Competence Call Center as technological pioneer

Voice-over-IP (VoIP) is one of the keywords of the call center industry today. Faster working processes and lower costs are just two plus points highlighted by its users. "One of the most important advantages of IP technology is that resources can be employed across countries, which means that calls can be answered quickly", Christiane Ölz, customer relations manageress at Competence Call Center (CCC) explained to pressetext.

Voice quality today is outstanding and comparable to traditional telephone systems. CCC is the first call center in Europe to exclusively employ VoIP-based technology, which it now uses in all locations. Ölz talked about using this technology in practice and its resulting benefits on 27 May 2008 at the SAP events series "innovation@work" in Zurich.

 

Business communications platform as a foundation

CCC uses the SAP Business Communications Management platform in its seven call centers. With this fully IP-based, integrated contact center and communication platform, messages from different communication channels such as SMS, email and telephone can be allocated, independent of location, to available and suitable agents. This creates virtual call centers, increases flexibility when dealing with international projects and lowers costs. The system automatically recognises customer telephone numbers, which provides agents with all important information and a call history. 

 

Calls from SkyEurope Airlines customers, for instance, are answered in eight languages in CCC Bratislava, and two more languages are used at CCC in Romania, Ölz tells pressetext. "As a result of the virtualisation, the facility assigns the languages to the right agent who is most likely to be free." The waiting times thus correspond to the industry standard, according to which 80 percent of calls have to be answered within 20 seconds. "There are also projects, for example in the financial services sector, where it is customary for up to 90 percent of calls to be answered within 20 seconds", Ölz explains. By automatically selecting the most cost-efficient mobile phone service providers, virtualisation also saves around 20 percent of costs in the case of outgoing calls.

 

 

Call center successful as VoIP pioneer 

The first VoIP pilot project was implemented as early as 1999 at CCC Vienna. In 2001, the CCC location in Berlin fully converted to VoIP-based technology. "The first time we saw IP technology in practice was with the Finish postal service, the first company to use it in Europe. The successful employment of the technology in Finland persuaded us to start our own pilot project. The important thing for us was that VoIP is a flexible solution that meets our demands and can grow with us", Ölz says. When the CCC office in Berlin was converted, this technology was still relatively new on the market. At the time, people from the call center business flew to Berlin in order to take a look at the technology in practice.

 

Although competitors also gradually began to employ VoIP, this process took much longer. Only now, VoIP is used properly. "We had and still have a big advantage because unlike many call center service providers, we are active internationally. What’s more, with our partner SAP we are able to collaborate on other solutions", Ölz explains

 

Security as an important factor 

In addition to the increasing focus on technical solutions in the internationalisation of companies, the topic of security is also central today for call center market development. "From the outset, the call center industry had to place great importance on security measures in order to gain the trust of its customers ", Ölz says. Because call center service providers are given customer data and important company information, customers from the financial industry in particular place great importance on security. "In order to ensure system stability, we operate two redundant locations in Berlin and in Vienna. In Austria, we are the only company to offer such high security standards."

For photos to the event, please go to fotodienst.at to download >>

Presstext download >>

 

 

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