NORTHWINDS CONTACT SOLUTIONS PARNTERS WITH INSPIRITEC TELESERVICES. Together They Offer a Ground Breaking Outsourced Call Center Solution!

NORTHWINDS CONTACT SOLUTIONS PARNTERS WITH INSPIRITEC TELESERVICES. Together They Offer a Ground Breaking Outsourced Call Center Solution!.

CALL CENTER: BENEFITS TO DOING BUSINESS USING OUTBOUND IVR

CALL CENTER: BENEFITS TO DOING BUSINESS USING OUTBOUND IVR

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CALL CENTER: COST COMPARISON

CALL CENTER: COST COMPARISON – VIRTUAL VS EQUIPMENT BASED CALL CENTER PLATFORMS

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Free Outbound Voice Broadcast Campaign (Outbound IVR)

You are probably familiar with Outbound IVR (automated outbound voice broadcast) being that so many businesses, organizations and schools are using it. Northwinds Contact Solutions calls their popular business solution Automated Client Response. One major cable company is utilizing this solution to more effectively “touch” their customer base, conduct surveys and to follow-up on new installations. They are saving over $300,000 per month per region utilizing Northwinds Contact Solutions Automated Client Response Solution.

For the month of November, we are offering a free Automated Client Response campaign (a $295 value) to any business that would like to take this awesome solution for a “test drive”. All you pay for is any applicable long distance charges.

Northwinds Contact Solutions Automated Client Response Solution provides an affordable means of contacting large groups of individuals in an efficient manner. Our system is a Boutique customizable platform that can help Clients: Broadcast custom messages to their organization base including Clients, Members, Employees, Students, and will provide an Automated Client Response to client inquiries. This customized solution provides Client Satisfaction Surveys and also will route the client to your call center team.

Northwinds Automated Client Response Solution can be used for:

* Customer/Consumer Surveys
* Event Time & Place Notification
* Marketing Notifications
* Payment Reminder & Collections
* Prescription Re-fill Notification
* Medication Reminders
* Service Outage Notification
* Service Visit Scheduling and Confirmation

Benefits:

1. Clear documentation of all inbound call traffic
2. Determination of advertising ROI
3. Service Quality Measurement of each client contact with the service team
4. Direct and timely feedback on each service visit

Data and case studies can be viewed on our website at http://www.northwindscontactsolutions.com/acr.html

Reseller/Referral Partnership opportunities available with generous margins.

To obtain a free ACR campaign, please contact me at your earliest convenience.

All the best,

Darren C. Prine
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Northwinds Contact Solutions
www.northwindscontactsolutions.com
dprine@thenorthwinds.com
602-515-0395

Press Release: Northwinds Contact Solutions partners with Synergy Vision Partners

Darren Prine                                                      FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Northwinds Contact Solutions
darren@thenorthwinds.com
www.thenorthwinds.com
602-515-0395

Northwinds & Synergy Vision Partners join Forces

In Support of Call Center and Employee Retention Initiatives of Many Companies

Phoenix, AZ – October 29, 2009 Company cutbacks and tight budget constraints are one reason companies are concerned these days with retaining quality employees. By opening up the pool of potential employees by removing the geographical restrictions as a requirement for employment, the virtual call center platform becomes an attractive option for companies.

OnTheSystem: The Management Solution

Synergy Vision Partners is pleased to join forces with Northwinds Contact Solutions . Northwinds provides a custom telework environment which can get your remote workforce up and going in a matter of hours.  In addition and to enhance this virtual systems capabilities, Synergy Vision Partners, using  OnTheSystem, a SaaS based strategic management and collaboration framework, is able to address that and implement the only fully integrated enterprise solution.  Details about “OnTheSystem” include:

• Quick implementation of strategic direction and current operational policies and procedures to a distributed model
• Embedded processes and training mitigating down time and/or training costs for workers
• Captures communication between participants allowing for real time continuous improvement
• Embedded knowledgebase which provides a common repository for core documents eliminating need for multiple data storage locations
• Provides an easy environment in which to add users and define job roles with needed competencies allowing for quick alignment with existing resources
• Permits user access that is tailor able to ensure focus on key objectives at the group, department and company levels
• No need for external email since all communication is accommodated internally reducing or       eliminating additional licensing costs
  • Is based on Baldrige best practices model and adapts easily to other standards such as ISO, ITIL, and Six Sigma and more.
• Studies have shown that companies that provide a telework environment save money pure and simple.  As an example, Sun Microsystems provides telework for 56% of their workforce.  Over six years, Sun has saved $20,370 per employee due to reduced building and infrastructure costs.  That’s a total of $387M in real savings.

