If you are like me, there is never enough time or money to attend conferences to learn more about the industry. Lori’s summary of the recent ACCE conference (held in June) will give you a run-down of the biggest topics and the latest trends. I encourage you to read Lori’s article and check out NACC’s newsletter. Here’s some great learning without leaving your desk!

I just returned from the ACCE Conference in New Orleans, one of the biggest and best contact center conferences of the year. While more people seem to be finding budget to attend conferences again, perhaps some of you are wishing you could have been there to attend sessions and talk to peers and vendors (and perhaps drink a “Hurricane” or eat some Gumbo!). So here are some tidbits to share.

Heads are in the Clouds
Call it what you want – hosted solutions, Software as a Service (SaaS), Communications as a Service (CaaS), cloud solutions – but regardless, it has arrived for both buyers and sellers. At least half of the vendor exhibits featured cloud-based solutions. Some offer full blown contact center solutions with routing, reporting, IVR, CTI, and performance tools (e.g., WFM, QM). Others were peddling targeted applications such as CRM, proactive outbound contact, web chat translation services, analytics, or voice of the customer surveys. The chance to get something done quickly, with little upfront cost, really seems to resonate with companies constrained by IT resources and budget dollars. In a knowledge exchange session I facilitated on the topic, attendees testified to implementations that maxed out at three months. No one could recall a premise-based implementation of similar technology that came close to that timeframe. Concerns seem to be security, reliability, and negotiating and managing service level agreements – all topics that can be addressed with the proper due diligence in project processes.

You Can Optimize Your Desktop
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a contact center with an “ideal” desktop, but I know a lot of people who long for an improved desktop and applications. People need to capture interaction information and customer profiles (including the increasingly changing and elusive contact information – like cell phones and email addresses), and they want to make it easier for their reps to help customers. Enter today’s CRM solutions and desktop optimization applications. The former can be had for less pain through hosted applications and improved deployment approaches (configured instead of customized, with “easy” integration). The latter bring the metrics to see what is happening on the desktop, integration between applications to avoid the pain of cut and paste and notepads, and the process optimization to smooth interactions delivering shorter handle times and increased first contact resolution (which EVERYONE wants). Both deliver a desktop “portal” that truly transforms the customer and rep experience.

Performance Tools Cross Barriers and Channels
With the proliferation of analytics tools, customer satisfaction surveys, and eLearning and coaching capabilities, vendors are vying for the attention of call center leaders who want to take their staff and center performance to new heights. As centers mature, they yearn for these tools to meet the high demands corporate leaders place on them to improve customer service, cut costs, and drive revenue. Speech analytics has been the “hot” topic in the past few years, and seems to be settling in to the realities of where and how to use it – including the commitment of appropriate analyst resources to drive value from this powerful technology. And now with text analytics and cross channel analytics, companies can apply similar analysis to their email and web chat. Scorecards and dashboards were of great interest, as was desktop analytics coming from both the performance suite vendors and from those with desktop optimization solutions. The sessions the attendees flocked to (popular topic!) and vendors present (many choices for VoC) reinforce that there is no reason not to do voice of the customer surveys anymore to complement quality monitoring and other internal performance perspectives.

Still Room for Niche Vendors
While some of the big vendors anchored the event, it was also clear there is still plenty of room for niche players that help companies solve the specific challenges. Want to improve your reps’ keyboarding skills? There’s an app for that! Need to add proactive outbound contacts to your customer interaction strategy? Recover idle time to use for knowledge building with your agents? Improve your forecasting ability? You guessed it; there are apps for those too. Whether your needs are wide-ranging or targeted, whether you have a “suite” approach to technology or seek best of breed solutions, there are good options to consider.

Social Media Hype Continues and Takes a Reality Check
We heard and talked about “tweets” and “followers,” social media strategies and the role of marketing and the contact center in responding to these important interactions. From keynotes to sessions to vendor booths, social media hype flowed. But at the same time, the table and hallway conversations were flavored with some healthy skepticism on the fit of social media for various companies and their customers. Perhaps we’ve reached a point in the maturing of these new interactions where people will take a careful look at the role they play today and tomorrow. In a time where companies must make careful choices about priorities for their precious investment of time, money, and resources, the reality check is a healthy thing.

