Call Centers and Help Desks - Communities of Practice
NWCCP and HDNW Sharing Information February 7, 2006
In this issue Meeting Details Monthly Sponsor Driving Directions
When the Portland user group, Northwest Support Professionals said they were planning a VoIP panel discussion for their organization, we thought it would be a good idea to copy this incredible idea. VoIP has become one of the hottest topics in the information age so it was a timely idea. Its not a matter of "if" any longer but "when".
I have even tried it myself and have it in our home. Having DSL contributes to a choppy signal at times, but it does work. There are also considerations that need to be made about the volume levels. The lower end systems do not push the same volume as traditional systems. Just be sure you have a volume control on your phone.
You won't want to miss this month's meeting. Our panelists represent three local businesses sharing their experiences with the use of VoIP in their companies. Peter, Leif, and Steve are experts in VoIP and have extensive telephone system backgrounds. We held a conference call with the panelists to prepare for the meeting. These gentlemen have some incredible material to share with you. They impressed me with their understanding of moving to a VoIP environment and all the things you must take into consideration as you move forward.
Be sure to come prepared with questions and plan to participate in a very interactive session. As the moderator, I will make sure we get to everyone's questions.P.S. I have prepared a multi-page handout listing loads of VoIP resources. It will only be given out to those in attendance.
Meeting Details: February 15th, 1:30 at Starbucks Corporate Headquarters in Seattle.
Everyone is welcome and the meeting is f#ree to all.Note to Vendors: Please invite and bring more practitioners along with you to attend our meetings. Our ratio of vendors to practitioners has ever so slightly slipped from our desired ratio of 70% practitioners and 30% vendors. We so appreciate all your support of our community and ask you to help us to continue to spread the word to others in our industry to join us at our venues.
Newsletters are now posted on our website. Just go to our website and select "Newsletters."
Ivy Meadors, President Northwest Call Center Professionals and Help Desk Northwest
Meeting Details
Panel Discussion: Your Peers Share Their First-hand Experience Implementing and Releasing a VoIP system into Production.
ChemPoint, Seattle Times, and Swedish Medical Center will be represented on the panel. This highly-interactive discussion will be moderated by Ivy Meadors, "facilitator extraordinaire".
The move to VoIP brings many challenges. Our panelists will be sharing their real-world experience implementing a VoIP solution. We will start out with each panelist describing their individual environments and how they are using VoIP. They will share their experiences, describe what worked, what didn't work, and openly and honestly answer any questions you have about their implementations.
Discussions will address considerations like:
- How is the system being used at each company?
- What works and what doesn't?
- What considerations were made in the decision to move to a VoIP solution?
- What would you have done differently if done again?
- What were some of the biggest challenges faced?
- How is voice quality? Is it consistently of good quality?
- Why is it (apparently, or is it?) consistently under estimated how much bandwidth is needed?
- How will VoIP affect your business?
- Have you realized a cost savings yet?
- What technical considerations should be made?
- Infrastructure considerations are key. What should you be aware of?
Each panelist uses a different vendor's system. The vendors for each product will be in the room and available to answer technical questions should the panelists need their assistance.
The discussion is going to answer many of your questions and concerns and likely generate many others. We encourage you to invite your telecom department to attend our meeting. We will get as technical as you like, discuss processes, return on investment, and anything else you bring up for discussion.
About our speakers:
Stephen J. Kruse
Telecom Engineer
Swedish Medical Center
Steve came to Swedish approximately 16 months ago. His tenure started in the very roots of the VoIP implementation. His prior history as a field technician with NextiraOne and an Electronics technician with the California Department of Corrections give him over 11 years of Nortel PBX experience in various telephony environments. Having also spent four years with a small Internet Service Provider in San Diego, his knowledge of networking and voice systems enabled him to quickly move forward with the VoIP implementation at Swedish.
