OnState Eliminates Predictive Dialing Shortcomings – Enables More Effective Sales Campaigns

Sep 23rd, 2009
by Pat Kelly.
No comments yet

Predictive dialers are a staple of many outbound call centers. Originally conceived to address limitations with basic auto-dialer solutions, predictive dialers maximize the amount of time agents spend on the phone by automatically connecting them to “live” contacts. While useful in certain high volume cold-calling applications, predictive dialers aren’t well-suited for many other sales and customer service campaigns. They optimize call volumes – making sure agents are always engaged – at the expense of call quality and customer experience.

Here’s how a predictive dialer works. A sales manager creates an outbound campaign and imports a contact list into the system. The dialer checks how many agents are available to take calls, and starts dialing. When calls are answered they are automatically directed to an agent. Because predictive dialers are designed to maximize agent uptime they call more contacts than there are available agents – sometimes as many as ten calls for each agent. They start dialing new prospects even while all agents are busy – often subjecting contacts to silent air or recorded announcements when they answer the phone.

Not surprisingly, increased telemarketing in general and the widespread use of predictive dialers in particular has led to consumer backlash and expanding government regulation. In recent years the FCC has introduced do-not-call lists, mandated caller ID for telemarketers, placed restrictions on auto dialing systems and pre-recorded messages, and has even gone as far as regulating call abandonment rates. By law, telemarketers must ensure predictive dialers abandon no more than three percent of all answered calls. (The FCC considers a call abandoned if it is not transferred to a live agent within two seconds after the recipient answers.)

The FCC is apt to introduce additional restrictions as consumer frustration continues to mount. To remain viable, call center operators must adapt to changes in how both consumers and lawmakers view telemarketers and they must rethink the ways in which they engage prospects and customers.

OnState’s Outbound Call Center solution lets call center operators stay ahead of the curve by complying with expanding government regulations and responding to evolving consumer attitudes. More importantly, OnState helps organizations run more effective campaigns by arming agents with the tools and data they need to make better informed and more successful calls, and by ensuring calls are delivered to the agent who is best qualified to serve a particular contact.

Here’s how OnState Outbound Calling works. A sales manager creates an outbound campaign and defines attributes that are used to influence call treatment. Attributes might include the contact’s territory information, company data, or individual demographics or interests. OnState uses administratively-defined business rules to automatically route outbound requests to the agent who is best suited to perform the call at any moment in time, matching the contact’s attributes with agent availability and skills. (In a blended environment outbound requests can be intermingled with inbound calls and click-to-chat and click-for-callback requests.) OnState sends the agent a contact request screen pop along with detailed contact information (customer data, transaction history, Salesforce.com records, etc) so the agent can adequately prepare for the call.

OnState increases conversion rates by eliminating blind calling – enabling agents to make better informed, more effective calls. And since the agent is always on the call in advance of the called party (no silent pauses) OnState can increase capture rates (no abandoned calls) and avoid the consumer frustration brought on by predictive dialers. With OnState you can reach out using multiple methods and contact numbers – conventional phones, mobile phones, Skype, GoogleTalk – to improve capture rates even further.

While others sell auto-dialers and predictive dialers as call center add-ons or independent applications, OnState includes Outbound Calling as integral capability of our on-demand service. With OnState you don’t have to purchase an expensive call center solution to execute “big company” sales campaigns. You can even use OnState and its Outbound Calling capabilities without a PBX or traditional phone system.

OnState Outbound Calling helps businesses run more effective sales campaigns, improve customer service, and make blind calling a thing of the past.

More Information: OnState’s Outbound Dialing Solution for Outbound Call Centers

Posted in: All, From the Corner Office, Outbound Call Center, Virtual Call Center.
Tagged: · · · ·

OnState Brings Advanced Customer Communications Capabilities to Cisco UC 500 Series

Nov 4th, 2009
by Pat Kelly.
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OnState helps you improve customer satisfaction and increase worker productivity by connecting your customers to the right employee at the right time.    Ideal for sales, service and customer support applications OnState is the perfect complement to your Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series system.

OnState’s unique business presence™ goes above and beyond the simple hunt group and basic ACD (B-ACD) capabilities included with the 500 Series and Cisco Unified Communications (UC) Manager Express.  A cloud-based, PBX-independent service, OnState tracks the availability and activity of employees wherever they are – in the office, working from home, or on the road – and automatically connects callers to the employee who can serve them best based on worker availability, skills, spoken language or any other attributes or business rules that are important to your company.  With OnState you can improve employee efficiency and reduce customer frustration by connecting customers to the right employee on the first attempt – reducing call transfers, voicemail, call abandonments, and telephone tag.

OnState brings rich call-center features to ordinary employees and everyday business functions at a fraction of the price of a big company call center solution. You can also use OnState for outbound sales campaigns, or to add click-to-chat or click-for-callback capabilities to your Web site. Whether you’ve deployed a single 500 Series system or a dozen of them OnState’s affordable, on-demand service can help you extend your 500 Series investment and enhance your sales and customer support efforts. And since OnState is a PBX-independent service, it is ideal for mixed-vendor environments or for smaller offices without phone systems.