Lori Bocklund, President – Strategic Contact
lori@strategiccontact.com

So, what does that mean to support of your current BCM50 or BCM450 system? You can depend on support from CPI / Avaya for about seven more years. Avaya will provided parts and labor for that system until March 1st, of 2018.

Since you already have an investment which will last for about seven more years, you are not forced to change your system. You may want to investigate upgrading to the IP Office to get some of the advanced capabilities like Unified Communications and the built-in conference bridge. Avaya continues to protect your existing Nortel investment by allowing you to keep your telephone sets should you upgrade to the new IP Office.

If you need more detailed information on the Avaya BCM, we are happy to help!

The ability to provide effective customer support is a significant contributor to customer satisfaction and a major part of the Avaya Certification process. Avaya substantiated support capabilities by surveying a list of our customers, who responded extremely favorably, rating CPI at 100% on the Customer Satisfaction scale. In addition, Avaya performed a comprehensive evaluation of CPI’s internal support capabilities, systems, and processes.

The result, “CPI demonstrated great proficiency and effective management of their resources to meet customer demands as well as embracing a continuous improvement ideology.”

We are excited to be acknowledged for high standards of excellence and competency in delivering quality solutions and providing quick and helpful customer support. It is our commitment to continue providing value added technologies and partnerships that ensure our customers achieve their vision.

I’ve been doing some research on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and was surprised to learn that “loyal” is much more important than “satisfied” for a customer. I’ve got a story to illustrate.

Several months ago, a friend convinced me to start a walking/jogging program with her. I agreed and visited Blue Mile, a local walking/running supply store, to buy the right shoes.

These people are experts and they are passionate about running/walking/fitness. They didn’t talk down to me or laugh when I asked basic questions. In fact, they got excited about my new adventure. They answered my questions and urged me to come back if I needed anything else.

Needless to say, I’ve been back for purchases large and small. I stopped in the day I finished my first 5K – just to tell them what I did – not to buy one thing! It didn’t matter – they greeted me with the same enthusiasm…they offered advice…they encouraged me.

Last Saturday, after my morning walk, I had to throw away my socks. They were worn out. I bought them a long time ago at the “megamart” in town. Where did I go for my new socks? That’s right – to Blue Mile. The person waiting on me had me try on two different kinds of socks to be sure I got the right type!

So, what’s my point? I was satisfied with the socks from the “megamart.” The purchase transaction was handled just fine. The socks lasted a very reasonable amount of time, so there wasn’t a quality issue. The price was competitive (cheaper, actually). But, I didn’t go back to purchase more.

Instead, I went to the business that earned my loyalty. The staff at Blue Mile connected with me as a person. They know me and what’s important to me. They share knowledge for free and they make it easy to do business with them.

You can be satisfied, but never buy from a business again…just like me and my socks. Loyal customers are created when your people connect with those customers. In fact, the research shows three important things about loyal customers:

o They spend more
o They stay with you longer
o They more easily forgive your mistakes.

Here are a couple of questions for you today: are your customers satisfied or loyal? What would it mean for your business if more customers were loyal? What is one thing your contact center agents could do today to connect and create – not just satisfied, but – loyal customers?

1. Migrate to BCM: Both the BCM50 or BCM450 provide scalable migration paths. You can keep your phones and in many cases you can also retain your fiber trunk and station modules, which can add up to 70% of the total cost of a new telephony system. Another highlight is that BCM features are used in almost the same way as your Norstar system’s which significantly reduces training challenges. However, it is important to note that the BCM platform will be migrated to Avaya’s IP office platform in the future.

2. Migrate to IP-Office 7.0: A few of the many benefits of upgrading to IP-Office 7.0 are listed below:

- Gives you the ability to reuse existing phones

- Allows you to protect upwards of 60% of your investment in your Norstar system

- Some key capabilities you will have access to include Avaya one-X Portal for IP-Office, IP Office Video Softphone, and embedded meet me conferencing, to name a few

3. Maintain your current Norstar system. Avaya has committed to providing Manufacturer’s Support on hardware and software for three years (until October 2013) in addition to three years of Extended Services Support (October 2013-October 2016). If you so choose, you will have the opportunity to preserve your investment and migrate to Avaya’s IP Office when it makes sense for you.

Change thought for the day: “Home agents – if you’re not doing it, do it. If you are doing it, it’s time to expand it. All of the excuses to not do it are gone.”

