So you think merging nine regional call centers into one nationwide virtual contact center is work enough? Now imagine doing so while navigating hundreds of regional regulations and myriad regional back-end systems in a 24/7 environment with carrier-class fault tolerance and no installation window.
That’s what AT&T Services, formerly SBC Communications, accomplished with its Network Customer Service Center (NCSC) program between January 2004 and February 2007.
And thanks to this complex undertaking, AT&T was able to deliver services responsively during the recent California fires, load balancing the deluge of service and repair calls across its nationwide call center network with minimal increases in customer wait times while also enabling customers to track repairs remotely online.
The NCSC program started in the SBC Communications days after the acquisitions of Pacific Telesis, SNET, and Ameritech.
“We could see that our customers needed a more common call experience,” says Mark Cottrell, executive director of network service program management at AT&T Services. “And with our increasing call volumes it made sense to share calls across multiple regions so that if there was an ice storm in Michigan, we could hand off calls to agents sitting in our call center in California.”
To do this, AT&T undertook a massive software and systems consolidation, merging three regional IVR systems, three call center routing systems, and three agent desktop systems into one of each nationwide and integrating them with more than 50 different existing regional back-end legacy systems via a middleware services layer.
To cope with myriad regional regulations, AT&T devised hundreds of regional customer call scripts that could be called automatically nationwide as screen pop-ups based on the requirements and origin of the customer call. All this was combined with a universal call queue and common, nationwide workforce management, trouble ticket and repair, and skills-based call routing systems.
The solution is a complex soup of internally developed applications, COTS (commercial off the shelf) software, third-party solutions, and legacy back-end systems that allows customer information to be passed to agents across nine locations.
“If there’s a bad storm in the Midwest and calls are not being answered in a timely manner, the system can look across the entire country to see which agent has the right skills to take the next call,” Cottrell says, “and then transfer the call and all relevant customer and regulatory information so that the customer doesn’t have to answer the same questions many times.” The agent or the IVR system can generate line tests and schedule local repairs that customers can track or change online.
As a result, according to AT&T, call wait times have been cut in half. Moreover, the company expects to save $88 million over six years, thanks to reduced resource requirements.
Other Top 10 InfoWorld 100 finalists
Bank of America pioneers faster way to trade
Capital One credits VoIP a success
Correos delivers on the promise of RFID
Patience pays off at CUNA Mutual
Georgia Aquarium's diverse IT infrastructure makes a splash
MedicAlert responds to SOA’s call
Opal reins in consolidation chaos
Solvay streamlines sales with Fusion
Sterling accelerates personnel screening with SOA
2007 InfoWorld 100 Award winners
Browse by company name | browse by industry
Read more about security in InfoWorld's Security Central Channel.
Get the independent advice and expertise you need to support a virtual workforce.
The increase in Linux popularity has increased the frequency and sophistication of malware attacks. Read this 2 page white paper now to learn how you can protect your Linux environment with real-time protection that is certified by all major Linux vendors.
Download now »
Ensuring acceptable application delivery will become even more difficult over the next few years. As a result, IT organizations need to ensure that the approach that they take to resolving the current application delivery challenges can scale to support the emerging challenges. This handbook elaborates on the key tasks associated with planning, optimization, management and control and provides decision criteria to help IT organizations choose appropriate solutions.
Download now »
A common misconception is that mid-range storage requirements are dramatically different than that of a larger enterprise. Mid-range storage users may require less capacity, but they have similar functionality and management requirements. This ESG paper examines mid-range storage needs and reviews a new solution that adjusts size while retaining value, performance and functionality.
Download now »
This white paper provides guidance on how to develop a strategic approach to managing and monitoring logs, a key function required for compliance with many regulatory mandates and a critical defense against security threats.
Download now! »
Learn about the processes and technologies that support security information management (SIM) operations, as well as the business case for SIM. The series examines different options for implementing SIM and gives you evaluation criteria for selecting the best option for your organization.
Download now! »
Learn the strategies, actions, and capabilities that Best-in-Class organizations employ and technologies they choose to obtain superior performance against various security performance metrics. This report provides guidelines for identifying which security solutions to consume as a MSS and defines best practices for choosing and managing MSSPs.
Download now! »
Recommend This