Steve has been involved with both electronics and computer systems since high-school. After graduation, he entered service in the United States Air Force as a Secure Digital Communications Specialist. His ten year service also included maintenance on both communication and computer systems. In all, Steve has worked in some capacity with communication systems for nearly 24 years.Leif Haslund
Sr. Telecom System Analyst
Seattle Times
Leif has been with the Seattle Times since Aug of 2005. Prior to that he was working for Ericsson USA on a project for Sprint. He was the Prime Integrator Technical Lead on an IP project. The job was to design, implement and test SIP from an Avaya S8700 system to a Sprint PSC handset with full functionality of a PBX desk set. Leif has been in the Telecom industry since 1991 and has worked for Nordstrom, State of Montana, Western Wireless, and Expedia in that time. He is certified on Avaya, Nortel and Cisco systems and has focused on VoIP and converged systems since 1997.Peter Grilley
Sr. Systems Administrator
ChemPoint.com
Peter started his career in accounting conducting financial and computer audits of telephone carriers. He used technology to increase the efficiency of the audits and eventually switched to a full time technology career. He is currently employed as the Senior Systems Administrator for ChemPoint.com. Since the startup of ChemPoint in 2000, Peter has had primary responsibility for the phone system as the company grew from 25 employees to nearly 250 in two sites. The telephony has been VoIP/SIP based since 2003. Peter has spoken several times about the benefits and experiences of upgrading to and maintaining a VoIP/SIP environment and is always excited about sharing the information with others.
Monthly Sponsor Interactive Intelligence® provides more than a decade of innovation, experience and value in its IP- based multimedia software for contact management and self-service automation. Our Customer Interaction Center® (CIC) also gives contact centers a single multi-channel platform and application suite to meet performance requirements right now, along with open standards adaptability to meet the future head-on.
And if VoIP and SIP are in your contact center’s future, CIC offers the most clear- cut migration path you’ll find anywhere. No complex hardware. No forklift changes. Just an all-software approach leveraging the CIC solution and everything that comes with it for IP communications.Interaction Media Server for “Five 9s” reliability and disaster recovery - a single platform for all your contact center solutions:
- PBX, ACD, Load Balancing, Skills with weights and priorities
- Queue any generic object such as service tickets or feedback forms. Also queue and intelligently route phone, fax, email, chat, voicemail and etc.
- Blended, out-bound Dialer
- Quality monitoring, voice logger, screen recording, evaluation forms
- E-business though ACD-chat, web call back, email queuing, FAQ via the web
- Knowledge Management for agents and auto response to email and chat
- Self service through IVR, speech recognition, web site
- Cradle-to-grave reporting plus Business Intelligence for performance management. Customer surveys tied to business intelligence.
- Remote agents and teleworkers
- Workforce Management based on in/out traffic, skills, multiple locations
- Cost effective screen pop, CRM/ERP, other business process integration without complicated CTI.
Supports all applications with your existing PBX or replacing both PBX/ACD on the CIC platform. Very modular, add only what you need.
At Interactive Intelligence, providing Best Practices for Migrating your Contact Center to VoIP is what we do. Contact us to learn more. Free Web Seminar at http://www.inin.com/News/Events/events.asp
Contact:
Interactive Intelligence, Inc.
Karen Nutt – Pacific Northwest Sales Manager
800-267-1364, ext. 8356
Karen.nutt@inin.com
www.inin.com
Driving Directions Driving and Parking Instructions to Starbucks in Seattle at the Starbucks Support Center Building (SSC)
2401 Utah Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98134The main entrance to the Starbucks building is on 1st Between the Office Depot and Sears. You will proceed to the elevator and go to the 8th floor (the main Reception area for Starbucks).
Please let the receptionist know you are there for the NWCCP/HDNW meeting.
Our sponsor, Interactive Intelligence, will be catering the meeting and plans to provide a very nice afternoon of refreshments and snacks delivered by Starbucks' internal catering service.Traveling South on I-5
Take the 4th Avenue South exit.
Turn right on 4th Avenue South.
Turn right on Lander.
Go across 1st Avenue South.
Turn right on Utah Avenue South.Traveling North on I-5
Take the Spokane Street exit.
Turn right on 6th Avenue South.
Turn left on Lander.
Go across 1st Avenue South.
Turn right on Utah Avenue South.Traveling West on I-90
Take I-90 to the end.
Turn right on 4th Avenue South.
Turn right on Lander.
Go across 1st Avenue South.
Turn right on Utah Avenue South.
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