November 29, 2001

AT L A N T I C C O M M U N I C AT I O N S G R O U P
122 Morewood Crescent, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, E1A 6L3
Telephone: (506)857-0605 Fax: (506)857-0130 Email: [email protected]

COMMUNICATION
SPECIALISTS

CALL CENTER PROFILE

INTRODUCTION

CALL CENTER
FEATURES
EASY TO USE
SKILL-BASED
CALL ROUTING
CAPABILITY
CALL TREATMENT
OPTIONS
INTEGRATED
REAL-TIME
DISPLAYS
COMPREHENSIVE
MANAGEMENT
REPORTS
COMPUTER
TELEPHONY
INTEGRATION (CTI)
FLEXIBILITY TO
GROW
NETWORK CALL
ROUTING

The purpose of this document is to

provide our customers with a concise
understanding of Canadian Call Center methods and the associated technologies available to Telecommunication Carriers in other jurisdictions.
Technology acquisitions are no
longer simple decisions and neither
are communications systems. No
longer are EPABX systems to be
judged as overhead items. They are
high technology platforms that drive
surprisingly high margin net incomes
and greatly enhance customer satisfaction. Until recently, telecommunications management was relatively
simple. With only one vendor in the
marketplace, and with only a few
products available, there were few
decisions to be made. Telecommunications used to mean telephone and
perhaps telex. Today it means voice,
data, facsimile, electronic mail, videoconferencing access to databases
and much more.
In the last fifteen years the telecommunications industry has experienced a dramatic period of change.
Deregulation and innovative technological advances have changed the
way the world does business. The

economies of the world have gone

global and so have the ways in which
we communicate and conduct our
day-to-day business operations. In
recent years, many businesses have
learned how to become more productive and efficient by incorporating
Call Centers and telecommunications technology into their structural
operations. Call Centers with the
help of modern telecommunications
technology have become a way of
outsourcing very integral pieces of
modern business practices. Customer service, marketing, scheduling,
collections, dispatching and canvassing can all be done from a Call Center in a highly organized, structured
and cost effective environment.

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CALL CENTER PROFILE

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A t l a n t i c
Communications
Group is a Provincially
Incorporated Business
with Head Offices in
Moncton,
New
Brunswick.
Atlantic
Communications Group was
established on May 15, 1982,
and Incorporated shortly
thereafter on June 14, 1982.
Atlantic Communications Group
provides consulting services in
the reduction of telephone
expense, improved equipment
usage,
and
expanded
telecommunication technology.
ACG LTD provides a variety of
telecom services from technical
installation to developing
marketing strategies for new
service providers. ACG LTD has
a mandate to pursue Caribbean
opportunities with key
competencies in network
planning, design and installation
as well as turnkey project
m a n a g e m e n t
a n d
internetworking.
The age of telecommunications
has come on us so rapidly that
very few organizations are prepared to meet todays challenges, let alone those coming
tomorrow. Often, the pressure
of day-to-day work makes it difficult for a manager to undertake
important projects such as reor-

THE COMPANY
ganization or major moves. Atfrom which the Atlantic Commulantic Communications Group
nications Group is based, has
can take on such assignments,
worked aggressively with the
ensuring that experienced peoprivate sector in developing its
ple do the work on time, without
resources towards Call Centers
causing a crisis in your organiand the communications induszation.
try. The province and its governAtlantic Communications Group
ment have both reaped the ecois owned by experienced sharenomical and political rewards in
holder employees who combine
developing these new-age praca quarter century of telecommutices. At the same time they
nications expertise to provide
have attracted world attention.
the end-user with
As the communications industry
a carefully balflourished, it began to attract
anced, properly
installed telecomACG PROVIDES
munications system. Before any
CAREFULLY BALANCED,
consulting
asPROPERLY INSTALLED,
signment begins,
TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
Atlantic Communications Group
seeks to deterlarge corporations to New
mine in as much detail as possiBrunswick. Customer service,
ble, the nature and scope of the
Call Centers for large corporaproject, enabling us to prepare a
tions such as: The Royal Bank
work plan and to ensure that the
of Canada, General Electric,
client and ACG LTD have a
United Postal Service and
common understanding of the
Purolator have established Call
work to be done.
Centers successfully within the
province.
The province of New Brunswick

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CALL CENTER PROFILE

COMMUNICATION
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WHAT IS A CALL CENTER?