Customer service thought for the day: How many of you encourage customers to call your center? Don’t we generally look for ways to direct people to our IVR, website…some form of self-service? We want to avoid the more expensive phone call, right? Zappos puts their 800 number on every page of their website because they WANT you to call them. They say that every phone call is 3-5 minutes of uninterrupted time with their customer. How’s that for a paradigm shift for you?

How do you turn talent into successful performance? That is a challenge for the leader of any organization. I know we all certainly deal with it in our contact centers. According to Garrison Wynn, our staff members need to know they’ve been genuinely listened to and heard. That connection – taking the time to genuinely listen, forms the foundation of your influence as a leader. The act of listening to your staff builds trust for you. That trust then enables you to lead your group through change and other challenges. Don’t you think that sometimes we look for a fancier or more difficult solution? It’s not any more complicated that this – listen to your people. By the way here is one quote I especially liked from Mr. Wynn’s talk: “If you criticize other’s ideas too much, they’ll never use your ideas, no matter how good they are.”

If you’d like to see more of what’s happening at the conference, go to www.contactcenter2011.com/live.

First, there has been LOTS of talk about social media and what we should be doing with it in our contact centers. Over and over though, I keep hearing one theme – Customers are saying, “give me consistent answers across all channels.” Your phone calls, emails, facebook posts and tweets need to all support the same message. That’s easier said than done given that the channels don’t always belong to the same part of an organization. I don’t have the secret key to this challenge. I’m hearing that it’s something we’ve all got to be aware of and work to figure out for our organizations.

Second, we all have agents in our organizations. Most of us have some type of quality program to help measure the work those agents do. I heard something today that really made me think – “QA is really brand management.” Think about that for a minute. Your QA staff listens to what your company (i.e. your agents) says to your customers hundreds of times a month. How would you change your QA form if you wanted to measure how well your contact center is supporting your company’s brand? That was a paradigm shift for me!

Finally, on the technology front, it’s always interesting to talk about new tools folks are using to improve their contact centers. Here was a bullet that really jumped off a slide at me today: “Proactive outbound calling is the hot new differentiator.” Hmmm…do you offer this to your customers?

If you’d like to see more of what’s happening at the conference, check out the website www.contactcenter2011.com and click on the “Live” box.

This statewide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Indiana, benefiting the state’s economy, its workforce and businesses. The 2011 Best Places to Work in Indiana list is made up of 34 companies in the small/medium-sized list (15-249 employees in the United States) and 36 companies in the large-sized list (250+ employees in the United States). CPI has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana for 2011.

Cliff Arellano - CPI President and Founder Receiving an Award for one of Indiana's 2010 Best Places to Work.

- Have at least 15 employees working in Indiana;
- Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business or government entity;
- Be a publicly or privately held business;
- Have a facility in the state of Indiana; and
- Must be in business a minimum of 1 year.

Companies from across the state entered the two-part process to determine the Best Places to Work in Indiana. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, and demographics. This part of the process was worth approximately 25% of the total evaluation. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. This part of the process was worth approximately 75% of the total evaluation. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process in Indiana and also analyzed the data and used their expertise to determine the final rankings.

CPI will be recognized and honored at the 2011 Best Places to Work in Indiana Awards Dinner coordinated by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, May 5th. The final rankings will be announced at the event. In addition, all ranked companies will be featured in the May-June issue of the award-winning BizVoice® magazine.

Revolutionize is a very aggressive word and not one that I use lightly.

The revolutionary aspect of the Flare Experience is not that Avaya has added any new or breathtaking features; we’ve had HD video conferencing, IM, presence, conferencing applications, and document sharing for a VERY long time. However, Avaya has been the first to make it realistically easy to use.

In a recent blog article, Blare Pleasant said that, “Flare will do for the front end what Aura does for the back end, as it brings to the user what has been unified on the backend via Avaya Aura, but now is unified on the front end with Flare.” I agree.

Check out this video on the Flare Experience and judge for yourself. Do you think it’s a revolutionary experience?

If you would like more information on the Flare Experience, here are a couple of good blog posts…

Avaya Fares Well with Flare – by Blair Pleasant

Avaya Fires a “Flare” and Reveals Its Tablet – by Zeus Kerravala

Avaya’s Flare for Video – by Blair Pleasant

Without going very deep into the technical details, I wanted to let you know about some of the enhancements that will be coming your way. If you have questions about any specifics, I would be more than happy to help you.