In addition to the savings to the company, employees at Sun saved on average about $1700 per employee in reduced gasoline costs.  Plus, by keeping their cars off the road with the ability to work from home has made a positive impact on the air quality.  This is becoming a positive trend that with the help of other large telework companies, can and will make a significant impact on our air quality.

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Call Center Times – In Interview with Northwinds Contact Solutions SVP, Steven Cramer

Next month our friends at Call Center Times will be publishing an interview with the SVP of Operations for Northwinds Contact Solutions, Steven Cramer.  While I am biased, I felt the interview contains some great information and thought I would share it with you in advance of its being published online.  I would also like to recommend Call Center Times and hope you will get the chance to visit them at http://www.callcentertimes.com.

Interview with Steven Cramer, SVP of Operations at Northwinds Contact Solutions; a provider of a hosted/managed Virtual Call Center and hosted Outbound IVR solution.

From the articles you have written and your posts on LinkedIn, you appear to be very passionate about call centers moving to managed service providers (hosted, virtual solutions).  Why are you so passionate about the Virtual Call Center model?

My background in the Client Service industry goes back to the mid 80’s with United Parcel Service and then with Verizon Wireless and Verizon International through the early 2000’s.

I have directly managed the installation and restructuring of domestic and offshore call center locations to enhance the service offerings to my organizations. Along the way, I experienced many equipment based challanges and limitations. We were always looking for an option that is better than the equipment based platforms and have developed it in Northwinds Contact Solutions virtual platforms.

From my experience with Corporations, the objective is to provide the highest quality service at a reasonable price with great performance.   Historically that meant that organizations needed to either invest in telecom equipment, facilities, and staffing or outsource to third party organizations.  The options with Virtual Environments have changed the game.

The Virtual Call Center Environment now enables organizations to virtualize or spread the work load over multiple sites or work from home offices. This relates to hard cost reductions of facilities, reduced labor costs, and increased performance.  These opportunities directly impact the bottom line utilizing the same knowledgeable team from your organization.

You have some large, well known competitors in the market such as Five 9, Contactual, Angel and InContact.  What makes you different from these other companies?

Our team works to customize solutions to each client, not a cookie-cutter approach. We provide a full service solution, not just a product offering. We feel, as so do our clients, that our approach is the best fit to a changing market place.

A few examples of this can be found in our platform structure, we are Server based vs. PBX/IP. This provides a tremendous advantage to our clients since we can be flexible to their business needs and provide the scalability to meet the volume requirements. This is a HUGE ADVANTAGE over PBX/IP platforms as they are restricted to the original platform design and structure, unlike the Northwinds Platform.

Your platform is not only a hosted solution but a managed solution as well.  What exactly does a “managed” solution provide that a company does not get with a “hosted” solution?

The Northwinds Team provides each client the focused support required to make THEM successful in their business.

We support the full call center experience from procuring the toll free numbers and setup of the call center environment to supporting Work Force Management, Quality Control and our exclusive Certified Work From Home Program.

Our Team provides the Managed and Hosted package to organizations of all sizes: small, medium, and large. What does this mean to an organization? “Managed Support” enables companies to leverage professional client support teams (Work Force Management, Quality Analysis, or Performance Management teams) with Fortune 100 expertise. This expertise enables our clients the ability to compete on quality and performance within their industry.

Our solution gives them not only a dynamic, robust call center platform but the management support they will need to run their call center effectively. In other words, Northwinds provides a comprehensive solution to each client.

Many companies have purchased equipment and software in order to have an Outbound IVR/VRU solution.  What are the key benefits of your Outbound IVR and why should a company consider a hosted/managed solution instead of purchasing and managing an on-premise solution?

Our Virtual Platform requires no maintenance contracts, automatic platform upgrades are included, expert IT support, knowledge of the call center platform all with no capital expenditures!

Our clients are excited about our product because our platform is flexible to our clients needs! The Northwinds platform provides the opportunity to communicate with tens of thousands of clients within hours, with a rated survey, and the opportunity to leave a voice mail message!

Why wouldn’t an organization virtualize?

