In addition to a fantastic view, the festivities included a band, plenty of ice cream, and lots of time to socialize with CallCopy friends and their families before the “Ooohs” and “Ahhhs” ensued.

Happy belated Fourth of July from all of us here at CallCopy!

This is a big win for CallCopy. Although I am named on the award, this is truly an award for the company, its owners, and of course our family of employees. It is a culmination of the hard work, dedication, and passion that we all have to each other and to our customers.

It seems like it was just yesterday that our founding team Jeff Canter, Rick Daley, Patrick Hall, Mark Studer, Tarne Tassniyom and I joined forces to promote and grow what at that time was just a software application called CallCopy. Out of sacrifice we, and our families, dedicated valuable time and sweat equity to create a company that at its core is about having an excellent work environment, passion for our customers and each other, and constant innovation.

Without our employees this would not have been possible. We are blessed to have a team who strives towards those same core values each and every day; a team that constantly goes above and beyond without expecting or asking for gratitude, and a team that won’t allow internal barriers inhibiting the delivery of service based on the highest standards in our industry.

CallCopy has grown significantly over the past several years. Financially we have doubled year over year in revenues while remaining profitable and only taking on a small amount of debt in regards to the build out of our new facility. Although this is an indicator of strength, the true strength comes from within. It is the continued passion and energy that is still being delivered from our founding team and our employees that is the true reason for our strength and this award.

As we celebrate this award/nomination we must think about those who this ceremony truly celebrates.

• Nick Anastos
• Brad Anderson
• Chris Anderson
• George Barsa
• Keith Bennett
• Kent Bowen
• Jeff Canter
• Andy Courneya
• Jon Dunham
• Cheryl Eddy
• Shawn Eddy
• Charlie Emminger
• Ken Falk
• Matt Garrett
• Patrick Hall
• Julie Harrington
• Todd Hersey
• Shirley Hoff
• Kate Hornik
• Joe Keeran
• Barb Kendrick
• George Kerber
• Barry Knack
• Keith Kress
• Matthew Lehmer
• Matt Madzia
• Jeff Meador
• Beki Nowlan
• Morgan Nunnery
• Ken O’Donnell
• Kerry O’Donnell
• Scott O’Neal
• Ed Porter
• Cheryl Rankin
• Jeff Rector
• Michael Reeves
• Matt Reynolds
• Frank Rollings
• Kevin Seeley
• Chris Sellers
• David Siegel
• Jason Snyder
• Michael Sretenovic
• Ross Stevens
• Mark Studer
• Michael Sugg
• Tara Swartz
• Tarne Tassniyom
• Tom Taylor
• Beki Thomas
• Daniel Thomas
• Jackson Tremaine
• Lee Vaughn
• Laura Watkins
• Timothy Williams
• Yao Xie
• Nicole Young

Thank you all for helping CallCopy achieve this recognition.

– Ray

Whether your organization performs manual or automated quality assurance (QA), call center coaching forms are an integral component of an overall QA program.

Developing Call Center Coaching Forms

There are several components you’ll want to consider when developing call center coaching forms for your organization.  For example, your call center coaching forms and the weighting of different sections should mirror your organization’s customer service goals and priorities.  In addition, ensure that all requirements are met by involving staff from different areas and levels of the organization.  Regardless of these special considerations, there are certain components that all call center coaching forms should include, such as:

• A section analyzing the opening and closing of the call.
• Space to define strengths and weaknesses associated with system knowledge, resolution skills, product knowledge and familiarity with business processes.
• A section reviewing the overall communication skills of the agent.
• An area to identify applicable best practices and up-training opportunities.

Because these requirements overlap from industry to industry, many companies choose to base their call center coaching forms on a pre-existing or sample form (CallCopy provides several sample forms in our Contact Center QA Guide).

Once a form is completed, review the results with the agent, either by scheduling time with the agent for a coaching session, or by using a tool like CallCopy to share the evaluation with the agent.  Follow up with the agent directly, or use our tracking tools to ensure that the agent has reviewed the content.

Why Use Call Center Coaching Forms

Ultimately, the end goal of any QA program should be to facilitate increased customer satisfaction.  In addition, call center coaching forms can help improve agent productivity, ensure better transaction quality and reduce enterprise risk.

