Rewards, incentives & agent productivity - Contact Management

contactmanagement.ca 

November / December 2009 

Rewards, incentives & agent productivity 

Secret to success – employee engagement 

The training to service linkage 

Coaching benefits & best practices 

Path to better customer communication 

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table of contents 

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 

features 

◗◗ 9. Path to better customer communication 

Why a Customer Communication Management System is more critical than ever 

By Stephen F. Williams 

◗◗ 13. Tilling self-service in the network 

How network-based, self-service delivers benefits both to callers 

and providers of customer care. 

By Ross Daniels 

departments 

◗◗ 4. From the editor 

Matters of agent morale loom large 

◗◗ 5. Readerboard 

The latest industry news 

◗◗ 10. People 

Who is on the move? 

5 

9 

Rewards, incentives & agent productivity 

◗◗ 22. Coming events 

◗◗ 15. The art of saying thanks for job well done 

How recognition influences employee involvement and drives 

up call centre results. 

By Peter Hart 

◗◗ 16. Cover story 

Staffing matters 

Secret to success—employee engagement 

Engaged employees feel upbeat about work and are more 

positive about their employers. 

By Jeff Doran 

◗◗ 18. The training to service linkage 

One of the best intrinsic motivators is effective training and one 

of the biggest benefactors is customers. 

By Terry Pruner 

◗◗ 19. Coaching benefits & best practices 

Professional coaching can have a dramatic impact on overall profitability 

◗◗ 22. Ask Affy 

My agents’ Agent Hold Time (AHT) is 

climbing out of control and we have a 

mandate to reduce our costs by creating 

efficiency on our calls. Do you have any 

ideas on how to help my agents? 

By Afshan Bye 

◗◗ 23. Software Solutions 

»» Agent productivity tools 

»» Marketing automation software 

»» Call monitoring systems 

◗◗ 26. Hardware Solutions 

»» Headsets 

»» Other Products 

13 

16 

27 

◗◗ 20. 4 stages to building incentives program 

Careful thought and preparation is crucial to planning, executing 

incentives programs. 

By Laura Soleto 

◗◗ 29. Association News 

CAM-X 

Canadian Marketing Association 

Contact Centre Canada 

ContactNB

From the 

editor 


The main theme of this issue is rewards, 

incentives and agent productivity. Several 

feature articles deal with employee motivation 

and recognition. It all boils down to boosting 

agent morale. 

There may be a tendency to discount these stories as 

just more ramblings about an element of management that 

seems an awful lot like trying to catch sunlight in a bottle. 

After all, there hasn’t been a sure-fire metric for measuring 

agent morale that I’m aware of. 

Morale remains the most challenging and ephemeral 

aspect of running a call centre, as it does with virtually all 

aspects of managing a business. But its importance has 

only intensified in recent times with the arrival of the great 

recession and its attendant rise in bankruptcies, layoffs, 

and cost cutting that heap so much stress on employees. 

The amount of stress felt by employees has a corresponding 

inverse relationship to their morale. 

If you have any doubts about the importance of 

customer service rep (CSR) morale, I recommend you 

read two articles. One is quite negative and the other is 

extremely positive. 

The former is an article that appeared in the Globe & 

Mail Report on Business on October 30. It was entitled: 

“What’s killing the telecom workers of France?” 

The story relates how giant Telco France Télécom SA has 

the dubious distinction of racking up 25 employee suicides 

during the past 20 months. Most of the 102,000 employees 

in France work in sales and service in call centres scattered 

around that country. 

At first France Télécom’s top executives excused the 

suicides as having no connection to the way they organize 

the workplace and that the deaths were no higher than 

the national suicide rate. It carried little currency with the 

public or government. In September, the government, 

which still owns 27 percent of the company, all but ordered 

the top executives to get out of their offices and into the 

field to hear employee complaints in person. 

France Télécom seems to have been subjected to a 

perfect storm. It has been undergoing the transition from 

a state-owned monopoly in 1998 to a mostly privately held 

telecommunications giant during the intervening 11 years. 

All that ushered in restructuring, the shedding of thousands 

of jobs, and adjusting to non-stop technological change. 

The telecom company has also been hit hard by the 

global recession. Third quarter profit this year fell eight 

percent. It has 186 million customers in 32 countries and 

last year reported revenue of $85.5 billion. 

Employees who began at France Télécom when it was 

the state phone company have had to grapple with a radical 

change in culture. It was then a company where people 

started at the bottom, advanced to the higher paying jobs 

and anticipated remaining in the same office with the same 

co-workers for most of their careers. 

Now employees complain they are under constant 

pressure to quit from bosses who give them jobs they are 

not trained to do and transfer them to offices far from 

home. One distraught worker in a suicide note described 

the corporate culture as “management by terror.” 

The article tells how Yonnel Derven, a 49-year-old 

technician with France Télécom, walked into a staff 

meeting and stabbed himself in the stomach. He survived, 

but said his action came about after being constantly told 

by his bosses that he was “useless.” 

Dominique Deceze wrote a book about working at the 

company whose title translated into English means The 

Crushing Machine. The Globe & Mail article quotes him as 

saying the following. 

“You had a future. You could advance through the ranks. 

That’s finished now. At France Télécom, they destroyed the 

feeling that you belonged.” 

You’ll find the positive article in the SQM Awards Guide 

2009 that accompanies this issue of our publication. More 

specifically it is all the “Great Customer Service Stories” 

from the 11 finalists of the CSR of the Year award. They 

begin on page 8 of the guide. 

Virtually all the stories are highly moving. All relate 

episodes where the CSRs went to exceptional lengths 

to help customers, many of whom were in dire need of 

assistance. 

What comes shining through is how enthusiastically 

these CSRs embrace the opportunity to help people. 

It’s obvious how much they love their work and the 

organizations for which they work. 

All this is diametrically opposite to the misconceptions 

many in the general public hold about call centre workers. 

It’s also hard evidence that high employee morale and job 

satisfaction can equal exceptional customer service. 

GTACC meet probes Gen Y psyche 

High agent morale was also evident at a recent Greater 

Toronto Area Contact Centre Association (GTACC) meeting 

where Gen Y CSR panellists answered a number of 

questions meant to explore their work psyche, habits and 

attitudes of young people to their call centre occupations. 

One question dealt with where they saw their careers going 

in the next two to five years. 

One young woman with AIR MILES said there were 

many departments within the organization to which she 

could move. But she added: “I really enjoy what I do.” That 

enjoyment came from talking to people about their trips, 

helping plan them, giving little tips, figuring out what works 

best out of all their options and generally making peoples 

trips enjoyable. 

Job outlook brightens in the U.S. 

There was good news lately emanating from the National 

Association of Call Centres (NACC). According to its State 

of the Call Centre Industry Report, more call centre jobs 

were added in the U.S. than were lost in the second quarter 

of this year. This points to a continued recovery from the 

recession low fourth quarter of 2008. Another sign of a 

see From the editor page 20 

November/December 2009 

Volume 9 Number 6 

» Publisher 

Steve Lloyd 

steve@contactmanagement.ca 

» Editor 

Ron Glen 

ron@contactmanagement.ca 

» Marketing Information Coordinator 

Adam Lloyd 

adam@contactmanagement.ca 

» Creative Director 

Vanessa Dhanbeer 

vanessa@contactmanagement.ca 

» Advertising Sales Manager 

Mark Henry 

mark@contactmanagement.ca 

» Senior Account Manager 

Peter O’Desse 

peter@contactmanagement.ca 

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Next issue… 

JANUARY/FEBRUARY—The essential 

theme is First Call Resolution. Special 

report focuses on B.C. Contact Centre 

Association Awards of Excellence. 

Annual Call Centre Directory has 

supplier listings for strategy & 

leadership, people, operations & 

services, and technology. 

4 contact management.ca November / December 2009

eaderboard 

IP suite support of at-home agents cuts overhead costs for Pizza Pizza 

Shown here in Pizza Pizza control 

centre are (from left) Amar Narain, 

network telecommunications and 

security manager, and Paul Goddard, 

vice-president of enterprise 

development. They say Interactive 

Intelligence CIC suite has been 

instrumental in the chain providing 

top customer service. 

When Pizza Pizza 

Limited, Toronto, 

a prominent 

restaurant chain 

in Canada, began working with call 

centre software vendor Interactive 

Intelligence, Indianapolis, IN, nearly 

10 years ago, the company needed 

a strategy for using work-at-home 

call centre agents. By deploying 

communications technology that 

supported these at-home agents, the 

pizza chain believed it could improve 

hiring and retention rates, while 

lowering overhead costs. 

Since its deployment of the 

Interactive Intelligence all-in-one 

IP communications software suite, 

Customer Interaction Center (CIC), 

Pizza Pizza has done just that. 

“CIC has enabled us to process 

more than 30 million orders per 

year, with 85 percent of those 

orders taken over the phone by 

more than 350 work-at-home 

agents,” says Pizza Pizza’s network 

telecommunications and security 

manager, Amar Narain. “As a result, 

we’ve been able to attract and 

retain the highest quality agents for 

improved customer service, while 

decreasing overhead costs by more 

than 25 percent.” 

In addition to supporting the 

at-home agents, CIC also supports 

Pizza Pizza moved its headquarters 

to this new state-of-the-art, energyefficient 

building in the west end of 

Toronto. The company has expanded 

its use of CIC to support all its 

corporate head office users. 

about 300 agents located at Pizza 

Pizza’s main call centres in Ottawa; 

Hamilton, and Edmonton. 

CIC’s built-in voice over IP (VoIP) 

and software-based, all-in-one 

architecture, enable remote agents 

to use a session initiation protocol 

(SIP) headset or remote connectivity 

to a home phone or mobile phone 

without the need for ISDN lines or call 

routing limitations. It gives remote 

agents multi-channel capabilities, and 

provides all the same functionality 

as in-office agents, including call 

processing and recording, back-end 

database access, and presence 

management. CIC also enables 

supervisors to remotely monitor and 

coach agents in real-time. 

Based on the success of its 

deployment, Pizza Pizza has already 

expanded its use of CIC to support 

all of its corporate head office users, 

as well as users at three new office 

locations throughout Western 

Canada as a result of a recent pizza 

chain acquisition. The expansion, 

completed Aug. 31, 2009, was 

in conjunction with Pizza Pizza’s 

headquarters move from downtown 

Toronto to a new state-of-the-art, 

energy-efficient building on the 

city’s west side. 

“By replacing our existing 

multi-vendor systems with CIC to 

consolidate all of our locations, 

we can further reduce costs and 

improve operational efficiencies,” 

Narain says. “In addition, we’ll be 

able to run more accurate reports 

so we can more effectively share 

resources across time zones and plan 

ahead for call spikes.” 

By leveraging its agents across 

time zones to better manage 

peaks in call volume for all its 600 

locations, Pizza Pizza also anticipates 

a reduction in on-hold times for 

improved customer service. Pizza 

Pizza will also deploy a CIC addon 

application called Interaction 

Recorder to improve agent training 

and quality assurance. 

“Our agents will be able to take 

orders for any store regardless 

of geography, while being able 

to access customized menus 

that feature specialty pizzas and 

discounts specific to a location or 

region,” Narain says. 

“Throughout our 10-year 

relationship with Interactive 

Intelligence we’ve been extremely 

impressed with its product 

innovation and customer-oriented 

attitude,” says Paul Goddard, vicepresident 

of enterprise development 

for Pizza Pizza. “Interactive 

Intelligence has been so easy to work 

with and has responded to our input 

by adding new features that continue 

to help us provide the best service in 

the industry.” 

Founded in 1967, Pizza Pizza is 

an industry pioneer and Canada’s 

number one pizza chain. With the 

2007 acquisition of Pizza 73, a leader 

in Western Canada since 1985, 

Pizza Pizza operates more than 

600 traditional and non-traditional 

restaurants coast to coast. 

Interactive Intelligence is a 

global provider of unified business 

communications systems for contact 

centre automation, enterprise IP 

telephony, and business process 

automation. The company was founded 

in 1994 and has approximately 3,000 

customers worldwide. 

Bell Aliant to consolidate 

Atlantic Canada centres 

Communications provider Bell Aliant is 

redesigning its customer contact centre 

operations in Atlantic Canada. The new 

organization will consist of five contact 

centres to be located in Charlottetown, 

Prince Edward Island; Halifax, Nova 

Scotia; Moncton, New Brunswick; Saint 

John, New Brunswick; and Mount Pearl, 

Newfoundland & Labrador. 

The changes further advance Bell 

Aliant’s 2009 business plan, announced 

earlier this year, to improve service to 

customers, deliver strong results for 

investors and introduce a new, more 

nimble and efficient organizational 

structure. 

“We are introducing a new model 

see readerboard page 6 

November / December 2009 contact management.ca 5

eaderboard 

from readerboard page 5 

for our contact centre operations in 

Atlantic Canada, which will consist 

of five locations,” says Bell Aliant 

President and CEO Karen Sheriff. 

“Once implemented by mid-April 

2010, this redesigned model will 

further simplify the customer 

experience, boost sales and customer 

service performance, enhance 

employee training, and improve our 

operating costs.” 

Bell Aliant currently operates 

16 contact centres in Atlantic 

Canada, ranging in size from four to 

400 employees, providing similar 

services from several geographically 

dispersed locations. Those with 

fewer than 50 employees are being 

consolidated into the five larger 

centres, enabling a more focused and 

effective operating model. 

“It is difficult for any organization, 

let alone one of our size and scale, 

to efficiently operate that many 

centres, particularly the smaller 

ones,” says Sheriff. “It is not only 

challenging to provide appropriate 

management, coaching and training 

in each location but it is no longer a 

sustainable or effective model. That 

is why our peers and competitors, 

relative to their size, operate with far 

fewer centres than we do.” 

Approximately 200 permanent, 

unionized employees who are currently 

based in the smaller centres will all be 

offered roles within one of the five 

remaining locations. 

Bell Aliant is one of North America’s 

largest regional communications 

providers and an official supporter 

of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and 

Paralympic Winter Games. Through its 

operating entities it serves customers in 

six Canadian provinces with innovative 

information, communication and 

technology services including voice, 

data, Internet, video and value-added 

business solutions. Through its xwave 

offices, Bell Aliant also furnishes IT 

professional services and advanced 

technology solutions. 

Bell becomes reseller of 

Virtual Hold Technology 

Virtual Hold Technology (VHT), 

LLC, Akron, OH, has entered into 

a reseller agreement with Bell 

ICT Solutions to sell and support 

the Virtual Hold software to Bell 

business clients across Canada. Bell, 

Canada’s largest communications 

company, is known for information 

and communication technology (ICT) 

solutions that simplify technology 

implementations. Now with this 

agreement it can provide seamless 

integration of virtual queuing 

software into the existing contact 

centre environment for its clients. 

“Bell’s strong presence in the 

Canadian market helps businesses 

and government agencies gain 

better access to their customers 

through customizable, end-to-end 

information and communication 

technology solutions,” says Ross 

Murdock, senior vice-president 

of sales, Virtual Hold Technology. 

“The partnership between Bell and 

VHT will help Canadian businesses 

improve the contact centre 

experience for the customers 

they serve by making better use of 

customers’ valuable time.” 

Virtual Hold software helps 

eliminate hold time in contact centres 

worldwide. When hold time is more 

than a few minutes, the Concierge 

solution informs the customer of the 

estimated hold time and then offers to 

hold the customer’s place in line and call 

them back when it’s their turn to speak 

to a customer service representative. 

Scheduled call-backs, Web site 

integration and outbound notification 

products also are available. 

“We are very excited to partner 

Ross Murdock, senior vice-president 

of sales, Virtual Hold Technology, 

says the partnership with Bell will 

help Canadian businesses improve 

the contact centre experience for the 

customers they serve by making better 

use of customers’ valuable time. 

with Virtual Hold Technology,” 

says Stéphane Boisvert, president, 

Bell Business Markets. “Call centre 

solutions have greatly evolved over 

the last few years, and the Concierge 

solution will help our clients offer a 

better experience to their customers.” 

VHT is a developer of virtual 

queuing solutions for Fortune 

1000 clients. Since its inception 

in 1995, VHT’s patented, awardwinning 

virtual queuing technology 

has provided return call solutions 

focused on enhancing the 

customer experience for financial 

services, energy/utility, insurance, 

telecommunications, cable, wireless 

and retail corporations such as 

IBM, Bank of America, T-Mobile, 

Aflac, AT&T, Banco Popular, Verizon, 

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, 

Southwest Airlines, Time Warner 

Cable and AVON. 

ACT Conferencing 

gathers momentum 

in Canada 

Global purveyor of audio, Web and 

video collaboration systems, ACT 

Conferencing, Lakewood, CO, continues 

to gain market share across Canada. 

During the past three quarters, it has 

acquired more than 100 new customers 

and partners in the country. 

ACT attributes its increasing 

popularity throughout Canada 

to the widespread need for high 

quality, well supported conferencing 

services, allowing customers 

globally to adapt to reduced travel 

budgets and a greater number 

of teleworkers operating in the 

region. ACT credits its advanced 

audio, video and Web conferencing 

products and service assurance 

commitment to meet the needs of 

its growing customer base which 

includes organizations spanning 

financial, healthcare, government, 

manufacturing, educational, utilities 

and transportation sectors. 

ACT is also expanding its partner 

base in Canada and contends its 

best-in-class partner program 

contributes to the company’s overall 

growth. It recently enhanced its 

partner program with unlimited Web 

conferencing at a fixed monthly rate 

and improved Web conferencing 

services. With these enhancements, 

Marina Bogard, chief sales and 

marketing officer, ACT Conferencing, 

credits the company’s commitment to 

customer service as the main factor 

behind its Canadian growth. 

