Edenbridge, UK, 22nd October 2003 – International business process outsourcer Vertex, has implemented award-winning ASC SmartContact Centre in their Phoenix House, Knowsley contact centre after a successful trial for inbound and outbound sales contracts. The trial demonstrated measurable performance improvements after only two weeks of using SmartCC, with a 15% reduction in average call handling time as well as reductions in supervisor floor walking.

Outsourced contact centres, such as Vertex, are being asked by their clients to perform to the same or higher standard of quality as in-house contact centres. More importantly, they need to ensure that client brand values are as strongly conveyed as if their agents were clients’ employees. Vertex, which sees quality as a way of life, chose SmartCC to help assist in instilling client processes and brand values in the readiness phase of new client project start-ups. SmartCC, a unique ‘live agent’ support system for proactive monitoring and coaching, will further assist Vertex in delivering targeted training and support to existing and new staff and ensuring more effective monitoring and communication.

David Clarke, Vertex General Manager Operational Solutions, said " Vertex have found SmartCC delivers immediate benefits in quality and performance management. The benefits are achieved within the training environment and because the technology is portable the benefit is sustained as agents transfer back into live operations."

During the first two weeks of adopting SmartCC, quality score averages improved by 2% whilst managers experienced great time saving benefits by monitoring, coaching and communicating with their agents in a much more effective manner, without ever leaving their desk.

Vertex, which handles 206 million inbound calls and makes 1.1 million outbound calls yearly, has extensively used SmartCC’s ability to broadcast audio and screen data to teams of agents. SmartCC, winner of the “Best Product of Call Centre Expo 2003” award, uses an independent standard layer of infrastructure that can be easily moved around and redeployed. This feature is perceived by Vertex as a fantastic benefit for reacting quickly to business demands in their fast moving environment.

Vertex is now planning to deploy SmartCC throughout their training department for rapid up-skilling of new members of staff.

About SmartContact Centre

SmartContact Centre is a unique live support system for proactive monitoring, coaching and support of agents in contact centre environments. To date, no other solution worldwide can help contact centres provide the optimum caller experience in the way that SmartCC does, by proactively supporting agents and promoting a co-operative culture in the contact centre. SmartCC enhances both the customer and the agent’s experience by ensuring that contact centres’ agents are thoroughly supported and coached, and customers consistently receive the highest level of service quality.

SmartCC’s uniqueness relies in providing supervisors and team leaders with the ability to coach, monitor and support any number of agents without leaving their desk. With SmartCC, a team leader can, at the touch of a button, access and control the agents’ PC, overhear their conversation with the caller, covertly coach them through the headset and take over the call if escalation is required.

As a result, customers are successfully serviced in the shortest possible time and agents’ motivation levels soar by successfully handling every call. Additionally, the agents’ learning curve is dramatically reduced by getting effective on-the-job training rather than just receiving “after-the-act” feedback.

Large UK contact centres such as British Gas, Dudley Borough Council and Vertex are successfully using SmartCC and customer studies have proven that ROI is achievable in less than a year.

Typical contact centres that would most benefit from SmartCC are:
 Sales or Customer Service contact centres where a varied or complex product offering is sold or supported.
 Local authorities contact centres where as a result of the e-Gov initiative, agents of newly consolidated contact centres have to be expert on all the issues and enquiries that a member of the public may have.
 Outsourced contact centres where agents are constantly confronted with new challenges, new campaigns, new roles and responsibilities, and where the quality of their performance is actually the product that is supplied by their organizations.
 Emergency services control rooms where operators have to be assisted real-time in case of emergency calls that they cannot handle.

SmartCC has also attained worldwide industry recognition by winning the “Best Product of Call Centre Expo 2003” award and the Dallas “Best of Call Center Demo and Conference Award 2003”.

Ends

About ASC telecom Ltd

ASC telecom specialises in the provision of world leading Customer Interaction solutions to contact centres, financial institutions, public safety and government organisations. ASC’s consolidated suite of tools enables contact centres to manage, monitor, assess, analyse and improve the quality of their customer interactions for maximising customers and employees’ satisfaction and retention. ASC’s Customer Interaction solutions include recording, evaluation, analysis and live coaching and support for all electronic communication and interaction of voice, VoIP, fax, e-mail and desktop computer activity in both traditional and Web based environments.

Established in Hösbach, Germany, with nearly 40 years of experience in the telecommunication industry, ASC supports over 20,000 customers in 60 countries through its operations in the United States, Great Britain, France, The Netherlands, Switzerland and a global network of distribution partners. ASC has forged integration alliances with leading providers such as Alcatel, Avaya, Aculab, Ascom, Aspect, Bosch, Ericsson, Inter-tel, MITEL, Nortel, NEC, Siemens and Tenovis, allowing customers to easily implement ASC solutions in every environment.

Additional information about ASC telecom and its complete product line can be accessed on the World Wide Web at http://www.asctelecom.co.uk

For more information, contact:
Maria Boxley
Marketing Manager
ASC telecom Ltd
+44 (0) 1732 784320
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


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