Learn more:

• cc: Quality | Quality Management
• cc: Agent | Agent Coaching & Training
• Download our Contact Center QA Guide
• Download our Improving the Customer Experience with Peer-based QM Whitepaper

Known for its ability to provide data delivery in new and innovative ways, Acme Packet’s sessions were very popular at the conference.  Acme Packet is the leader in session border control (SBC) solutions, delivering high-quality interactive voice, video and multimedia communications across IP network borders.  What’s interesting, though, is the way they’re changing the market.

Connected Planet agrees:

“The cost-savings appeal of SIP trunking, and Acme’s ability to turn its product sales, is a great example of straight-forward vendor blocking and tackling. Good for Acme to recognize the opportunity and pursue it aggressively. What’s more interesting, especially for service providers, is the “Swiss Army knife” or “Tower of Babel” role Acme (and other SBC vendors) have come to play sitting in the middle of emerging IP networks.”

– Rich Karpinski, Connected Planet

Acme Packet has designed their SBCs to include some very well-thought-out features. We’re currently working on integration and interoperability testing to record SIP traffic directly from these SBC units. This will allow organizations to continue to leverage our  suite of applications as they convert their telephony networks to SIP.  ACME’s flexible approach will make SIP-enabled call recording scalable and very easy to deploy alongside the CallCopy solution.

With this in mind, CallCopy has partnered with Dick Bucci of Pelorus Associates to bring you 10 Secrets to Boosting First Call Resolution, a new eBook loaded with best practices on how to improve satisfaction and cut costs through increased FCR.

“First call resolution is an essential metric for any best-in-class contact center for two simple reasons: it drives customer satisfaction and reduces operating costs.”

This eBook provides an inside look at the many benefits associated with increased FCR, alongside real-world techniques on how to do so, including steps you can take to measure FCR, ways to identify the causes of repeat calls, insight on how FCR relates to customer satisfaction, and, of course, the 10 secrets to boosting FCR.

So, whether your focus is on the bottom line, keeping customers happy, or striking a balance between the two, chances are your organization can benefit from improving FCR.  Download the eBook now to get started.

» Download 10 Secrets to Boosting First Call Resolution

We spent part of the day this past Friday moving, unpacking and getting settled in at the new digs.  Everyone helped out to make the move go as smoothly as possible and we’re all happy to have more space with room to grow!

As you may know, we’ve seen rapid growth in recent years and this move is a direct result of our continued organizational expansion.  We’d like to thank our customers and partners for their continued support.

When the brunt of the storms rendered other Columbus, Ohio offices (and offices across the country, for that matter), non-operational, we were able to work from home thanks to our communications infrastructure and our own CallCopy software.  As the Avaya Insights blog points out, snow days don’t mean what they used to….

For many organizations, hazardous weather conditions have historically meant that when school districts close, parents are forced to either try to find a babysitter at the last minute or take the day off to watch their kids. Inclement weather also traditionally means longer, more dangerous commutes for employees, shorter work days, and above all else, lost productivity.

But that was then, and this is now: our software can record our work-at-home IP phones, and our tools can be accessed remotely via VPN. To ensure our continued operations, we utilize the same technologies that our customers rely upon.

One customer leveraging this functionality is Mohawk Flooring. Using CallCopy software alongside their Avaya Unified Communications infrastructure, Mohawk was able to ensure business continuity despite a crippling ice storm impacting their Dallas, Texas facility several months ago. Agents were able to work from home during the ordeal, eliminating risky commutes and decreased productivity.

To remain competitive, businesses need to be well-equipped to handle inclement weather or even more extreme scenarios such as a pandemic, flu outbreak or natural disaster.

Fortunately, CallCopy’s solutions allow businesses to rest easy knowing that their employees can maintain productivity regardless of the situation. Our contact recording and screen capture technology allows organizations to manage the performance of remote workers – so they remain both safe and productive.

You can trust that CallCopy is working hard to bring you the absolute best solutions and service possible.

“Having a relationship with customers rather than viewing [each one] as a number…that’s [CallCopy’s] number-one differentiation.”

