Avaya Platinum Partner Merrill & Associates Becomes a Nortel Authorized Partner
Brea, CA — April 5, 2010
Merrill & Associates a Platinum Avaya Partner and Solutions Provider today announced that they have become an authorized Nortel Partner. Andy Sherman, Director of Sales & Marketing, made the announcement.
“It is important for us to be able to serve the existing Nortel base of customers now that they are a part of the Avaya mix. We see this as an exciting addition to our portfolio and a critical part of our business strategy,” said Andy Sherman, Director of Sales & Marketing. “As Avaya continues to define its product roadmap and vision, we want to be able to help both legacy Avaya and legacy Nortel clients with their technology needs.”
Merrill & Associates will be able to design, sell, and implement the former Nortel product line including IP Telephony, Contact Center, and the full suite of data products. In addition, Merrill will also be able to support legacy Nortel clients with their day-to-day needs including on-going maintenance and services.
About Merrill & Associates:
Founded in 1989 Merrill & Associates is a Platinum Avaya Business Partner and has strategic partnerships with Cisco, Extreme Networks, Juniper Networks, NetIQ, Polycom, Tandberg and many others. Merrill delivers scalable, cost-effective solutions tailored to a customers communications needs. They provide end-to-end support from design, implementation, testing, maintenance, and technical support.
Merrill & Associates won the 2009 Catalyst Telecom Enterprise Growth Award for its achievement in growth
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No commentsWelcome Call Center Services- Streamline Sales Speed
Welcome Call Center Services- Streamline Sales Speed
Hire call center services to accelerate sales and marketing motion. Not gone well, right? Very natural, it should not have gone down well without explaining ‘how’ that is possible.
Unlike traditional marketing mode, marketing or sales optimization of products or services of a company in these days has got a radical transformation. Companies do not need to deploy enormous number of marketing people for optimizing their products or services. They do not need to cough up hefty recurring expenses either. They can minimize both of them instead. How? Call center services would certainly be a sure way out in this regard.
Hiring a call center service provider will dramatically bring forth the sales rate of a company product. Outbound call center service does certainly appear to be the sales lead generation option. The call center representatives make calls to the defined people of a specified region or all across the globe for the sales optimization. Once they become able to convince those people about the better advantages of their products or services, either the company takes the responsibility of closing the deal or they can even get their hired call center do the same on the part of the company. Both the ways are available.
Still, you may be seen raising your eyebrows saying to yourself that this is practically no difference. But, those who know the effectiveness of a call center service, here outbound call center services in particular, will be able to see the striking differences. First, sales optimization task is much speedier through call center than conventional optimization way, because a company representative (read call center representative) can reach out to a customer more quickly. They do not need to physically go to the customers. They can contact them over phone instead. Of course, they are to make call as per their convenient time to talk. They can reach out to masses of customers within much shorter time frame, thereby creating larger hopes of sales optimization. This inbound call center service procedure can also close the deal on an instant mode once given an opportunity of doing so on behalf of its outsourcing company. As the prospect of sales optimization is undoubtedly much higher, the outsourcing companies can also avail of the facility of minimizing their sales cost to a greater extent. Generally, the sales optimization services of the third party sales team or call center service providers are much cheaper and cost effective. With little size of hired third party sales team deployment, companies can reduce their production cost, thereby fattening their revenues much higher and of course, within much lesser time frame.
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On the other hand, companies cannot refrain themselves from delivering obliged services or post sale services to the customers whom they have sold their products or services. Providing them with such service is also much expensive. But companies cannot avoid this responsibility. They are bound to exert their customer care services. But, how do they do that?
There are various options like deploying a dedicated representative at their office premises or hiring an service provider. Customers make calls to a dedicated phone number of a company once they feel any inconveniences in using the products or services they have bought from it. The answering service of the company go forward to the help for those customers who feel happy at such service and become a loyal customer of the company, thereby enlarging the numbers of the customers. The better the post sale service of a company is, the higher the prospects of getting better business next time onwards. So, if such benefits an inbound call center service can deliver, why would the companies keep them away from having its fruits?
Andrew Simpson has been in the profession of BPO service for last seven years. His expertise and knowledge are really worthy following and valuable.
Panviva – CSC, SupportPoint makes it simple
Buyers Protection Group increases agent efficiency with inContact. Discover more at www.incontact.com
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Learn the Secrets of Successfully Implementing a Virtual Customer Care Program during Upcoming Webinar
Alexandria, Va — September 23, 2009
The Telework Coalition (TelCoa) and VIPdesk will co-present a Webinar titled “Implementation of a Virtual Customer Care Program: How to Guarantee Success” on Wednesday September 30, 2009 at 2:00 p.m. ET. This free, live Webinar will discuss the growth of virtual customer care and its ability to help organizations improve customer interactions while reducing overhead and increasing employee retention rates.