ACT partners can compete with 

other Web conferencing providers 

around the globe by offering what 

is described as the highest quality 

services at high margins and with a 

competitive price point. 

“We continue to gain positive 

traction across the Canadian region,” 

says Marina Bogard, chief sales and 

marketing officer, ACT Conferencing. 

“We consistently hear from new 

customers that the deciding factor in 

choosing ACT is our commitment to 

customer service. No single vendor 

can compete with ACT’s level of 

service assurance and our product 

portfolio and global footprint, which 

puts us in a league of our own.” 

Established in 1989, ACT 

Conferencing was established 

in 1989. Its integrated platforms 

provide managed, international 

and local-language services. It 

also operates in Australia, France, 

Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, 

Netherlands, Singapore and the UK. 

Frost & Sullivan study 

puts Avaya first in 

FMC market 

Avaya, Basking Ridge, NJ, is the top 

ranked vendor in Enterprise Advanced 

Premise-based Fixed-Mobile 

Convergence (FMC) market share 

according to a recently published 

report by consulting company Frost 

& Sullivan. The Worldwide Enterprise 

FMC Markets, 2008 report puts 

Avaya’s share of the advanced FMC 

clients market at 43 percent, more 

than 16 percentage points ahead of 

the second-place vendor. 

Avaya has also received Frost 

and Sullivan’s 2009 Global Market 

Leadership Award in the world 

enterprise FMC market, based on the 



eaderboard 


continued success of its solutions 

in terms of market share, revenue 

growth, installed base and the 

breadth of product portfolio. 

“Avaya has always stayed at the 

forefront of enterprise communications 

innovation,” says Alaa Sayaad, industry 

analyst - Unified Communications (UC), 

Frost and Sullivan. “Its solid enterprise 

FMC portfolio, consisting of multiple 

mobility options and solutions, is the 

result of a true customer-oriented 

business strategy.” 

Calling enterprise mobility “the 

most compelling element in the 

Unified Communications stack,” 

Frost and Sullivan defines enterprise 

FMC as “any feature, service or 

product that allows a mobile device 

to connect with the corporate PBX 

or WLAN to either extend corporate 

features and applications or deliver 

cost-related benefits through the 

integration of wired and wireless 

networks.” Emphasis is placed on 

advanced, premise-based FMC 

solutions requiring a soft client to 

deliver call control and PBX features 

such as single-number reach, single 

voicemail, corporate directory access 

deeper mobile handset integration. 

The report highlights Avaya 

as the current market leader in 

advanced FMC clients, and one 

of its pioneers. Avaya’s core FMC 

products range from Avaya Extension 

to Cellular, a basic PBX-to-mobile 

extension, to Avaya one-X® Mobile, 

an FMC client with multiple Unified 

Communications features and 

capabilities. Among the key elements 

contributing to Avaya’s leadership 

cited in the report: 

• The ability of Avaya one-X Mobile 

to support the major operating 

systems in the market, including 

iPhone, RIM, Windows Mobile, 

Symbian, Palm, etc. 

• Enhanced call routing options, 

user controlled presence, 

conferencing and more in addition 

to basic PBX-to-cellular 

• Complementary Avaya one-X 

applications including a Webbased 

softphone; technology 

allowing users to manage 

communications tools and 

messages through speech 

commands; and an advanced UC 

desktop client. 

• Support for dual-mode (wifi/ 

cellular) through Avaya 

DevConnect members, DiVitas 

and Agito Networks. 

• Partnerships with service 

providers for offers such as 

AT&T’s Mobile Extension Service, 

including FMC offers and 

discounted mobile minutes 

The Frost and Sullivan report 

estimates that worldwide revenues 

for advanced, enterprise premisebased 

FMC solutions grew by 486 

percent in 2008 over 2007. Further, 

Frost and Sullivan expects the 

compound annual growth rate 

to be approximately 61.4 percent 

for revenues and 72.6 percent for 

shipments between 2008 and 2015. 

Year-over-year growth in the FMC 

market is attributed to company 

concerns about cutting mobile 

expenses, with Frost and Sullivan 

estimating that FMC solutions could 

provide savings of about 10 to 20 

percent on the monthly mobile bill. 

Increasing productivity also remains 

a key priority for those companies 

adopting FMC solutions. 

Aspect enables 

visualization across 

contact centres, sites 

A unified communications (UC) systems 

supplier, Aspect, Chelmsford, MA, is 

now leveraging VMware giving its UC 

Serge Hyppolite, Aspect director 

of interaction product management, 

says any organization that requires 

scalability, multi-tenancy and UC 

capabilities for the call centre 

will benefit from UC applications 

leveraging VMware. 

contact centre applications visualization 

capabilities. This lets multiple UC 

applications run in parallel as virtual 

machines, enabling more applications 

to run on a smaller footprint. As a result, 

users can lower server use, reduce 

capital and maintenance expenses, 

and take advantage of smaller physical 

footprints. 

“We know that improving 

efficiency and reducing IT complexity 

is a very high priority for our 

customers,” says Serge Hyppolite, 

Aspect director of interaction 

product management. “Aspect 

has a number of customers using 

VMware today with great results. Any 

organization that requires scalability, 

multi-tenancy and UC capabilities 

for the call centre will benefit from 

our UC applications leveraging 

VMware. In particular, companies 

like outsourcers and enterprisesize 

contact centres can run a UC 

application like Blended Interaction 

while simultaneously using the full 

capabilities of Productive Workforce 

to manage hundreds of agents 

and improve productivity all while 

reducing their server footprint and 

maintenance costs.” 

UC applications with VMware offer 

a number of benefits, including: 

• Improved scalability – customers 

can run multiple UC applications 

on the same physical server. 

As a result, the UC applications 

offer increased capacity by 

moving virtual machines to larger 

resourced physical machines. 

• Fewer servers – customers 

can minimize their physical 

server footprint by configuring 

UC applications in VMware 

environments. UC applications 

do not take up as much physical 

space in a VMware environment 

as they do in a non-VMware 

environment. 

• Enhanced multi-tenant 

management – VMware helps 

with tenant management for 

the UC applications in a hosted 

environment. There is no 

disruption of active users when 

other tenants are added or 

removed from the system. VMware 

also enables control of system 

resources each tenant should 

receive and allows for flexibility of 

deployment as numbers of active 

tenants changes. 

• Increased business continuity – A 

call centre can use VMware high 

availability features, which can 

restart a single instance of the 

software on a second VMware 

server if one server fails. 

• Reduced costs – Aspect call centre 

customers can minimize capital 

outlays and maintenance costs 

due to operating and maintaining 

fewer servers. 

UC applications for the contact 

centre use software to target 

operational objectives with specific 

capabilities. The UC applications 

deliver inbound routing, outbound 

dialling, voice portal and Internet 

contact, workforce management, 

performance management, 

campaign optimization, recording 

and eLearning capabilities to help 

organizations enhance customer 

service, collections and sales and 

telemarketing business processes. 

UC Aspect trademark applications 

include Blended Interaction, 

Seamless Customer Service, 

Productive Workforce, Streamlined 

Collections, and Optimized 

Collections. 

Allstream picks Concrete 

as agency of record 

Committed to sharing its story 

of innovation and success in 

business communications markets 

across Canada, MTS Allstream Inc. 

(Allstream) has selected Concrete 

Design Communications Inc. 

(Concrete) as its agency-of-record for 

marketing the company’s enterprise 

networking solutions offered under 

the Allstream brand. 

As the new agency of record, 

Concrete is partnering with Genesis 

Vizeum Canada to provide the 

Allstream brand with strategic 

media-buying services and Quizative 

Inc. to provide digital and direct 

marketing expertise. 

“Concrete has a track record 

of developing and delivering 

outstanding service and support to 

the business and marketing goals of 

a variety of high-profile clients,” says 



eaderboard 


Dean Prevost, president 

Enterprise Solutions division, MTS 

Allstream, says Concrete has a track 

record of developing and delivering 

outstanding service and support to 

the business and marketing goals of a 

variety of high-profile clients. 

Dean Prevost, president Enterprise 

Solutions division, MTS Allstream. 

“The firm’s unique combination of 

creative skills and industry experience 

are a perfect match for the Allstream 

brand. As we pioneer new marketing 

approaches that emphasize online 

content and a richer, more interactive 

customer experience, the proven 

abilities of this team will be a 

tremendous asset to our business.” 

“Allstream is committed to 

providing innovative brand-building 

solutions that emphasize their 

strengths as a leader in Canadian 

business communications markets,” 

says Concrete Founding Partner John 

Pylypczak. “The Allstream brand 

represents the idea that providing 

networking solutions is not just about 

innovation in technology - but also 

having the agility and flexibility to 

quickly respond to customers’ needs. 

This is a perfect fit with our approach, 

the goal of striving for zero distance 

- for total synchronization - between 

strategy, creative and execution.” 

Deloitte names 

TelecoBridges to 

Technology Fast 50 list 

Supplier of hardware and software 

for telecom system integrators, 

solution developers and services 

providers, TelcoBridges Inc., 

Montreal, ranked 21st on the Deloitte 

Canadian Technology Fast 50 listing. 

It earned this position by achieving 

sales growth of 777 percent during 

the last five years. This growth 

has come from the delivery of 

innovative new products, the launch 

of several successful customer 

marketing campaigns, and aggressive 

partnering activities. 

The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 

is a prestigious technology awards 

program, ranking the country’s 50 

fastest growing technology companies. 

Rankings are based on a combination 

of revenue growth, technological 

innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. 

Companies evaluated include large, 

small, public, and private companies 

that span a variety of industry sectors. 

To qualify for the Deloitte Technology 

Fast 50 ranking, companies must have 

been in business for at least five years, 

have revenues of at least $5 million, 

be headquartered in Canada, own 

proprietary technology, and conduct 

research and development activities 

in Canada. 

TelcoBridges helps telecom 

developers and integrators of VoIP 

and TDM solutions realize their goals. 

TelcoBridges’ customers develop and 

deploy carrier-grade telecom solutions 

for some of the world’s largest 

operators in more than 52 countries. 

These solutions include: mobile 

value-added services, location-based 

services, video calling applications, 

network monitoring, media 

gateways, switching, IVR, unified 

communications solutions, and more. 

Several product enhancements 

and partnering activities have helped 

to sustain TelcoBridges’ growth, and 

led the company to garner more than 

a dozen industry awards. In March, 

TelcoBridges formally launched its 

TelcoBridges President Gaetan 

Campeau says the past year has been 

extremely successful for his company 

because of a continued focus on its 

core mission. 

Partner Alliance Program, and the 

company has cultivated alliances 

with several new telecom solutions 

providers and distributors. In May, 

TelcoBridges officially launched the 

TCO-Green Campaign (The Green 

Total Cost of Ownership), which helps 

service providers and operators 

learn how to reduce the carbon 

footprint of their network, save on 

energy costs, and reduce their overall 

operating costs, while enhancing 

their capabilities. 

Throughout the year, TelcoBridges 

has continued to enhance its family 

of media gateways, and telecom 

development platforms. Most 

recently, it released its new Tmonitor 

network monitoring devices TM2000 

& TM3000. 

“This past year has been 

extremely successful for 

TelcoBridges, because of a continued 

focus on our core mission, which is 

to provide solutions developers with 

the technology, and the assistance 

they need to deliver innovative 

telecommunications solutions 

to their customers,” says Gaetan 

Campeau, president of TelcoBridges. 

“Earlier this year, we were 

awarded the Prize of Excellence for 

International Markets. We’ve been 

named Company-of-the-Year by the 

Chamber of Commerce of the South 

Shore of Montreal. We’ve continued 

to win Best-of-Show awards at the 

industry’s top trade shows - and 

now, being named to Deloitte’s 

prestigious listing further validates 

the accolades we’ve garnered over 

the past few years.” 

Prerecorded telemarketing 

in U.S. now requires 

written permission 

Prerecorded commercial 

telemarketing calls to consumers in 

the U.S. are now prohibited by the 

U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 

unless the marketer has secured 

written permission from targets 

wanting to receive such calls. 

Calls not covered by the 

Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), 

which includes those by politicians, 

banks, telephone carriers, and most 

charitable organizations, are not 

covered by the new prohibition. As 

well, the new ban on prerecorded 

messages does not apply to certain 

healthcare messages. 

Significantly, the FTC’s newly 

amended TSR does not offer an 

established business relationship 

exemption. The new rule prohibits 

pre-recorded commercial calls to 

consumers whether or not they 

previously have done business with 

the seller. 

The new requirement is part 

of amendments to the TSR which 

were announced a year ago. 

Under the revised rules, sellers 

and telemarketers who transmit 

prerecorded messages to consumers 

who have not agreed in writing 

to accept such messages will face 

penalties up to $16,000 per call. 

The changes do not prohibit calls 

that deliver purely “informational” 

recorded messages – those that 

notify recipients, for example, that 

their flight has been cancelled, 

an appliance they ordered will 

be delivered at a certain time, or 

that their child’s school opening is 

delayed. These calls are not covered 

by the TSR, provided they do not 

attempt to interest consumers in the 

sale of any goods or services. 

For the same reason, the rule 

amendments also do not apply to calls 

concerning collection of debts where 

the calls do not seek to promote the 

sale of any goods or services. 

Under a previous rule that 

took effect on December 1, 2008, 

telemarketing robocall messages 

by businesses covered by the TSR 

must tell consumers how to opt-out 

of further calls at the start of the 

message, and provide an automated 

opt-out mechanism that is voice or 

keypress-activated. Prerecorded 

messages left on answering machines 

must also provide a toll-free number 

that connects to the automated optout 

mechanism. 

nGen Chat pleases 

customers, cuts service 

costs for Crocs Inc. 

Crocs Inc., designer, manufacturer 

and retailer of performance 

casual footwear has chosen nGen 

Chat to deliver a superior online 

experience to customers as well 

as drive additional revenue and 



Feature story 

Telecom 

providers 

Path to better customer communication 

In today’s tough economic climate – particularly within the telecommunications industry – it 

is critical that organizations effectively communicate with their customers to reduce churn, 

provide superior customer service, improve efficiency and cut costs. Here is how a Customer 

Communication Management System can help do all that. By Stephen F. Williams 

To ensure the success of 

their business, telecoms 

must maximize the 

effectiveness of their 

daily communications such as bills, 

statements and correspondence. 

They must also improve customer 

interactions consistently across a 

multitude of media channels and 

customer touch points. 

Power of Customer 

Communication Management 

A Customer Communication 

Management (CCM) solution is about 

empowering organizations to create, 

manage and deliver personalized 

and relevant multi-channel 

communications that strengthen 

customer relationships, while driving 

down costs. 

In this competitive landscape 

employing a CCM solution is 

imperative to telecommunications 

providers looking for that 

competitive edge to help manage 

resources, reduce expenses, adapt 

to market conditions and be more 

responsive to customers. 

Here are four ways CCM can help 

transform your business enterprise-wide. 

• Centralize and control 

multi-channel customer 

communications 

• Enhance customer service and 

reduce churn 

• Streamline billing and operational 

efficiency 

• Reduce communication costs to 

drive ROI 

Centralize, control customer 


Today’s consumers, in our on-thego 

multi-media world, rife with 

advances in technology and the 

prevalence of the Web, have an 

expectation that they should be 

served, and sold to, in a personalized 

manner. As a result, organizations 

that intend to stay ahead of their 

game will need to ensure that 

they productively and efficiently 

capture and manage existing 

customer intelligence scattered 

across the enterprise. Additionally, 

organizations need the means to 

employ this intelligence to produce 

and deliver unified communications 

across all delivery channels, while 

catering to the specific needs of the 

individual consumer. 

It is these esteemed consumer 

expectations that demand 

that telecoms are armed with 

a centralized solution that 

helps to manage the customer 

communication process –facilitating 

flexible, easy communications, 

formats and delivery channels for the 

individual customer without relying 

on IT, and the ability to deliver them 

via the customer’s preferred media 

– print, fax, email, Short Message 

Services (SMS) and the Internet. 

Customer communications can 

also be marketing’s work horse— 

differentiating one telecom company 

from its competitors and improving 

the ability to sell to its customers. 

Customers read (and often keep for 

reference) their bill. 

There’s no better place to print 

targeted, one-to-one marketing 

messages. Statement-based 

marketing is an extremely costeffective 

medium. 

By leveraging this marketing tool 

response rates for an airline offer 

jumped from 0.65 to 1.89 percent 

and from 0.06 to 9.32 percent for a 

car rental offer. The winners in the 

communications sector will be those 

companies that use CCM to leverage 

the power of every customer 

communication piece. 

Enhance customer service, 

reduce churn 

Unfortunately, telecoms are among 

some of the most renowned 

companies for lack of insight about 

their customers. A call into the call 

centre can become a long and tedious 

process, plagued with several issues 

all adversely affecting the customer 

experience – from consumers having 

to repeatedly identify themselves, to 

trying to relate to customer services 

representatives (CSRs) that are illequipped 

to handle their queries. 

In such a fickle industry every call 

into the call centre must be taken 

as an opportunity to reinforce the 

customer experience and build 

customer loyalty. 

A well constructed CCM solution 

should be used as a valuable tool 

to provide better customer service 

and achieve new levels of stability. 

For example, telecoms can avail 

themselves of CCM solutions that are 

compatible with existing IT systems 

to both handle documents with data 

in existing formats and to connect 

to call centre systems. Armed with 

such an infrastructure, telecoms 

can look towards providing better 

customer service with far more 

intelligence at their disposal, creating 

an accurate view of their customers 

and integrating that intelligence into 

various business operations thus 

mitigating expectations of churn. 

