pleased to find ourselves reaching this milestone.  It doesn't seem like that long ago when I attended my first ATSI Convention in Bal Harbor, Florida twenty-five years ago.  The first Billing and Collections System aka BCS (which evolved into today's Total Billing System, or TBS) was signed that year, and we have seen so many advancements since then," stated Alan Hartmann, vice president of Professional Teledata.  "Tele-Data Systems was working on mini-computers the size of a small refrigerator, and the new ‘state-of-the-art' personal computers came with a whopping 64K of memory and enormous dual 360 kilobyte floppies for storage," he joked. 

Allen Kalik, president of Professional Teledata added, "It's amazing to see that our company has evolved so very much and that we are still forward-thinking to this day.  The industry has seen many shifts and turns, and we're so very proud that our company was built and continues to stand on such a strong TAS foundation."

For more information, visit www.professionalteledata.com, or contact Karen Black at 800- 344-9944 x112 or kblack@proteledata.com.

Startel Conference Highlights (6/08)

Startel offered a full day's worth of free training classes to all attendees at its recent user's conference.  Bill Robertshaw, Startel's president, spoke to attendees, sharing his vision for the future of Startel.  He expressed how he felt that Startel had a strong commitment to innovation, validated by the latest release of 8.0.  He plans to continue Startel's mission to be customer-focused with quality products and service.  He concluded with an open question forum. 

Dan Feis, director of sales, gave the "State of the Union" address.  He focused on the milestones and commitments that Startel delivered over the last year and provided insight into how Startel is positioned for the upcoming year.  Elaine McMaster, vice president of research and development, headed up the "Startel Innovation" session where she introduced the attendees to the new CMC 8.0 release and announced the new process for the wish list, along with the twelve-step program that Startel will be following. 

During the awards luncheon, Ryan Chinoski was announced as TeamSNUG's incoming president; Beth Cooper received the Don Berry Award.

For more information, call Dan Feis, Startel director of sales, at 800-782-7835 x714 or visit www.startelcorp.com.

Amtelco Announces VoIP Board (6/08)

The latest release of the award-winning Infinity supports the Amtelco XDS Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) board, which eliminates the need for a third-party VoIP gateway.  The XDS VoIP Board provides native VoIP switching directly within the Infinity server.

Agent audio can be migrated from traditional analog connections to VoIP.  Remote stations can connect an audio path to their home or remote offices using VoIP, eliminating the need for and cost of a separate dedicated phone line.  Office telephones can also be based utilizing VoIP.

The XDS VoIP Boards are available in multiple configurations, ranging from 100 to 600 VoIP channels.  Each channel is the equivalent of an agent audio port or telephone. 

The XDS VoIP Board supports connections to VoIP carriers.  The connection is established using the VoIP protocol called Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking that enables Infinity software version 5.5 to handle incoming and outbound calls.  With SIP trunking, Infinity-based call centers can offer nationwide local DID service and outbound dialing, allowing them to have a local telephone presence anywhere.

For more information, contact Amtelco at 800-356-9148 or info@amtelco.com. 

Telwares Audits Federal Excise Taxes (6/08)

Telwares announced the results of an initiative to recoup federal excise tax (FET) refunds for clients.  Enterprises that failed to recover their overpayments through their 2006 income tax filings may still have the opportunity to do so.  The taxes were collected by carriers through their telecommunications invoices for interstate and interLATA inbound and outbound usage, as well as wireless usage.  In August 2006, the tax was abolished and is no longer collected by carriers.  To obtain refunds for the eligible tax years 2003-2006, corporations were required to file form 8913 with their 2006 tax filings.

"The Telwares Audit practice has been working with the IRS to document and recover tax overpayments on behalf of our clients for more than twelve years," said Bill Walsh, Telwares president and chief operating officer.  "We are proud to have obtained nearly $200 million in FET settlements.  Companies that have not undertaken the FET settlement process, or that may not have recovered the maximum settlement amount by filing IRS Form 8913 with their 2006 tax filings, may still have an opportunity to recoup pay­ments."

For more information about Telwares, visit www.telwares.com.

Synergy Solutions Expands Johnson City Call Center (6/08)

Synergy Solutions, Inc., a provider of outsourced customer contact solutions, announced the expansion of their call center facility in Johnson City, New York.  Synergy has been operating in the area since 2000.  In response to the continued growth in demand from Synergy's client base, Synergy has added eighty workstations to the second floor of their Johnson City call center.

The call center currently employs 130 customer contact representatives.  With eighty additional workstations, up to 100 more employees will be needed.  Synergy is expecting to expand the center's workforce to 240 employees within the next four months.

Corey Conklin, founder and COO of Synergy Solutions, stated, "For the past seven and a half years, the amazing people of Synergy's Johnson City site have demonstrated superior sales and customer support to many of our clients.  Client demand for growth is extremely high and recruitment is so strong that expanding to the second floor of our current building was an easy decision."

For more information about Synergy Solutions, contact Lori Fentem at 800-547-0504, email info@callsynergy.com, or visit www.synergysolutionsinc.com.

e-Services Group Leads the Way in Employee Benefits Program (6/08)

e-Services Group International, a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company, with offices in Jamaica and St. Lucia, has initiated employee benefit programs that go far beyond any other employer in the Caribbean.  When president Patrick Casserly opened his doors eight years ago, a major initiative was to help build the economy of the region and to improve the lives of those associated with the firm and their families.

The company set up a medical facility with doctors' offices on-site, enabling employees to tend to most medical needs without having to leave the premises.  In addition, each employee is given group health and life insurance at no cost. 

There is a wellness program and participation on-site gym facilities.  Emergency fund loans, scholarships for employees and their families, staff food service subsidies, and evening film events are some of the other benefits offered.

The company also created a bus company that transports employees to and from both Jamaican offices.  Possibly the most innovative program is the e-Kids Summer Camp, created to allay parents' concerns during the school break and to provide a learning outlet for the kids as well.

For further information, call 876-684-9467 or visit www.e-servicesgroup.com.

Anexa Teleservices to Brand OEM Version of Tele-Direct's Work-the-Lead  (6/08)

Tele-Direct Call Centers, Inc. announced that Anexa Teleservices, a Mexico-based call center, will be the first to use WorkTheLead.com, Tele-Direct's flagship call center software, to service Spanish language calls.  Anexa Teleservices will brand the new service AnexaOnDemand, which will target advertisers focused on the Hispanic consumer in the United States.  Anexa owns and operates two outsourced call centers in Hermosillo, Mexico, with a capacity of 2,400 seats.

Work-the-Lead is a Web-based software application that provides inbound and outbound call center infrastructure to deliver value to the advertising process, from measurement and call reception to lead management.  The software allows an advertiser to login and within thirty minutes have their own 24/7 call center ready to collect leads and measure campaign results.  Work-The-Lead ensures that leads are captured and then routed in the most profitable direction for the advertiser.

TeleDirect Call Centers has been supporting business owners with inbound customer service representatives since 1961.  Beginning four decades ago as a small answering service, TeleDirect has grown into a full-service, on-demand call center.

For more information, visit www.tele-direct.com and www.anexatel.com.