OnState bring advanced customer communications to UC 500 Series
Create a Virtual Call Center that Encompasses Your Entire Workforce
 The Cisco UC 500 Series is a stand-alone system designed to meet the needs of an individual office and its employees. Each system – its users, phones and system parameters – is configured and administered independently. The 500 series offers limited ACD capabilities intended for small, co-located teams. Since hunt groups can’t span multiple systems or offices, you can’t extend sales or support teams across locations. With a silo approach you can’t pool resources or extend call coverage across sites. As a manager, you can’t observe the performance of your entire workforce at-a-glance or gauge customer service levels across your entire company.

OnState, by contrast, is a cloud-based service that tracks users across various phone systems and networks, and connects customers to the user who can serve them best regardless of user location (office, home, road), device (PBX phone, mobile phone, softphone) or phone network (PSTN, SIP/VoIP, Skype, Google). With OnState you can create virtual sales and support teams that span your entire operation so you can pool resources and make optimal use of your workforce. You can create virtual response teams that span offices and geographies, and incorporate nomadic users and home-based workers. You can enjoy company-wide call coverage – routing calls to the person who can best solve a business problem, based on capability and availability, independent of location.

OnState is easy to administer; all users, policies and business rules are configured globally – across the entire company. And OnState provides consolidated, enterprise-wide reporting so you can keep an eye on customer service levels as a whole and keep tabs on how well your entire organization is performing.

OnState transforms your workforce into a virtual call center

How it Works
 OnState is not a hosted phone system or a managed telephone service. OnState is a PBX-independent, cloud-based service that oversees and controls communications across various systems and networks.

OnState orchestrates communications across diverse systems and networks

Here’s how it works:

  • OnState uses business presence to track employee availability and activity – independent of PBX, device, network or location.
  • When a customer calls your company, the public telephone network signals OnState via SIP signalling.
  • OnState uses your administratively-defined business rules and business presence information to determine the employee who is best suited to serve the customer.
  • OnState signals the phone network to set up a call directly between the customer and the employee.
  • OnState maintains state information for the duration of the call, and provides detailed reporting and analytics.

SIP, Skype and Google Options for Remote Users and Small Offices
OnState works with popular Internet Telephony services including SIP (VoIP), Skype and Google so you can offer your users greater choice and convenience. Nomadic workers, teleworkers and telecommuters can use SIP, Skype or Google as alternatives to Cisco IP Communicator. Plus you can avoid the expense and complexity of deploying Cisco 870 series home routers for teleworkers. You can also use SIP, Skype or Google to deliver OnState services to small offices without phone systems. In many cases, these remote offices can utilize Cisco phones without requiring the purchase of the UC500.

Multi-vendor Support
Do you manage a multi-vendor environment? OnState works with any TDM or IP-based office phone system. You can use OnState to quickly and cost-effectively create a Virtual Call Center serving multiple offices with different PBX makes or models.

Automated Outbound Calling, Click-to-Chat, Click-for-Callback
OnState offers much more than inbound call management. OnState’s Automated Outbound Call Center option lets you run effective outbound sales or customer service campaigns and leverage business presence to deliver calls to the agent who is best qualified to assist a particular contact. Our unique approach to outbound calling eliminates the silent pauses that make traditional predictive dialers ineffective and unpopular with consumers.

You can also use OnState to add interactive communications to your Web site. You can add text chat and voice callback buttons to Web pages to improve customer service and reduce Web site abandonment, and provide a convenient way for customers to interact with your company.

CRM and SFA Integration
OnState integrates easily with CRM and SFA solutions such as Salesforce.com. OnState offers essential features including integrated click-to-dial and customer record screen pops plus advanced capabilities such as using Salesforce.com customer data to actively influence call handling decisions. While Cisco sells Unified CallConnectors for Salesforce separately, OnState includes Salesforce.com support as a standard product capability at no additional charge. And with OnState’s universal cloud-based interface, you integrate once and you’re done.

OnState simplified and extends CRM integration

Complementary Solution
OnState is designed to protect and extend your 500 Series investment and to minimize user impact. The service can be used in conjunction with built-in 500 Series features such as Unity voicemail and Business Productivity Applications such as Cisco Single Number Reach Smart (SNR).

OnState works with familiar Cisco UC 500 series features such as voicemail and SNR

Business Presence Offers an Efficient Alternative to SNR
You can use OnState business presence as an alternative SNR to optimize call routing and reduce network and system overhead. The 500 Series is a PBX-centric, device-oriented system that manages phones, not users. Users who plan to be away from the office can redirect incoming phone calls to external devices such as mobile phones or home phones through manual configuration. The system forwards incoming calls to all configured external devices in a blind attempt to reach a user – squandering network and system resources in the process.

OnState maintains business presence information in the cloud and makes call routing decisions at the first point of customer contact in the network

In contrast, OnState uses business presence to track users independent of PBX, device or network. It makes call routing decisions in the network, at the first point of customer contact, and intelligently steers incoming calls directly to users without PBX involvement.