Streamline billing, 

operational efficiency 

According to a recent study by 

CAP Ventures, 31 percent of calls 

into customer centres are billing 

related. Advances in online account 

management, ebilling and increased 

customer self-service are just a few 

of the initiatives that are attracting 

increased attention in this world of 

ecommerce. Whether offering simply 

a “view statement” or more robust 

electronic experience – including bill 

payment and Web-based account 

management tools – telecoms have 

recognized that these tools must be 

a part of their offerings, used to build 

stronger relationships between them 

and their customers. 

Whether residential, small 

business or corporate, customers 

expect that they can drill down to 

their account specifics and get the 

same level of information online 

that they can by speaking with a live 

agent. Leveraging a CCM solution 

can help to execute an enterprise 

dashboard for a company-wide view 

of the full relationship, even in the 

face of large complex accounts that 

may include wireline, wireless, data, 

prepaid card accounts, subscription 

and other services. Despite the 

advent of ecommerce however, 

market realities are now pretty clear. 

Even customers who pay their bills 

online may still prefer to receive their 

printed statements. 

Telecom providers looking to 

adopt a CCM solution should look 

to the “modular approach” which 

facilitates incorporating and adding 

on “building blocks” based on their 

customers’ – and by extension 

organization’s – specific needs. 

Leading-edge CCM solutions can 

integrate with existing systems, offer 

comprehensive ebilling capabilities 

and offer more comprehensive 

functionality when needed. 

Solutions should provide for 

customization, personalized 

presentation and connect easily to 

external systems such as payment 

u see Path to better... page 12 


People 

People 

Former JBA International 

CEO joins Interactive 

Intelligence board 

Interactive Intelligence, Indianapolis, 

IN, a global provider of unified IP 

business communications systems, 

has elected former JBA International 

CEO Richard G. Halperin to its board 

of directors. He brings more than 

30 years of sales and management 

experience working with large 

technology companies. 

Halperin was JBA International’s 

CEO responsible for the America’s 

division from 1991 to 1998. During his 

tenure there the America’s division 

grew from $9 million to $165 million in 

revenue, was consistently profitable, 

and had a successful IPO in 1994. 

Prior to that, Halperin was 

System Software Associates’ (SSA) 

vice-president responsible for U.S. 

and International sales, services 

and marketing. During his tenure 

from 1985 to 1989 the company 

grew from $4 million to $95 million 

in application software revenue, 

was consistently profitable, and 

t Richard Halperin 

brings more 

than 30 years 

of sales and 

management 

experience 

working with large 

technology companies to the 

Interactive Intelligence board. 

successfully went public in 1987. 

Before joining SSA, Halperin was 

Wang Laboratories’ area director 

responsible for sales, support, and 

administrative operations covering 

nine Midwestern states. Before that, 

he held marketing and management 

positions at IBM Corp. 

Halperin has been a board of 

directors’ member for Story Inc., JBA 

International, Advanced Graphical 

Applications, Airborne Control 

Technologies, Made2Manage, Coherent 

Networks International, Epigraph, and 

multiple SSA affiliates. He is currently a 

member of the International Society of 

Philosophical Enquiry. 

ACCA appoints new board 

The Alberta Call Centre Association 

board slated for member approval 

this coming year includes: Jayne 

Kowal, president; Colleen Boyer, 

vice-president; Ary Wall, treasurer; 

Cathy Varga, director; Shekar 

Kadaba, director; Sylvia Chrunik, 

director; Jim Gillies, director; Michael 

Shouldice, director 

AnswerNet head 

wins ATA ‘Spirit of 

Philanthropy’ award 

AnswerNet President and CEO Gary 

Pudles has received the American 

Teleservices Association’s (ATA) 

Spirit of Philanthropy award, 

recognizing his longstanding 

commitment to charitable causes. 

AnswerNet, Willow Grove, PA, 

is described as the world’s largest 

telemessaging firm and full service 

provider of inbound, outbound and 

ebound contact centre services. 

It operates more than 50 contact 

centres within the continental U.S. 

and Canada, providing a vast range 

of systems to optimize order entry, 

telephone answering services, sales, 

lead qualifications, market research and 

other contact management solutions 

for a client base of more than 35,000. 

The ATA, a non-profit trade 

association that represents in excess of 

4,000 contact centres and 1.8 million 

professionals worldwide, presents 

the award each year to the member 

who best exemplifies the spirit of 

philanthropy by inspiring his company 

to commitment and involvement in 

the community through contributions 

of service, time, leadership and/or 

monetary donations. 

Since establishing AnswerNet 

in 1998, Pudles has lent his energy, 

enthusiasm and expertise to support 

numerous industry charity initiatives, 

including breast cancer awareness 

events that have raised more than 

US$140,000. As AnswerNet grew as a 

company, Pudles focused on his desire 

to give back to the more than 50 

communities where AnswerNet owns 

and operates its contact centres. 

After researching several 

possible solutions, Pudles teamed 

up with a national organization 

that specialized in charitable 

giving programs. The result was 

the establishment of a Donor 

He has been assisting customers to 

purchase and manage technology 

based projects for almost 20 years, 

including managing large scale 

digital signage implementations for 

major international organizations. 

He will spearhead Capital Networks 

drive into new sectors, and will 

initially focus on the Canadian 

education market, where a growing 

number of universities, large schools 

and regional school districts are 

looking to digital signage to improve 

communication across widet 

AnswerNet 

President and 

CEO Gary Pudles 

says the fact 

his company 

operated in 

many diverse areas 

of North America led him to form 

the AnswerNet Cares program 

recognized by the ATA award. 

Advised Funds program, funded 

by The Pudles Family Fund, which 

became AnswerNet Cares. The 

goal of AnswerNet Cares is to 

encourage AnswerNet employees 

to participate in the communities 

where they live and work, not just in 

the community where the corporate 

office is located. AnswerNet Cares 

gives donations for as many as 20 

employee-driven charitable efforts 

per year and allows AnswerNet to 

actively support the many causes 

that are important to its employees. 

“The unique structure of our 

company, where we operate 

in many diverse areas of North 

America, is what steered me in 

the direction of what eventually 

became the AnswerNet Cares 

program,” explains Pudles. “A large 

part of our success is in our ability 

to offer local services nationally and 

national services locally. We wanted 

to bring that same feeling of ‘we’re 

in this together’ to any foundation 

or charity initiative we presented 

to our employees. AnswerNet 

Cares enables our employees to 

become actively involved in a cause 

they are passionate about while 

receiving support in the form of 

donations from AnswerNet and 

the volunteering of time from their 

fellow employees.” 

CAM-X names 2009-2010 board 

The 2009-2010 officers and directors 

of the Canadian Call Management 

Association (CAM-X) are: Gary Blair 

of Tele-Page, Montreal, president; 

Mary Anne Straw of Tigertel, pastpresident/secretary/treasurer; 

Tom 

Sheridan of Executive Services, 

Pueblo, CO, first vice-president; 

Brad French of Alliance Wireless 

Communications, Kingston, ON, 

second vice-president. 

Directors are: Nicole Linde of 

Intercon Messaging Inc., Drayton 

Valley, AB; Denise Reynolds of T.A.S. 

Communications / TAS (Quinte) Co. 

Ltd., Belleville, ON : and Tim Carwell 

of CommAlert (2007) Ltd., Edmonton, 

AB. Vendor representative is Patty 

Anderson of Telescan LLC, St. Louis, 

MO. Executive director is Linda Osip 

of Grimsby, ON. 

Capital Networks selects 

Reeves manager of 

business development 

Capital Networks Limited (CNL), 

a global provider of broadcasting 

and dynamic digital signage 

software, has appointed broadcast 

media specialist, Blake Reeves, as 

manager of business development. 

t Blake 

Reeves has 

sales, project 

management 

and 

implementation 

experience in large 

scale software deployments 

including projects in ERP, CRM, 

VoIP, Unified Communications, 

digital signage messaging and 

advertising applications. 


People 

reaching audiences and complex 

campus layouts in a cost-effective 

and efficient deployment. 

Reeves has held senior 

management roles at leading 

technology and broadcast media 

companies including JD Edwards 

where he was national ERP 

technology strategist for Canada, 

and OM Video where he held the 

post of vice-president and director 

of sales and digital signage. In 

these roles he built up valuable 

sales, project management and 

implementation experience in 

large scale software deployments 

including projects in ERP, CRM, VoIP, 

Unified Communications, digital 

signage messaging and advertising 

applications, to support his new role 

at CNL. 

to commercially deploy DSL 

technology in the U.S. She managed 

Covad’s national go-to-market plan 

for direct sales of the company’s VoIP 

and data services, and helped grow 

that business to more than $178 

million of revenue at the end of 2007. 

Prior to Covad, Severin served 

as vice-president of marketing at 

Valiant Networks and NorthPoint 

Communications, as vice-president 

of marketing & sales at Pacific Bell 

start-up PrimeOne Tele-TV, and as 

executive director of marketing & 

sales at Pacific Bell Video Services. 

Facebook appoints 

Clements head of sales 

for Canada 

Social networking site Facebook has 

appointed Louise Clements as the 

head of sales for Facebook in Canada. 

Clements will be responsible 

for setting up and managing 

Facebook’s Canadian advertising 

sales operations based in Toronto. 

She will focus on building a team to 

support the advertising agencies 

WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT by IEX CORPORATION 

and marketers in Canada, who are 

increasingly in need of creative 

and relevant approaches to reach 

Facebook users. 

Clements has 10 years experience 

in advertising and digital marketing. 

Prior to Facebook, she was the 

vice-president of digital properties 

at Rogers Media where she led 

strategic development, revenue, and 

audience growth for all Rogers Media 

consumer brands. Before Rogers 

Media, she worked at several other 

prominent companies such as AOL, 

Sympatico, and Bell Globemedia. 

Severin named 8x8 Inc 

chief marketing officer 

Improve Planning • Enhance Performance • Streamline Tasks • Integrate Data 

8x8, Inc., Santa Clara, CA, provider 

of 8x8 Virtual Office and Packet8 

broadband business, residential, 

video and mobile communications 

services, has appointed Debbie Jo 

Severin chief marketing officer and 

vice-president, marketing. She is 

responsible for 8x8’s marketing 

strategies and operations, driving 

awareness and adoption of the 

company’s business Internet protocol 

(IP) communications systems 

through customer acquisition and 

retention initiatives including brand 

management, demand generation, 

direct and online marketing, 

advertising, promotions, marketing 

communications and public 

relations. 

Severin brings more than 20 

years of marketing experience to 

8x8 and was most recently vicepresident 

of marketing at Covad 

Communications, the first company 

t Debbie Jo 

Severin is 

responsible 

for driving 

awareness of 

8x8’s business 

IP communications 

systems. 

For over 15 years, Xentrax has been 

a pioneer in offering innovative turn 

key Contact Centre Software solutions 

to the Canadian Marketplace. It is our 

singular focus and specialized expertise 

in Workforce Optimization that allows our 

customers to rapidly leverage the power 

hidden within their contact centres. 

As IEX’s certified Canadian partner, 

Xentrax provides Systems Installation, 

Product Training and On-going Product 

Support of the TotalView Workforce 

Management Suite of Products. 

To learn how we have powered some of 

Canada’s more customer focused contact centres, 

call 888-XENTRAX (888-936-8729) or 

email us at info@xentrax.com. 

Innovative Contact Centre Solutions 


Readerboard 

Feature story 


reduce service costs this holiday 

season. nGen Chat is an offering 

from nGenera Customer Interaction 

Management (CIM), a division of 

nGenera Corporation, Bellevue, WA, 

and a provider of next-generation 

customer experience software. 

“nGenera CIM proved to be 

the most flexible of all the chat 

vendors we investigated,” says 

Chris Brown, director of North 

American ecommerce at Crocs “They 

completely understood our seasonal 

needs and are enabling us to add 

additional seats during the upcoming 

holidays. This coupled with nGen 

Chat’s robust features and reporting 

capabilities will help us to achieve our 

sales and customer service goals.” 

“By utilizing nGen Chat to deliver 

a great customer sales and service 

experience, Crocs will enhance its 

already strong brand through its online 

store this holiday season,” says nGenera 

CIM General Manager Wade Pfeiffer. 

nGenera CIM enables retailers 

to successfully address industryspecific 

requirements and challenges 

through robust product functionality 

and both on-premise and ondemand 

deployment options. A 

component of nGenera’s CIM suite, 

I Love Rewards gets award 

for talking Generation Y talk 

Described as North America’s 

fastest growing Web-based rewards 

and recognition solution provider, I 

Love Rewards was selected recently 

as a recipient of the Next Generation 

Employer of Choice Award at the 

Rockstars@ Work conference for its 

proven methods of engaging today’s 

workforce. Other award recipients 

included big box retailer Best Buy 

and agricultural merchandiser and 

processor Cargill. 

“I Love Rewards is honored to 

be receiving the first time award 

for proven excellence in retaining 

Generation Y,” says Razor Suleman, 

CEO and founder, I Love Rewards. 

“We strongly believe in order for 

companies to recruit and retain top 

performing employees, it’s important 

nGenera CIM General Manager 

Wade Pfeiffer says by using nGen Chat 

to deliver a great customer sales and 

service experience, Crocs will enhance 

its already strong brand through its 

online store this holiday season. 

nGen Chat enables retailers to 

instantly serve customers at their 

point of need significantly reducing 

shopping cart abandonment and 

increasing sale volumes. nGen 

Chat customer’s report an average 

increase in sales volume of 30 

percent post deployment. 

Retailers also value nGen 

Chat because it reduces service 

costs though increases in agent 

productivity. While phone agents 

can typically handle an average 

of 2.7 customer calls per hour, a 

chat agent can handle an average 

of 11.5 chats per hour. This is 

a 425 percent improvement in 

productivity which equates to 

significant savings for retailers. 

Avaya names 

Innovatia accredited 

learning partner. 

Global provider of enterprise 

communications systems, Avaya 

has named Innovatia, Inc., Saint 

John, NB, an accredited learning 

to adjust corporate cultures to the 

changing workforce. Rockstars@ 

Work is an opportunity for employers 

to learn best practices and adapt 

them to their own organizations.” 

I Love Rewards is made up of 61 

percent Generation Y employees, and 

has created its own best practices 

that accommodate the changing 

interests of the workforce. It is said 

to have a unique corporate culture 

which includes industry leading 

recognition techniques for its 

employees who are in the top one 

percent of their field. 

The RockStars@Work conference 

was designed for human resource 

and business leaders to discover how 

to recruit and retain top Generation 

Y employees. Topics covered bridging 

partner. It authorizes Innovatia to 

supply training and certification for 

Avaya channel partners in unified 

communications, contact centre 

and SME solutions. The training 

will let Avaya channel partner 

associates cost-effectively and 

conveniently obtain the skills to 

achieve Avaya Certified Associate 

(ACA) and Avaya Certified 

Specialist (ACS) designations. 

Innovatia designs, develops, and 

delivers end-to-end training solutions 

for the telecommunications, energy, 

and health sectors. It is one of only 

a few accredited learning partners 

outside the Avaya distributor network. 

A wholly owned subsidiary of Bell 

Aliant, Innovatia offers an expansive set 

of next generation knowledge solutions 

and capabilities, including an eLearning 

content library, documentation, 

technical support, and professional 

services. It employs more than 300 

people globally and serves in excess of 

1,500 customers in 29 countries from 

offices in Canada, the U.S. and Europe 

“We are excited about the 

opportunity to provide our unique 

training solutions and equip Avaya 

channel partners with the skills they 

need to be successful in selling and 

u see Readerboard... page 22 

the talent gap, obtaining tools for 

succession planning and learning 

about workforce trends preferred by 

younger generations. 

“The Next Generation Employer 

of Choice Award was created to 

recognize employers who are 

revolutionizing the workplace,” says 

Sarah Sladek, president and CEO, 

XYZ University. “I Love Rewards is a 

thought leader in Generation Y and 

we are thrilled to recognize them for 

their achievements.” 

I Love Rewards is a major provider 

of Web-based employee rewards 

and recognition. It works with 

top employers in North America to 

recruit, retain and inspire employees, 

and drive the results most important 

to business success. 

u from Path to better... page 9 

and CRM applications. Additionally, 

any solution should be flexible 

enough to meet the ever-changing 

needs of residential customers, small 

businesses and enterprise accounts. 

The technology framework should 

be based on the most accepted 

industry standards to ensure that the 

company can modify its offering as 

needs change. 

In this area too CCM solutions 

can help telecoms meet and exceed 

customer expectations at every step 

of the way. 

Reduce communication costs 

to Drive ROI 

From electronic document storage to 

help save on paper inventory costs, 

to better produced bills leading to 

fewer calls into the call center, to 

consolidated bills contributing to 

reduced postage costs, a robust CCM 

solution can reduce costs, improve 

operational efficiency and drive ROI. 

When it comes to remaining 

ahead of the game, today’s 

customer communication 

management solutions can help 

drive organizational improvements 

in everything from database to 

delivery. Most importantly, they can 

help telecommunications companies 

realize their potential, run more 

efficiently and better serve their 

customers while realizing serious 

bottom-line rewards. 

Stephen F. Williams, 

executive, CCM, Pitney 

Bowes Business 

Insight, joined PBBI 

in 2002 with more than 20 years of 

achievements in management and 

new business development working 

with government, insurance and 

communications industries. He 

served in key sales and management 

roles at various companies including 

GK Workware, World Foundation for 

Children and Copyman Print Group. 

He has been instrumental in helping 

clients understand how to better 

communicate with their customers 

and unlock the value of customer 

data. He earned his Bachelor of 

Business Administration at the 

University Of Melbourne, Australia. 

He can be reached at Stephen. 

Williams@pb.com. 


Tilling self-service in the network 

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the classic self-service farm or data centre deployment model. 