Presenters Jack Heacock, Senior Vice President and Co-Founder of the Telework Coalition and Sally Hurley, President of VIPdesk will review steps to guarantee success when implementing a virtual call center, including the following:
Virtual customer care: in-house or outsource?
Hiring, training, retaining, coaching and supervising a virtual workforce
Workforce management
Industries best suited for virtual customer care
Best practices and case studies
And more!
All attendees will receive a copy of TelCoa’s “Top 10 Reasons for Virtual Work.”
Space in this Webinar is limited to the first 100 registrants. Registration information is available online at http://vipdesk.wufoo.com/forms/implementation-of-vcc-how-to-guarantee-success/. For more information, call 703-837-3507.
About the Telework Coalition
Based in Washington, D.C., The Telework Coalition, (TelCoa), (http://www.TelCoa.org) is a not-for-profit organization that brings together a diverse array of organizations and individuals with the common interest of promoting awareness and adoption of existing and emerging telework and telecommuting applications. TelCoa’s mission is to “Enable and Support the Advancement of Virtual, Mobile, and Distributed Work through Research, Education, Technology, and Legislation”.
About VIPdesk
VIPdesk specializes in delivering virtual contact center solutions to premium brand leaders in several industries including retail, travel, auto and financial services. We serve more than 40 blue-chip clients with over 10 million customers and are continually recognized through numerous awards, including the Inc. 500, Inc. 5000, NCBEA Business Ethics Award, Stevie Awards for Women in Business and Smart CEO Future 50. To find out more about VIPdesk, visit http://www.vipdesk.com.
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No commentsCall Center Advantages ? More than Just Cost Saving
Call Center Advantages ? More than Just Cost Saving
Reduced operational costs have now become incidental benefits these days which get accumulated to the customers with the help of the pre planned, process centric and standardized approach adopted by the call centers these days. Call center outsourcing services are available these days at the customized price structure suiting the requirement of both the outsourcing agencies as well as the organizations availing their services and these structures ultimately work out to the advantage for the customers. From handling the loyalty programs to rejuvenate telesales, the call centers are competent enough to meet the offshore outsourcing needs of their client companies. Call centers typically offer the outsourcing solutions which cover inbound & outbound telemarketing services, technical helpdesk services, email support services, chat support services and so on.
The offshore inbound call center services utilize CRM (customer relationship management) services, toll free service, responses to email queries, IVR, scheduling appointments and so on to provide quality customer services. The outbound process includes the activities like customer acquisition; collections and assisting their client company in sales support activities such as lead generation, card verification and so on. People choosing the call centers realize the process and quality benefits apart from the regular cost efficiency. They now focus on recruiting the best talent available in the BPO industry which helps the organizations in improving processes. These call centers have a distinct presence in the global outsourcing industry as they provide their clients the benefits of Quality work, high standards of data security, proactive approach in providing customer support and service, trained and expert calling agents and of course, the competitive rates. They also provide the benefits like personalized & quick response to customer queries and concerns and customized services suiting the business needs apart from being available round the clock.
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Quality wise, these call centers obtain the proper certifications from the concerned authorities and clear many audits to ensure their readiness for compliance reviews and the audits are conducted by the credible and neutral organizations measuring their operational parameters. The customers can avail web based assistance to all their call center needs. They employ voice recording systems which help them in keeping a track of all call made or answered to solve future issues with the customers or the agents, if any. Call centers these days have become even more responsive to the real time customer requirements by using powerful technologies. The benefits do not end here. The following are some more benefits of availing a call center service.
Complete call center operations transparency
Security of valuable data
Recording and archival of all incoming and outgoing calls
Clear conversational process
Access to the market information in a real time way
Web bases as well as historical customer support
Seamless & flexible integration
Faster response methodologies
Telemarketing services such as , appointment setting, database services and direct mail follow up are some of the services offered by the outbound call centers.
The author of this article Andrew Simpson is a successful call center managerwith a huge of Experience in outsourcing call centers.
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No commentsVoIP Contact Center: Why Shrinkage is Your Worst Nightmare
VoIP Contact Center: Why Shrinkage is Your Worst Nightmare
Whether you run an on-premise or virtual contact center, you know that shrinkage is your worst nightmare. This time that your agents spend doing anything other than interacting with customers is a drain on your overall budget. The biggest challenge for you is that some of the activities they are completing are necessary to the overall job. If yours is a VoIP contact center, you likely made that change to streamline your costs and keep everything running on the same platform. Why not leverage those same capabilities to ensure you can minimize shrinkage and use your agents to their full potential?
Knowlagent recently completed its own survey on shrinkage in the overall call center industry and published its findings in the Contact Center Shrinkage Survey. In their examination of the VoIP contact center industry, Knowlagent discovered that shrinkage can actually take up a considerable amount of an agent’s workday if it is not properly managed within the overall environment. What does it mean to your VoIP contact center budget if your agents lose 30 percent of their time to shrinkage?