Figure 7. OnState complements and extends the Cisco UC 500 Series

Cisco UC 500 Series OnState
  • Office phone system (PBX) features
    		•
  • Virtual call center
    		•
  • Voicemail
    		•
  • Business presence
    		•
  • Conferencing
    		•
  • Call center reporting and analytics
    		•
  • Video telephony
    		•
  • Automated outbound calling (sales campaigns)
    		•
  • Integrated business productivity applications
    		•
  • Click-to-chat (text chat)
    		•
    • Single number reach
  • Click-for-callback
    		•
    • WebEx integration
  • Internet telephony support
    		•
    • Time card reporting
  • Integral CRM/SFA support (Salesforce.com)
    		•

    Posted in: All, Business Presence, Virtual Call Center.
    Tagged: · · ·

    Extending Voice and Collaboration To Remote Users Enables Virtual Workforces and Complements Telecommuting

    Jan 28th, 2010
    by Pat Kelly.
    1 comment

    Looming concerns over emergency occurances are causing many organizations to evaluate their business continuity plans. Using H1N1 as an example, as the threat approached, the CDC was warning companies to prepare for closures and heavy absenteeism, and asked employers to draw up work-from-home plans to reduce the spread of disease.

    Advances in technology make it easier than ever for today’s information workers to work remotely. With a broadband Internet connection and a notebook computer, today’s workers can access their IT services and business applications as efficiently from the road as from the office. To be fully productive though, remote workers must also be able to maintain seamless communications with customers, partners and co-workers. They must appear office-bound to the outside world and have full and convenient access to all their corporate voice features.

    Delivering corporate voice services to home workers and mobile users can be a challenge. Most office phone systems were created for another era with stationary office workers and static desk phones. They weren’t designed with cell phones, mobile workers or the Internet in mind and they offer only rudimentary capabilities for remote users. Worse still, most corporate phone networks are engineered to support only occasional remote use (see image below) and would have to be completely overhauled to enable full communications business continuity.

    virtual workforce

    New cloud-based Business Communications Services (BCS) like OnState allow companies to easily implement simple, cost-effective business continuity plans and add support for remote workers and virtual offices without enduring expensive PBX retrofits or costly network upgrades.  Instead, this on-demand service allows businesses to exploit Internet reach and economics to extend corporate voice services to remote users, thus enabling a virtual workforce and aiding in telecommuting. Different than a hosted phone system or a managed voice service, OnState is a SaaS application that initiates and controls sessions (voice, video, and text chat) across diverse networks (PSTN, VoIP/SIP, Internet, Mobile).  With a BCS companies leverage mobile phones and Internet telephony services such as Skype or Google to deliver corporate voice services to home workers and mobile users for business continuity, telecommuting, teleworking, virtual workforce enabling, and other applications.  Unlike conventional CPE solutions or traditional hosted voice services, which are actively involved in the media path, OnState delivers ultimate scale and economics by employing a signaling only solution that intelligently directs traffic over commodity transport (see image below).

    virtual workforce telecommuting

    A BCS uses business logic to steer callers to the users who can serve them best based on administratively-defined business rules and real-time user presence information – independent of user location, network or device.  Using a BCS, businesses can deliver “big company” call center features to everyday business functions and ordinary employees who aren’t typically associated with the call center.

    BCS Applications

    With a BCS employees can maintain normal business communications from any location, at any time – fulfilling a variety of applications.

    Business continuity – preserve normal business operations during weather emergencies, pandemics, natural disasters, and security events. When a business closes down or operates in a limited capacity for an extended period of time revenue is impacted and the company’s reputation suffers.  To successfully compete in today’s global marketplace, businesses must have sound strategies to minimize service disruptions during unusual circumstances.

    Telecommuting – enable employees to work from home on an occasional basis.  Telecommuting is on the rise.  Skyrocketing fuel prices, increased environmental awareness, and overcrowded highways are leading more and more companies to institute work-from-home polices.  According to the Dieringer Research Group1 the number of Americans who worked remotely at least one day per month rose to 17.2 million in 2008 – representing a two-year increase of 39 percent, and an increase of 74 percent since 2005.

    Teleworking – employ home-based workers.  Innovative businesses are leveraging home-based staff to improve business agility and cut costs.  Employers hire workers based on their skills and wage requirements – not their place of residence.  They reduce expenses by supplementing or replacing brick and mortar facilities with virtual offices, and by hiring part-time employees and workers with lower salary demands.  Using teleworkers companies can easily scale the workforce to meet seasonal demand or unexpected business fluctuations.

    Nomadic workers – maintain regular communications with consultants, field-based workers and project-based employees who work from customer or partner sites or field locations.  The virtual workforce includes not only home-based workers but employees who travel regularly and work from external sites.  With a BCS businesses can extend corporate voice services to nomadic users so they can maintain normal communications with customers and co-workers.

    Offshoring – relocate business functions to other countries.  Many businesses move customer service or other functions to offshore locations to reduce expenses and deliver round-the-clock services.  With a BCS companies can leverage rich presence-based call routing along with SIP trunking or Internet telephony to implement cost-effective offshore call centers.

    A BCS can help just about any business improve customer satisfaction and operate more efficiently by connecting customers to the right employee at the right time – independent of device, location or network.  With a BCS companies of any size can implement comprehensive business contingency plans without installing additional equipment, network facilities, or a backup phone system; and they can readily extend corporate voice services to nomadic users and home workers to improve efficiency and lower expenses.  Forward-looking businesses are turning to Business Communications Services like OnState to minimize service disruptions, reduce environmental impact, improve customer service, slash costs, and boost worker productivity and quality-of-life.