Find Me Follow Me Enhancements:

- Increased capacity and flexibility of Find Me Follow Me (FMFM)

- Ability to use BCM features (park, hold, conference, transfer) on external destinations such as mobile or home phone

- Ability to use FMFM over analog trunks

- Additional configuration options to personalize the FMFM experience

Remote Worker Solution – Unistim VPN Client (UVC)

- Secure Remote Worker solution

- No need for PC based VPN Client or VPN Router for remote workers

Remote Worker Solution – NAT Traversal

- Low Cost remote worker solution that does not require a VPN solution

MeetMe Conferencing Portal

- Web portal for MeetMe Conferencing

- Real-time participant information for chairperson and participants

- Ability to see participants and control meetings

Advanced Paging Productivity Pack

- One button text messaging (helpful where voice paging is not practical due to infrastructure limitations or is not appropriate such as noisy environments)

Multiple Business Names

- Option to configure up to 5 different business names per BCM (helpful for sites with multiple tenants or businesses with several customer facing entities)

Interoperability with other Avaya/Nortel solutions

- BCM 50 3.0, 5.0 & 6.0

- BCM 450 1.0, 5.0, & 6.0

- CS1000 7.0 & 6.0

- CS2100 SE13 & SE12

- IP Office 6.0 – SIP only

- Avaya Aura – SIP only

Public SIP Trunking

- Possible cost savings through SIP trunks

- Broader implementation options

- Enhanced redundancy and failover options

* End of new sales for BCM release 5.0 will be December 6th, 2010. According to Avaya’s lifecycle policy, they will continue to support BCM customers on release 5.0 for 6 years after Dec. 6th.

Under this multi-year contract, Communications Products, Inc. will continued to support over 250 Coast Guard stations from Guam to St. Paul Island, Alaska. The Coast Guard selected Communications Products, Inc. and teaming partner Presidio, Inc. based on our combined history and past performance of delivering mission-focused telephony solutions to the Agency over the past ten years.

Under the contract, Communications Products, Inc. will design, install, manage and maintain the Coast Guard’s IP telephony and Unified Communication infrastructure for the entire West Coast which includes, Guam, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska.

“CPI is committed to continuing our work with the Coast Guard and supporting the newly formed C4&IT organization that has the overall responsibility to optimize the Coast Guard IT and Telecommunication assets.  On a daily basis, we will be tasked with supporting the mission critical telephone systems that are used throughout the 650 locations and provide essential dial-tone and telephony applications that support over 89,000 military, civilian and auxiliary employees.”

*Important note to Meridian Mail users. If your company is still running the CallPilot predecessor Meridian Mail, it is going to be critically important to upgrade to CallPilot as soon as possible. Not only will that enable all of the added features, functionality, and patches that have been added, it will also make it possible for you to access Avaya support when needed. If you have questions about this, please let me know.

What is Service Update 8 (SU8)?

SU8 is the latest in a series of Service Updates made available for CallPilot 5.0 systems. The update comprises six components: a CallPilot server update with additional features and software patches bundled in; improved versions of CallPilot Manager/Reporter, Application Builder, Desktop Messaging client, My CallPilot web-messaging application, and server security update.

Combined, these components further enhance CallPilot performance by incorporating all content previously released within earlier SUs/PEPs and over 100 additional quality improvements and customer-requested capabilities.

Features and Enhancements included in CallPilot 5.0 SU8

CallPilot Server:

- Simplified Configuration Wizard operation for multimedia allocation table assignments
- AUI-S style TUI now provides prompting to enable Message Forwarding Rules
- Increased Sybase database security
- Increased Voice Forms capacity and improved handling

CallPilot Manager/Reporter:

- Updated online help and NTP documentation for new 1006r server
- New “manageable” alphanumeric address for “Postmaster” account.
- Easier wild-card operation for archiving Voice Forms and Application Builder applications
- New administrator “enforced” read-receipts option for desktop fax
- Ability to identify SU/PEP details from within CallPilot Manager
- Improved CallPilot server and Reporter web-server communications robustness

Application Builder:

- Introduces Windows 7 Operating System (OS) compatibility

Desktop Messaging:

- Improved operation within GroupWise 8.0.1

My CallPilot:

- Introduces Windows 7 Operating System (OS) compatibility
- Introduces Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8) browser compatibility
- Increased security within client and online help operation

Serviceability:

- Additional event codes added for improved troubleshooting
- Improved clarity/severity settings for ease of understanding
- Improved guardrails prevent improper DSP configuration

Why is this important?

