When we hear the following announcement, what does it mean to us?

“Atlanta, GA. - April 4, 2008 - S1 Enterprise, a division of S1 Corporation (Nasdaq: SONE) and a provider of multichannel financial services software, today announced an agreement with Zions Bancorporation to implement the S1 Call Center application across six of Zions Bancorporation’s affiliate banks.”

This announcement goes on to say:

“With the implementation of S1 Call Center, our agents will no longer have to master multiple applications to handle our customers’ needs,” said Dianne Wynne, executive vice president, enterprise customer service for Zions Bancorporation.

“The new solution will give them one-click access to complete information. We expect training costs to decline and customer satisfaction to increase.”

Here’s the translation:

“S1 Call Center’s built-in referral management capabilities will enable Zions Bancorporation’s 350 agents in three centers to efficiently refer opportunities to other areas of the bank. Because many call center referrals are for Internet banking, this is expected to reduce calls and move customers to a more cost effective way of doing business.”

Call centers are important inbound customer service providers, so the referrals from these centers are hugely important to a large company’s business operation.  This announcement shows us, once again, that technology is continually trying to keep pace with business needs.

Posted: April 7th, 2008 under Call Centers, Telemarketing Services.
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Maybe you have used List Brokers for telemarketing leads that you qualify by certain demographics: age, gender, location,etc.  But sometimes these lists don’t give you the updated  leads you want or you think they are too costly…

Here’s a way for creating your own telemarketing sales lead list: 

• Check your local newspaper for classified ads , you will notice a variety of business listings every week, many of these are repeats which means they are making a profit. So your business owner already is “ in the game “ as they spend money on increasing their business.
• Your local business advertisers will include a wide range of subjects including Real Estate ( mortgage leads ) , Gardening, Auto loan leads and even work at home leads. This is not the same as buying a massive telemarketing sales lead list or mailing list lead but you will find business owners also have a bigger budget.
• You could also use the internet for sales lead lists, just create a landing page and collect your telemrketing lead details with the incentive of a free gift or discount off your product.
• Also be sure to check out your local sports and leisure facilities, you can pick up telemarketing leads from companies who advertise on billboards or even radio advertisements. Check out trade magazines also as you can pick up some good targeted leads

Or you can always do it the old-fashion way and simply create a telemarketing sales lead list by contacting everyone in your local phone book.  But, you are advised to consult a professional company beforehand as many of your leads may be on the “Do not call“ list and you will not want to break the law.

Posted: April 6th, 2008 under Call Centers, Telemarketing Services.
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WebAstra by 3CLogic is one of the fastest growing Web-based VoIP Call Center solutions.

With WebAstra’s hosted software, you can launch a full-featured next-generation contact center anywhere in the world in as little as 30 minutes. All you need is broadband Internet, some PCs and some headsets.

Just add people, and your contact center is in business! The WebAstra  hosted call center is a tightly bundled suite including advanced dialing, state-of-the-art VoIP and broadband Internet to provide a complete, web-based, call center solution that’s graceful and robust.

There are many advantages that the VoIP call center solutions can bring to your company.

Posted: April 4th, 2008 under Call Centers, Telemarketing Services.
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Microsoft announced recently that it is changing the name of its “software-as-a-service” CRM solution from Dynamics CRM Live to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

This affects the name only, and is an attempt to avoid confusion between the SaaS CRM solution and Microsoft’s other “Live” named solutions.

“Whereas the Live brand is focused on consumers and small businesses, the Online brand is fully aligned with our existing Dynamics CRM strategy of delivering outstanding solutions for small businesses, midsized companies and large enterprises,” wrote Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Saas has been known for its implementation for Telemarketing Services Call Centers.

Posted: April 3rd, 2008 under Call Centers, Telemarketing Services.
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Large and small service providers are looking to fiber access technologies, like GPON, for ultra-bandwidth to residential customers as well as to provide high-speed Ethernet and voice services to businesses.

 For example, ADTRAN, Inc. announced on April 2nd, the addition of Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology to the Total Access 5000 Ethernet Multi-service Access and Aggregation Platform.  ADTRAN GPON modules provide 2.5 Gbps to each optical line terminal (OLT) port, enabling the delivery of advanced, very high bandwidth services such as high definition IPTV.

The multiservice capabilities of the Total Access 5000 allow for the support of native Ethernet services like GPON from the same platform used to support POTS, DSL, Bonded Copper, ATM and legacy copper services.