    Posted in: Branch Office Communications, Business Continuity, Virtual Call Center, Workforce Virtualization.
    Tagged: · · ·

    Securing SaaS-Based Virtual Call Centers and Virtual PBXs

    Feb 12th, 2010
    by Pat Kelly.
    1 comment

    Customer communications is the lifeblood of your business.  The integrity of your business communications system is critical to your company’s success.  A cloud-based business communications solution can deliver all the features and benefits of a “big company” call center at a fraction of the price of a conventional solution, but can it provide the security and dependability you’ve come to expect in a premises-based solution?

    When evaluating a SaaS-based solution it is important to investigate the platform’s security and reliability features.  A complete solution provides three levels of protection – protection at the data center level, protection at the network level, and protection at the application level.

    Data center level protection ensures the application is housed in a safe and dependable environment.  Application level protection ensures the service is highly available (not susceptible to hardware failures) and secure (not susceptible to hackers and unauthorized users). Network level protection ensures your company’s traffic is transported in a secure and reliable fashion.

    OnState understands the integrity of your customer communications system is vital to your business.  Our cloud-based service provides the multi-level protection you need to safeguard your business-critical communications.  We host our service in a secure and reliable Equinix IBX data center,  exploit VMware to achieve application reliability and scalability, and leverage redundant interfaces to multiple Tier 1 providers to ensure network availability.  We have access and egress agreements with over a dozen providers and deliver service in over 40 countries.

    cloud security

    SAS 70 Type II Data Center
    • >99.999% availability
    • 24 x 365 physical security
    • Fire detection and suppression, flood control, earthquake protection
    • Redundant power, UPS, and HVAC

    With OnState’s SaaS-based solution you can enjoy all the features and benefits of an enterprise-class call center system without sacrificing the security or reliability to which you are accustomed.

    Data Center Level Protection
    OnState is hosted in a secure SAS 70 Type II Equinix IBX data center. With over 2000 global enterprise, service provider, and content company customers, Equinix is the partner of choice for the world’s most demanding businesses and most-trafficked sites.  Leading companies like Google, IBM, and Yahoo! have all selected Equinix as their outsourced IT infrastructure provider.

    Equinix has built the most reliable facilities in the industry and consistently delivers 99.999% uptime.  Their world-class, network-neutral data centers provide:

    • Physical security to control, monitor, and record access to the facility
    • Fire detection and suppression, flood control and earthquake protection to safeguard against natural disasters
    • Redundant power, UPS and HVAC to maximize system uptime
    • Redundant connections to Tier 1 providers to protect against network failures
    • On-site protection from the U.S. National Guard during certain security threat level conditions

    SAS 70 (Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70) is an internationally-recognized auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).  In order to attain SAS Type II compliance Equinix has passed an in-depth audit covering security monitoring, change management, problem management, backup controls, physical and environmental safeguards and logical access.

    Application Level Protection
    OnState leverages VMware for high availability and scalability.  The application is instantiated on a virtual machine that spans multiple physical servers and storage devices.  The service is unaffected by individual component failures.  Inherent VMware fault tolerance features protect against physical failures, including network card failures, storage path failures, and other hardware failures.  Core components such as SIP servers and media servers are replicated and Acme Packet Session Border Controllers are also used to provide load-balancing and fail-over capabilities for SIP traffic.  In addition, by migrating virtual machines, routine maintenance functions (hardware upgrades, software upgrades, etc) can be performed without service disruption.

    The virtual machine concept can be extended across multiple Equinix data centers to protect against catastrophic events. These geographically-disparate data centers are located on separate flood planes, electrical grids, and earthquake zones.

    saas security

    Carrier-Class, Geographically-Distributed Architecture
    • Fully-distributed VMWare implementation
    • Geogrpahically-dispersed data ceters
    • Separate flood planes, electrical grids, fault lines
    • Multiple redundant interconnects
    • Continuous availability

    OnState features a browser-based Administrative interface for monitoring, configuring and controlling users and services. The interface utilizes encrypted passwords for secure authentication and authorization. Only authorized administrators can create and manage user accounts, define policies and system settings, or produce usage and performance reports. By enforcing strict access control policies OnState safeguards the integrity of confidential customer data and protects against toll fraud and service theft.

    OnState employs comprehensive CheckPoint security systems and practices to defend against intruders and hackers. Our servers are protected by multiple levels of firewalls to guard against malicious attacks. To reduce security risks, we limit or disable unused operating system services. In addition we scan our software for security vulnerabilities and employ a variety of threat evasion techniques to protect against denial of service attacks and other malicious threats.

    Network Level Protection
    Unlike conventional hosted voice solutions, OnState works with a variety of networks (PSTN, VoIP/SIP, and Internet) so you can choose the network technologies and service providers which best meet your needs – including your security and SLA requirements.

    A flexible service, OnState is easily integrated into just about any environment. You can connect OnState to a PBX using PSTN trunking or SIP trunking. PSTN trunks offer time-tested reliability and security. Many of today’s SIP trunk providers offer SLAs and security features that rival those of conventional analog or PRI circuits.

