Startel Contact Center Solutions, that “bring happiness to your customers,” has been a leader in the ever-changing contact center and answering service landscape. Since 1980, Startel has responded and adapted to new technologies and paradigm shifts in the industry, and they continue to apply that expertise to prepare for tomorrow’s challenges.

Startel provides solutions that are both affordable (for small family-owned answering services) and scalable (to accommodate large contact centers), which makes Startel’s CMC a platform that grows with you.

Here is a look at some of Startel’s latest developments that are sure to give your contact center the edge, no matter what stage of growth you’re in.

CMC RestAPI

Startel’s CMC RestAPI can improve agent efficiency by securely providing the data collected from callers directly to the applications your clients use every day. Rather than the agent needing to learn the client’s specialized software to manually re-enter that information, our RESTful API allows automation to synchronize data behind the scenes without agent intervention.

This reduces the need for manual dispatching. Rather than agents making lots of quick decisions in real-time to ensure individual messages end up where they should be, your organization can make deliberate, focused decisions to redirect the flow of data en masse according to the client’s requests.

Beyond just the data collected from callers, the RestAPI can also be used to retrieve statistical call data, manage client on call schedules, or track agent status in real-time, as well as make that information available to your customers to integrate with their own tools.

Zapier Integration

The capabilities of Startel’s CMC RestAPI are expanded even further through an integration with Zapier. Zapier is a do-it-yourself solution that allows you to harness the power of Startel’s CMC RestAPI without requiring expensive development or on-staff programmers. This web-based platform empowers you to automate your workflow across more than 5,000 popular apps without writing a single line of code.

CMC Partner Nexus

Partnerships between contact centers are never that simple unless you are using Startel, then everything is easy. The CMC Partner Nexus allows contact centers to share heavy-volume accounts and provide call overflow support. With a Partner Nexus established, you can also divert traffic to a partner CMC in case of an emergency in your local area. The Nexus will allow for messages from the partner site to seamlessly be inserted into the home system of the client. Sharing clients and agents has never been easier.

PocketVantage

PocketVantage is Startel’s mobile app for Android and Apple devices. The app provides clients with a vantage point to view and update their on-call schedule, review and manage their messages, and access their team’s contacts from the convenience of their smart phone. Users of the app can also be given access to update their own contact information or create their own status updates and emergency notifications that display right in the CMC Flexible Agent Interface.

Flexible Agent Interface

Startel users continue to rave about how quickly they can train agents using the Startel Flexible Agent Interface (Flex). Now Flex is even more powerful as Startel developers continue to make this customizable agent interface more intuitive, which makes training new agents even faster.

Here are some features that make Startel’s Flexible Agent Interface an easy agent interface to use when training new agents.

• Active search for directory lookups and menu selection
• Dynamic automated dispatching: agent simply follows script and saves messages; Flex triggers the appropriate dispatch method based on time of day, who’s on call for a specific trade/specialty or the caller’s response to specific questions; and flawless automated dispatch even in unusual circumstance
• Online/offline status indicators when transferring messages between agents
• Streamlined board check (or message check) tool
• Improved handling of client presences (statuses)
• Advanced configuration options for holidays
• Abandon call actions automatically generate reminders for agents to return calls to callers that hung up without reaching an agent. Allows you to reclaim lost revenue for your contact center and provide better service to your clients.

Flex can be adjusted to suit your contact center environment preferences. If you are considering changing platforms, the interface screen can be designed to have a similar look and feel to your current platform interface. Message scripts/forms, client information pages, on call assignments, and other elements can be moved to different areas of the screen. The different elements can even be split into multiple windows so that the agent can better utilize a multi monitor environment. Further customization can be done by selecting different fonts, font sizes, and colors that can be saved as part of the agent layouts.

Pairing Startel’s Flexible Agent Interface with Startel’s Agent Scripting and automated dispatching reduces the amount of reading and searching for information agents must do which will improve agent efficiency and minimize errors.

StartelNOW

StartelNOW isStartel’s web-based Agent Interface, which is currently in the beta testing phase. This interface can be used by current customers with the CMC platform and is provided at no extra cost as part of Startel’s Software Assurance.

StartelNOW allows an agent, anywhere in the world, to log in to the contact center from a website, on any device with a solid internet connection, and start handling interactions without any specialized software training. Agents will not be required to know and retain knowledge of special keystrokes to do things like sending an email or a secure message to a client. Paired with the other features of the CMC platform, agents will be able to follow the client’s unique script, get all the pertinent information from the caller, and save the message.

About Startel

Since its founding in 1980, Startel has established a loyal customer base from a variety of industries, including contact centers, education, government, healthcare, insurance, telephone answering service, and utilities.

Today, Startel has customers in 43 states across the United States as well as Canada, Central America, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Our customers depend on Startel’s solutions and services to increase business efficiencies, identify performance opportunities, and deliver quick, secure, and accurate communication 24/7 x 365.