Written by Jennifer Wing, independent writer and editor at http://www.managedserviceproviders.biz/

Jennifer@contentwriterseo.com

To learn more about Northwinds Contact Solutions contact:

Darren Prine
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Northwinds Contact Solutions
http://www.northwindscontactsolutions.com/
dprine@thenorthwinds.com
Office: 602-515-0395
Cell: 480-251-9160

The Hosted Virtual Call Center: What’s Stopping You?

If you are an extremely small specialty company and only get a handful of calls per week, then a hosted virtual call center is probably not for you. However, for nearly every other company, regardless of size, the call center can save time, money and needless equipment purchases. Remember, the more equipment that you have, the more potentially expensive breakdowns and other issues there will be to deal with. Technology is moving so quickly that as soon as you work all of the kinks out of your newly installed system, it may be out of date. Using managed service solutions, ends many of these headaches and much more.

Companies from small and regional to large, national or international are moving to using managed service solutions, especially to handle their call volume. Not only does it save them the cost of the equipment, but it saves the time and salary expense of hiring and training new staff to staff the new equipment as well. For companies that are trying to handle their own call volume, there is the risk of being at the mercy of their own equipment. If there is a system failure, they will lose all of their productivity for that day, as well as the potential customers that may have tried to call while the phones were down. The more frequently this happens, the more customer service numbers will suffer.

If you are a company that is large enough to need a 100-seat call center, then you are paying for the phones and other equipment for each of those employees. If you staff around the clock, in three eight-hour shifts, you are hiring 300 employees at the least. (Some staff may prefer to work part-time only. While this may save money for the company in terms of insurance, there are other problems to consider as well). In many cases, the call center is located in another location outside the original building, meaning the maintenance and overhead costs of two buildings. With the hosted virtual call center, your expense begins and ends with your contracted fee with the managed services providing the exact services that are being contracted for.

There are other benefits to the virtual hosted call center option. Allowing staffing that can be home based, as well as those in the office can increase staff morale, improve staff’s quality of life and can allow calls to be accepted or generated from virtually anywhere. While it may not seem like much, this option can also have far reaching implications on the environment as employees do not need to commute to get to their jobs, reducing the amount of time spent on the already congested roads, and the amount of energy expended on travel.

Companies have to focus on making the best product that they can, at the best price they can. Taking customer service related calls and moving them to another location can allow the focus to be back where it needs to be: on the development and perfection of existing and potentially new products and goods.

Darren C. Prine
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Northwinds Contact Solutions
www.northwindscontactsolutions.com
dprine@thenorthwinds.com
602-515-0395

How the Remote Model Reduces Expenses

In today’s Connections Magazine Online, Drew Judkins wrote a terrific article entitled “How the Remote Model Reduces Expenses”.

Drew started his article with a powerful statistic, “When you think of cost savings for locating call center agents at home, certain factors come to mind, including office space, parking space, furniture, and utilities. These hard costs can equal at least $2,000 per year in savings per agent. But what if the actual cost savings were four or five times that amount?”

Outside of the tremendous cost savings, Drew discusses other important benefits to a remote workforce solution such as:

Workforce Flexibility: “Facility-based call centers are stuck in the mold of overstaffing valleys and understaffing peaks because it’s not fair to ask an agent to commute to work for a ninety-minute shift. Sporadic, peak-time shifts and varied schedules are more feasible if the agent is working from home. The strategy also frees up agents to work a broader selection of shifts, addressing the supply and demand issue. In manufacturing, for example, this flexible staffing model would be considered just-in-time (JIT). Just as the demand for agents increases, the supply of agents increases, and vice versa.” Drew goes on to mention that companies using this model save, on average, 10 to 30 percent on their employee expense, which he says is usually 75% of the total call center expense.

Happy Agents: According to Drew, “Happy agents are the most influential factors in generating happy caller interactions and improved client retention.” He says Work At Home call centers can see a measurable difference in agent productivity. “The at-home agent productivity gains generally range from 10 to 30 percent.” Drew goes on to note that another way to measure that employees are happier in the at-home model is that companies that have moved to this model report lower turnover and significantly lower absenteeism.

Successful At-Home Implementation: “Call centers that have successfully implemented an at-home agent program report impressive reduction in expenses and increased customer and agent satisfaction.

Drew continues by mentioning the three biggest concerns to a call center considering the at-home model which are productivity, quality and security (agents accountable for following policies and procedures).

