Call Center and Telecom Specialists,

are you speaking with a Pro?

Call Center Pros™ (CCP) is a Global company specializing in Telecommunication and Call Center services. We have experience in both domestic and international Toll Free and optimizing services for local, long distance and cloud call center needs. Out of all the things we offer, we would like to highlight two of them here:

Toll Free Least Cost Routing

For many years it’s been known by carriers, very large call centers and other heavy users of long distance that the Least Cost Routing (LCR) for outbound calls is an effective way to reduce your usage rates and have redundancy and disaster recovery in case your primary carrier were to fail. But what you may not know is that LCR is also available for Toll Free traffic as well. The technology has been around since 1993 but hasn’t been widely adopted in the past. Savvy carriers and call centers have realized the value of putting in other carriers that are not Tier 1 providers because the call quality is so close among most Tier 2 providers that the risk has been removed.

Last September CenturyLink was down 15 hours or longer, call centers had to wait for CenturyLink’s porting person (only one person) to point Toll Free numbers to another carrier while their entire network was down. Their network was down because they were forced by the FCC to convert all customers Toll Free using TDM to SIP. Something went very wrong in the update to the new platform. The call centers on CenturyLink had moved all Toll Free numbers to another carrier. This new Toll Free carrier might only have one person doing their porting too. It was very frustrating to say the least. Before this happens to you, your call center must prepare and diversify your Toll Free carriers and empower you to fully control your Toll Free numbers.

You can implement LCR for Toll Free numbers by becoming your own RespOrg, but it can require hours to manage so if that is not an expense you want to invest in there are a few specialized providers who will provide the LCR for you at a very nominal charge which is more than offset by the savings in utilizing their multiple carriers. Is it worth the effort for setting up LCR for Toll Free? It all depends on your situation. If your mix of usage is some USA and mostly International it might not be right for you, but if your usage is mostly USA or the portion that is USA traffic is in the thousands of dollars per month then the ROI of the time & effort is a fast payback. You can typically expect to pay $0.0060/min to $0.0080/min with Toll Free LCR. You should add 2 carriers, the new LCR can only take 33,000 NPA NXXs of the 170.000 NPA NXX in the RespOrg system.

Call Center Pros arranged an Independent RespOrg that has affordable tiers for call centers, so your call center is no longer dependent for a single carrier and trapped on that carrier’s RespOrg ID. Today most call centers have Toll Free numbers on 2-3 different carriers for a back-up plan. CCP can also introduce you to a reliable AT&T, Level3 and Verizon resellers, that deliver diversified Toll Free via SIP better than AT&T, Level3 or Verizon can deliver themselves. Everyone loves AT&T’s zero trouble tickets, but do not like AT&T’s big company mentality. Once you have an independent RespOrg, CCP can help develop a template. Every business has different Toll Free callers, every call center will have a different template. We will need a month of CDRs, to compile the top 33,000 NPA NXX from a month of CDRs for a big sampling. From AT&T, Level3 and Verizon we will find the least cost route for your Toll Free. Then we will look at the lesser used 140,000 NPA NXX and find one of the three carriers to take that traffic. Sometime there is an old commitment where one carrier might need more minutes. This bucket of 140,000 lesser used NPA NXXs can also be percentage based routed, maybe 50% to AT&T, 25% each to the other carriers.  The way this works, you will have Toll Free redundancy from three carriers; your RespOrg will be under your company’s control, and through your RespOrg interface your company can repoint the NPA NXXs which are down, to one of your other carriers. This system does not work if your carrier has flat pricing. The Toll Free LRC saves on your cost per minute and a gives better redundancy plan.

 

OmniChannel Solutions

The only way to effectively combat your customers’ game of channel pinball, is to implement an OmniChannel approach. This way, your brand story is able to consistently unfold the way it was intended. Deploy new services seamlessly without headaches. Many OmniChannel companies offer modular APIs, to give you exactly what fits your business needs and integrates your current systems and other business applications with ease. To help you keep up with constantly changing consumer behavior, we found the OmniChannel Solutions that work the best. These are engineered to support innovative technology; enabling you to expand your partner ecosystem and add new revenue streams.

We found many call centers are seeking OmniChannel solution. We have researched many “OmniChannel” solutions and most of them fall into what we call MultiChannel. A true OmniChannel solution will enable agent to read the history no matter the channel (Chat, SMS, Facebook Messenger, Twitter DM and other Social Media). And with true OmniChannel there must be intelligence – either workflow systems or AI or Analytics for intelligence. Without the intelligence on the back end, it is MultiChannel. Many companies are claiming to offer OmniChannel but when each channel is in a silo, then it is MultiChannel.

The choice of OmniChannel Call Center platforms we qualified, houses all the essentials that are core to a true OmniChannel experience. With the ability to plug in new services as you want, the possibilities are endless. Your customers might prefer to communicate strictly via one-to-one channels such as:

• Voice

• Email (automation)

• Chat

• SMS / Text

• Self Service (through Chat, SMS or Social Media)

• Desktop sharing

Or social media channels:

• Facebook Messenger

• Twitter DM

• WeChat

• WhatsApp

• Instagram

Agents eliminate the need to switch between countless number of application screens. We find “win-win-win” solutions, so our clients are happy, your agents are happy and your customers are happy. We find solutions that are simply the best experience for everybody.

OmniChannel Benefits

Reduce call center traffic

Reduce inbound voice call load into contact centers at peak and off-peak times, by providing alternative channels to voice, to quickly communicate with agents.

Reduce operational costs

OmniChannel is a low-cost option and helps reduce operational costs. The average SMS session is up to 75% cheaper than the average voice call, and Facebook Messenger chat is effectively free.

Reduce agent attrition and absence

Agents that use text chat are buffered from angry customer voice calls. Auto-blocking of expletive chat text also gives agents a more pleasant, less stressful experience.

Increase customer satisfaction

Providing a fast, convenient way to reach agents is a great way to improve satisfaction. 64% of consumers would prefer to use SMS instead of voice as a customer service channel.

Increase agent productivity

Agents can manage multiple inbound customer service or sales conversations simultaneously, ensuring voice is used at the right moment to drive the best results.

Increase outbound sales success

Agents can ‘warm up’ prospects before calling, using text chat, to agree the best time to call. This results in a 50–60% increase in call pickup, a faster sales cycle, and conversion.