    OnState supports stand-alone SIP endpoints, Skype clients and GoogleTalk clients for remote users and for smaller offices without PBXs. Most SIP endpoints support SRTP (Secure Real-time Transport Protocol) or other security protocols to provide encryption and guarantee privacy. Similarly, GoogleTalk and Skype feature inherent encryption capabilities to provide privacy and protect against eavesdropping.

    virtual workforce environments

    Conclusion
    Customer communications is the lifeblood of your business. OnState delivers the multilayer security you need to protect your business-critical communications. With OnState you can enjoy all the advantages of an enterprise-class call center solution without sacrificing security or reliability – all for a fixed monthly fee, with no upfront equipment purchases.

    Posted in: Business Continuity, Cloud Security, From the Corner Office, Virtual Call Center.
    Tagged: · ·

    Infrastructure-Centric Business Communications Lag Behind a Service-Centric Approach

    Mar 17th, 2010
    by Shawn LaVana.
    No comments yet

    With our newest white paper, “Infrastructure-Centric Business Communications Lag Behind a Service-Centric Approach” unveiling today, I figured it’s as good a time as any to elaborate on why OnState is different from other call center solution offerings (both hosted and premise-based) on the market. But rather than write, well, another white paper on the topic, we can handle this in some bullet points:

    • Signaling Only – Follow as we turn a feature into a benefit here. OnState just signals calls and chats where to go. The media is not routed through us or our equipment. It actually stays in the network, which is where it originated anyway. This is different from any other call center software offering, and is quite revolutionary. The benefits of this feature (see how I did that?) are many, including an inherent resiliency, rapid scalability (both in terms of adding and subtracting users, but more importantly in terms of call volume), and your choice of network (including the Internet, mobile, and PSTN).
    • Quick and Easy Set Up – With no hardware to deploy on either side of the equation (yours or ours), we’ll have you up and running in minutes.
    • Monitoring and Intelligence – If you’ve read anything else on our website, you’ve no doubt come across the term “business presence.” In very simplistic terms, “business presence” means that the OnState system maintains a real-time employee inventory, as well as the availability, skills, business rules, and devices associated with each employee or group of employees. This way, when a chat request comes in, or a call is taken or made, the customer/prospect is matched with the employee that can best serve them at that moment.

    And did I mention we offer this for a TCO that’s less than most maintenance programs? You can read more about that part in the white paper. And stay tuned…more blog posts coming soon.

    Posted in: From the Corner Cube, Virtual Call Center.
    Tagged: · · ·

    Skype on Verizon Wireless Smartphones

    Apr 2nd, 2010
    by Pat Kelly.
    No comments yet

    At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Skype and Verizon Wireless jointly announced support for Skype on Verizon Wireless smartphones.  The announcement is welcome news for US wireless users looking to reduce international calling costs.  With the new Skype mobile product, Verizon Wireless users with data plans can make free Skype calls plus call international phone numbers at low Skype Out rates.  In addition, Skype users around the world can now make free calls to Verizon Wireless users.  The solution also brings Skype text chat and presence capabilities to Verizon smartphones.

    Skype brings mobile client to Verizon Smartphones

    The announcement is welcome news for OnState users, as well. OnState pioneered the use of Skype as an integral component of our Virtual Call Center and Virtual PBX solutions. OnState is the first and only service that lets businesses leverage Skype – and all its collaborative and multi-modal features – to optimize customer communications. Now these benefits are fully extended to users of Verizon Wireless smartphones – particularly mobile sales and service professionals. Skype Mobile gives on-the-go sales and service personnel convenient access to OnState so they can assist customers from any location at any time using voice or text chat.

    OnState enhances real-time customer communications and improves worker productivity by connecting customers to the right employee at the right time. It uses patented Business Presence technology to direct customers to the employee who can serve them best based on availability, skills or other business rules – independent of employee location, device or network – transforming Skype into a true customer-facing business communications system.

    OnState connects customers to the right employee - independent of location, device or network

    With OnState companies can fully leverage the benefits of Skype Mobile without publishing the Skype IDs of individual employees.  OnState connects callers to sales or service personnel by business function or specialty – not by name – improving customer service while helping businesses protect employee privacy, maintain company confidentiality and accommodate attrition.

    Skype Mobile is the perfect complement to OnState.  With OnState and Skype Mobile, you can:

    • Increase the productivity of your workforce by allowing your employees to stay fully engaged with customers even when they are away from the office or working from home
    • Better serve your customers by connecting them to the right person on the first attempt – reducing voicemail, phone tag and customer frustration
    • Improve efficiency by using Skype Mobile presence information to influence call routing
    • Enhance customer service by extending convenient text chat capabilities to mobile workers
    • Enjoy the benefits of Skype Mobile without publishing employee Skype IDs

    OnState transforms Skype Mobile from a consumer-oriented, peer-to-peer application into an integral component of a customer-facing business communications system which optimizes real-time communications, enhances sales and service, and improves the bottom line.