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Perhaps the most frustrating thing for your VoIP contact center managers is the reality that primary losses are outside of their control. In fact, the survey determined that 54 percent of all shrinkage has to do with activities such as lunch, tardiness, absenteeism, etc. While it is true your managers can offer incentives to try and combat shrinkage in these areas, some amounts you cannot avoid. The good news is, there are manageable activities that are also contributing to loss, including training, project work, social learning, etc. While these losses contribute to 46 percent of shrinkage and 12 percent of an agent’s day, they can still be controlled and minimized, while ensuring the VoIP contact center receives the most benefit.
There are some levels of shrinkage that will exist no matter what methods you put in place to avoid it altogether. The best method is to try to implement tools that allow you to minimize shrinkage, while focusing on optimizing the performance of the center. The good news for those of you running a VoIP contact center, the lowest percentage of time in shrinkage is reported in this area simply because the methods put in place are designed to optimize time usage. The industry in which you operate can contribute to your shrinkage numbers somewhat, as regulations and compliance can dictate the processes you put in place. With careful planning of the VoIP contact center, however, you can minimize the overall impact.
The reality is that shrinkage does not have to be your worst nightmare in the VoIP contact center environment. Look to key providers in this space to learn best practices and benchmarks to determine the best strategies to put in place to maximize the amount of time your agents spend interacting with customers. Look to automated platforms that capture information and CRM systems that ensure all information on each customer is available across the enterprise. This will minimize the amount of time the agent has to spend cleaning up an account, allowing them to immediately go to the next call. You will not only reduce shrinkage, but also deliver a better experience for your customers.
For more call center articles, visit: insidecallcenter.com
Attorney Answering Services and Legal Answering Services by Alert Communications, Inc

Alert Communications (www.alertcommunications.com) has more then 40 years of experience with Attorney Answering Services and Legal Answering Services. Alert Communications (http is a leading attorney answering service and Legal Answering Services provider in both the New York & California areas. Based on our history of proven success, you can rely on Alert Communications for superior customer service and quality for all your attorney answering service and Legal Answering Service needs. We also provide customized plans for attorney answering services or Legal Answering Services to meet your legal business requirements.
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In this webinar, you will learn the basics of trade finance and what you need to know about getting paid for exports. You will learn about the range of payment methods used in export transactions and how to evaluate which is best for your business. You will also learn about letters of credit and US government programs for financing exports including a program that enables buyers to purchase your product or service. For more information, visit export.gov
No commentsPredictive Dialers: Reason 3
www.safesoftsolutions.com We simply believe we are the top dialer solution for any type of industry and market.
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Andrea TAGLIABUE: gli insulti ai call center – “Vieni via con me” di Fabio FAZIO e Roberto SAVIANO
Andrea Tagliabue legge una serie di insulti ricevuti durante l’attività lavorativa in un call center. Vieni via con me di Fabio Fazio e Roberto Saviano. GUARDA TUTTI I VIDEO DI “VIENI VIA CON ME” SU www.vieniviaconme.rai.it
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Ytel Dialer Dialer Review
Ytel Dialer Dialer Review
When my company first got started, I was doing everything. I was the marketing department, sales, technical support, accountant, and just about anything else you can think of. It was crazy trying to run everything myself, so the day that I hired a marketing person was huge for me.
Since telemarketing has always been the strongest method for me, I hired my own telemarketer. At first she wasn’t too excited about it, but she got over it after a few weeks. She even got pretty good- better than I ever was!
As time went on and my business grew, I hired a few more marketing folks. We tried a few different types of marketing, but none of them worked as well as being on the phone. Even though everyone hates cold calling, I had my team do it because it got results.
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One of my more tech-savvy marketers came up to me one day and told me about a predictive dialer. I hadn’t heard of this before, but he explained the basics behind it. He said that a friend of his was using YTel and that maybe we should try it out.
This was a huge turning point in my business. Using YTel’s dialer system, my sales team instantly became twice as effective. Within a month we had more than doubled our revenues! This was great for my pocketbook, but I had to hire more staff!
I’ve just been amazed at how useful something like this can be. A good predictive dialer like YTel allows you to call multiple people at once, use an integrated voice response to manage them well, and record every call for your safety (and your clients’).
I no longer have to worry about using a tricky phone system to transfer calls. YTel makes it very easy to do this, even if you aren’t a computer-type person.
If you need to drop a call, just click the hang up button. It’s pretty simple, and I like that as soon as you hang up YTel’s system starts calling the next person on the list.
The stability has been top notch. We’ve never had any issues with software crashing or anything.
The best thing about this system has been the customer service that I’ve had. YTel’s staff is very friendly and helpful. When I’m on the phone with them, I feel like they actually care about me. This day and age, we all know that quality is hard to find in a company.
If you want to know more about predictive dialer solutions, check ytel dialer review.