But it begins to break down under several scenarios. Here is how network-based, self-service delivers 

benefits both to callers and providers of customer care. BY Ross Daniels 

Internet Protocol (IP) has 

become the overwhelming 

standard for new Unified 

Communications (UC) 

deployments, even as businesses 

and organizations with older 

time-division-multiplexing (TDM) 

equipment and networks are 

migrating to IP at an ever-increasing 

rate. The IP convergence has brought 

significant change to customer care in 

that customer contact no longer need 

be restricted just to “call centres”; 

rather, customer care can now occur 

across an entire network of IP-based 

customer service resources. 

Self-service applications play 

a vital role within such a network, 

allowing businesses and organizations 

to harness the power of IP to provide 

speech and video-enabled selfservice 

in ways that simply weren’t 

possible before. This includes 

deployments that are simply services 

in the network. This article will show 

how network-based self-service 

delivers benefits both to callers and to 

the providers of customer care. 

Why is self-service in the network 

important? 

Let’s begin by considering the 

classic deployment model for 

enterprise self-service systems--as 

“farms” of IVR ports in one or more 

data centres. A caller dials a toll-free 

or free phone number, and the call 

is routed via the public switched 

telephone network (PSTN) to a selfservice 

system in a data centre. The 

caller typically performs some amount 

of self-service and then either hangs 

up (hopefully satisfied with the selfservice) 

or is routed to live assistance. 

There is nothing intrinsically 

wrong with this scenario, and it 

works especially well in cases where 

the self-service system is located 

with or near live assistance at a 

contact centre. It’s also worth noting 

that the classic self-service farm or 

data centre deployment model isn’t 

tied solely to TDM architectures, 

since the same model is often used 

on IP networks. 

The classic self-service model 

begins to break down, however, 

in scenarios where subsequent 

live assistance may be required at 

multiple, distributed sites such as 

retail store locations, branch offices, 

or dispersed ACDs. In such a case, it is 

inefficient for callers to be routed to 

a distant self-service system, only to 

be subsequently routed back to a local 

branch office or to a different ACD site. 

Addressing inefficient routing 

Placing a traditional IVR self-service 

system at each branch location or 

ACD site is one way to address the 

problem of inefficient routing. But this 

introduces significant expense along 

with the new challenge of maintaining 

and updating the self-service 

applications at all the sites, which may 

number in the hundreds or thousands. 

Deploying self-service in the IP 

network offers a much better way to 

provide improved customer care in 

these scenarios, while saving costs. 

Specifically, self-service can be 

delivered via VoiceXML browsers 

deployed at many locations, under 

the central control and management 

of one or more VoiceXML application 

servers situated in a data centre or at 

any convenient site. The VoiceXML 

browsers do not necessarily 

introduce significant added expense 

to the solution because they 

leverage existing voice gateways 

that in many cases are already 

present in the network. 

With this improved model, a caller 

can dial a local number and receive 

self-service from the VoiceXML 

browser at the nearest network 

location, which could be at a local 

branch site. If live assistance is 

required at the branch, the call 

can remain there, but it could also 

be routed to another branch or 

to the contact centre to maintain 

service levels or if the caller requires 

specialized assistance. 

What is important is that the 

self-service is provided at the most 

efficient location (saving costs), 

while retaining full flexibility to route 

elsewhere if required. In addition 

to the cost savings, businesses and 

organizations--and their customers-- 

benefit from self-service applications 

with similar branding and behaviour 

across all locations and access 

points. If necessary, applications 

can be updated globally (e.g., for a 

nationwide promotion) while still 

allowing for unique logic at the 

branch level (e.g., store hours need to 

be updated at only one branch). 

Retailer realizes benefits 

Businesses and organizations are 

already seeing the advantages of selfservice 

on the network. Nearly five 

years ago, a U.S. nationwide retailer 

with more than 400 local stores was 

one of the first businesses to deploy a 

self-service solution in this fashion, and 

quickly began realizing the benefits. 

The retailer’s customers reported 

increased satisfaction from having 

to call only one number (the number 

of their local store), from easily being 

able to speak to someone in that store 

if necessary after self-service, and 

from having their questions answered 

more quickly (since their call could 

be routed to another branch or to a 

national contact centre to keep hold 

times down and provide specialized 

assistance). For its part, the retailer 

now enjoys higher customer retention 

even as reduced telephony carrier 

routing costs have lowered operating 

expenses. 

In another example, a global high 

tech firm with more than 100 ACD sites 

and 6,000 plus agents deployed selfservice 

applications on the network to 

provide technical support. Callers 

to the company receive selfservice 

treatment locally on the 

nearest network gateway, while 

retaining the option to be routed 

to any technical support agent. 

Call treatment at the “edge” of the 

network has reduced this company’s 

Feature story 

telephony carrier costs by more than 

50 percent, while the decoupling of 

the self-service from the ACD sites 

has reduced caller on-hold times by 

providing more routing options to 

contact centre agents. 

Although these examples focused 

on branch retail and multiple ACD 

sites, network-based self-service’s 

inherent flexibility and efficiency 

offer benefits to other deployment 

models as well, with or without a 

formal contact centre. Businesses 

and organizations benefit, along with 

their customers. 

Ross Daniels is 

director of solutions 

marketing for Unified 

Communications 

(UC), Cisco. In this capacity, he is 

responsible for product positioning, 

solution messaging, and goto-market 

activities for various 

aspects of Cisco’s UC portfolio, with 

primary emphasis on Cisco Unified 

Contact Centre, messaging, Web 

and audio conferencing, mobile UC, 

and Presence solutions. He can be 

reached at danielsr@cisco.com. 


“Customer Service Representatives can 

instantaneously access and view exact replicas 

of our customer bills, resulting in a 

20% decrease in cost and 

20% increase in efficiency” 

??? Feature story 

Utilities provider 

SO MANY CUSTOMERS SO LITTLE TIME 

EVERY 

EngageOne 

Reduce call centre calls and improve efficiency with 

accurate, interactive customer communication 

Learn more about our enterprise solutions for generating and managing communications 

1.800.268.DATA or visit http://go.pbinsight.com/ccm 

14 contact management.ca November / December 2009 

© Copyright Pitney Bowes Business Insight. All rights reserved.

Rewards, incentives 

& agent productivity 

The recognition factor 

The art of saying thanks for job 

Here is how to use recognition to influence employee 

engagement and drive up call centre results. By Peter Hart 

The ability to effectively 

thank and coach 

with appreciation 

and recognition can 

make a sustained difference to an 

employee’s career and a company’s 

future. All the more important is that 

the habit of recognition can cost little 

or nothing to generate, making it 

perhaps the single best investment a 

company can make. 

Call centres are a prime example 

of how recognition can make a real 

difference regarding company success. 

Call centres are often plagued by low 

engagement scores and high turnover. 

This is alarming considering they 

interact directly with customers and 

are therefore directly responsible for 

customer satisfaction. 

Holistic programs aimed 

at building relationships and 

improving the performance across 

organizations can influence the 

overall success of any recognition 

program. When people inside your 

company (employees) feel visible and 

appreciated, they will extend that 

same attitude and commitment to 

the people outside of your company 

(customers). This formula is the 

reason why recognition alone or 

combined with rewards can change 

the future for all businesses. 

Unfortunately, recognition has 

long held the stigma as a soft science 

for “the huggy people” or “the balloon 

blower-uppers” which embarrassed 

serious executives. For years, 

recognition was banished to the 

dustiest corners of HR departments, 

stereotyped as a program a company 

ran because the competition also had 

a recognition program. 

But the tide has turned. Today, 

the world’s best organizations treat 

recognition as a critical business 

process, closely tied to improving 

employee engagement, retention 

and performance. 

Leading companies like H&R 

Block, Royal Bank Financial Group 

and Best Buy embrace recognition 

as a strategic management tool. 

Food product giant Cargill believes 

in recognition so much that it has a 

Chief Recognition Officer as part of 

its inner executive circle. 

The numbers support employee 

appreciation as a business staple. 

Author David Maister reports that 

financial performance increases 

by 42 percent when employee 

morale improves by 10-15 percent. 

Robert Half International finds 

more than a third of employees 

leave organizations because they 

haven’t been appreciated enough. 

Even Gallup opines 82 percent 

of employees believe that the 

recognition they receive motivates 

the performance they give. 

Creating “performance-based” 

recognition 

Under performance-based 

recognition, organizations don’t 

simply recognize the result. Instead, 

managers, colleagues and leaders 

authentically recognize behaviours 

throughout a process that lead to 

results. Recognizing employees on the 

journey, rather than at the destination, 

increases the frequency of recognition. 

That increased frequency means 

employees receive coaching and 

motivation regularly, providing more 

opportunities for course correction 

and improved personal performance. 

Ultimately, the impact on results is 

significant. 

This compares to the way Tiger 

Woods dominates golf. To hit a drive 

350 yards, he doesn’t just step up to 

the tee and crank the ball. Instead, 

he’s at the driving range, in the gym, 

reviewing video, walking the course 

and receiving constant feedback 

from his coach. 

It takes practice, plus the 

fostering of his competitive spirit 

for Tiger to make that one single 

drive. The same attitude applies to 

employees on the front line. 

“Authenticity” is another key 

component of performance-based 

recognition. Saying thank you isn’t 

enough. Saying thank you in a way that 

is honest, genuine and meaningful - 

making sure the employee is treated as 

a person and not a body – will produce 

a level of loyalty, commitment and 

positive momentum that no amount of 

bonus money can buy. 

This goes for employees 

everywhere, including call centres. 

Don’t thank them at the end of the 

month when all is said and done. 

They need coaching throughout 

the process to be able to get those 

numbers you require. 

For a job to be well done, 

employees need to know where they 

stand. Managers must encourage and 

give feedback throughout the process. 

“Food product giant 

Cargill believes in 

recognition so much 

that it has a Chief 

Recognition Officer.” 

Strategy comes first 

To initiate a performance-based 

approach, begin with the basics. 

Understand what your organization 

wants the program to achieve. In 

developing most business processes, 

this is an obvious first step. 

Executives have traditionally 

looked at recognition a little 

differently, lumping it in the category 

of “probably important but can’t be 

measured.” But it can. 

To be successful, any recognition 

system must have the ability to 

directly connect measurement to 

its strategic foundation. Original 

measurement such as phone 

interviews and focus groups will 

reveal program awareness and usage. 

Links to existing measurement 

vehicles like employee surveys 

will show the relationship to key 

issues like engagement, retention, 

recruitment, absenteeism, etc. 

Therefore, it is imperative to 

create a detailed assessment that 

reviews your current program by 

reviewing internal surveys and 

research to determine how specific 

internal trends are influencing 

the business. Seven best practice 

standards developed by Recognition 

Professionals International (RPI - www. 

recognition.org), a leading association 

for recognition professionals, will 

help your company establish a clear 

pathway to understanding, analyzing 

and revamping the health of an 

existing program. 

Surveys will often reveal high 

disengagement at call centres, thus 

explaining high turnover. Managers 

need to understand what kind of impact 

recognition has on employee morale. 

Turning managers into 

recognition experts. 

As a recognition company, one of our 

biggest challenges is often to create 

a kind of “aha” moment in managers 

who oversee day-to-day operations. 

Employees are commonly disengaged 

because of direct managers. From 

the initial audit, our program experts 

often learn that most managers don’t 

have the resources or motivation to 

create an engaged workforce. 

The answer is to demonstrate 

how a recognition program can be 

transformed into a performancebased 

recognition system to motivate 

managers to genuinely thank 

employees for performance and 

influence engagement in the process. 

Recognition is not always an innate 

behaviour and sometimes needs to 

be learned. 

The updated system needs to 

simplify the program, make the 

business case with managers and 

regularly communicate to employees. 

Again, RPI’s seven best practice 

standards benchmark the areas of 

improvement. 

Connecting people 

with people. 

Social networking is no longer 

forward-thinking technology – it 

is the here and now and later. To 

boost day-to-day recognition, 

social networking tools will be 

the most effective way for branch 

communications to tie-in employees. 

By building a complete online 

recognition portal, your organization 

will be able to facilitate the 

administration of your recognition 

program while having a tool to 

see The art of saying... page 17 


Rewards, incentives & 

agent productivity 

Staffing matters 

Secret to success—employee engagement 

Contact centres with high employee engagement are more likely to score higher in customer satisfaction, experience 

lower turnover and have a higher level of employee satisfaction. Engaged employees feel upbeat about work and tend 

to describe their employer in more positive terms. Here is how to get them engaged. BY Jeff Doran 

The level of disengagement 

in organizations these 

days is staggering. 

Particularly alarming 

is the negative impact on high 

performing employees. 

The Watson Wyatt and 

WorldatWork Strategic Rewards 

Survey found that overall employee 

engagement dropped nine percent 

from 2008, but top performer 

engagement dropped nearly 25 

percent from the previous year. 

And the number of people who 

said they would recommend that 

others apply for positions at their 

companies declined by nearly 20 

percent, according to the Harvard 

Business Review. 

These statistics reinforce what 

we’re seeing in the contact centre 

industry. Recently, I was talking to a 

Human Resources director who was 

frustrated because employees are 

not engaged. She believes they have 

lost their enthusiasm. 

In fact, just 12 months ago, 

her organization had no problem 

attracting top talent. Now employees 

are apathetic, turnover is high and 

finding replacements is difficult. 

The problem isn’t a lack of will. The 

problem is that the contact centre 

has become stagnant. 

Management is running out 

of fresh ideas and employees are 

losing their emotional connection. 

The challenge is to get employees 

reconnected and re-energized. 

They want to develop their 

leadership skill and affect the 

strategic decisions. In short, they 

want a hand in developing a positive, 

successful contact centre culture. 

But in order to do so, they need to be 

engaged. 

A survey on employee 

engagement published last year by 

YouGov polled more than 23000 

U.K. directors, managers and 

employees and found that employee 

engagement is seen as one of the 

top three factors that drive an 

organization’ success. As well, 

75 percent of board members 

believe that it improves 

bottom-line performance. 

Why should employees 

be engaged? 

Contact centres with high engagement 

are more likely to score higher in 

customer satisfaction, experience 

lower turnover and have a higher level 

of employee satisfaction. Engaged 

employees are good for the corporate 

brand. They 

feel upbeat about work and tend 

to describe their employer in more 

positive terms. This helps reinforce a 

preferred employer reputation. 

Gallop researchers investigated 

the effect of employee engagement 

on customer service innovation. 

Nearly nine in 10 engaged employees 

(89 percent) strongly agreed that 

“At work, I know where to go with 

an idea to improve customer 

service,” contrasted with only 

16 percent of actively 

disengaged employees. 

Engaged employees 

also involved 

customers in the 

innovation and 

improvement 

process. When 

asked to rate 

their level of 

agreement with 

the statement 

“At work, 

we give our 

customers 

new ideas,” 

74 percent of 

What do employees 

really want? 

What is it that gets your employees 

excited? Is it on-site massage, free 

parking, new technology, cash 

incentives, clean washrooms, meshback 

chairs, pizza Fridays, access to 

social networking sites? 

These may all satisfy an immediate 

need. But they are short term fixes. 

What employees really want these 

days is to contribute on a deeper level. 

They want to be involved in more 

meaningful organizational initiatives 

and be appreciated for their efforts. 


Recognition factor 

engaged employees strongly agreed that 

they shared new ideas with customers, 

contrasted with just 13 percent of 

actively disengaged employees. 

How do you get 

employees engaged? 

To get people truly engaged, 

you have to have a clear vision - 

something people will support 

through good and bad times. You also 

need meaningful goals and strategies 

to achieve the vision. 

You need to present opportunities 

where people can get involved, 

collaborate and contribute. This is 

what gets people excited and creates 

a stronger emotional connection. 

They need to be part of 

something bigger. If employees can 

contribute on a higher level, they 

feel a tremendous sense of pride and 

accomplishment. 

Also, if they receive sincere 

recognition for their contributions 

they feel much more respect for 

their bosses and more connected 

to the organization. Higher level 

contribution and recognition will have 

a tremendous affect on engagement, 

and of course, retention. 

Employees become more engaged 

in their work if their employer 

provides a supportive, nurturing 

culture including: 

• Respectful, trusting environment 

• Opportunities to be involved in 

decision making 

• Supports diversity 

• Open door policy 

• Competitive pay 

• Good benefits plan 

• Growth and career path 

opportunities 

• Fitness and recreation activities/ 

facilities 

• Training and development 

• Fun, social events 

• Clean, modern facilities 

• Leading technology 

• Fair scheduling 

“What employees really want these days is to 

contribute on a deeper level.” 

100 

90 

80 

70 

60 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

0 

These items all help build an 

engaged workforce. These items 

are also the building blocks for 

Employer of Choice contact centres. 

Many organizations these days are 

developing employer of choice 

cultures to create great work 

Gallop researchers investigated the effect of employee 

engagement on customer service innovation. 

environments and build engagement. 

Employer of Choice 

equals engagement 

The goal of being an employer of 

choice helps build engagement. 

When you begin your journey to 

become an employer of choice, some 

surprising things happen. 

Your employees start asking 

what they can do to help instead 

of waiting to be told. They become 

more excited, motivated and “onboard” 

with new initiatives. They 

work better together as a team and 

become faster at resolving issues. 

They arrive on time and work hard. 

They become “brand advocates” and 

talk about their employer with pride 

and conviction. 

Building engagement results in a 

higher performing, more successful 

contact centre. And as a manager, 

you reap the benefits of a more 

inspired workforce that delivers 

better customer service on a more 

consistent basis. 

Engagement can be an elusive 

goal. That’s why I like to use the 

following model to demonstrate the 

linkage between engagement and 

the organization: 

Employer of Choice Culture = 

Engagement = Performance 

If you can create a people focused 

culture that fosters engagement 

and collaboration, your contact 

centre will achieve astounding 

levels of performance and you’ll be 

recognized as a strategic leader in 

your organization. 

