Answering Service Blog | American Inbound

Florida’s quarterly deadline for their no call list is March 31.  Any calls received after 12am on April 1st will have to wait until the next deadline for the number to be included.  Checks must be received for this quarter’s registrants by November 1st.  The charge is $10 for a new registrations and $5 to renew a past registration.

For more information please visit Florida’s do not call website.  To register your number, fill out this form and send it in or call 1-800-HELP-FLA for English instructions or 1-800-FL-AYUDA for Spanish instructions.

The quarterly deadline for Colorado’s no call list is March 31.  All applicants numbers will be put in effect on May 1st.  After 12am on April 1st, callers will have to wait until the next deadline for their number to join the list.  The next scheduled deadline is June 30 and that takes effect on August 1st.

This is the website to sign up, or you may call 800 309 7041 with your touch tone phone to register.

 The Growth Guy is reporting on studies which show that negotiators who name a price up front generally produce more clients. 

Dr. Victoria Medvec has a released a DVD interactive course and companies are utilizing it with great effect.  In 2007 Apple Tree was listed as the fastest growing copmany in the PCI (private company index).  CEO, John Ratliff, has put all of his key leaders through the program, as they have found it to be an invaluable tool.

Tired of your old cell phone and don’t mind donating it?  The US military will glady take it!  In fact several organizations have set themselves up to facilitate this.  

Cellphonesforsoldiers.com has accumulated drop-off locations in most cities.  They have a very easy to use locator for the drop-off points.  Check them out first, as there is probably a location close to you.  They also accept cell phones by mail. 

“Americans will replace 130 million cell phones this year,” explains Mary Anne Potter, founder of Operation Pioneer Spirit in Utah.  Unfortunately most end up in the garbage or a junk cabinet.  So please consider the alternative.  It is for a good cause.

It seems you don’t have to have perfect eye-sight to work in an answering service, and Drishti’, a call center in India, is proving that on a daily basis!

Drishti’ is the Hindi word for vision, and they have formed an employee base made of only visually-impaired operators.  Their system is setup in such a way that it removes all the barriers sightless people have answering phones.  They are, in a sense, giving their employees a new found vision by giving them a freedom they have never experienced. 

Aruna Shinde, an employee of Drishti’ comments, “It is a challenging work but we can work independently, without taking help from anyone else, So, we are feeling good while working here.”

Another employee, Mangesh Indulkar says, “This is my first job and I really like it. I thought it would be tough working in call centers but it took me eight days during the training. Initially I faced some problems but now it’s fine.”

The US senate has signed a bill (S.428) that will make all VoIP providers offer a 911 line.  Traditional land line and cell providers were forced to do this years ago.  However, this is the first time the issue has been raised with VoIP services. 

This will most affect VoIP providers whose customer base primarily uses software on a computer to talk on the phone (eg: Skype).  These business are now subject to the 911 tax and must pay to outsource the calls.  Vonage, the prominant ViOP, will be least affected by this, as they claim that 98 percent of its customers have 911 access.

Two companies have just released software that when enabled allows you to turn your cellphone into WiFi hot spot.  Taproot, a North Carolina software company has released their software for 3G cell phones, and JoikuSpot has put out software for the Nokia Symbian series.

These are currently the only ‘router’ applications for cells, and they only work with specific cell phones.  Unfortunately, the majority of cell  phone users will have to wait. 

If you have one of the supported cell phones, you will have the option to include the service on your bill.  However, there will be an extra charge for using the service.

The Contact Center blog has posted an article that looks into video solutions for call centers.  It is well referenced with links out to several other information sources. 

According to Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) President Rich Tehrani ‘video will play a huge part of call center 2.0. Call centers will video-enable themselves to increase the customer service of phone calls. In some cases conversations will be 2-way video enabled in other cases the benefits of having video calls will be so obvious that all call centers will scramble to show their agent’s faces.’

The official term for this technology is ‘Interactive Voice and Video Response.’  IVVR will provide many opportunities to call centers willing to adopt it.  Experts have jumped onto the 2.0 bandwagon and are calling these capabilities ‘Call Center 2.0.’  I guess if it has to have a name… however, I still prefer IVVR.

Lots of VoIP news today.

On April 1 Sprint, Nortel, Ericsson, Motorola, Qualcomm and others will be hosting a mobile VOIP discussion at the CTIA Wireless 2008 conference in Las Vegas.  Here they will discuss techniques to implement this technology.  As VoIP networks evolve, expect them to be used more and more.

Telappliant is reporting that VoIP should expect even more growth in 2008. Mobile VoIP allows cell phones to connect to wi-fi hot spots and uses the internet to transport the calls seamlessly. In 2007 mobile VoIP customers rose a suprising 21.2%. The expected growth for 2008 is 24.3%!

VoIP growth in Quebec is even more startling. In 2007 Quebec nearly had a 200% increase in VoIP use! It is estimated that by 2010 VoIP will overtake standard land-line telephoney.

If your office has many lines and you have not switched to VoIP, consider the advantages it has over tradition PSTNs (public switched telephone network):

• More reliable
• More secure
• Half the cost for communications
• Can receive both audio and video

For more reasons, please visit TMC’s blog post.