IVR’s answer is simple. If a company’s representatives spend more than two hours a day on the phone, than IVR’s cloud based hosted contact center is the way to go. In two hours, 40 phone calls could be made or received. Let’s assume that 80% or 32 of these calls are being made to or from customers. These interactions are valuable interactions between your company and your customers or prospective customers.

Implementing routine phone calls into automated inbound and outbound calls, your representatives can service more customers; multiplying their productivity two or three times over. Integrate seamlessly with your CRM, track interactions through every voice, chat or text communication. PBX systems fall flat when comparing them to IVR’s management, reporting, analytics and BI software.

Whether Inbound, Outbound, or a Blended solution would increase interactions, launch productivity, and catapult business for your company, IVR cloud based Hosted Contact Center is the solution.

Discuss your company’s Hosted Contact Center needs with IVR’s CEO, Mike Byrne, today!

mikeb@ivrtechgroup.com

Sending outbound calls, whether dozens, or thousands, doesn’t have to be complicated. Recent regulations in regards to perameters set for making outbound calls has sperd the development of Carrier. ID into existence. IVR’s John Crouthamel stresses the importance of working within these regulations, “Separating out cell phone numbers prior to using automated outbound is no longer an option – you need to be sure you are contacting landlines (unless you have an opt in from your customers to use their cell phone number).”

Carrier.ID is an organizational software tool, scrubbing numbers and presenting you with three valuable lists. The numbers are sorted into categories of…

1. Cellular
2. Land-line
3. Inactive

Log-in to your account, upload your master list, and receive your numbers back categorized into 3 seperate files. In addition, Carrier.ID also brings the added bonus of identifying the carrier of any cellular number.

Reach customers and stay within regulations through Carrier.ID. Try Carrier.ID yourself free for the first month! Give us a call and we will set you up! (716) 250-2800 or email sales@ivrtechnology.com

]]> http://www.ivrtechgroup.com/archives/5703/feed 0 http://www.ivrtechgroup.com/archives/5666 http://www.ivrtechgroup.com/archives/5666#comments Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:05:43 +0000 Kristen Sanasith http://www.ivrtechgroup.com/?p=5666 No one likes to wait on hold. Study and after study tell us people hate waiting, but most of us don’t need professional findings to tell us we don’t like to waste our time. Its no surprise to us that long wait times translate into high abandon rates, lost sales, increased handle times and overall, irritated customers.

Ideally, best customer service involves quick attention. However, managing a contact center’s mix of technologies on a company’s tight operational budget means customers will just have to wait. Necessary upgrades would include capital investments, procedural changes, and an expanded budget… or would it?

IVR’s Hosted Contact Centers bring tomorrow’s features & functionalities to today for a price that fits!

Now, adding virtual queuing capabilities to your hosted contact center is possible with minimal effort. Solutions through IVR give your customers the option to “press 1 to be called back by the next available agent”, regardless of your current infrastructure. Simple configuration changes are all that’s required. IVR handles the queuing and call-backs; providing your hosted contact center the ability to eliminate hold time, smooth out traffic spikes and reduce costs.

IVR isn’t: legacy equipment, capital expenses, professional service engagements or complicated integration.

IVR is: call-back software for your contact center, hosted in the cloud. With no major commitment, try our call-back queu and experience customer communications without the sting of frustration or impatience.

Reach out and see how your contact center can benefit from IVR’s Call-back Queuing.

IVR won within the two categories they were nominated in. The Tech Culture Award was earned by the IVR team as well as the Techie Award showcasing IVR’s very own Jesse Becker.

1. Tech Culture highlights companies who foster a positive, encouraging, and productive work environment through the use of technology.
2. The Techie Award is bestowed to the IT professional responsible for making an organization’s technology run smoothly, on a daily basis. Without this member, no one would be able to function at work.

Other categories included:

• Best Mobile App Award
• Best Online Award
• Executive of the Year Award
• Tech Project Manager of the Year Award
• Rookie of the Year Award
• Social Media Award
• Student Award
• Women in Technology Award

Over 300 people attended this year’s BETA Awards at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center. It was fantastic to participate in the meeting and networking of various companies constructing the technology landscape of Buffalo.