To discover for yourself why so many contact center owners and managers say success starts with Startel, visit www.startel.com or call 800-782-7835.

For forty years, Startel has been providing cutting-edge solutions to the answering service industry. Including Alston Tascom, also celebrating forty years, and Professional Teledata (PTD) at thirty-seven years, they have a combined 117-year history of serving the market. Yes, they were not around when the telephone was invented in 1876, but in the last forty years, they have seen some major changes in the industry.

When Startel was founded in 1980, the world was connected by copper wire, all controlled by AT&T and Ma Bell. Every single answering service needed to be near or within a quarter of a mile of a phone company’s central office. Today they have thousands of providers and can have agents working from anywhere in the world. With 2020 being a year that everyone will remember, they are thankful for the huge strides telephony and their software platforms have made in the last forty years.

While technology and telephony have shaped the design of their software, founder Don Berry’s vision and passion for the industry and their customers is still alive today at Startel. His desire was to create a system to connect the world and keep the needs of the customer as the beacon that guides them. Don made sure that everyone on his team was aware that gaining customers and maintaining lifelong relationships with them and meeting their needs in a timely and professional manner were the keys to the future success of Startel. 

Flagship Platform—Startel CMC

With the acquisitions of PTD’s PInnacle and the Tascom platforms in the last few years, they experienced many “Wow, I wish our platform did that” moments within their company and from their customers. As a result, they have taken those “wow” features and incorporated them into the Startel Contact Management Center (CMC). With their upcoming CMC 16.0 release, customers will be presented an entirely new way to manage actions—or as some call them, priorities. Dispatchers will be able to see a live view of all the actions in queue and how long until the next dispatch step will be completed. Many more enhancements and must-have features are packed into the 16.0 release, so stay tuned for details.

Flex Agent Interface (FAI)

They took their four-square classic agent interface and converted it to be flexible. This new design allows agents to process calls easily and quickly by allowing them to move vital information where they need it. Designed with dockable windows, FAI allows agents to take full advantage of large and multiple monitors. Join the FAI revolution and design a screen layout that gives agents what they need to see when they need to see it. 

Secure Messaging Solutions

In today’s mobile and fast-paced world, the use of secure messaging applications has become the preferred channel of communication among business and institutional professionals as well as technicians in the field. It’s quicker, more efficient, and less invasive than a phone call. Startel offers two solutions to meet their customer’s secure messaging needs. 

Accessible from the web or an application downloaded to one’s smartphone or tablet, Secure Messaging Plus (SM+) offers a secure, HIPAA-compliant way to safely exchange sensitive information via text. SM+ users can maintain HIPAA compliance with data encryption in transit and at rest. Users can also control message expiration, send attachments, track message status, forward messages, and reply to an entire group. 

The Secure Message Gateway (SMG) allows users to send and receive electronic protected healthcare information to the most popular messaging providers. They have deployed integrations with TigerConnect, Halo, and pMD, with more being added in the future. The SMG provides the opportunity to work with healthcare organizations that have a secure message platform they prefer to keep. Agents can seamlessly dispatch to these other secure messaging providers without having to access a third-party solution. 

SoftSwitch 2.0

Their second generation SoftSwitch continues to be installed and deployed across all three of their platforms. SoftSwitch has solid stability due to their years of coding and development expertise. They are developing new features and functionality to the SoftSwitch, and as their clients’ teams get comfortable with the interface, they’ll be able to handle some of the programming themselves. The SoftSwitch is a native SIP platform, enabling the integration of SIP-trunking and utilizing the latest VoIP protocols while allowing the use of analog, T-1, and PRI circuits.

SoftSwitch routes calls based on skill level, queue priority, and user-defined scenarios. It also provides real-time status of contact center activity via the Startel dashboard. SoftSwitch 2.0 boasts a new call return feature that allows callers to opt out of queue and request a callback when an agent becomes available. Upon the request, a call is generated to hold the callers place in queue. When the agent answers, the agent is asked if they will accept the callback call. If accepted, the agent is connected to an outbound call to the number left by the caller. If the agent does not accept, the call goes to the next available agent. 

Total Billing Solution 3

Total Billing Solution (TBS) has had some enhanced features added this year. The pandemic has pushed consumers and companies to look for increased options for paying bills online and collecting payments more efficiently. Last year they rolled out ThePaymentPortal.com as a hosted, online, secure e-commerce site where a company can access statements, view invoices, and pay bills at their convenience. Many TBS customers incorporate the payment portal into their billing process.

This year they rolled out USAePay autopay integration. This streamlined interface eliminates the need for clients’ staff to learn their organizations’ banks’ ACH transaction process. Most importantly, USAePay has lower card transaction processing fees than the existing interface, which puts more money in their customers’ pocket.

What’s Next?

In August they held their first virtual Startel user group event and were joined by almost 300 of their customers. They shared many new products currently in development, including a first look at their cloud-based solution, Startel365. They are excited to have a new and innovative cloud solution being released. More details will be coming in 2021.

Learn more at Startel.com.