Teleservices Industry News

November 2008

ATSI Owner's Forum to Create a World-Class Culture

The third annual ATSI Owner's Forum will be held January 12-14, 2009 at the Chaminade Conference Center in Santa Cruz, California.  The agenda is designed to help teleservice call center owners drive, develop, and create a team, a culture of accountability, and world-class performance.  Headliners committed to the program are Jack Daly and Cameron Herold.

Jack Daly delivers explosive presentations that inspire audiences to take action.  He understands how to build companies with great cultures because he has done it several times.  Jack leads with content, delivers with contagious enthusiasm, and leaves his audiences both wanting more and committed to taking action.  He brings twenty-plus years of field-proven experience.

During Cameron Herald's tenure as COO at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? he has developed a unique understanding of business and how to grow companies.  Cameron has expertise in leading many aspects of business, including operations, marketing, public relations, strategic alliances, sales, call centers, and franchising.  Having an in-house call center gives Cameron insight into the call center industry.

The 3rd Annual ATSI Owner's Forum will focus on the people who make a difference in every owner's day-to-day accomplishments. 

Call ATSI at 603-362-9489 for more information.

Professional Teledata Announces SMS Text Messaging Integration

At the Fall PIN meeting in Manchester, Professional Teledata announced that the latest release of its PInnacle Telemessaging System has complete SMS text messaging integration.

"Our users approached us about adding SMS text messaging to our PInnacle platform.  They cited their increasing frustration with aging dial-up paging terminals and the unreliability of emailing mobile devices as compelling reasons to act immediately on this initiative," said Jim Graham, vice president of development.  "We were pleased to be able to respond so quickly to our user's requests with such a robust feature set.  As well as being able to send outbound messages to mobile devices via SMS text messaging, PInnacle is now also able to process incoming SMS text messages when the recipient responds back to the agent who is dispatching via a SMS text message.  This cuts down significantly on ‘check-in calls,' reducing labor and staffing levels." 

Allen Kalik, president, added, "The SMS text messaging integration gives the PInnacle user another tool to help streamline their business."

PInnacle SMS includes a wireless GSM modem and all the software necessary to integrate two-way SMS text messaging into PInnacle. 

For more information, contact Karen Black 800-344-9944.

Amtelco Opens New Training and Data Facilities

Amtelco has opened its new media and training center.  Named for its founder, the new William J. Curtin Media Center is designed to facilitate high-technology training, demonstrations, and meetings with a SmartBoard, high-speed Internet connections, and flexible seating configurations.  The Media Center recently housed the Infinity Intelligent Series Scripting Seminar.  Attendee Richard Press, president of Alpha Communications Management, said, "The new William J.  Curtin training room is an excellent facility for a small class such as this."

The Media Center is also the location for recording webinars.  The schedule of upcoming live webinars can be found on callcenter.amtelco.com.  Hundreds of recorded webinars are also available online to Amtelco service contract customers.

In addition, Amtelco has installed a new data center as part of an ongoing commitment to being technologically prepared for the future.  The data center consolidates all the Amtelco Internet and server facilities to improve communications, allow for future expansion, improve security and reliability, and provide faster response times to customers.

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

Telescan's Spectrum Messenger's User Profiles and SMS Text Messaging

Telescan has released the latest Spectrum Messenger with its new user profile and SMS text messaging features.  These software enhancements are available to all Telescan and Messenger customers with the customer support program.

User profiles can be created for each recipient in the messenger client program, including a photo, phone number list, email address, and other facts about that user.

The Spectrum Messenger also allows for two-way SMS text messaging to cell phones and is capable of interfacing with any telemessaging platform via a wireless modem or through a SMS service provider.  Messenger's SMS text messaging offers auto-segmentation of long messages, replies from cell phones back to the sender through a custom SMS ID that distinguishes them from other senders, full logging capabilities, and integration with Telescan's Spectrum data manager.

"Telescan is excited to bring these enhancements to our users," said Patty Anderson, Telescan's director of sales and marketing.  "We offer many features and enhancements as part of our customer support program.  Telescan will continue to develop software that will benefit the entire industry."

To find out more about Telescan, call Patty Anderson, director of sales and marketing, at 314-616-2445.