When several people answer

similar types of telephone calls
at an order desk or reservations
office in a customer service department or technical support
center, there is an opportunity to
implement a Call Center. Call
centers have changed dramatically over the last few years.
Once an environment designed
to process telephone calls, call
centers have evolved to become
customer contact centers, processing all types of media transactions. The call center is now
seen as the core of a business
due to its critical role in maximiz-

ing customer satisfaction, while

at the same time realizing efficiency. Its integral parts consist
of:

Representatives who handle

customer satisfactions (also
called agents)
Management personnel
Technology to distribute
calls to the appropriate representatives and, typically,
an online system to record
caller requests and inquires,
and look up information.

A Call Center may be found

within a department in a company or it may be the single
business unit that comprises a

company. Regardless of the size

of the Call Center, the objectives
of Call Center management remain consistent:
To deliver caller satisfaction
through prompt, professional
call handling
To control costs by using
facilities more efficiently
To help staff work more
productively
To increase profitability
Whether callers are purchasing
products, requesting service or
seeking information, the Call
Center must be equipped with
technology that delivers the
timely service they expect.

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CALL CENTER TECHNOLOGY

Call Centers require technology
that is high performance, integrated, open and client-server
oriented to facilitate the increasingly important role they play in
business. Frequently, the Call
Center is the only point of contact a company has with its customers; therefore, technology to
enhance customer relationships
is of utmost importance to Call
Center management.
Managements challenge is to
find an ideal balance between
staffing priorities and budget
controls to deliver optimal customer service. Implementing
technology such as computer
telephony integration (CTI) and
client-server computing, and applying emphasis on call routing
applications and agent empowerment are key components to
ensuring each caller is served
quickly and efficiently.
Integrating the routing and processing of incoming calls and accompanying data creates the
ability to satisfy as many of a
callers needs as possible during

initial contact with the Call Center. This combination of technology and business procedures to
enhance customer satisfaction is
a driving factor in the competitive world of Call Centers.
Client-server computing empowers Call Centers to leverage
their technology investments.
This architecture spreads computing tasks among available
agents to make the best use of
all the resources within a Call
Center. With client-server computing, information is immediately available.
Call Center agents require tools
to increase their proficiency in
managing the volume of calls
they take each day. The goal of
agent empowerment is to provide solutions to enhance customer service and increase productivity while providing a distinct advantage within the highly
competitive Call Center environment. With caller information
available to an agent when a call
arrives, a more efficient transaction can take place. The result is

better communication between

the customer and the agent.
A Call Center must be designed
to provide a call center solution
for varied and changing business requirements by offering a
suite of applications that includes call processing and agent
handling, management and reporting, and third-party application interfaces. The architecture
of the Call Center must be
based on a client-server configuration that distributes call routing
and management capabilities
among agents to make the best
use of system resources.
The Call Center should consist
of three key components: telephony, server and client. The
telephony component includes
the PBX and its telephones. The
server component is comprised
of the call center server, the coresident client and the network.
The client component is made
up of the customers LAN and
supervisors workstations, which
can be optional.

