Telecommunication Systems at the Workplace

Telecommunication Systems at my Workplace

Johnna Davis, NTC-360

University of Phoenix

Joanna Hopper

January 28, 2006

Telecommunication Systems at my Workplace

Introduction

In my workplace we use three different telecommunication systems. The three telecommunication systems we use are Aspect, Cisco, and Lucent. Our offices cover a lot of the southern region of the United States, but the main states that our company has is Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. My company now is called Cox Communications, but we have been sold and it is going to be Sequel in a few months. As far as the telecommunication systems go we use Aspect in our call centers since this is the best system to be able to monitor phone calls with agents and make sure the call centers are being run correctly. The Lucent system is used in our main corporate office and some remote systems as well and that system is a well ran system, but cannot monitor phone calls. The final system that we use is Cisco. This is becoming more and more widely used in our systems that are not call centers because of the capabilities it has to help the user do their day to day job in a more efficient manner. One of the most convenient things that make it easier for the user is four digit dialing between Cisco phones. You do not have to dial the whole number if you are dialing Cisco phone to Cisco phone. You enter the last four digits of the telephone and you will connect to the other user's Cisco phone. With all three of these systems in place with our company it provides the best efficient means to support our company to its fullest when supporting them as a user and their customer also. Since all three of our systems cover so much data I am only going to discuss and share the Aspect system with you.

Aspect

The Aspect system is the phone system we use on a day to day basis within all our call centers. The Aspect system is so complex and entails so much that I am going to only touch the surface on how this system is used in our business and throughout the business world. First of all, there is the Aspect Call Center ACD. This part of the Aspect system route calls by priority that the database within the system has setup and calls can also be prioritized by the supervisor or manager that sets the priority of the calls in the system. This system also provides graphical interfaces to see the call flows or call history within the business for that day, week, month, or even year. Normally they view it on a weekly basis at my place of work. Not only does this product provide this it also has a system or software in place called IVR. The IVR system allows the customer to get their answers in a more efficient manner. What I mean by this is the IVR system is an automated system that can take you through some options and give you your answer through automation speak process instead of waiting on hold for an agent. Not only can this speed up the process for the customer more, but it allows the agents to handle the more complex questions and problems with their customers. Also if a call center is not 24X7 the IVR system can provide troubleshooting steps and answers to more simple questions without the user or customer having to wait till the next business day. I know the automation system might not be your cup of tea, but it can be a very good benefit to the customer and the employer. Another part of the Aspect system we use is the predictive dialer. The predictive dialer is software that improves your call center

productivity. What I mean by that is that this software provides low abandon rates with calls and having high talk times with agents. It also detects busy signals, no answers and fax tones so it will not submit that call to an agent and waste talk time for an agent or a customer. Also with the predictive dialer it manages call record queues which shows you the highest call volume of the day and with record management you can insert active call lists in real time instead of downloading the call lists from the server. There are so many things that the predictive dialer can do and the ones I discussed just then are some of them. Finally with the Aspect system there is software we use called eWorkForce Management. This software enables us to provide what if scenarios. This means that our telephony system can use past data and test the call centers live with this past data to see if a circumstance would occur again or even with providing these tests to prevent from further problems within the Aspect system. It is also a tracking system that tracks all agents calls by documenting the amount of calls they take, how long they were on each call or an average call time, how long it took them to wrap up the call, and with this data they can work with the agent to even become more productive in their call handling with customers. This software also is complex software to understand at first, but after being trained it is a very efficient product when recording, tracking, and keeping up with the agent and how that agent is doing as an employee. Aspect is a wonderful system and when it is used to its fullest potential it is a powerhouse.

Conclusion

As you can see the Aspect System is a very complicated system to understand at first, but once trained and implemented it can be a very powerful system. I am in IT and

that is where the telecommunications group resides, but since I am the technical support end for the computers I just use the Aspect phone instead of support and maintain it. But by just using the phone you have to be trained through class to know how to login to your phone, transfer a call, conference a call, and to check your stats throughout the day to know the call volume you have taken. It seems to be a lot, but with proper training I am able to use it very efficiently and without a lot of thought. I hope this paper brought better insight into what Aspect is and how it performs for my business in a day to day basis. This system definitely is to me a wave of the future in call centers for sure.