Jeff Doran is president of CCEOC 

Inc., Newmarket, ON, which oversees 

the administration and delivery of 

the Contact Centre Employer Of 

Choice (CCEOC) certification and 

development program for regional, 

national and international centres. He 

has worked with many organizations 

including FedEx, Scotiabank, CAA, 

HILTI International, The Shopping 

Channel, Netelleer, CIBA Vision, 

Rogers Communications, Roche 

Diagnotics, Crawford Adjusters 

and Grand & Toy. He can be 

reached at 416-886-7007; jdoran@ 

ccemployerofchoice.com 

u from The art of ... page 15 

encourage both employee and 

management involvement. 

In addition, your program can 

include a social media component 

similar to the immensely popular 

Facebook and Twitter. Social 

media holds significant promise for 

recognition. Here’s how. 

Recognition is the action inviting 

a closed community – a company, 

an office, a family – to make a 

contribution. Social media asks for 

the same thing. Used effectively it 

can facilitate the “human” aspect of 

building relationships. 

Success will require training 

select managers to be forum 

moderators and ensuring usage by all 

“Recognition is not 

always an innate 

behaviour and 

sometimes needs to 

be learned.” 

employees. Generating visibility and 

participation for your in-house social 

networking tool will require a launch 

that will move employees to action. 

Introduce a contest by having 

branch challenges by uploading 

photographs and stories. Not only 

will the creativity of what each 

department is doing be shared, 

but this type of recognition can be 

part of your awards program by 

rewarding the best of the group. 

The bottom line to beneficial 

employee engagement is crossover. 

No one tool will foster 

employee engagement and positive 

motivation to drive up productivity 

and loyalty. It will be a blend of 

tools, qualitative and strategy 

driven ideas and implementations 

that will make a difference to your 

employee performance and external 

relationships. 

Peter Hart is president 

& CEO of Rideau 

Recognition Solutions 

(www.rideau.com) and 

has been advising and serving the 

industry for longer than 20 years. 

He can be reached at PeterHart@ 

Rideau.com. 



staff productivity 

The motivational factor 

The training to service linkage 

Intrinsic motivators are much more powerful than extrinsic motivators 

like rewards or incentives. One of the best intrinsic motivators is effective 

training. One of the biggest benefactors is customers through the improved 

service they get from well trained agents. BY Terry pruner 

Globalization, technology 

and the new workforce 

are undergoing 

substantial shifts and 

have a powerful influence on the 

way we lead, or more specifically, 

motivate our teams. Most businesses 

today have experienced the market 

pressure of increased competition 

resulting from globalization. 

The capability to reach customers 

globally with new technologies 

continues to grow exponentially. 

Combine these trends with a changing 

and more demanding workforce 

and the “why, how and when” of 

motivating employees evolves into 

a whole new playbook. Increased 

competition means the bar for 

service is being set much higher than 

previously whereby good customer 

service is no longer good enough and 

we have no reason to expect that 

these trends will not continue. 

Our quality of service needs to 

be remarkable! That is, a positive 

customer experience that people will 

talk about. That’s where motivating 

staff through training becomes a 

home run for everyone. 

Consider the many benefits to 

motivating staff through training. 

For employees, training addresses 

one of their most significant needs; 

it makes them feel valued and 

important and demonstrates that 

the company cares about them and 

their future. Training, when designed 

and delivered effectively, reduces 

stress by helping employees improve 

the quality of their work and reach 

performance goals. 

Unlike many other approaches 

to motivation, training is always 

different from one course to another. 

Course instructors, fellow learners 

and varied delivery approaches all 

serve to keep the program interesting 

and motivating. Since learning 

provides variety in our workday and 

creates positive growth in individuals 

and their peers, it results in a more 

positive work climate. 

Perhaps the most important factor 

however, is the notion that the will to 

learn is intrinsically motivating. That 

is to say, it motivates a person from 

within themselves. 

The reason is learning is an activity 

that can enhance or maintain a 

person’s self concept. We know that 

intrinsic motivators are much more 

powerful than extrinsic motivators, 

(like rewards or incentives), but 

it is not always easy to identify 

motivators that reach a person at an 

intrinsic level like training will. 

Managers are motivated as 

well, not only with achieving their 

own development goals, but with 

the personal satisfaction of being 

part of a plan to create success in 

others. But the winning doesn’t stop 

there. The company benefits from 

improvements in quality of work and 

performance, with employees who 

can be promoted and add value to 

the business. 

Most important winners 

The most important winners, of 

course, are customers, who benefit 

from improvements in quality of 

service, and reward us with their 

loyalty. But wait a minute... didn’t 

you read somewhere that loyalty is 

a thing if the past with today’s time 

starved and intolerant customers? 

Possibly, but perhaps today’s 

customer is just tired of poor service 

and hasn’t been given a reason to 

stay. Think of the last time you told 

someone about the great service you 

received. You will surely recognize 

that a remarkably positive service 

experience is rare. Alternatively, 

a poor service experience is much 

more easily recalled and, in all 

likelihood, had something to do with 

the attitude or performance of the 

person involved. 

So if mentoring staff into training 

programs is highly motivating and 

everybody wins, why 

in tough times, do 

companies cut back on training? 

For any number of reasons 

training can be ineffective and, 

as a result, be undervalued and 

discouraging for any or all of the 

above stakeholders. Those reasons 

can include irrelevant content, 

inaccessibility, poor planning or 

delivery, along with the absence 

of vision, reinforcement, followup, 

measurements or goals. If we 

want everyone to be motivated to 

reap the motivational benefits of 

training, we need to satisfy all of the 

above conditions. 

The starting point 

The most reasonable starting point 

is similar to any business initiative; 

what are we trying to accomplish and 

how will we measure our success? 

Where are the performance gaps and 

what is the vision or end state and 

what do we want to achieve? Are we 

trying to improve specific customer 

satisfaction scores, increase 

revenues, promote more staff, or 

increase market share? These are 

just a few examples, but what is 

most important, is that a baseline 

“Adult learners need interaction, exercises 

or group work and don’t respond as well 

to lecturing.” 

measurement is established and 

we set challenging but reasonable 

targets. 

Next we need to consider job 

relevance. There is no sense training 

someone in skills that will not help 

them excel in the job they are doing 

today, or preparing for a job they’ll be 

doing tomorrow. Understanding the 

skills and accountabilities of roles in 

the organisation and the competency 

requirements within a succession 

plan are critical. 

While considering the roles of 

your students, consider as well, how 

they will access the training and 

what environment is ideal for the 

training we 

are delivering. The training channel 

will depend on a person’s availability, 

the nature of the training and the 

individual’s learning style. 

Most technical training, including 

product knowledge, the use of a 

particular software, knowledgebase 

or screen navigation can be self 

directed and accessed via computer. 

Other skills like leadership or 

customer service are better delivered 

in a classroom setting where people 

can role play, share experiences and 

generally benefit from the richness of 

face to face communication. 

The learning experience must be 

well planned and delivered. Who 

is the audience, how do they learn, 

what learning tools do we have at our 

disposal and how do we keep their 

attention for an hour, a day or longer? 

Adult learners’ need interaction, 

exercises or group work and don’t 

respond as well to lecturing. The 

content has to be relevant to their 

work so they can see the benefits 

and apply their learning to real 

work situations. Trainers need to 

recognise as well that managers need 

to be included in the development 

of programs to provide insight on 

competency gaps, and improve 

training relevance. 

If the content is relevant and 

applicable, students are more likely to 

retain what they’ve learned. Multimedia 

of any kind can break the lecture drone 

and freshen a fatigued class. 

New tools like YouTube provide 

a great library of short videos for 

learning, while Facebook, WebEx 

or your company intranet can be 

used as virtual classroom tools. 

There are even more tools that can 

be downloaded for free providing 

everything from PowerPoint games 

to contest platforms. 

Knowledge retention 

As any trainer will tell you, the 

u see The training... page 19 


Agent productivity 

Feature story 

u from The training... page 18 

problem with knowledge retention 

often comes after the class is 

dismissed. The investment is made, 

the courses are developed and 

delivered, but once the student 

leaves the training environment, the 

subject is never raised again. 

Do managers support the training by 

following up with related goals or action 

plans, or do they continue to harp on 

the same old contact centre metrics? 

In many cases the motivational 

value of training is lost, simply 

because it just isn’t recognized by 

management. If newly learned 

knowledge is not applied, the skills 

will not be practiced and will never 

be internalized into the daily routine. 

To be successful in the long term, 

organizations have to buy into the 

value of learning and integrate training 

into their strategic plans. Managers 

as well, need to demonstrate their 

support of training initiatives and 

promote an environment where 

learning is valued. 

One very effective strategy 

towards retention is to have students 

set goals at the end of course based 

on what they’ve learned. Managers 

or team leaders can work with them 

to refine their goals and create an 

action plan for achievement. The plan 

can then be referred to regularly in 

coaching sessions. 

So ... store the trinkets for sales 

promotions and save the bonuses for 

performance incentives. When it comes 

to motivation, training is motivating all on 

its own and is one of the most effective 

approaches to team development, 

performance and retention. 

Terry Pruner is a professor and 

contact centre industry director in 

the Faculty of Business at Seneca 

College and president of CRM 

Connections, a boutique consultancy 

firm specializing in CRM, contact 

centre design and improvement. He 

can be reached at terry.pruner@ 

senecac.on.caor 416-435-6387. 

Coaching benefits & best practices 

The benefits of professional coaching are substantial and can have a dramatic impact 

on the overall profitability of any company. For contact centres in particular, a well 

implemented coaching program has a direct impact on operational efficiency and 

effectiveness. It is the surest path to minimizing costly repeat calls, optimizing revenue 

opportunities, and delivering a consistent, high quality customer experience. 

Considering that 65 -75 

percent of contact 

centres’ costs are driven 

by agent wages, benefits 

and incentives, professional on-site 

coaching is a critical tool in the 

retention and overall performance 

of the knowledge workers on the 

front line. It is also helps address 

the ongoing issue voiced by 

organizations that classroom training 

fails to produce return on investment 

(ROI) despite the expense and effort. 

Many organizations erroneously 

believe they have an effective 

coaching program. There are many 

clues this is not the case including 

poor or inconsistent service and 

sales results, increasing operational 

costs, and high agent attrition, to 

name a few. 

Front-line management teams 

represent a fixed cost, and yet, few 

organizations make the required 

investment in this group that 

translates into a huge operational 

ROI. Consider that a rigorous 

coaching implementation can easily 

return a 10 – 20 percent reduction in 

operational expense. 

Firms that offer and specialize 

in ‘applied performance coaching,’ 

such as SwitchGear Consulting, 

have found organizations focus 

on coaching with quantifiable and 

measurable benefits: 

Primary Benefits: Clear and 

direct financial benefits that are 

concrete and are calculated with 

few, if any, debatable assumptions 

with data that is readily available. 

Examples: agent hold times (AHT), 

sales & first call resolution (FCR) 

improvements. 

Secondary Benefits: Financial 

benefits that involve debatable 

assumptions, data or predictions that 

are harder to quantify, but represent 

strategic or significant ROI. Often 

these take longer to deliver and are 

residual versus leading measures 

Examples: employee and customer 

satisfaction. 

Auxiliary Benefits: Benefits that 

are more notional then quantifiable 

where it is impossible to truly 

confirm a direct cause & effect. 

Examples: Improvement in culture, 

client confidence. 

Coaching techniques 

A fundamental criterion in 

becoming a coaching organization 

is the ability to establish trust and 

engage people in meaningful work. 

Overall, organizational culture is 

an important factor in determining 

potential for success. 

Successful performance coaching 

is based on trust, alignment of 

objectives (individual and corporate), 

and a win-win mindset. These factors 

are more important than often cited 

lack of time, process or discipline. 

“A rigorous coaching 

implementation can 

easily return a 10 – 20 

percent reduction in 

operational expense.” 

First and foremost, the firm 

should focus on helping managers 

how to be leaders and coaches 

themselves. When engaging a 

coaching firm, look for a company 

that implements coaching programs 

as a core offering, and can quantify 

specific performance results. In 

addition, check the firm’s approach 

integrates the following top 10 

best practices in applied coaching 

methodologies. 

1. Get the Coach “on-the-court” 

– Get the coach (supervisor) 

working side-by-side in, and on, 

the business with the individuals 

and team. It’s difficult to establish 

foundational credibility needed 

to be an effective coach if the 

coach’s knowledge of the business 

is superficial. 

2. Ruthless Prioritization – Stop the 

emails, the special projects and 

reward and applaud managers for 

being on the floor and working 

with their people (see pt#1). 

Focus is critical – what is more 

valuable than the coach’s ability 

to accelerate the performance of 

people? 

3. Management-Leadership & 

Coaching – Be clear what the 

differences are: 

• Most call centres struggle 

because they are over-managed, 

under-led and under-coached. 

• Most often leaders are wearing 

their management hat up to 90 

percent of the time – caught in a 

reactive paradigm that focuses 

on processes, control, and what 

happened yesterday. Coaching by 

contrast is proactive. 

4. Ask vs. Tell – Ask is the foundation 

for both commitment & 

accountability. Focus on helping 

managers learn vs. judge. In 

this knowledge-based world of 

contact centres ask yourself, 

“Who knows more about 

see Coaching benefits... page 20 


Feature story 

From the editor 

from Coaching benefits... page 19 

workflows, systems, products: 

agents or managers?” 

5. Energy … then Value – If agents 

don’t trust management and 

interaction with the “higher ups” 

sucks energy from them, then it 

is unlikely that supervisors will 

be trusted and welcomed on 

the call centre floor. A leader’s 

job is to bring energy first, then 

improve the performance of team 

members. It’s harder for leaders 

to add true operational value 

but to continuously improve 

performance and develop 

essential skills. 

8. BE SPECIFIC! – If your coaching 

summary is “build better rapport,” 

or “ask more questions” then 

there’s no way to leverage these 

into measurable results. If an agent 

and manager can’t walk away and 

both know exactly what to work on, 

then coaching has not occurred. 

9. Follow-up – If the coaching can’t 

be used on the next customer 

call and the agents don’t start 

“A leader’s job is to bring energy first, then 

improve the performance of team members.” 

Cont’d from 

page 4 


solid ongoing recovery for the industry was that more call centres opened than 

closed in the second quarter. 

Call centre job losses were most pronounced in the fulfillment/distribution/ 

reservations sector with the largest growth coming from the service bureau 

sector. The NACC reports these trends are closer to that of the pre-recession 

numbers collected. Some states had a strong growth in call centre jobs such as 

Florida, Georgia, and Arizona while other states such as Delaware, Connecticut, 

and Alabama showed a loss of call centre jobs in that quarter. 

because they so often default 

to strategic discussions – much 

easier than delivering a concrete 

operational result. 

6. Start from what they do well & 

build on strengths – Don Schula 

the famous Miami Dolphins 

coach is famous for saying, 

“Build on people’s strengths 

to engage them early in the 

process and have them partner 

with you to deliver results.” This 

is foundational – leaders must 

inspire and build on strengths 

versus tearing agents down. A 

decade of employee satisfaction 

7. 

“The objective of 

coaching followup 

is to provide 

support and positive 

reinforcement.” 

research shows that the #1 reason 

people leave an organization is 

due to a poor relationship with 

their direct boss. 

Focus on ONE skill and step 

at a time – A weekly or daily 

approach which focuses 

on specific behaviour first 

produces incredible results. 

Conversely, giving someone 

a list once a month of results 

they need to produce fails. In 

management organizations 

5-10 percent of employees are 

on process improvement plans. 

In coaching organizations 100 

percent of employees are on 

an action plan – not to get fired 

implementing and learning 

immediately, would it be likely 

that they will suddenly implement 

the new technique weeks from 

now? If the current plan would 

be to follow-up once a month, 

in a meeting room, go back and 

see point#1 above. To be clear, 

this is not micro managing, but 

if there is no trust, it will be seen 

that way by the employee. The 

objective of coaching follow-up 

is to provide support and positive 

reinforcement. 

10. Practice CRR = Consistency, 

Repeatability, Results. Start the 

wheels in motion by focusing on a 

repeatable approach that works 

every day. 

Coaching Benefits Calculator 

The Coaching Benefits Calculator 

allows you to use your organizations’ 

data to see how changing your current 

results will impact your bottom line. 

While there are many downstream 

benefits of adopting the applied 

performance coaching approach, 

the calculator focuses on primary, 

measurable and direct results. You can 

also see the range of financial results 

achieved by a cross-section of sales 

and service organizations. 

This article is a condensation of 

the ROI of Coaching whitepaper 

produced by Switchgear 

Consulting. For a full copy of the 

ROI of Coaching whitepaper, or 

a walkthrough of the Coaching 

Benefits Calculator, contact 

SwitchGear Consulting at getvalue@ 

switchgear.ca. 

stages to building 

incentives program 

Rewarding your staff for performance can be a very 

powerful way to increase sales, customer satisfaction 

and employee engagement. Before diving headlong into 

creating your incentive program, careful thought and 

preparation is critical to planning and executing it. Here 

are four stages to follow. BY Laura Soleto 

The benefits of a welldesigned 

rewards & 

incentives program 

are many. It can send 

a powerful message about what’s 

important. It can motivate sales 

activity and it can feed both the 

intrinsic and extrinsic needs of reps. 

On the other hand, a poorly 

designed program can carry 

several risks such as resentment 

and de-motivation of staff, 

counter-productive behaviours, 

or disengagement because the 

program is too complex or too 

vague. Through our work in the 

industry, we recommend four key 

stages to building an effective 

incentive program for your 

organization. 

Stage 1 – Define and Plan 

Determine your business drivers. 

It’s important that you are crystal 

clear about WHAT your incentive 

program needs to achieve for your 

organization. 