    Posted in: From the Corner Office, Skype for Business, Uncategorized.
    Tagged: · · · ·

    Companies Embracing Hosted Services Model

    Apr 26th, 2010
    by Pat Kelly.
    No comments yet

    A series of new reports issued by industry research firm Infonetics Research confirms what OnState has believed since our inception – enterprises are attracted to the flexibility and economics of service-based delivery models for business communications. After investigating the buying plans of over 100 North American companies Infonetics analyst Matthias Machowinski concludes “it appears that businesses are increasingly embracing a hosted services model, as their capacity needs will depend on how robust the economic recovery is, and hosted services allow them to more easily ramp their capacity needs up and down without a huge cash layout for equipment.”
    hosted voip

    But when it comes to flexibility and price not all services are the same.  Many hosted PBX and call center services are just that – hosted solutions.  A company’s voice infrastructure is simply housed in the service provider’s data center and managed by the service provider.  The economic and operational gains are minimal. With a conventional hosted voice solution each and every call passes through the provider’s switching infrastructure.  Providers are forced to add expensive switching equipment in order to increase capacity or provide redundancy. They pass their costs along to the customer in the form of higher rates.

    OnState is able to offer the most competitive pricing on the market by implementing a true SaaS architecture that separates call control and transport functionality. Unlike traditional hosted solutions, OnState is not actively involved in the media path. Instead we initiate and control sessions (voice, video, text chat) across a variety of networks (PSTN, VoIP/SIP, Internet). By employing a signaling-only architecture, we achieve higher scale and greater agility at lower cost than typical hosted solutions.

    Just ask Xzilerating Connexions CEO Nelson Davis.  He recently cut his monthly call center service costs by 30% by moving from a conventional hosted call center solution to OnState.  Nelson also enjoys the added flexibility of the OnState service.  With his previous hosted service adds/moves/changes took days – even weeks.  With OnState Nelson can activate agents in a matter of minutes so he can quickly respond to urgent business opportunities and last-minute campaigns.

    So if you are part of the growing number of IT professionals exploring alternatives to conventional premises-based communications solutions be sure to check out OnState.  Our cost-effective On-Demand service will help you survive today’s difficult economic climate and give you the flexibility to quickly throttle up capacity and turn up new applications so you can stay ahead of the competition when the economy recovers.

    Posted in: From the Corner Office, Virtual Call Center.
    Tagged: · · ·

    OnState Blog Housekeeping

    Aug 17th, 2010
    by Shawn LaVana.
    No comments yet

    Just a quick note that we’ve migrated our corporate blog. The new address is http://www.onstate.com/blog. And if you subscribe via RSS, the new feed address is http://www.onstate.com/blog/feed. We apologies for any hassle switching over may cause, but we look forward to interacting with your on our new website and new blog!

    Posted in: Uncategorized.

    July 30 Release Notes

    Jul 30th, 2010
    by Joyce.
    No comments yet

    The release on July 30 contained mainly bug fixes and performance enhancements that are not visible from a user perspective. However, there are a few changes and new features which are worth noting.

    SUPERVISOR CHANGES

    • The biggest change is the introduction of scheduling to open and close skill queues and DNs (dialed numbers/chat names) including custom overrides. This allows you to send callers to your After Hours announcement after your offices close, regardless of whether or not someone is available or forgot to log out.  When a schedule is defined, the system will open and close your skill queue or DN at the appointed times. Here’s how it to set it up.
      • The scheduler is accessed from either the Skill or Routing Tree page. To access it from a skill page, open the Advanced Settings for any skill and click the Schedule button located next to the Queue Open parameter. On the Routing Trees page, click on any DN (dialed number/name) and you will see the button located next to the DN Open parameter.
      • Click the button to open the Schedule Configuration dialog box.
      • To set up a schedule, first decide whether you want it applied to a DN or a skill.
      • Next, select a DN or skill name from the drop-down list.
      • (Optional) If you want to set up the schedule, but not apply it until a later date, click on the calendar icon to the right of the Activate starting date. This will open a small calendar where you can choose the date and time when you want to your new schedule to go into effect. After setting the date and time, click the check mark button located in the lower right corner below the calendar. If you want the schedule to take effect immediately, simply omit this step.
      • To set up a weekly schedule, do the following for each day:
        • Click the Add button.
        • Choose a day of the week from the drop-down list.
        • Set the Start Time when you want the skill or DN to be open. Note that the time zone used for your schedule will be based on the zone specified in your global attributes (Contact Manager> Advanced Settings> ACD Admin> Global Attributes).
        • Set the End Time when you the skill or DN to be closed.
        • If you make a mistake and want to remove one of the days, check the box at the far left of the row and hit the Delete button.
      • A daily exception is an override of your weekly schedule on certain dates, for example holidays. To set up your daily exceptions, do the following:
        • Click the Add button.
        • Click the calendar icon and select the day that you want to override your weekly schedule. Click the check mark button in the lower right corner of the calendar to select the date.
        • Set the new open and close hours.
        • If it the date is a holiday for which you will be closed all day, check the box at the far end of the row. This will gray out the time settings, and your queue or DN will be closed all day.
      • Click Save to save your new schedule and close the box.
      • Click Save As to apply the schedule to other DNs or skills. Check the box in the left column for each DN or skill which you want using the same schedule. To select them all, check the box in the header row. Click Apply to apply the schedule to your selections. Click Back to close and go back to the configuration buttons.
      • Click Close to hide the dialog box.