ESSENTIAL CALL CENTER FEATURES

Whether you manage an employee help desk, a customer
assistance line or a telephone
sales operation, a Call Center

must provide powerful customer

care solutions and immediate
benefits for the business. Building on the power of customer

care solutions, a Call Center

must be able to offer certain essential Features:

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CALL CENTER PROFILE

COMMUNICATION
SPECIALISTS

1. - EASY TO USE
Symposium Express Call Center
offers a user-friendly customer
care center management interface. Running on a Windows
95/98 or Windows NT 4.0 client, a
Wizard-driven, point-and-click
interface is provided to make it
easy for you to manage your Call
Center. Online help and tutorials
are also provided. For organizations with multiple call center locations, the architecture of the
Call Center Server must facilitate
the linking of multiple sites to
function as one seamless call
center.
The

Symposium

Call

Center

Server is designed with open

interfaces that allow for the interworking of many third-party
applications and the development of customized applications. This furnishes call centers
with the ability to integrate industry standard applications for
the greatest choice and flexibility possible. There are four
types of information to which
access is provided: historical
data, real-time data, host data
exchange and call control
events. Historical data can
be accessed by programs that
use ODBC and SQL database

query standards. Information

can be combined with the data
from other open databases to
create unique report fields. For
example, a call center manager
may need to determine the
revenue per call, where the
revenue figure resides in a customer host database and the
number of calls residing in the
Symposium Call Center Server
database. The Symposium Call
Center Servers open interface
capabilities allow the call center
manager to combine the data
from different databases to provide the required information.

2.- CALL TREATMENT OPTIONS

Multiple call treatment options
enable you to offer different services based on business hour,
announcements and interflow
handling to cover all of your callers unique requirements. Call
interflow functionality enables
you to handle callers in a timely
manner, consistent with your
service level goals. Nortel Networks Symposium Call Center
Server offers flexible call handling that defines how calls are
routed and treated on an individual call basis. Call routing
can be defined as:
Routing callers to specific
destinations (agents, noncall-center employees or
other applications)
Queuing callers to specific

or multiple skillsets
Queuing callers to specific
agents
Queuing callers to other call
center destinations

Caller treatment can be defined

as:
Providing callers with voice
menu options
Providing callers with the
option to access automated
information
Providing callers with their
expected wait time or position in queue
Providing callers with specific music treatments.
Calls presented to the PBX and
determined to be call center
calls are handled using instruc-

tions contained within call

scripts, which reside on the
Symposium Call Center Server.
Call scripts are tailor-made call
center applications that contain
call routing and treatment instructions to define the handling
of individual calls. This set of
user-friendly commands can be
combined to create various call
routing schemes and treatments
unique to the requirements of
the call center. Call scripts can
be as simple or sophisticated as
the application requires and are
not limited to a specific number
of steps.
Call Routing when an incoming
call is presented to the PBX, a
determination is made as to

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CALL CENTER PROFILE

COMMUNICATION
SPECIALISTS

whether or not it is a call requiring call center assistance. This

determination can be made in
many ways such as the number
the caller dialed (DNIS), the
trunk group the caller came in
on, and a choice made by the
caller within an automated attendant application, etc. Calls that
do require call center assistance are then routed, logically,
to the Symposium Call Center
Server through the use of Control Directory Numbers (CDNs).
A CDN is a number that is configured in the PBX as the entry
point for all calls into the Symposium Call Center Server.
One or multiple CDNs can be

configured that provide for additional robustness within the call

center, offering defined backup
parameters. Such parameters
include a default agent group
(ACD DN), music treatment and
recorded announcem ents.
These definitions are available
in a backup scenario if the Symposium Call Center Server were
to be out of service, or the link
between the Meridian 1 and the
Server was down. Otherwise,
call processing is accomplished
using the Symposium Call Center Server and the powerful,
flexible scripting tool.
Multiple Call Treatment
Classes

Different activities within a Call

Center are likely to require different configurations; for example, the sales desk may operate
normal business hours whereas
the customer service group
would operate extended business hours. Symposium Express Call Center allows 20
treatment classes to be configured, each with a unique set of
treatments supporting the following:

Days of Business
Hours of Business
Announcements
After-Hours Treatment
Holidays
Call Interflow