Are you looking to sell more 

“widgets”? Is it profit margin that 

you’re looking to optimize? Is there 

a customer retention issue in your 

business? 

Being ruthless about prioritizing 

what your business really needs will 

go a long way in ensuring that your 

incentive program actually fulfills 

that need. 

Determine your objectives. Once 

you know what needs to change 

or improve in your business, the 

next important step is to determine 

WHAT it needs to change to. It’s 

current state versus desired state, 

if you will. High ROI incentive 

programs are highly dependent first 

on sound planning and alignment 

to corporate objectives and then on 

strong support through effective 

front-line leadership and coaching. 

Stage 2 – Develop High 

Level Framework 

At this stage in the incentive plan 

development process, you should 

be determining the framework 

see 4 stages to building... page 21 


Feature story 


agent productivity 

from 4 stages to building... page 20 

for HOW to achieve the objectives 

identified in the planning stage. 

Answering questions like: 

• Who will be eligible for this 

incentive? 

• How will we fund it? 

• What will it look like for the 

individual, team, and company? 

• Will it satisfy their WIIFM (What’s 

In It For Me)? 

• What measures will we use? 

• What formulas will we use? 

• Will there be minimum qualifiers? 

• Will there be escalators for 

exceptional achievement? 

• How do we ensure a balanced 

approach so that we don’t 

encourage counter-productive 

behaviours? (We’ve all seen 

reps manage their AHT by 

disconnecting on clients!) 

• How do we build enough flexibility 

in the program that affords us the 

ability to adjust for seasonality and 

changes in the business? 

Stage 3 – Design 

Detailed Program 

This is the stage where targets are 

established. Here are a few words on 

setting targets. 

Firstly, allow plenty of time for 

target setting and modelling. It takes 

much longer than one would think! 

Asking a cross-section of reps 

to act as your Challenge Team will 

provide you with invaluable input. 

This will definitely add time to the 

process at this stage but will remove 

many hardships later on for all 

stakeholders. 

This Challenge Team will provide 

the sanity check against the 

relevancy and realistic nature of the 

targets. By involving them early, their 

input will help ensure that when this 

program is rolled out to the masses, 

it is not rejected outright by the very 

people that it was built to motivate. 

Secondly, beware of WHAT you 

decide to measure. Assessing the 

reps against something they have no 

control over is a recipe for disaster. (I 

once knew of an incentive program 

where reps at a financial institution 

were penalized every time a customer 

called to make a withdrawal from 

their own bank accounts!) 

Lastly, setting targets too high 

will make reps feel “ripped off” 

and resentful while setting them 

too low will encourage mediocre 

performance and diminish the 

integrity of the incentive program. 

Always ensure that targets 

are attainable while still being 

challenging. 

Performing ‘What-If’ modelling 

at this stage will rescue you from 

negative repercussions later on. Take 

the time to think about how you want 

to manage change as you introduce 

any new incentive program. The 

best way to accomplish this is to 

take three months worth of real data 

and run it through the new model. 

Compare the new results with the 

historical results. 

Was the percentage of top 

performing reps comparable? Would 

those eligible reps have earned more 

money, less money or about the same? 

Based on the real data, would the 

new incentive program drive the right 

behaviours? Will you get the return on 

investment on the dollars spent versus 

the results you want to achieve? Have 

you set your reps up for success? 

Paying out significantly less 

money may get you a serious lack 

“It’s important that you are crystal clear about WHAT 

your incentive program needs to achieve.” 

of participation…or backlash and/ 

or attrition at worst. Performing 

the ‘what-if’ modelling will go a long 

way in testing the feasibility of your 

incentive program. 

Follow the KISS principle. In this 

case, the two SS’s in KISS stand for 

simple and specific! 

Make the rules clear, simple and 

comprehensible. A complex incentive 

program that is difficult for any rep 

to understand will significantly limit 

participation. A vague program will 

make reps suspicious that the plan is 

designed to keep them from earning 

a bonus. 

Circle back with your Challenge 

Team to test the design of the 

program and communication 

materials. This step does double 

duty. It is a final test against any 

lingering flaws that can be corrected 

before going live. 

More importantly, getting the 

stamp of approval from a select group 

of reps, especially if they are seen as 

informal leaders in the organization, 

can provide you with influential 

advocates when socializing the new 

program. A few friendly voices in 

the room, who can help handle any 

possible objections, will establish 

trust and build credibility for the 

leadership team and the new 

incentive program. 

Stage 4 – Implement & Track 

Document the program in a userfriendly 

manner and add the “Fine 

Print”. Make the document available 

on the company intranet so people 

can reference it as often as they need. 

Continue to motivate and 

educate reps through earnings 

calculators. These allow reps to 

model potential plan payouts under 

different performance scenarios. 

These calculators will become an 

exceptionally valuable coaching 

tool as they can be used to help 

reps set monthly stretch targets for 

themselves. 

Successful incentive programs 

have as much to do with change 

management, communication and 

training as they do with analysis and 

design. Sequence the rollout from 

the top down. Give executives and 

influential managers responsibility 

to explain and lend support to the 

changes. 

Consider grandfathering the 

existing incentive program while 

running the new incentive program 

in tandem for a minimum of three 

months. This will give the reps time 

to adjust to the new, upcoming 

program and provide them the 

opportunity to develop their own 

strategy on how to be successful with 

the new program. 

Assign responsibility for tracking 

results and make performance 

reports available to participants at 

all levels - front-line, management, 

and executives. Ideally, performance 

reports would be updated and 

published real-time. As this is 

not always possible, daily posting 

of results is the next best thing. 

Frequent updating of performance 

reports allows Reps to track their 

progress and make adjustments 

to their performance if they find 

themselves veering off course. 

Be prepared to tweak and finetune 

the program to ensure that it 

continues to meet your Business 

Objectives. 

Provide specific next steps to 

your front line leadership team as 

they are pivotal to the success of 

any incentive. They should be clear 

in how they will work with each 

individual Rep to help them be the 

best that they can be. They should 

use their effective coaching skills 

and develop a plan with their Reps to 

accelerate skill. After all, if you have 

set up your incentive properly, the 

more money that your Reps make 

should mean that you are earning 

more revenue. In the call centres 

we have operated, front line leaders 

coach Reps to be incrementally 

successful month over month. 

Summary 

Building a successful incentive 

program that motivates, challenges, 

drives business performance and 

is perceived as “fair” is no easy feat 

but it can be done by approaching it 

very systematically and not skipping 

any of the four steps outlined above. 

You get out of an incentive program 

what you put into it. Most incentive 

programs are low effort, low risk, and 

therefore, low return. 

Remember, incentive plans should 

be designed and operated to create 

value, not just to deliver pay. By 

following this four step process, 

it IS possible for contact centre 

supervisors and managers to create 

an environment where a culture of 

optimism and top performance can 

flourish together. 

Laura Soleto is a senior consultant at 

SwitchGear Consulting, Canada’s #1 

consulting group for Contact Centres 

specializing in accelerating revenue 

growth, lowering costs and taking 

Employee and Customer Satisfaction 

to a higher level. Results are achieved 

by unleashing the natural leadership 

of front-line managers for in-house 

and outsourced centres. She can be 

reached at laura@switchgear.ca. 


Ask Affy 

Readerboard 

Need Advice? Ask Affy! 

A-Dear Cynthia 

It is so interesting to see AHT bubble 

up again to the top of the list of 

cost reduction strategies. It is not 

surprising as a one second reduction 

of AHT can translate to a reduction 

of 1 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) to 15 

FTEs! In our industry, full on focus 

for higher productivity happens 

when AHT is out of control. 

Also typical is a knee jerk reaction 

to push agents to reduce time 

without truly understanding root 

causes. We very often hear front line 

leaders set targets and if the agent 

is lucky, the specific behaviour that 

needs to change. 

We all know that agents are 

very resourceful and will find a 

way to meet expectations if not 

given proper support, coaching and 

direction. This approach certainly 

can provide a short term gain but 

there is a price to pay in declining 

customer satisfaction and lost sales 

opportunities in the long term. 

World class leadership, however, 

coaches to specific agent behaviours 

and not to numbers. A natural 

conversation where you lead 

your agent to owning a specific 

behavioural change and getting her 

excited about doing things differently 

will give you sustainable results. 

These behavioural changes have 

positive cross impacts to revenue, 

productivity and satisfaction all at 

the same time. This ultimately drives 

results that all companies want to 

see – higher revenue, productivity 

and customer satisfaction. 

At SwitchGear, the quick start 

method to lowering AHT begins with 

some diagnostics. If you are a regular 

follower of this column, you will 

Q-My agents’ Agent Hold Time (AHT) is climbing out of control 

and we have a mandate to reduce our costs by creating efficiency 

on our calls. Do you have any ideas on how to help my agents? 

Living in chaos, Cynthia 

likely remember our mantra - take 

time to “diagnose” the problem well 

before you “prescribe” a solution. 

Sitting with top performers 

Therefore, before you jump to 

coaching, take time to understand 

your team’s holistic performance 

measures (not just AHT) as well as 

AHT components that are outside of 

the “norm” by agent. Prioritize your 

side-by-side sessions by sitting with 

agents who are top performers in all 

areas as well as those who may need 

your help. 

“You will not see change unless agents want to 

make the change and your job as a leader is to 

make them want it.” 

By sitting with these top 

performers, you will be able to 

harvest techniques and ways that 

you can share with others, otherwise 

known as best practices. Be sure 

to note the specifics – WHAT the 

agent said /did, WHEN she said/did 

it and HOW she said/did it. By being 

this specific, you can then easily 

share with other agents and get a 

repeatable outcome. 

For those agents who are 

struggling, by sitting side-by-side 

during their workday and comparing 

their behaviours to your top 

performers, you will quickly discover 

the root cause of your agent’s 

challenges. Once you’ve diagnosed 

the SPECIFIC behaviours that 

contribute to AHT, you should select 

the ONE behaviour to work on first. 

Even though you may know what 

needs to change, we recommend use 

of specific coaching techniques to 

lead agents to self discovery of what 

and how to make the changes. You 

will not see change unless agents 

want to make the change and your 

job as a leader is to make them want 

it. Getting a commitment is easy 

after that! 

A follow up conversation on the 

same day as the coaching session 

will reinforce your commitment and 

interest in setting your agent up for 

success. When it is all said and done, 

you will be surprised how energized 

and excited your agent will be with 

her coaching session. 

The response we get from most 

agents is that they finally have 

something tangible in their hands to 

work with! I have to tell you that we 

repeatedly see extraordinary results 

using this method. 

Three key steps 

Again, Cynthia, there is no instant 

cure for reducing AHT overnight. 

Rather, it takes three key steps: 

1. Have a keen eye for identifying 

best practices from top 

performers 

2. Find root cause through good 

diagnostics 

3. And most importantly, use a 

systematic coaching methodology 

to be able to share those best 

practices in a way that agents 

can understand and clearly see 

will add value. If you approach 

this AHT challenge one agent at a 

time and one behaviour at a time, 

I am confident that you will see 

a dramatic improvement in your 

team’s AHT in a very short time. 

Afshan Kinder has 20 year’s 

experience in the call centre industry. 

She is a partner at Switchgear 

Consulting, one of Canada’s foremost 

consulting groups for contact centres 

specializing in accelerating revenue 

growth, lowering costs and taking 

Employee and Customer Satisfaction 

to a higher level. Results are 

achieved by unleashing the natural 

leadership of front-line managers 

for in-house and outsourced centres. 

Please send your Ask Affy question 

to ron@contactmanagement.ca. 

We’ll run the Q&A anonymously in 

the next issue. 


providing excellent support on Avaya 

products,” says Roxanne Fairweather, 

COO, Innovatia. “Offering both virtual 

and classroom based courses – our 

certification programs are designed 

to make training more convenient 

and accessible for Avaya partners.” 

Based on individual client needs, 

Innovatia’s ACA and ACS courses 

will be offered both online and in 

classroom based settings. Classroom 

training locations will vary depending 

on volume and will be offered in 

numerous locations across Canada 

and the U.S. Virtual classroom 

training will also be available live 

online with a designated instructor. 

“As the industry evolves, it is 

essential that we learn and grow with it 

– which is why Avaya is excited to have 

valuable partners like Innovatia to help 

broaden our suite of technical training,” 

says Mary Whittle, channel director, 

Avaya Canada. “The Avaya Professional 

Certification Program provides Avaya 

and Innovatia with opportunities 

to extend the reach of our training, 

which will be beneficial to meeting the 

growing needs of our channel partners 

and the customers they support.” 

Innovatia’s ASA courses will be 

available in mid-November and 

the ACS courses will be available in 

early 2010. For more information 

on Innovatia certification courses, 

please visit: www.innovatia.net 

Coming events 

JANUARY 25-28: The 5th Annual 

Call Centre Summit is held by the 

International Quality & Productivity 

Centre. Location is the Gaylords 

Palms Hotel & Resort, Orlando, Fl. 

This summit focuses on coming 

out of the economic downturn and 

preparing for a proactive ramp-up 

This includes everything from hiring 

and growth, reenergizing staff and 

receiving management buy-in There 

will be keynotes by David Bradshaw, 

vice-president of sales and service, 

ING Direct; Jean Shaw, senior director 

global software support, Sabre Inc. 

Uruguay; Tom Hammond, vicepresident 

contact centre strategy The 

Hartford Financial Services Group; 

and Mark Weiner, vice-president 

of customer care and reservations, 

Choice Hotels. For more information, 

visit www.iqpc.com 


Software Solutions 

Agent productivity tools 

Rich function SaaS 

platform suits centres up 

to 150 agents 

Contactual’s OnDemand Contact 

Centre version 6 is a fully-featured 

contact centre solution that breaks 

the call centre’s long-standing 

dependency on complex specialized 

hardware and software. The 100 

percent Software as a Service 

(SaaS)-based platform provides 

the rich functionality of traditional 

on-premise contact centre systems 

without the long implementation 

delays, maintenance hassles, strained 

IT resources, or hidden costs. 

The OnDemand Contact Centre 

manages voice (TDM or IP/SIP), email 

and chat interactions through a 

single highly intuitive user interface. 

The system’s patented skillsbased 

routing algorithm, patent 

pending Advanced Virtual Tenant 

Architecture, and six additional 

patent pending technologies brings 

robust contact centre functionality 

to small and midsized business 

organizations that previously could 

not afford to purchase, implement 

and maintain an on-premise solution. 

The solution caters to contact 

centres with two to 150 agents, but 

is also appropriate for departmental 

help desks within Fortune 1000 

companies. 

Contactual’s signature Jump Start 

implementation methodology allows 

organizations to immediately deploy 

their call centre with no specialized 

hardware or software to buy and 

no implementation or maintenance 

team to hire. New contact centres are 

said to be fully functional within one 

week. Unlike on-premise technology, 

the Web-based application is optimal 

for agents regardless of physical 

location – home-based, remote, or 

on-site. 

Contactual’s OnDemand Contact 

Centre boasts a flexible integration 

philosophy. APIs are published so 

users can easily and seamlessly 

integrate best of breed CRM solutions 

- such as Salesforce.com - or other 

third party applications. The latest 

major release of Contactual’s contact 

centre platform, launched earlier 

this year, improves ease-of-use and 

overall performance. New features 

include a redesigned agent toolbar, 

ability to broadcast notices to 

agent groups, a new reporting API, 

desktop sharing, and enhanced chat 

functions. 

With data centres in five 

countries Contactual provides a 

large global presence. Its innovative 

hosted solution is described as the 

fastest-to-deploy and easiest-touse 

customer interaction software 

solution available. 

InVision wins Frost & 

Sullivan award for agent 

performance optimization 

For the second year in a row, 

InVision Software, Lisle, IL, a supplier 

of workforce management (WFM) 

systems, was honoured by Frost & 

Sullivan for its competitive strategy 

leadership in Agent Performance 

Optimization (APO). 

“InVision’s approach to workforce 

management is having success 

because the company has built 

it on a completely Web-based 

framework, which makes it easy for 

customers to adopt and maintain,” 

says Keith Dawson, principal analyst 

of Frost & Sullivan, information and 

communication technology. “That 

also provides fairly low overall total 

cost of ownership for the end user. 

“InVision’s highly sophisticated 

scheduling engine can accommodate 

the many variables that come into 

play when organizing workers with 

multiple languages and complex 

shifts. The company clearly benefits 

from its extensive knowledge of 

conditions in its home region, and 

from an innovative technology base.” 

The analyst points out that 

with a singular focus on workforce 

management, the company’s 

research and development effort 

has not been distracted by trying to 

build a full-blown APO suite. Rather, 

InVision has staked its future and 

market position on being a true 

best-of-breed provider of advanced 

systems for scheduling in one of the 

world’s most complex workforce 

environments. However, the InVision 

system is open enough to interact 

with important applications in those 

other APO areas from other vendors. 

“Frost & Sullivan substantiates our 

strategy focusing on enterprise-wide 

WFM”, says Peter Bollenbeck, CEO 

of InVision Software. “Because our 

software solution, InVision Enterprise 

WFM, is designed from the ground up 

to operate inside and outside contact 

centres, it natively supports blended 

scheduling algorithms for multichannel 

environments. As contact 

centres are increasingly forced to 

schedule agents across different 

channels like email, SMS, chat or 

any other Web 2.0 interactions, we 

support them managing this new 

challenge.” 

InVision Enterprise WFM has 

a patent pending technology for 

demand-oriented planning for 

any contact centre environment 

that is multi-site, multi-channel, 

multi-skill, or multi-activity. 

The technology blends different 

scheduling algorithms for different 

channels into one optimized 

schedule. The embedded 

optimization algorithms create 

best schedules without the need 

for time-consuming and erroneous 

mimicking of ACD routing rules. 