      Once you have your weekly schedule created, the system will open or close the queue or DN when the next time threshold passes. Here is an example. Let’s say you have configured your DN to open at 8:00 a.m. and close at 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and it is now 3:30 p.m. on Monday. What will happen? If the DN is currently open, it will remain open and then at 4:00 p.m., the system will close it. If the DN is currently closed, it will remain closed until 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday when the system will open it. The system only opens and closes DNs and queues when it crosses a start or end time. It will not open a closed queue midday, just because it is supposed to be open at that time. So, when you first set it up, make sure the queue is already at the state it should be in and then the system will take over at the next start or end time.
      If you want your queue or DN to automatically close midday during your lunch hour, you will need to configure two start and end periods for each day. For example, you will need one Monday to be from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. and another Monday to be open from noon to 5 p.m. You will repeat this for the other days of the week.

    • This release includes a new report called Call Volume – By DN, which displays the number of calls for one or more phone numbers and/or chat names  during a certain period of time. This report can help you to identify your peak periods. To run the report, select the DN from the list. You may chose more than one if you want. (If you don’t select any, it will assume you want them all.) Set the report interval to either 15 or 30 minutes, and then specify the report period. The report shows you the number of calls that were received, answered, and not answered for each 15- or 30-minute interval. It also gives you the average duration of calls in that interval, the average wait time, and the total time people spent talking for all calls during the interval.
    • Tracking of internal calls in the Skill-Based Agent Status Chart. Internal calls indicate the direction of the call and the Skill name will be the other user, as shown in the example below where jnwinc.sales1 called jnwinc.sales3. It is an outbound call (dark blue) for jnwinc.sales 1 and an inbound call (light blue) for jnwinc.sales3.
    • Inclusion of deleted skills in the Skill Summary Report.
    • New line item in the Skill Summary Report for all skills.
    • Correct reporting when using different time zones.
    • For calls dialed on a SIP phone when the user has network call recording enabled, the call will be charged at the proper outbound rates.

    ONSTATE ANYWHERE CHANGES

    • A new pop-up when the user misses or rejects a call and is forced off.
    • The browser’s tab text changes to “Forced Off” when a user misses or rejects a call. The text is also visible in the Windows task bar and will be orange until the user sees the pop up.
    • The word “Ready” will appear above the state timer to show how long the user has been available for calls. Note that the timer is not reset after each call, only after a state change.
    • Removal of pending calls call the user’s personal queue when the caller opts to leave voice mail.
    • Ability to search for a person or skill in the Transfer and Make Call dialog boxes. As the user types, the matches are displayed.

    SYSTEM CHANGE

    Inclusion of the caller ID (if it is available) in the subject line of voice mail sent to your email address. For example, if the message is from +16179340381, the subject now says, “VeMail from +16179340381″ instead of simply “VeMail.”

    Posted in: Joyce's Help Corner.
    Tagged: · · ·

    Midsummer Upgrade

    Jul 17th, 2010
    by Joyce.
    No comments yet

    During the last weekend of July, OnState will be performing some routine maintenance upgrades. On Friday, July 30, 2010, we plan to upload new software that will contain a number of fixes as well as a few new features that are based on the requests of OnState customers. The next evening, we will update our servers with the newest firmware.

    Some of the changes that you may notice are as follows:

    • Ability to schedule the opening and closing of skill queues and phone numbers, including custom overrides. This allows you to send caller to the After Hours message every week day after 5:00 p.m. or whenever your business day ends. No more manual daily changes!
    • A pop-up when the user misses or rejects a call and is forced off.
    • The browser’s tab text will change to “Forced Off” when a user misses or rejects a call. The text will also be visible in the task bar.
    • The word “Ready” will appear above the time the user has been in the Ready state in OnState Anywhere.
    • Better reporting when using different time zones.
    • Correct outbound charges for direct dialed SIP calls when network recording is enabled.
    • Removal of a pending call from the user’s screen when the caller opts to leave voice mail.
    • Ability to search for a person or skill in the Transfer and Make Call dialog boxes. As the user types, the matches will be displayed.
    • Inclusion of the caller ID (if it is available) in the subject line of voice mail send to your email address. For example, if the message is from +16179340381, the subject will say, “VeMail from +16179340381.”
    • A new report called “Call Volume – By DN” which displays the number of calls for one or more phone numbers during a certain period of time. This can help you to identify when your peak periods are.
    • Inclusion of internal calls in the Skill-Based Agent Status report.

    Posted in: Joyce's Help Corner.
    Tagged: · · · ·

    Google Voice GA Brings Good Tidings to OnState Customers

    Jul 1st, 2010
    by Pat Kelly.
    No comments yet

    More great news for OnState customers.  Google recently announced the general availability of its ground-breaking Google Voice service.  Previously available by invitation only, Google Voice is now available to all U.S. users – free of charge.  Offering rich call management features, free calling within the US and Canada, and low rates on international calls, Google Voice is sure to be a hit with consumers.  The service attracted over 1.4 million subscribers in the invitation-only release alone.

    We think plenty of business customers can benefit from Google Voice as well.  Over the years we’ve helped businesses transform Google Apps and GoogleTalk into rich customer-facing communications platforms which increase worker productivity, cut costs and boost customer service.  We’re excited to help our business customers leverage Google Voice as well, and we’re delighted to support Google Voice as an integral component of our Virtual Call Center and Virtual PBX services.  With OnState and Google Voice any business can enjoy all the features and benefits of an enterprise-class call center or PBX at a fraction of the price of a conventional on-premise solution.