The ADTRAN optical network terminals (ONTs) work in conjunction with the Total Access 5000 to support a wide range of applications for both residential and business applications, ranging from DS1 to Gigabit Ethernet.

The ADTRAN Total Access 5000 also provides fully integrated voice options, including support for both TDM trunk interfaces as well as VoIP, eliminating the need for costly external solutions.

Posted: April 2nd, 2008 under Call Centers, Telemarketing Services.
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An On Demand Call Center is a hosted call center offering from an ASP which includes services like Automatic Call Distribution, Interactive Voice Response, Predictive Dialing, CRM etc.

Compared with an on premise system, a business which buys an online subscription to such a service does not have to worry about technology, infrastructure and IT staff traditionally required to manage such functions in a call center.

On Demand Call Center services have not been widely successful, in the past, but it looks like VoIP Grids deployed as SaaS will change that by making them much more cost effective, customizable and flexible.

For business managers exploring the On Demand Call Center model, the key decision factors to consider are:

• Total cost of the service which typically includes setup costs, monthly costs and integration or customization costs.
• Time to setup: is it months, days, hours or minutes
• Security: How secure is the data: customer contact information, call recordings etc.

With business growing or requirements changing, how easy it is to customize or bring the same technology In-house with little changes and less training.

Posted: March 29th, 2008 under Call Centers, Telemarketing Services.
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CallCopy, Inc. and GMT Corporation announced a new partnership on March 28th, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio.

CallCopy, Inc. is a provider of quality management and call recording solutions for inbound call centers. GMT Corporation is a provider of workforce management (WFM) and workforce optimization solutions for inbound call centers.

The partnership brings together CallCopy’s “Discover suite” with GMT’s ”GMT Planetâ„¢” enterprise workforce optimization solution.

This provides organizations with a comprehensive call recording, WFM and quality management solution that can improve the quality and efficiency of their inbound call center operations.

Posted: March 28th, 2008 under Call Centers, Telemarketing Services.
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Trained telemarketers receive calls from a prospective customer who automatically qualifies himself by calling them.  This is the beauty of the inbound call center! 

The incoming caller is usually motivated to call by an advertisement, catalog, or other outside information that provides this telephone number for some type of response.  So this prospect is already prepared to make a purchase, or learn more about a product that they can buy now.

The key to success with this type of marketing and sales is the right placement of advertisements that provide a phone number to call.  It should fit the profile of the typical buyer.  For example, a product for babies would be well positioned in a magazine or newsletter with the focus on infants.

Ideally, the advertisement provides enough information so the caller  will  be prepared to buy immediately.  In this case, the call center representative does not have to sell the product.  And usually they will only need to inform the prospect about basic features and benefits.

Many businesses like this form of advertising/call center response because there is no cold calling involved.

Posted: March 26th, 2008 under Call Centers.
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The 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Gala, the Hispanic Business magazine event, was held November 8, 2007 at the Marriott Downtown in Los Angeles, and honored the achievements of U.S. Hispanic entrepreneurs.

Martin Worldwide was a major sponsor of the event for Hispanic Business, the magazine that features Hispanic business professionals and their companies.

“Martin Worldwide has a strong Hispanic client base. It was natural to partner with an organization like Hispanic Business magazine that not only chronicles the trends of the Hispanic business community, but is also an active participant. We are proud and excited to be a sponsor of an event that recognizes the contributions of the U.S. Hispanic entrepreneur.” said Johnny Guerrero, Major Account executive for Martin Worldwide.

Martin Worldwide is one of the largest and most successful data corporations in the nation, offering customized mailing lists, telemarketing lists and sales leads to small business and Fortune 1000 clients, including many in the Hispanic business community. Utilizing over a decade of experience, knowledge, and database acquisition expertise, Martin Worldwide possesses an extensive database of 290 million consumers and 14 million U.S. businesses.

Posted: March 25th, 2008 under Call Centers, Telemarketing Sales, Telemarketing Services.
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Telemarketing has the highest response rate of any direct marketing tool, such as print advertising or email. 

This is because it has the capability to target market specific prospects who fit the buyer profile, and it allows for interaction to answer objections.
 
Typically,  telephone calls made for sales or marketing are referred to as outbound telemarketing. Calls received for customer support, order processing or answering services are inbound.  In-house or outsourced services are available for businesses, with offshore services now increasing worldwide.

 The sheer flexibility is what allows  telemarketing to have such a high response rate.  No other medium can interact with the customer.  This feature allows a live contact to interact, overcome objections and give needed information.

Posted: March 20th, 2008 under Call Centers, Telemarketing Services.
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