If you ask the call center manager of a large call center how they know if their agents are being productive, they won’t walk you out on to the call center floor and visually scout to see who is or is not being productive. What they will do is logon to their various management tools which let them see who is on a call, for how long, with who, who is logged in or out of their que, etc. They can definitively see who is following procedure and who is not. They can even listen in or coach an agent on their call without the client knowing. All of these same management tools are available to those who manage the at-home call center.

Drew concludes with “Call centers are beginning to realize that if they are not offering at-home options, they may find themselves competing for quality agents from companies that do.” “Not only do at-home agents reduce costs, but they also increase caller satisfaction and reduce employee attrition. The cost savings alone for implementing an at-home workforce present a compelling reason to at least explore the option. As the competitive trend continues, the at-home model will certainly produce future growth.”

Drew brought up some compelling points and I thought his article was fantastic. There are continually more and more reasons for companies to utilize virtual platforms and move or expand to an at-home model and fewer solid reasons to maintain an equipment based, premise based “brick and mortar” call center.

Darren Prine
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Northwinds Contact Solutions
http://www.northwindscontactsolutions.com
dprine@thenorthwinds.com
602-515-0395

Looking for Call Center Consultants/Managers for 1 week trial and review of our VCC platform which will be published online

In partnership with http://www.managedserviceproviders.biz, a new online magazine for the managed services industry, Northwinds Contact Solutions is seeking 5 objective call center managers/directors or call center consultants to take a one week trial of our hosted/managed Virtual Call Center platform and write a review which will be published.  Have you ever taken a Virtual Call Center solution for a test drive? Now is your chance. Test the Northwinds Contact Solutions VCC platform for one week, write your review and then your review, whether good, bad or indifferent, will be published online in an upcoming issue of Managed Service Providers Magazine.

Why would a call center director/manager or consultant want to take the time to test our solution for one week?
1. Free press for their company
2. They will be seen as a subject matter expert
3. The industry is arguably moving towards hosted solutions so this will give you the ability to try out/test an enterprise class hosted Virtual Call Center platform and learn about the strengths or weaknesses which may help determine if this type of solution might make sense for their companies or clients.

If you or anyone you know would be interested in objectively testing our VCC platform and writing a review for the online magazine, please have them contact:

Darren C. Prine
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Northwinds Contact Solutions
http://www.northwindscontactsolutions.com
dprine@thenorthwinds.com
602-515-0395

Benefits and Savings of A “Green” Call Center

I found some fascinating statistics on the “Green” website of my expensive competitor, Avaya, that I thought I would share with you.

What are the Green implications of moving or expanding to a Virtual Call Center platform?

For Your Business:

When your employees work remotely, they put less stress on the environment as well as less stress on your bottom line.

You can save on gas, electricity and office space. For example, at an energy cost of #1.65 per square foot, a 100 agent call center costs $13,200 per year in avoidable power and gas bills.

You can also lower HR costs, while recruiting and keeping better employees. You’ll be able to reach out of your local labor pool and recruit the most qualified people, regardless of location. And when your best workers move, they can keep working for your business.

For Your Planet:

Help your employees work from home, and you can save the planet, one cubicle at a time.

Over the course of a year, a car driving commuter burns an average of 368 gallons of gas, creating 7,000 pounds of carbon emissions. Eliminate the commute, and you can reduce those numbers to zero – while alleviating the wasteful start-stop traffic caused by overcrowded roads.

Home offices use less fuel for heating, cooling and light than large facilities. And they can also help avoid the construction of new buildings entirely.

For Your Employees:

Eliminate the daily commute, and you’ve eliminated one of the most frustrating, costly, productivity-sapping parts of any job. Employees who work from home save on gas, insurance, parking and other commuting costs.

Working from home also makes it easier for employees to start the day on time, and to put in extra hours when needed. That can also help you improve productivity while you boost morale.

Example of Savings:

Turn commuters into telecommuters, and you can dramatically cut your company’s energy bills and carbon emissions.

For a 200 agent call center utilizing a work at home model, with an average daily commute of 20 miles, and telecommuting 5 days per week, the savings would be:

409,471 kwh of energy saved
462 tons of C02 emissions reduced
29,384 gallons of gas saved

Northwinds Contact Solutions is committed to helping call centers to “Go Green”. Get data and case studies on our website at http://www.northwindscontactsolutions.com.

All the best,

Darren C. Prine
Director of Strategic Partnerships
Northwinds Contact Solutions
www.northwindscontactsolutions.com
dprine@thenorthwinds.com
602-515-0395