While most CallPilot web components can run directly on the CallPilot server, you can choose to host some or all web components on a separate server for the following reasons:

Larger enterprise customers, or those with more demanding traffic levels, improve responsiveness and resilience of CallPilot Manager and My CallPilot by hosting these components from the same customer-provided web-server used for Reporter.

CallPilot Reporter, used for reporting on up to 20 CallPilot systems, cannot be hosted by the CallPilot server given both its CPU-intensive anytime/anywhere reporting and large disk-space requirements to store the OM database.

Compatibility Reference

The following outlines product minimum compatibility details:

CallPilot supported Web-Server Operating Systems:

- Windows 2000 Server (Standard version)/Service Pack 1 with IIS 5.0/Service Pack 1
- Windows 2003 Server (Standard version)/Service Pack 2 with IIS 6.0
- Windows Vista (Standard or Enterprise)/Service Pack 1 with IIS 7.0

CallPilot components:

- CallPilot Manager/Reporter 5.00.41.112 (released with Service Update 8) or later
- My CallPilot 5.00.41.111 (released with Service Update 8) or later

VMWare application and version:

- Workstation 6.5.4
- Server 2.0.1

First, if you have a Norstar, don’t worry… “Avaya/Nortel will support the Norstar products for a total of six (6) years after October 4, 2010.” That means that you will have access to  any needed hardware, software support, or service for six years. And, you also have the option to extend the life of your system by upgradng to Avaya/Nortel’s next generation of telephony products… in this case, the Avaya/Nortel BCM. And, it will give you the latest telephony innovations such as IP telephony, presence, and more advanced unified communication features…

So, if you decide to do nothing with your existing Norstar system, you will be fine until 2016.

Avaya/Nortel’s Norstar Migration Path:

If you want to extend the life of your Norstar System investment and take advantage of their latest technology innovations, you can upgrade to the Avaya/Nortel BCM. Both the BCM 50 and BCM 450 provide scalable migration paths from the Norstar system. You can even keep your phones and in many cases retain your fiber trunk and station modules, which can account for up to 70% of the total cost of a new telephony system. Also, the need to re-train end users is also minimized when migrating to BCM as the features, functionality, and use are similar to the Norstar system.

How Your Business will Benefit from the upgrading your Norstar to a BCM:

Improve Productivity & Customer Service:

- Does your business have voice mail today? BCM systems include voice mail so “pink slip” messages are no longer required

- Since messaging is included, calls can be routed quickly and professionally using the built-in automated attendant

- Professional Call Recording can help increase service to your customers by giving supervisors the tools to improve agent skills; available on the BCM50 and BCM 450

- Integrated Voice Response with the BCM 450 can facilitate customer self-service, making transactions easier for everyone

- The BCM InTouch application improves productivity because users can see the presence status of other employees as well as the status of MSN and Skype users – saves time and improves communication and responsiveness

- The FindMe/FollowMe feature ensures that calls are always answered – calls can be routed up to five destinations based on time of day – ensures timely call handling

- The Message forwarding Capability sends an email to any smart phone when a new voice mail message arrives, ensuring timely response to callers

Reduce your Expenses:

- With BCM, all of your locations can be connected together to improve collaboration and to eliminate calling charges between offices

- SIP trunks can save your business money and offers added services like direct inward dialing

- Enjoy the productivity of PIN-protected, Meet-me conferences calls for up to 18 or 120 parties; saves money over network-based services

Protect your Investment:

-  Digital sets can be reused on BCM to protect your investment and allow you to retain a familiar desktop interface; user training provides additional investment-protection benefits

- Trunk and station modules can be reused, further supporting investment protection which reduces Total Cost of Ownership (TCP)

- Overall, up to 70% of the investment in Norstar can be reused with BCM providing for an easy and comfortable migration

What you will get if you choose to upgrade your existing Norstar system to a BCM:

Over the last decade, Alexander’s invention has become much more sophisticated. During that time, CPI has had the opportunity to build phone systems that support hundreds of thousands of government employees nationwide.

Today, we are  now listed on the Government Executive.com’s Vendor Solutions Center. And look forward to the next decade of supporting our Governments communications…