As Ray Bohac, CallCopy’s president and CEO put it in an email to the CallCopy team, “Time and time again, we’ve won customers not only as a result of our first-rate solution offering, but also because we provide something unique and rare in today’s business world – a solid relationship with our prospects and customers.”

“[CallCopy is] beginning to encroach upon the Tier 1 revenue stream, thanks to solid technology, a much-lower price point, and a higher level of support.”

Since the beginning, innovation has been one of CallCopy’s core values.  Our product roadmap is driven by customer suggestions and feature requests – meaning that it’s customers like you that influence and shape the solutions we build.

We would like to thank you for your business, your support, and for the part you play in making CallCopy an industry leader.

» Read the press release
» View the CRM magazine article
» Learn more about CallCopy’s WFO solution

According to the Columbus Dispatch:

“Mary Ann O’Garro said a request for records in her grandson’s case revealed that Franklin County Children Services recorded some of her phone conversations with the agency. […]

O’Garro and her attorney, Susan Eisenman of Upper Arlington, said the recordings are especially troubling because the O’Garros live in the state of Washington, whose phone-recording law requires consent from both parties. […]

Ohio requires the consent of just one of the parties. Federal law is single-consent, too, but observers say past cases have left it unsettled as to whether federal or stricter state laws apply. […]

State government doesn’t have a policy on recording calls, and a few agencies surveyed say they avoid the practice.”

Advanced call recording systems can block call recordings by certain area codes, preventing situations like this all together.

Additionally, as a best practice, agencies and employers can require anyone on the phone to give notice to their customers that the call is taking place on a recorded system.  A robust quality management program can help managers enforce these policies.

CallCopy helps businesses and agencies solve problems like this every day.

» Download our Recording Laws Whitepaper today to get more information and best practices

» Learn more about how CallCopy can help your business achieve and maintain compliance

Many organizations understand that there is value in implementing a speech analytics solution, but struggle with defining best practices and objectives associated with an effective program.

Speech Analytics Best Practices:

1. Identify key words and phrases that matter.
   Your organization is unique.  Make sure you define the key words and phrases that make the most sense for your organization and align with your business goals.  Remember to include names of competitors, phrases indicative of decreased customer satisfaction (such as “I want to cancel,” “speak to your supervisor” or “frustrated”) and other service-level KPIs.  If needed, fine-tune the software to recognize non-standard words such as jargon, slang and foreign words.  Also, be sure to include other departments in the process, as they will be able to provide additional insight into the words and phrases important to other areas of the organization.
2. Share the knowledge.
   One of the benefits of speech analytics is that it allows you to extend the business intelligence gathered within your contact center throughout the entire organization.  In effect, this means tearing down the virtual wall between the call center and other areas of the organization, and allowing the knowledge gained during customer contacts to be shared cross-departmentally (think sales, marketing, collections, fraud and other departments).  Historically, this information may have been lost or communicated less effectively as agents are pressured to move on to the next call in queue.
3. Coach and train your agents.
   Use the key word/phrase mining and silence detection capabilities in your speech analytics software to improve processes and identify agent coaching or up-training opportunities by understanding trends and underlying issues. For example, extended pauses by the agent could indicate a need for additional product training.
4. Mine all of your calls, not just some of them.
   By mining 100 percent of your calls, you will be able to pinpoint the occurrence of those critical key words and phrases to give you a better (and more accurate) frame of reference while enabling a full view of corporate insight. This is particularly important when monitoring for uncommon, yet critically important phrases that may be missed when only a subset of calls is mined.
5. Listen to your customers.
   Your customers give you information with every call.  An effective speech analytics solution allows your organization to zero in on the critical pieces of information, and extract meaningful data without wasting time or resources on the less significant segments.  Analyzing and understanding this data allows you to makes actionable business decisions based on the wants and needs of your customer base.

Ultimately, speech analytics best practices can help your organization improve customer satisfaction through agent coaching and up-training opportunities, improved process adherence, trend and key word /phrase identification and extendible business information.  Applying speech analytics best practices to your organization will allow you to better understand your customers by providing you with valuable insight, and the tools needed to turn that insight into critical business intelligence.

» Learn more about CallCopy’s speech analytics solution.