Verint makes major WFO 

suite upgrades 

Verint Witness Actionable Solutions, 

Melville, NY, has enhanced its Impact 

360 Workforce Optimization (WFO) 

suite. New workforce management 

(WFM) functionality is helping 

global organizations achieve greater 

efficiencies, productivity and cost 

savings that span from their contact 

centres to branch and back-office 

operations environments—all of 

which help shape the customer 

experience. 

Verint Impact Services help 

ensure that customers successfully 

implement and maximize their 

investment in the company’s 

comprehensive WFO solution set, 

including such new enhancements as: 

Agent My Adherence 

The individual agent “My Adherence” 

screen, similar to a manager’s 

adherence view, enables agents 

to monitor their own intra-day 

see Software Solutions page 24 

t Shown here is agent graphical 

user interface. Detailed real-time 

reporting on call centre performance 

can be accessed quickly. 

t InVision Software CEO Peter 

Bollenbeck says InVision Enterprise 

WFM natively supports blended 

scheduling algorithms for multichannel 

environments. 

t Nancy Treaster, senior vice-president and general 

manager, Verint Witness Actionable Solutions, says 

workforce management continues to be a staple in 

company’s unified, analytics-driven and enterpriseenabled 

workforce optimization suite. 



Marketing automation software 

adherence to schedules. With this 

perspective comes a new view and 

greater awareness, encouraging staff 

to follow assigned schedules. My 

Adherence helps reduce adherence 

violations and shrinkage, thereby 

lowering operational costs. Manager 

adherence views also have been 

enhanced to provide more intra-day 

agent adherence information to better 

monitor and manage agent activities. 

One-Minute Shifts and Shift 

Events 

The addition of one-minute shifts 

and shift events allows managers 

to now schedule shifts and related 

activities (i.e., time off, breaks, lunch 

and training) down to the minute. 

With greater scheduling flexibility, 

global organizations can customize 

shifts and manage workforce 

performance to more closely align 

with regional and organizational 

operating requirements. 

Integrated Dashboards 

Integrated dashboards enable users 

to aggregate information from 

different Impact 360 workforce 

optimization functions, reports and 

third-party sources. Armed with 

this data, operations managers and 

users can view, from an “at-a-glance” 

perspective, necessary information 

and charts to make faster and better 

operational decisions. 

“Workforce management 

continues to be a core part of our 

solution set and value proposition, 

and a staple in our unified, 

analytics-driven and enterpriseenabled 

workforce optimization 

suite,” explains Nancy Treaster, 

senior vice-president and general 

manager, Verint Witness Actionable 

Solutions. “Verint will continue 

to invest heavily in building and 

enhancing all components of our 

Impact 360 solution set. We’re 

pleased to introduce these new WFM 

capabilities designed to help our 

customers achieve their customer 

service and staffing objectives, even 

in the midst of a changing economy.” 

AMC attains Net-Results 

platinum partner status 

Access Marketing Company (AMC), 

Denver, CO, provider of digital 

marketing consulting services, 

has reached Net-Results Platinum 

Partner status, becoming one of only 

a handful of resellers to earn this title. 

Net-Results is an affordable 

marketing automation and demand 

generation software-as-a-service 

that lets users track visitors to 

their Web site and deploy custom 

behaviour-based email campaigns. 

Net-Results enables users to identify 

and track Web site visitors in real 

time, send automated, customized 

email messages to individuals based 

on specific activities and attributes, 

and receive instant ongoing 

notifications when prospects exhibit 

qualifying behaviours 

As a Net-Results Platinum 

Partner, AMC is now 

able to offer Net-Results 

Marketing Automation to its 

prospects and customers 

as an enhancement to their 

existing services. Access 

Marketing also receives 

the highest recurring 

commission payout over the 

life of its customers as well 

as preferred solution partner 

status. 

“With its ability to 

accurately detail the benefits 

of the Net-Results platform 

to potential customers, AMC 

is an ideal partner for us,” 

says Michael Ward, CEO of 

Net-Results. “Not only do 

they understand the full capabilities 

of the software but their technical 

knowledge and marketing expertise 

coupled with superior customer 

service has made them one of our 

top-producing partners.” 

AMC uses Web intelligence data 

from Net-Results to help clients 

proactively market to qualified online 

prospects, resulting in increased 

relevancy and success of clients’ 

marketing. Email capabilities from 

Net-Results including process 

automation, interest-based targeting, 

saved sales, customer retention, 

lead generation, lead nurturing, and 

perceived credibility adds another 

layer of functionality to the system 

that AMC leverages to create a more 

holistic marketing approach for its 

clients. Both the email marketing 

automation and online visitor 

tracking that Net-Results delivers 

produce a measurable return on 

investment. 

Engage B2B comes into play 

in call centre environments 

Silverpop Engage B2B is an on-demand 

marketing automation platform for 

B2B companies, helping its customers 

better engage with prospects, 

maximize their marketing efforts, 

improve their efficiency, increase 

revenue and accelerate the lead-to-sale 

timeline. It helps B2B marketers score 

their leads, nurture them and convert 

them to customers—automatically. 

Engage B2B empowers marketers to 

make more strategic decisions and 

demonstrate marketing ROI with 

reporting and analytics that follow their 

leads from first click to revenue won. 

Unlike many lead-management 

solutions, Silverpop Engage B2B 

provides insight at every stage of the 

marketing-to-sales funnel for each 

individual lead. B2B marketers will 

know: How long leads generally take 

to become qualified ; when sales 

accepts the lead; when sales concurs 

and deems the lead as qualified; and 

when the lead comes to fruition in the 

form of closed, won revenue. 

Silverpop’s lead management 

helps marketers close the loop 

between marketing and sales and 

make their combined efforts more 

efficient and effective. 

To support a call centre 

environment, Engage B2B has a 

“send to telesales” icon that gives 

a company’s internal marketing 

department the ability to send csv 

files of its contacts to a third-party 

agency for follow-up. The call 

centre can access prospect and lead 

information through Silverpop’s 

CRM integration with Salesforce 

where they can also update records 


t Net-Results CEO Michael Ward says AMC’s understanding of 

the software, technical knowledge, marketing expertise, and 

superior customer service make it one of his company’s topproducing 

partners. 

Silverpop’s Engage B2B Campaign Graphical User Interface (GUI) gives 

marketers a drag-and-drop storyboard-like editor to easily create campaign flow 

for even the most complex lead management programs. 



Call monitoring systems 

accordingly. Through Silverpop’s 

“mash-up” icon, internal marketing 

and sales team can track the call 

centre updates and progress in 

Salesforce. 

New Chordiant suite helps 

firms optimize customer 

lifetime value 

Provider of customer experience 

systems to maximize customer 

interactions, Chordiant Software 

Inc., Cupertino, CA, is introducing 

the Chordiant Cx Solutions suite, 

empowering companies to economically 

target and eliminate common pain 

points associated with customer 

attrition, acquisition, profitability and 

risk. Chordiant Cx Retention and Cx 

Cross-sell/Up-sell are available now as 

the first parts of the suite. 

At the heart of Chordiant Cx 

Solutions is the sophisticated 

customer intelligence and predictive 

business insight of Chordiant’s 

decision management technology. 

By optimizing the customer 

experience and improving business 

performance in retention, crossselling 

and up-selling, Chordiant 

Cx Solutions helps companies 

reduce attrition, increase revenues, 

maximize profitability and decrease 

risk. Chordiant Cx Solutions is said 

to deliver significant return on 

investment in as little as two months. 

With Cx Solutions, customers 

can prioritize and align deployment 

with the areas that will address their 

most critical business need. A rapid 

ROI enables adoption of subsequent 

Cx Solutions, lowering the barrier 

to entry for companies seeking to 

achieve these benefits. While each 

Cx Solution is a stand-alone module, 

when plugged in to the Cx bestpractices 

platform, the business 

benefits are compounded; as new 

solutions leverage the content and 

capabilities of the previous one. 

Cx Cross-sell/Up-sell can 

potentially turn every customer 

service interaction into a sales and 

marketing opportunity by: 

Putting the skills of your best 

customer service agent in the hands 

of all of your agents. 

Empowering service 

representatives to have intelligent, 

personalized conversations 

consistently across all channels, 

and leverage the best channel that 

supports business goals. 

Leveraging centralized Next-Best- 

Action decisioning that both predicts 

and adapts to customer behaviour in 

real-time. 

Cx Retention enables companies to 

maximize save rates while minimizing 

retention costs by: 

• Using individual business cases 

calculated in real-time to 

determine retention budgets for 

each customer based on their 

lifetime customer value. 

• Enabling service representatives 

to make proactive retention offers 

based on the predicted likelihood 

of the customer to defect. 

• Enabling the creation of flexible, 

personalized deals that contain 

multiple products, components 

and discounts. 

“Years ago Chordiant was one of 

the first companies to see the rising 

importance of real-time, consistent, 

tailored customer interactions as a 

critical driver of business value,” says 

Raymond Gerber, chief technical 

officer for Chordiant. “We’ve been 

shaping the customer experience 

market ever since Without realtime 

and predictive decisioning 

capabilities to guide personalized 

customer conversations, companies 

may as well be waving goodbye 

to their most profitable customer 

bases. Our newest Cx Solutions bring 

that unique competitive edge to 

companies at a low cost, rapid time 

to ROI, which no traditional CRM 

offering can deliver.” 

New Calabrio software helps 

agents, knowledge workers 

manage recordings 

Calabrio has introduced a software 

application, Calabrio Recording 

Controls, that lets personnel 

who interact with customers or 

handle other critical phone-based 

transactions control call recording 

“on demand.” The application 

enables knowledge workers outside 

of the contact centre to record 

customer calls. 

For example, employees who work 

in areas such as product support, 

legal or human resources can start, 

stop, pause and tag calls through 

their Cisco IP Phone or browserbased 

controls. They can add up to 

10 metadata fields to associate with 

recorded calls, which is useful for call 

classification and retrieval. 

The Calabrio Recording Controls 

interface can be configured to 

provide the right amount of control 

to a particular type of employee. For 

example, knowledge workers might 

use the Recording Controls application 

in these types of situations: 

• Start recording a call when 

they are pulled into a customer 

transaction to provide subject 

matter expertise. This call can 

later be used for training purposes. 

• Knowledge workers may have a 

need to pause recording to protect 


t Raymond Gerber, chief technical officer for Chordiant, says 

without real-time and predictive decisioning capabilities to guide 

personalized customer conversations, companies may as well be 

waving goodbye to their most profitable customer bases. 

Through the Cisco IP Phone or 

browser-based controls, users can add up 

to 10 metadata fields to associate with 

a recorded call, which is useful for call 

classification and retrieval. 

Personnel can start, stop, pause 

and tag calls using the Cisco IP Phone 

or browser-based controls. 



Call monitoring systems 

Hardware Solutions 

from Software Solutions page 25 

sensitive customer data for PCI 

compliance. 

• Employees may find the need to 

record calls of interest for legal 

protection when 100 percent 

recording is not in place. 

Contact centres also may want 

to give some recording control 

to agents. For example, they may 

allow agents to attach metadata 

to a recorded call to assist with call 

classification or search (i.e., flag calls 

where customers’ purchases exceed 

a certain dollar amount). 

Customers interested in the 

add-on software should request it 

through their Calabrio-authorized 

partner and partners seeking more 

information can contact info@ 

calabrio.com. 

VPI makes advanced, secure 

call recording affordable 

Provider of interactions recording, 

quality management and contact 

centre workforce optimization 

software, Voice Print International 

(VPI), Camarillo, CA, has introduced 

VPI Capture Essential for contact 

centres. It is described as an 

affordable, ready-to-use, nextgeneration 

call recording system 

that installs quickly to immediately 

ensure compliance, manage liability 

and optimize workforce efficiency. 

VPI Capture Essential is built upon 

the VPI Empower suite’s ultra-secure 

and reliable enterprise architecture, 

leveraging 15 years of R&D investment, 

thousands of successful deployments 

and proven integrations with all major 

communications platforms. It is said 

to be first affordable call recording 

solution to provide organizations 

with the advanced functionality and 

capabilities crucial for survival and 

success in today’s harsh economic 

climate. 

Many so-called “budget-friendly” 

call recording systems offer very 

limited functionality. They provide 

rudimentary recording and storage 

capabilities, meet only the most 

basic security standards, offer 

few, if any, search or reporting 

tools and ultimately require total 

forklift upgrades – usually a costly 

system replacement. Unlike these 

systems, VPI Capture Essential is 

proven reliable, with certified and 

compliant-tested integrations with 

all major platforms including Cisco, 

Avaya, Mitel and others. 

VPI says it has also included 

advanced functionality and 

capabilities usually only found 

in expensive recording software 

packages designed for large 

enterprises. VPI Capture Essential 

offers Web browser-based access 

and administration and the 

convenience of automated variable 

retention down to the channel level, 

which allows users to set rules to 

define what types of recordings 

are retained and for what period of 

time. Users will also benefit from 

interactive, drill-through Heat Maps 

for easy identification of trends and 

high-value calls and personalized 

Web dashboards with the choice of 

several built-in reports. 

Portica optimizes multiple 

workforce communications 

Provider of integrated call 

centre workforce optimization 

and automation software and 

business process outsourcing 

services, OnviSource, Plano, TX, 

has rolled out Portica workforce 

communication optimization. It 

optimizes inbound communications 

through integrated voice mail, 

messaging, Interactive Voice 

Response (IVR) and outbound 

communications through 

notification, SMS, fax, auto-dialers, 

dispatching and messaging. 

Portica is integrated with the 

OnviCenter suite of Workforce 

Optimization and Automation (WFO-A) 

software for call recording, quality 

assurance, screen capture, speech 

analytics and workforce management 

applications; as well as agent 

automation capabilities and scripted 

inbound/outbound CRM applications. 

“OnviSource intends to 

lead the industry in delivering 

highly affordable contact centre 

solutions that can not only 

optimize and automate workforce 

performance and customer 

interaction applications but also 

inbound-outbound customer 

communications,” explains John 

Hird, vice- president of product 

marketing for OnviSource. “When 

fully integrated with OnviCenter, 

Portica delivers end-to-end 

communication optimization and 

automation for the contact centre 

workforce.” 

OnviCenter offers a complete suite 

of workforce optimization (OnviCord) 

and automation (OnviCall) solutions. 

Agent performance optimization is 

delivered through OnviCord voice 

recording, quality assurance, screen 

capture, workforce management 

and speech analytics, while OnviCall 

products offer agent automation 

through scripted inbound/outbound 

CRM applications. Portica provides 

automation and optimization 

for inbound and outbound 

communications. 

t John Hird, 

vice- president of 

product marketing 

for OnviSource, 

says Portica 

delivers end-to-end communication 

optimization and automation for the 

contact centre workforce when fully 

integrated with OnviCenter. 

Headsets 

VXI adds two models to 

headset line-up 

What would help agents to work 

more comfortably and efficiently? If 

you guessed headset, you’re right. 

The right headset makes a huge 

difference. Most call centre managers 

know a quality headset means 

happier, more productive agents. 

VXI Passport headsets, available 

from Headsets4u, offer a stress free 

fit, all day wear comfort and ease of 

knowing your caller will hear you the 

first time and every time. The noise 

cancelling microphone blocks out 

surrounding ambient noise, offering 

a more professional sounding call. 

VXI headsets are of sturdy build, 

made of the same impact resistant 

plastic used in sports equipment, 

able to withstand the continual 

turbulence of any 24/7 call centre 

operation. VXI headsets are 

specifically built to handle intense 

daily work-outs. Forget the anxiety 

of dealing with a pile of repairs. 

Breakage has proved to be rare, 

saving time and money 

VXI recently launched two new 

additions to its line-up. 

The Tria, designed for contact 

centres and office environments, 

converts three ways; headband, 

slim line ear-hook and behind the 

neck. This three-way headset 

solution makes it easy for buyers and 

supervisors to provide their agents a 

choice of wearing styles. Lightweight 

and adjustable the Tria gives the best 

possible fit every time, along with 

a noise-canceling microphone and 

high quality audio receiver to provide 

clear, consistent communication on 

both sides of the call. 

The Passport 21, a single-wire 

binaural noise cancelling headset, 

features built-in hearing protection 

to avoid unexpected sound spikes. 

The Passport 21 has excellent receiver 

audio quality, and is designed to be 

worn in high ambient noise areas. The 

single wire binaural is described as a 

wonderful improvement, lighter and 

less restrictive allowing greater range 

of motion for the user. The gooseneck 

microphone boom ensures constant 

and proper microphone placement 

enabling the caller to hear every word. 

For more information, visit www. 

headsets4u.com. 

Comfort and clarity meet 

sleek design 

Blending luxurious comfort with 

superior audio clarity and sleek, 

polished looks, the EncorePro 

headset from Plantronics 

is described as delivering 

see Hardware Solutions page 27 



from Hardware Solutions page 26 

unprecedented style and 

performance to contact centre 

professionals. Premium lightweight 

nylon composite materials and plush 

leatherette ear pads provide all-day 

comfort. A precision-fit, noisecanceling 

microphone and wideband 

response ensure crystal-clear 

customer communications. 

The EncorePro is available 

in monaural(HW291N) and 

binaural(HW301N) styles. For more 

information visit www.plantronics. 

com or call Anixter at 1-877-264- 

9837 for pricing & availability. 

Jabra BIZ 2400 supplies 

quality and performance 

The latest addition to the Jabra 

corded headset collection from 

Corporate Telecom Services Inc., the 

Jabra BIZ 2400 is described as the 

ultimate corded headset raising the 

bar on quality and performance to 

an unprecedented level. The Jabra 

BIZ 2400 series features push the 

envelope for the levels of audio 

quality, comfort and durability 

necessary for dealing with the 

special requirements in contact 

centre and office environments. 