ATA's Self-Regulatory Organization Launches Auditor Certification Training

The American Teleservices Association (ATA) completed its first auditor certification training.  This training consists of an extensive three-day curriculum, including an in-depth review of the ATA-SRO (ATA-Self-Regulatory Organization) standards, the audit process, and the accreditation process for contact centers. 

"The launch of the ATA-SRO's first auditor class was an unqualified success.  The quality of the dialog, the instruction, and the testing instrument in the class have already created a buzz, and our second class, scheduled for November, is nearly full," stated ATA CEO Tim Searcy.  "The ATA is quickly moving to develop its 2009 training schedule to keep up with the demand."

Upon successful completion of the auditor training course, participants have an extensive understanding of the applicability of the ATA standards to contact center business practices.  They can identify potential "gray" areas regarding regulation and auditing and have reviewed current statutes and regulations.  A certified auditor is also prepared to anticipate relevant enforcement actions and related outcomes.

The ATA plans to offer its SRO auditor certification training several times each year.

Streamline Solutions Enhances TasLinkSMS System

Streamline Solutions has enhanced their TasLinkSMS system with the ability to transmit and receive SMS messages from cellular phones.  The TasLinkSMS is a PC-based software solution that pulls information from virtually any platform via TAP, SNPP, email, direct serial connection, or raw data import coupled with an external cellular modem to allow message transmission via any standard messaging protocol.  When a recipient replies to the message from their cellular phone, the TasLinkSMS system can pass that reply back to original sending system via any of the above methods.

The system offers high message throughput by virtue of its ability to send up to sixteen simultaneous messages.  It also provides dynamic addressing based on incoming data, drastically reducing the need to reprogram the sending platform.

For more information, call 207-781-5561.

Addressing the New Canadian Do Not Call List

PossibleNOW has enhanced services to enable direct marketers to fully comply with the new Canadian Do Not Call List (DNCL), which launched on September 30, 2008.  "Although the new Canadian legislation is very similar to the U.S. Do Not Call laws, there are differences," commented Scott Frey, president and CEO of PossibleNOW.  "Many direct marketers may not realize that Do Not Call compliance in both the United States and Canada goes well beyond scrubbing phone numbers.  For instance, direct marketers must maintain a company-specific Do Not Call list, and in Canada, you must also track a name along with the phone number.  There are also rules in Canada regarding contacting customers and prospects using the established business relationship exemption."

For more information, contact sales@possiblenow.com or 770-255-1020.

Telescan Adds More Staff to Their Support Services Department

Telescan has recently added two more people to their growing staff.  "The continued addition of our new employees displays Telescan's striving dedication to improve our service to all of our customers," said Patty Anderson, Telescan's director of sales and marketing.  "That's our goal - to provide the best customer service in the industry."

The Telescan IT department recently added Victor Kelley as the new technical support services specialist.  Victor brings his expert skills, broad experience, and innovative ideas to the designing, building, and maintaining of Telescan equipment, as well as assisting Telescan and Axon customers with hardware support.

The customer service department is happy to add a new member, Angela Warren, to its staff.  Angela pulls double duty as a technical support services specialist and a trainer for Telescan. 

To find out more about Telescan, call Patty Anderson, director of sales and marketing, at 314-616-2445.

Metro One Expands Contact Center

Metro One Telecommunications has completed its second expansion of a contact center within its company headquarters and added staff, a result of growth in its revitalized business model.  The Beaverton-based telecommunications services company has expanded a contact center at its headquarters from forty seats to 260 seats, where it manages inbound and outbound sales, customer service, and technical support contacts on an outsource basis for a variety of businesses and municipalities.

In addition to the physical expansion, Metro One's staff has grown to nearly 150, compared to eighty-five in March when the company announced its reorganization plans.  Employment growth consists primarily of hourly staff who support the company's contact services clientele.  "We are seeing positive early signs of revenue growth after dramatically changing our business model earlier this year," said James Hensel, the company's CEO.  "As a result, we have reconfigured our headquarters' facility to accommodate more contact center staff."

The company also announced that it has hired two longtime contact center professionals to build its growing contact services business: Candy King and Ed Beber.