3. SKILL-BASED CALL ROUTING CAPABILITY

Skill-based call routing enables
your customer calls to be routed
directly to the agent best qualified to help. A number of skillsets are defined based on caller
requirements; agents are then
assigned to skillsets based upon
their expertise. Calls are then
routed directly to the most suitable agent based on the callers
own number (CLID) or the Call
Center number dialed (DNIS).
Callers can also select from
voice mail or Interactive Voice
Response (IVR) menus to direct
themselves to the desired skillset.
Skill-Based Routing
Skillsets are the basic unit used
by Skill-Based Routing (SBR) in

all call routing commands and in

assignment to agents. The skillset name identifies a skillset and
is used in agent and script configuration. The skillset name is
unique across all skillset names.
Call Processing
The Call Center must offer flexible call routing to define how
calls are handled and treated on
an individual call basis. When a
Call Center call is presented to
the PBX, the treatment that is
given to the caller is determined
by instructions contained in call
scripts. When the PBX receives
an incoming Call Center call, the
Call Center screens the call
based on network information
such as Dialed Number Identifi-

cation Service (DNIS), Calling

Line Identification (CLID) or
Controlled Directory Number
(CDN) to determine the specific
call routing. Additionally, items
such as time of day, day of
week, day of year or Call Center
activity might determine how the
call is handled. For example, a
group of high-profile customers
may be given a specific telephone number for customer service (a specified DNIS). These
callers can be routed with high
priority to agents with the skills
necessary to service them. However, if the specially trained
agents are busy, a secondary
group of agents would serve as
backup answering positions for
these callers.

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CALL CENTER PROFILE

COMMUNICATION
SPECIALISTS

CLID DNIS IVR

CDN
PBX
Symposium Call
Center Software

BD histrica
Estadisticas
Ruteo de llamadas
Integrated Voice Response
Controlador de Red
Procesamiento de llamadas

Server

Atencin a clientes

Gua telefnica

1111

1112

2111

Espaol
Ingles
Frances
7 am - 3 pm

Espaol
Ingles
Ruso
12 am - 5 pm

Espaol
Ingles
Frances
7 am - 5 pm

Servicio tcnico
2112

Espaol
Ingles
Ruso
7 am - 5 pm

3111

Espaol
Ingles
Frances
7 am - 5 pm

3112

Espaol
Ingles
Ruso
7 am - 5 pm

Supervisores
4111

Espaol
Ingles
Frances
7 am - 5 pm

4112

Espaol
Ingles
Frances
7 am - 5 pm

3113

Espaol
Aleman
5 pm - 2 am

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CALL CENTER PROFILE

COMMUNICATION
SPECIALISTS

4. - INTEGRATED REAL-TIME DISPLAYS

Symposium Express Call Center
provides integrated real-time
displays highlighting agent, skillset and Call Center summary
information. A real-time data interface enables you to integrate
your customer care centers
real-time information onto your
wallboards and your agents and
supervisors PCs using Nortel
Networks Graphical Real-Time
Display software or Simon View
agent statistics. Real-time data

can be utilized by Workforce

Management programs to ensure that agents adhere to predetermined schedules. Realtime data can also be used by
visual messaging and alerting
applications like wallboards.
Symposium Call Center Server
utilizes Host data exchange
and call control events to influence the routing, queuing and
presentation of calls to agents.
This provides the ability to ac-

cess vital information such as

the language preference of the
caller, the last agent the caller
has spoken with or the callers
payment history information
that can assist in routing and
treating the caller appropriately.
Nortel Networks Symposium
Call Center Server provides call
centers with increased operational efficiency and the ability to
customize and provide exceptional customer care to callers.

5. - COMPREHENSIVE MANAGEMENT REPORTS

Select from a comprehensive list
of standard reports or create
your own reports using standard
report writers (ODBC/SQL com-

pliant). Schedule your reports at

a time that suits you best. Export
your reports in HTML, Microsoft
Word and Excel or a wide vari-

ety of other formats for easy

management. Symposium Express Call Center users can
schedule and define reports.