With key details made of surgical 

steel, break-proof FreeSpin boom 

with 360–degree-plus rotation 

and a cord reinforced with Kevlar 

users can expect maximum service 

life and minimum maintenance 

costs. Accompanied by a threeyear 

warranty the Jabra BIZ 2400 

headsets are available in monaural, 

binaural and USB stereo models 

for the ultimate IP/multimedia 

experience, including a version 

optimized for Microsoft Office 

Communicator. 

Corporate Telecom Services is a 

Canadian company specializing in 

the sale and service of Jabra-corded, 

wireless and mobile headsets, audio 

and video conferencing solutions and 

new and refurbished phone equipment. 


corptel.com, phone 888-827-7200 or 

email sales@corptel.com. 

Wireless headset 

system unifies voice 


Savi Office from Plantronics is 

a wireless headset system that 

unifies voice communications and 

integrates your desk phone and PC 

providing business critical sound 

quality. Use the Savi Office system 

to mix calls between your PC and 

desk phone, conveniently combine 

a desk phone call with a PC call for 

real-time collaboration, or easily 

switch from one type of audio or 

device to another. As well, Savi 

Office offers a longer wireless range 

for natural movement along with 

a variety of comfortable wearing 

styles, interactive software for 

personalization, and an adaptive 

battery system for longer battery life 

and an energy efficient approach to 

power usage. 

The Savi Office is available in 

convertible (WO100) and over 

the ear styles (WO200). For more 

information visit www.plantronics. 

com or call Anixter at 1-877-264- 

9837 for pricing & availability. 

Jabra GN 1900 headset suits 

cost-conscious centres 

Introduced in mid 2009, the Jabra 

GN1900 from Corporate Telecom 

Services Inc. is a simple to use, 

value-line solution. Optimized for 

the cost-conscious contact centre it 

features a lightweight, sturdy design 

and professional quality. Designed 

for contact centre use, the Jabra 

GN1900 is said to increase agent 

productivity and performance. Its 

noise cancelling microphone ensures 

that background noise from a work 

environment won’t be transmitted to 

customers’ ears. 

The headset comes complete 

with a QD (Quick Disconnect) plug for 

instant connectivity to a wide range 

of amplifiers and telephone systems 

and is available in both monaural 

and binaural models, with multiple 

adjustment points for optimal comfort. 

A USB model is also available. 

Corporate Telecom Services is a 

Canadian company specializing in 

the sale and service of Jabra-corded, 

wireless and mobile headsets, audio 

and video conferencing solutions 

and new and refurbished phone 

equipment. 


corptel.com, phone 888-827-7200 or 

email sales@corptel.com. 

Plantronics expands UC line 

into contact centre with IP40 

Provider of audio solutions for 

the call centre and enterprise, 

Plantronics, Santa Cruz, CA, has 

rolled out its IP40, a Session Initiation 

Protocol (SIP) endpoint device 

for the contact centre. The IP40 

connects agent headsets directly 

to the Ethernet to unify contact 

centre software applications with all 

inbound and outbound call activity. 

Because the IP40 SIP endpoint 

device connects directly to the 

Ethernet, it eliminates the need for 

a costly desk phone while avoiding 

reliance on the PC to process voice, 

previously the only other option. It 

is designed specifically for the heavy 

traffic loads and premium voice quality 

requirements found in contact centres. 

The IP40 is a plug-and-play 

standalone device controlled by 

the contact centre routing engine. 

It registers with the SIP proxy upon 

start up, and is controlled from the 

contact centre software application. 

Integrating the IP40 with 

contact center applications helps 

improve collaboration and workflow 

management among agents and 

managers so they can provide better 

see Hardware Solutions page 28 

The Passport 

21 features built-in 

hearing protection 

to avoid unexpected 

sound spikes. 

The Tria three-way 

headset makes it easy for 

buyers and supervisors 

to provide agents a 

choice of wearing styles. 

The Encore Pro comes 

with premium lightweight 

nylon composite materials 

and plush leatherette ear 

pads provide all-day comfort. 

The Jabra BIZ 2400 

series offers audio quality, 

comfort and durability 

necessary for dealing with 

the special requirements 

in contact centres. 

TSavi Office offers 

a longer wireless range 

for natural movement 

along with a variety of 

comfortable wearing styles. 



Other Hardware 

from Hardware Solutions page 27 

customer service. For example, agents 

using the IP40 initiate all calls through 

the contact centre software application 

which ensures all call actions are 

accurately recorded for management. 

“Robust, quality audio is critical 

for contact centres,” says Nick 

Eisner, director of contact centre 

product management at Plantronics. 

“Customers tell us they want to 

simplify and drive call control to the 

workstation application to ensure 

that their quality systems capture 

every move an agent makes. The IP40 

leverages the customer’s investment 

in VoIP and SIP, eliminating the 

telephone on the agent’s desk 

but without compromising the 

robustness of the voice path. It 

also reduces power consumption 

and optimizes audio quality for 

intelligibility; less is truly more.” 

The IP40 features and benefits include: 

• Reliable and robust voice path 

independent of the PC or 

deskphone 

• Call control interface via the 

contact centre software enables 

all action to be captured 

• Telephone not required which 

reduces footprint on desktop 

• More economical and draws up 

to two thirds less power than a 

contact centre telephone 

• Dual Ethernet ports let PC share 

the IP40 network connection 

• Device powered using standard 

802.3af Power over Ethernet 

• Compatible with Plantronics 

professional grade headsets 

• Simple plug-and-play installation 

• Provides control features such as 

transmit mute, receive volume 

adjust, and call answer/end button 

with a remotely configurable 

auto-answer option. 

Features presence-based automatic 

hold when the headset is detached 

using the QuickDisconnect feature 

The Plantronics IP40 is now available 

and can be purchased via Plantronics 

authorized resellers. 

8x8 Inc., Aastra conspire 

on co-branded IP 

business phones 

Supplier of Internet Protocol (IP) 

communications solutions for 

business and residential users, 

8x8 Inc., Santa Clara, CA, recently 

joined forces with Aastra, Concord, 

ON, a global provider of enterprise 

communication products, to roll 

out and support co-branded Virtual 

Office business IP phones, bundled 

with the 8x8 Virtual Office suite 

of services, at Office Depot retail 

locations. Aastra is supplying the 

co-branded 8x8/Aastra 6755i Virtual 

Office IP phone, while 8x8 provisions 

and manages the 8x8 Virtual Office 

hosted IP PBX service. 

The 8x8/Aastra 6755i Virtual 

Office IP phone replaces the Virtual 

Office ST2118 analog business phone 

which Office Depot had previously 

been carrying. These plug-and-play 

IP telephones serve as endpoints 

for the 8x8 Virtual Office hosted 

IP PBX business phone service, 

currently in use by more than 16,000 

companies. 8x8 Virtual Office 

provides businesses with a complete, 

enterprise class phone system at a 

fraction of the cost of a traditional 

PBX and roughly half the cost of 

traditional business phone service. 

Designed with 8x8’s advanced 

network address translation (NAT) 

traversal technologies to facilitate 

usage from any high speed Internet 

connection worldwide, the 8x8/ 

Aastra IP phones plug into any 

broadband Internet connection to 

allow users to immediately make or 

receive calls without performing any 

network configuration or firewall 

manipulation. In addition, the 8x8/ 

Aastra IP phones deliver enhanced 

features including corporate directory 

display and lookup, extension dialling 

and transfers, intercom paging, 

shared line appearance and an 

embedded XML browser. 

The 8x8/Aastra 6755i telephone 

is currently available at Office 

Depot locations. Additional models 

are available online at www. 

officedepot.com. In addition to full 

duplex speakerphone functionality, 

programmable softkey appearances 

and LCD display screens, all models 

support “Power over Ethernet” and 

come equipped with dual autosensing 

switched Ethernet ports 

to eliminate additional wiring for 

a computer and simplify installations. 

Ethernet cordsets/patch 

cords have bonded-pair 

technology 

Developer of signal transmission 

products for the industrial, 

enterprise, broadcast, building 

management and security markets, 

Belden, Richmond, IN, has extended 

its industrial product offering with 

the addition of a rugged new line 

of Hirschmann Industrial Ethernet 

cordsets and patch cords. When 

this new connectivity is used in 

conjunction with Belden’s diverse 

line of Hirschmann industrial 

Ethernet switches and Belden’s 

industrial Ethernet cable, a complete 

(end-to-end) industrial solution is 

said to be realized. 

To ensure reliable performance 

in extreme or mission-critical 

environments, Hirschmann Industrial 

Ethernet cordsets and patch cords 

are manufactured using Belden’s 

patented bonded-pair technology. 

Bonded-pair cables have the 

individual insulated conductors 

bonded together along their 

longitudinal axis to assure uniform 

conductor-to-conductor spacing 

for maximum electrical integrity. 

These cables are also chemicaland 

temperature-resistant and 

incorporate rugged RJ45 or over 

molded M12 (IP67 rated) industrial 

connectors to ensure reliable 

performance in extreme or missioncritical 

environments. 

Belden offers a comprehensive 

line of industrial solutions consisting 

of Hirschmann switches and active 

networking devices, Lumberg 

Automation connectivity, and 

Belden cables. It claims to be the 

only company to offer a complete 

industrial solution for Ethernet 

applications. For more information, 

visit www.belden.com/industrial. 

The Jabra GN1900 comes 

complete with a QD plug for instant 

connectivity to a range of amplifiers 

and phone systems. 

The IP40 connects agent headsets 

directly to the Ethernet to unify contact 

centre software applications with all 

inbound and outbound call activity. 

Hirschmann Industrial Ethernet 

cordsets and patch cords from Belden 

incorporate rugged RJ45 or over molded 

M12 (IP67 rated) industrial connectors to 

ensure reliable performance 


Association News 

Extend Communications Inc., 

Brantford, ON, has been honoured 

with the prestigious Call Centre 

Award of Distinction by the Canadian 

Call Management Association 

(CAM-X). The industry’s trade 

association for providers of call 

centre services including inbound 

order desk/help desk and Webenabled 

customer assistance 

recognized Extend Communications 

Inc. for its outstanding achievement 

at the CAM-X 45th annual 

convention, held recently at the Delta 

Grand Okanagan, Kelowna, BC. 

The Call Centre Award of 

Distinction was created in response to 

overwhelming requests by call centres 

across Canada for a tool which could 

be used to measure the skills of their 

professional call centre agents. 

After six months of testing, an 

independent panel of judges scored 

call-handling skills for “enhanced 

service” applications, focusing 

attention on customer relationship 

management (CRM), courtesy, 

etiquette, and the use of proper call 

techniques, as well as response time 

and accuracy, the cornerstones of the 

call management industry. 

“The Call Centre Award of 

Distinction recognizes those 

companies that have achieved best 

practice standards for complex 

call centre applications,” says 

CAM-X President Mary Anne Straw. 

.”These include eCommerce, 

call flow scripting, and process 

driven operations. The Canadian 

Call Management Association 

congratulates the management and 

staff of Extend Communications Inc. 

for their significant achievement.” 

In other news, CAM-X and the 

Western States Telemessaging 

Association (WSTA) will hold their 

respective fall 2010 annual meetings 

as a cooperative effort and in a 

combined meeting October 3-6, 2010. 

“This joint meeting held at the Hard 

Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, NV, answers 

our members choice to venture 

out of Canada every fourth year of 

convention” says Linda Osip, CAM-X 

executive director, “and partnering 

with WSTA is an ideal fit for us.” 

“This will be an outstanding 

event with CAM-X”, Dan L’Heureux, 

executive director of WSTA adds, 

“and we are confident the combined 

efforts of our respective boards as 

well as our great members will yield a 

superior product for all participants.” 

The Canadian Marketing 

Association (CMA) Contact Centre 

Council is one of eight CMA 

Councils that explore the various 

issues affecting marketing. It is 

an executive-level working group 

of association members that 

provides thought leadership on 

issues related to people, process, 

technology and regulation in the 

contact centre sector. The council 

produces resources – including 

articles, whitepapers, guidelines 

and best practice documents – and 

QUALITY & PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT by eTALK CORPORATION 

Monitor • Measure • Improve • Understand 

For over 15 years, Xentrax has been 

a pioneer in offering innovative turn 

key Contact Centre Software solutions 

to the Canadian Marketplace. It is our 

singular focus and specialized expertise 

in Workforce Optimization that allows our 

customers to rapidly leverage the power 

hidden within their contact centres. 

As etalk’s certified Canadian partner, 

Xentrax provides Systems Installation, 

Product Training and On-going Product 

Support of the Qfiniti Quality and 

Performance Management Suite 

of Products. 

To learn how we have powered some of 

Canada’s more customer focused contact centres, 

call 888-XENTRAX (888-936-8729) or 

email us at info@xentrax.com. 

offers educational and networking 

opportunities throughout the year. 

Search “contact centre” on CMA’s 

Web page to find recent Council 

work including a whitepaper called 

“Leadership in the Contact Centre: 

Hiring, Identifying, and Developing” 

and a how-to presentation called 

“Change Management: How to 

Effectively Deliver the Message”. 

see Association News page 30 

Innovative Contact Centre Solutions 


Association News 

from Association News page 29 

Other resources are also available 

including the very popular paper “Top 

10 Call Centre Metrics and What They 

Mean to You”. 

The CMA Contact Centre Council 

is planning its programming for 

2010, ensuring it delivers on 

the three pillars of CMA’s brand 

promise: knowledge, community 

and advocacy. Topics of discussion 

include home agent programs and 

the impact of call centre culture 

on corporate success. Networking 

opportunities for contact centre 

leaders are being developed. And the 

group continues to collaborate with 

CMA on regulatory issues including 

call recording and the implications of 

the federal government’s Unsolicited 

Telecommunications Rules. 

For more information about the 

council, contact Elizabeth Harvey, 

CMA’s manager of councils at 

eharvey@the-cma.org 

Contact centre companies are 

encouraged to become members 

of Contact Centre Canada (CCC). 

The advantages to this are that all 

employees, at all levels, can apply 

to have access to CCCs resources 

through the company membership. 

According to Statistics Canada, there 

are more than 10,000 contact centre 

companies in Canada and CCCs 

goal is to connect with all of them. 

There is no other way to clearly and 

concisely understand what projects 

are needed each year to overcome 

human resource challenges and 

identify skill gaps. 

As a member company you can 

influence project initiatives by 

participating in focus groups, key 

topical surveys and project advisory 

groups. At the CCC Annual General 

Meeting keynote speaker Diane 

Francis emphasized that the contact 

centre employees are the ‘shook 

troops’ of brand management. 

One of the many resources 

available to members is HR To GO! – a 

comprehensive, ready-to-use online 

tool filled with valuable information, 

templates and guides to help you 

at every stage of the HR cycle, from 

recruitment, selection and training 

to coaching, recognition, retention 

and promotion. 

To learn more about what 

Contact Centre Canada has to offer 

or to become a member visit www. 

contactcentrecanada.ca. 

ContactNB has done its share this 

year to contribute to the strength of 

the industry. The year opened with 

work to follow-up on the Executive 

Roundtable held at last year’s Contact 

Atlantic. From that discussion, two 

key priorities emerged: the need to 

nurture a home-agent strategy and 

to identify some strategic training 

opportunities that would bring 

new career opportunities to New 

Brunswick centres. 

With the support of the 

Department of Post-Secondary 

Education, Training and Labour, 

ContactNB engaged Amulet 

Consulting to travel the province to 

gather the thoughts and suggestions 

of centres from every corner of New 

Brunswick. It has received the final 

report and is preparing next steps. 

Another issue raised at last year’s 

conference was the need to extend 

high-speed Internet coverage to 

the entire province as a means of 

enabling residents of rural areas 

to take advantage of home-based 

employment opportunities in the 

industry. Shortly thereafter, Business 

New Brunswick announced a program 

in partnership with ContactNB 

member Barrett Xplorenet that would 

indeed bring high speed to rural 

areas of the province. These are two 

great examples of industry working 

together with a cooperative and 

responsive government to benefit 

businesses and employees. 

Last March, ContactNB organized 

the seminar “Essentials for New 

Brunswick HR Managers in 2009” an 

informative and interactive full-day 

session facilitated by lawyer Jamie 

Eddy. It followed that with a best 

practice session on home agent 

programs and learned how many 

centres are moving quickly in this area. 

In June, members came 

together for the 5th annual Awards 

of Excellence recognizing the 

accomplishments of centres in a 

number of areas in what was the 

most-contested field to date. 

Associate member Effectivation 

conducted a training workshop 

specially-designed for ContactNB 

members in Moncton on September 

16. The focus was on coaching 

contact centre coaches on how to 

proactively execute consultative 

MarketPlace 

sales and service skills during inbound 

customer calls to improve, retain 

and grow client relationships and 

revenues. It combined lectures with 

practice clinics. 

Members reconvened at Contact 

Atlantic in October with another topnotch 

line-up of sessions and speakers 

with the theme “Developing Our 

Employees for an Evolving Industry.” 

CALL CENTER & CUSTOMER SERVICE JOBS 

Gexel Telecom specializes in delivering the most effective mix of 

live people and automated solutions to meet your requirements. 

Our qualified, reliable, proactive, multilingual contact center 

team is committed to the success, growth, profitability of our 

clients. 

Our range of services includes: 

Customer & technical support 

Account retention, order taking 

Incentive selling and cross-selling 

Telemarketing, Activation, renewal 

Also inquire with us today about our Emergency services and 

our automated interactive, outbound and inbound voice 

messaging service that can reach thousands of recipients per 

hour via phone, SMS or Email. 

For further information, please call 1.800.263.5161 Ext.500 

or visit us at www.gexel.com 

TM 


November / December 2009 contact management.ca 31 

Association News

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