SMART'S 1,200+ SEAT HOSTED CUSTOMER CONTACT CENTER

If you think that hosted contact center is only for small or medium sized companies, guess again!

In June CosmoCom announced that Smart Communications, Inc. (SMART), the largest mobile telephone service provider in the Philippines, had fully upgraded their 1,200-seat multi-location customer contact center from a collection of legacy technologies to a next-generation contact center solution delivered by ePLDT -- Unified Contact Center Plus (UCCP) .

UCCP is ePLDT's successful hosted contact center offering that is built on the high-capacity, high-availability CosmoCom platform. ePLDT launched UCCP in 2007 as the first all-IP, multi-tenant, hosted contact center solution in the Philippines. With CosmoCall Universe as its foundation, the UCCP solution offers an improved customer service experience with its multi-channel contact design and its support of the value proposition CosmoCom calls Consolidation 2.0.

"Adopting a new infrastructure to support 1,200 distributed agents was not a decision to be taken lightly. We saw the compelling value in adding CTI screen-pop and IVR to our operations. Furthermore, with agents in six different locations, being able to consolidate on a single virtual contact center solution is a must to ensure consistent levels of customer service and efficient, cost-effective enterprise-wide operations." Adrien Tan, Technical Operations Manager at SMART.

Read more including how and why SMART chose the CCU-powered solution.

CHUNGHWA TELECOM WINS "BEST USE OF TECHNOLOGY OF THE YEAR"
AWARD WITH COSMOCALL UNIVERSE

Honored for CosmoCom-Powered Taiwan Government Contact Center

In June, Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's leading telco and long-time CosmoCom service provider partner, received top honors from the Asia Pacific Customer Service Consortium (APCSC) in several categories including "Best Use of Technology of the Year 2009" for their government consumer voucher contact center powered by CosmoCall Universe (CCU).

The award was bestowed for the high-capacity call center that Chunghwa Telecom deployed and staffed to handle Taiwan citizens' questions related to the government's 2009 Consumption Voucher program. The program involved issuance of shopping vouchers to more than 23 million citizens to encourage spending and stimulate the local economy. 

Read more about the Consumption Voucher program, the award and watch a related news video.

MULTI-SITE BEST PRACTICES WEBINAR NOW ON-DEMAND

If you missed our June 10 Best Practices for Planning a Multi-Site Call Center Deployment webinar, the on-demand archive is now available for you to view at your convenience.

The webcasts centers around the fact that businesses operating multiple contact centers often realize many potential benefits, accompanied by various challenges. Multi-location operations have access to a broader pool of talent; enable a mixture of on-shore, off-shore, and home agent staffing; and have the opportunity to improve overall operational efficiency by pooling resources. Challenges include balancing workload, distributing administrative responsibilities, consolidating reporting, managing a distributed workforce, and ensuring continuous operations. Choosing the right technologies and delivery model to support a distributed call center strategy requires careful planning.

ContactBabel recently conducted an operational review of several hundred contact center operators. The study provides insights into the benefits of virtual solutions in multi-site contact centers, the rate of adoption for such solutions, and key requirements. In this on-demand webinar, founder Steve Morrell shares key findings from ContactBabel's operational review and Steve Kaish reveals best practices for achieving good results, with details of some successful migrations to virtual contact centers in both mid-size and large-size operations.

Among the things you'll learn from the on-demand webinar:

• Why companies are moving to virtual contact centers
• Challenges of managing multi-site contact center operations
• Where home agents and outsourcers fit in a multi-site approach
• Real-life examples of multi-site virtual contact centers

PUTTING THE "BANG" IN THE BANGLADESH CALL CENTER INDUSTRY

Although the call and contact center industry is relatively young in Bangladesh, there is a growing interest in the sector from entrepreneurs and businesses in the region and beyond. Bangladesh has huge potential to be a prime contact center outsourcing destination with its large population of inexpensive, educated youth that speak English with a neutral accent.