One of our clients is looking for us to assist them in finding an opportunity to purchase a contact center with active clients. The following is the summary they provided as a target:

• U.S. Based, preferably close to El Paso, TX but not absolute necessity
• Seats: ~ 50 – 100
• Revenues: ~ $2.5MM – $5MM
• Would be nice if it had back office and/or fulfillment operations
• Both B2B and B2C would be great
• Both IB and OB
• Verticals are open as we have yet to establish a solid “identity” along those lines – however our core business is in surgical supplies/equipment.

As mentioned, this is a target. They will entertain small/larger opportunities. It is critical that the contact center be US based with established accounts. From a technology front, we are not too concerned, but would prefer a contact center that we could help migrate to a hosted solution.

Please feel free to contact me at 678-283-8134 or MikeB@ivrtechnology.com / ivrtechgroup.com.

Akshay Kapur, a new addition to IVR and based out of NYC, distilled the corporate culture we work hard to foster as follows:

• Open floor plan – Upon entering IVR Tech’s office space, you’re greeted with a wide open floor plan with desks and couches filled with programmers, managers, and even consultants from other companies who come to visit.
• Casual working atmosphere – There is no official dress code, and everyone looks comfortable doing work in their jeans. There is a Keurig coffee machine with tea and coffee options and a refrigerator in the back with snacks and beer for the after-hour drinks.
• Coffee runs – The natural rhythm of the workday is a traditional 9-5, but that doesn’t tell the full story. Around 10:30 or 11am, everyone jumps in cars for a coffee run at Starbucks. Some folks may get lunch as well, but usually that happens later around 2.
• Remote work – Several full-time employees work remotely, from Atlanta to New York City to Tampa. This is very manageable because so much of the work is project-based. There isn’t a sense that remote workers are remote; rather they’re very much part of the working team. This also holds true if someone works off-site for a few weeks. Work continues seamlessly.
• Morning kickoff – There’s a morning meeting at 9 to kick off the day. As a group, everyone takes about 2 minutes to highlight their top projects for the day. If someone is running late or staying at home for the day, they call in remotely or catch someone up when they get in. There’s no formality to it, just a sense of group accountability that’s strongly fostered.
• Meeting style – Everyone is on Skype for the workday and meetings are both scheduled and ad-hoc. The ad-hoc meetings are extremely useful because when something needs to get done, you check if the person(s) is available and get them on the call to get the job done right then and there. Video meetings are used with remote workers to have both visual and audio communication. Sometimes, headphones are used, but even if they aren’t, everyone has a mutual respect for each other’s privacy.
• Delegation of responsibilities – Sharing and delegating tasks happens easily and quickly based on function and need, not hierarchy. A programmer may delegate to a manager and vice versa as needed. The relationships are not boss-employee, but rather facilitator-doer, where who takes which role depends entirely on the task at hand.

In addition to having our company recognized in the BETAs for having a fun, funky, yet productive tech culture, our Infrastructure Czar, Jesse Becker has been nominated for the Techie Award. Jesse is responsible for keeping IVR’s networks spanning three data centers and all office networks running smoothly. It’s a thrill to have him be publicly recognized for what he does.

Clients point out multiple benefits through the implementation of MDCall. Highlights from testimonials and customer surveys include a

• reduction in call volume
• messages are never lost
• care coordination is improved through ease and accuracy

United Healthcare, one of IVR Technology Group’s dedicated MDCall subscribers, has seen a sizable reduction in the time it used to take a nursing home professional to reach a doctor. United Healthcare’s hospitals and nursing facilities alike have all benefitted from the efficiency and reliability of MDCall.

The conventional way of reaching an on-call doctor proved to be a waste of effort and time. The provider seeking to communicate with another provider has to sort through which doctor to reach, define the issue, determine how the doctor preferred to be contacted (phone, text, pager), and finally include key identifiers in each message so the doctor could reach the appropriate facility, refer to the correct patient, and speak to the specific nurse who reached out originally.