6. - COMPUTER TELEPHONY INTEGRATION (CTI)

Meridian Link* Services is available with Symposium Express
Call Center, facilitating the integration of computer applications
and the Meridian 1* system.
This will enable you to provide
screen pops and desktop telephony capabilities to your agents
by using agent productivity tools
such as Symposium Agent. Success in the call center depends
on getting information to the
people who need it. In order for
call centers to stay competitive
in a dynamic environment, computers and communications systems must be integrated with
advanced applications. The
Symposium Call Center Servers

integration capabilities include

the ability to integrate with voice
processing systems and computer applications.
Voice Messaging and Interactive Voice Response
Broadcast Announcement
Voice Menus
Voice Messaging
Hold in Queue
Fax Interworking
Interactive Voice Response
Computer Application Integration
Computer telephony integration
Client-Server Integration

Outbound

Dialing Integration
Internet Integration
The Symposium Call Center
Server is an ideal platform for
integrating the Internet with the
call center, as it has been developed with open and standard
interfaces. The Symposium Web
Response Server utilizes these
interfaces to integrate Web and
electronic transactions with traditional voice calls. The Symposium Web Response Server offers a suite of Web applications
including:
Callbacks to customers on the

World Wide Web (WWW)

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CALL CENTER PROFILE

COMMUNICATION
SPECIALISTS

E-mail responses from the call

center to customer inquiries

originating on the WWW

Internet

Voice access to the call center

Web
Server

over Internet Protocol (IP) networks

Simultaneous voice and

Customer

browser collaboration
Real-time displays and histori-

Symposium
Web Center Portal

PSTN
Me rid ian 1

CLAN

cal reports in HTML format

TAPI SP

7. - FLEXIBILITY TO GROW

Meridian 1

ELAN
Symposium Call
Center Server

Symposium Express Call Center

is scalable and flexible, handling
up to 150 active agents. An
upgrade path to Symposium Call
Center Server allows you to
easily expand your Call Center
as your business grows.

8.- NETWORK CALL ROUTING

For organizations with multiple
call center locations, the
architecture of the Call Center
Server must facilitate the linking
of multiple sites to function as
one seamless call center. Many
call centers have geographically

dispersed locations or wish to

decentralize a large call center
while appearing as one
seamless organization to their
callers. The solution for these
complex applications is to create

the virtual call center. This

virtualization allows calls and
agents to be distributed and
managed across multiple sites
with the same efficiencies as if
they were all located at a single
site.

APPLICATIONS
Call Centers provide the demographic data that will help marketing by solidifying and improving position and performance in
current priority markets. This in
turn helps significantly when expanding into new markets. The
Cuban tourism industry is currently positioned to innovate with
new products, a new creative

look and new foreign partnerships. Call Centers help gather

the statistical information required for accomplishing these
tasks and overall goals. Call
Center databases also help with
the development of new geographical and niche market areas and the maximizing of all
other tourism market channels.

Call Centers provide the statistical data for product development for commercial enterprises by establishing time
frames in which to release
new products into the market
as well as limiting the expense of testing new products
and services.
They help

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COMMUNICATION
SPECIALISTS

gather data on how to improve and expand on existing

infrastructures, while identifying serious deficiencies or
overlooked products that
need to be implemented into
the market immediately.
Financial and Banking Sectors
utilize Call Centers for Customer

Service applications. Call Centers allow for improved customer

service at every level from the
initial inquiry to the actual service delivery. Consumers gain
confidence in the service in
question if they know that,
should they have a question,
their answer is only a phone call
away. Call Centers are used as
a strategic tool in an industry

that is one hundred percent market driven. Call Centers are an

investment in research and development. They allow a company to become intimate with
research outputs. They allow
Banks to theoretically respond
and implement in both the short
and long term as to what the
customer wants as an end user.