    OnState adds an intelligent business layer on top of Google’s popular “one number” feature.  Unlike a traditional phone system, OnState manages people, business functions and business rules – not just telephones.  We use business presence information – worker availability, skill-set, spoken language or any other business rules – to direct callers to the Google Voice number of the employee who can serve them best based on the nature of their query.

    OnState business-presence lets you use Google Voice in a customer-facing context.  Callers contact your business using your published company phone numbers.  You don’t have to disclose the identity of your employees or their personal Google Voice numbers unless you choose to.  You’ll enhance sales and service and improve customer satisfaction by connecting callers to the right employee on the first attempt – reducing call transfers, telephone tag, missed calls, and overall customer frustration.

    And business-presence is just the beginning.  You can use OnState for multi-modal customer-facing communications – text chat, video, screen sharing – to enhance customer experiences even further.  You can tie in Google Apps or other cloud services like Salesforce.com to increase productivity and improve customer service.  You can even leverage external application data and business logic to influence OnState call handling. And our extensive reporting and analytics will help you keep an eye on service levels and user activity so you can keep your operation running at peak efficiency.

    The general availability of Google Voice is just the beginning for Google.  We see Google Voice as a platform for innovation and growth, and we’ll be there every step of the way.  We were an early supporter of Google Talk and an original participant in the Google Apps Marketplace, and we’ll be there as Google Voice evolves as well.  We look forward to continue helping companies find new and creative ways to extract additional business value from Google.

    Posted in: From the Corner Office, Google for Business.
    Tagged: · ·

    Reach for the Cloud In Your Call Center, but Keep Your Feet on the Ground with OnState

    Jun 25th, 2010
    by Pat Kelly.
    No comments yet

    From CRM solutions to office productivity suites, every day more and more businesses are casting aside traditional software solutions for more convenient and affordable cloud-based services.  It should come as no surprise, really, when you consider everything cloud computing has to offer:

    Simplicity – cloud-based services are faster and easier to implement than conventional software applications.  With the cloud you can hit the ground running and let the service provider take care of all the heavy lifting.

    Affordability –   with a cloud-based solution there’s no hardware to purchase, no spares to inventory, and no equipment to maintain.  Best of all, since licenses are sold on a subscription basis you only pay for what you need.

    Flexibility – with a cloud-based service you can turn-up users, features and capacity on-the-fly so you can respond quickly to rapidly-changing requirements and better support the needs of the business.

    Reliability – cloud-based services are inherently reliable so you don’t have to worry about implementing costly backup servers or complex redundancy schemes.

    Extensibility – with a cloud-based solution you can say goodbye to disruptive software updates and let the service provider take care of upgrades and technology refreshes for you automatically.

    With all these benefits it is no wonder forward-looking businesses are seeking new and creative ways to exploit cloud computing.  Many are now considering cloud computing for the call center.  After all, the cloud is ideal for reaching home-based agents, branch office workers, offshore or outsourced personnel, and mobile sales and service professionals.  When it comes to reach and economics nothing beats the Internet.

    But there’s a hitch.  Most SaaS call centers are pure cloud services which won’t work with your existing PBX or call center apps.  To move to the cloud you have to retire your Nortel / Avaya, Cisco or other assets.  And in today’s economy, many businesses simply aren’t interested in ripping out perfectly-working equipment.

    At OnState we’ve taken a more flexible and pragmatic approach.  Our cloud-based service runs independently or in conjunction with incumbent solutions.  If you are starting a new business or opening up a new office we can provide all the PBX and call center features you need right in the cloud – all your employees need is a mobile phone or a Google, Skype or SIP endpoint.

    On the other hand, if you already have a phone system or call center solution in place, there is no need to throw away the baby with the bathwater.  Our Virtual Call Center service was specifically designed to protect and extend your IT investments, so you can continue to utilize your installed equipment and your users can continue to use their existing PBX phones – on an interim or permanent basis.  We’ll layer on new features and functions right in the cloud.  With OnState you can:

    • Internet-enable your workforce – extend call center and corporate voice services to mobile users, teleworkers and home-based agents.
    • Introduce intelligent call routing – OnState’s cloud-based business presence tracks users independently of network, PBX or location and connects callers to the right employee on the first attempt using your business rules.
    • Integrate with other cloud services – such as salesforce or Google docs.
    • Add customer-facing multi-modal communications – text chat, video, screen sharing.
    • Bridge together all your separate communications islands – branch offices, offshore sites, outsourced hosting providers.
    • Implement affordable disaster recovery and business continuity solutions

    Let OnState transform your legacy phone system into a state-of-the-art customer-facing business communications solution.  We’ll help you breathe new life into your incumbent equipment and use the power of the cloud to boost worker productivity and improve customer satisfaction.  You’ll enjoy all the operational and cost advantages of a SaaS solution without retiring your performing IT assets.  Reach for the clouds but keep your feet on the ground with OnState! Learn more about this cloud call center strategy at our webinar, “Going Cloud With Your Call Center While Keeping Your Feet on the Ground.”

    Posted in: Branch Office Communications, From the Corner Office, Virtual Call Center, Workforce Virtualization.
    Tagged: · · ·

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