The frustration, unreliability, and time wasted using this cumbersome method led United Healthcare to consider MDCall. Since signing on, United Healthcare has launched MDCall in 30 different skilled nursing facilities in the upstate New York area. Each one of these nursing facilities is assigned their own dedicated number.

The system organizes all variables including the day, on-call schedule, level of urgency, etc. The nurse then selects “1” for emergency or “2” for routine. They leave their message and get back to their patients. MDCall recognizes the specific facility making the call and locates the appropriate doctor. An escalation procedure is followed automatically if the doctor does not return the call within the first ten minutes. The resulting benefits United Healthcare has seen through the use of MDCall are extensive. MDCall is half the price of a live operator call center and because human error is substantially decreased and all calls are recorded, providers no longer have to worry about liability security. With only one number to call, standardization of communication outreach makes the system easy for any clinician to learn and operate.

If you’re looking to reduce your internal call volume, ensure messages are never lost, and coordinate care more effectively and efficiently, take a deeper dive through MDCall.

Our newest addition, Jason Blanchet, is ready to add definition to our healthcare division through his experience in sales of durable medical equiptment. Jason shares the vision of ITG through his belief that healthcare clinicians deserve technology answers that are simple to navigate and cost effective.

IVR Technology Group offers three distinct product lines within the Healthcare division:

1. Customer Contact Solutions: cell service portal, customer list creative campain
2. MDCall: after hours call support answering service
3. Pay by Phone (mobile and web solution): customers pay medical bills through dedicated toll free numbers

IVR Technology Group recognizes the healthcare war of competitive bidding. Our products offer specific, measurable ways of cutting costs and maximizing our customers’ efforts: producing a rippling effect on every area a medical group can save money and boost productivity in.

ITG believes every medical group deserves technological solutions that maximize their time, money, and productivity.Learn more about how IVR Technology Group can add functionality, time efficiency, and cost saving products to your practice or hospital. www.ivrtechgroup.com

3CLogic is a provider of cloud-based contact centers hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Together with ITG’s interactive voice, text, mobile, and Web hosted response services, both companies offer a BETTER WAY to:

• service customers
• reduce operating costs
• enhance business interactions

Customers of both ITG and 3CLogic can leverage a suite of cloud-based contact center capabilities. In addition, with seamless integration between the two platforms,

3CLogic can now offer through ITG:

• PCI-compliant payment solutions
• robust IVR front-end processing
• linkage to ITG’s mobile applications

The ITG team is one of the most knowledgeable teams that 3CLogic has worked with. With their product and service expertise, they bring tremendous value in servicing our joint contact center customers. We are excited about bringing new innovations to the contact center industry and providing world class support to customers,

said Raj Sharma: President and CEO of 3CLogic.

Moving forward, both ITG and 3CLogic is excited over offering our customers the best solutions for their custom call center needs.

But thankfully, an effort is being made by the medical profession to fine tune the art of incorporating technology while also connecting with patients face to face (literally). New York Times’ Article, “Redefining Medicine With Apps and iPads” mentions various clinicians mastering this skill.

Apps such as MedCalc, Evernote, and Qx Calculate are explained by the interviewed doctor in regards to how they use them in their practice. One doctor referred to Evernote as his “second brain” while another recounts a recent use of MedCalc to determine appropriate dosage instructions according to his patient’s stats.

It is true that the younger generation, educated through technology, is more apt to incorporate it into their medical profession. However, medicine is in a constant evolutionary process. Today’s obsolete machines and scans were once life-saving, break-through devices catapulting a limited access of biology and medicine into a more comprehensive understanding. Technology has forever aided a physician’s passion for medicine and the people medicine helps. Today’s advances save time, organize information, add efficiency, and reliability to a doctor’s routines and interactions.

IVR Technology Group is excited over the embrace New York Times has highlighted within the Medical field. As we design EHRs and customize MDCall to best fit a specific practice, we feel the responsibility of adding better time management or an increase in quality of care within the Medical industry. As more and more physicians access today’s latest applications and devices (enhancing functionality and saving time), the face to face interactions they feared losing will actually have more moments added to them.

*Above photos supplied free from www.freedigitalphotos.net