One of the pioneers in the Bangladesh contact center market is CosmoCom customer Legato Services Ltd., who is the only contact center service provider in the region. In recent months Legato has been working hard to put the "bang" into the Bangladesh contact center industry, evangelizing the benefits of their CCU-based services locally and abroad.

In early May Legato organized a gathering of all the colleagues of the call and contact center industry in Bangladesh. Owners and operators from 19 Call Centers and representatives of the Bangladesh Association of Call Centre and Outsourcing (BACCO) attended the seminar to discuss the state of the industry and the spectrum of call center technologies. During the seminar Legato CEO Mr. Muhammad Delwar Hossain also gave detailed presentations and practical demonstrations of the inbound and outbound capabilities of CosmoCall Universe to the very attentive participants.

The event was well received and was a perfect springboard for Legato's presence at the three day telecom fair in Bangladesh around the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. Legato sponsored the BACCO booth where throngs of very interested visitors were impressed with Legato and the CosmoCom technology.

Stay tuned for more about Legato in future issues of the CosmoChronicle.

UK TEAM TAKES TO THE ROAD - LITERALLY

June was a busy month on the road for many members of the CosmoCom team.

In the US, various CosmoCom staff were engaged in events up and down the East Coast, from the Telx CBX (Customer Business Xchange) in New York City to the ACCE Conference in New Orleans and the Conference of Physician Referral & Health Information Call Centers in Atlanta.

Meanwhile, on "the other side of the pond" in the United Kingdom, our UK team was taking the term road warrior quite literally. While they did team up with local contact center service provider, QCC (Quick Contact Centre) n Manchester UK for a successful 5th Annual Customer Management Conference, sponsored by CallNorthWest, they also took to the road in a different -- and charitable -- sense.

On Sunday, June 27, the hottest day of the year in the UK so far, a group of colleagues from the UK office braved the scorching heat to pedal their way around Guildford, Surry. They took part in the Guildford Bikeathon where they raised over £260.00 for Cystic Fibrosis www.cftrust.org.uk .

As you can see from the photo, the organizers had the ambulance on standby in case of any injuries. Thankfully our team survived the day quite nicely and were better for it.

CosmoCom on Interactive Voice Response
On June 21, TMCnet contributing editor Brendan Read wrote a great  feature article called CosmoCom on IVR/IVVR Trends after interviewing Steve Kaish, CosmoCom VP of Product Management and Marketing. During the interview, Brendan picked Mr. Kaish's brain on a variety of topics related to interactive voice response and speech recognition, including: drivers, trends, outbound IVR and IVVR.  Read the whole interview on TMCnet.

Also, learn more about IVR/IVVR and Service Creation Environments on the CosmoCom website.

 BITS & PIECES: SOME VOIP FACTOIDS

Hosted VoIP Uptake Rising
According to the most recent surveys by Infonetic Reseach, "...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."  As a result, "...service providers report that they are seeing increasing interest in hosted VoIP services across all sizes of businesses, including large enterprises. We [Infonetics] expect this trend to continue as more companies turn to hosted services for their voice needs"

TRADESHOW NEWS: COMING ATTRACTIONS

	Best Practices for Planning a Multi-Site Call Center Deployment   In this on-demand webinar on Multi-site Contact Center Deployment, ContactBabel founder Steve Morrell shares key findings from their research and CosmoCom's Steve Kaish explores best practices for achieving good results, and details of successful migrations to virtual contact centers in both mid-size and large-size operations. View on-demand now
	MORE ON-DEMAND WEBINARS
	View On-Demand Webinars including "New Horizons in Telehealth", "Consolidation 2.0", "Hosted Contact Center for Outsourcers", "Contact Center On-Demand" and "Telecom Customer Care"

	SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
	Please pass this issue of CosmoChronicle on to others who might be interested. If you are not already receiving the monthly CosmoChronicle you can sign up now. This and past issue are also available in the CosmoChronicle Archives.