ImpreMedia Drives Efficiency and Productivity with Avaya IP Office
July 22, 2008
ImpreMedia is using IP technology from Avaya to improve contact center and customer operations at its offices in Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago.
The publishing company was seeking an affordable, Internet Protocol (IP) communication system with call center capabilities that was easy to monitor and manage. The Avaya IP Office was selected.
Bob Mason, chief technology officer at ImpreMedia, noted that the IP Office provides his company with a better handle on its call center productivity in offices located in three different markets across the country.
IP Office also enables ImpreMedia to quickly, easily and economically provide its employees in additional, smaller and remote offices with the communication tools they need to do their jobs.
Employees in the Los Angeles office use a mix of Avaya digital and IP phones. Forty call center agents at the main call center office downtown, or in a small suburban office, handle customers’ orders and solicit new business for classified advertisers.
"Our ad agents work together as if they're in one place, and our managers can remotely monitor call traffic on agents' PCs and allocate work to agents who aren't so busy. We now have a better perspective on our operations, and our customer calls are answered faster and more efficiently," Mason said in a company statement.
He added: "Plus, our managers, who actually administer three call centers -- classified ads, accounting and IT -- can monitor all of the centers real-time and proactively reallocate resources to address calling patterns."
To keep a record of its calls, the Los Angeles contact center uses Avaya call recording software. Third-party software from Computer Instruments, an Avaya DeveloperConnection program member, automatically calls prospective customers for ads and then connects the call to available agents.
Avaya IP phones also provide Los Angeles employees with the ability to be productive while mobile. "These employees can also send their voice messages to their PCs or PDAs, where they read and respond to the message, even if they're out of the office or on the road, which minimizes lost calls and improves our customer service," Mason said.
ImpreMedia also chose IP Office for its Brooklyn location and plans to implement IP Office’s contact center. Mason anticipates significant money savings by routing calls from Los Angeles to its East Coast tabloid through its El Diario office.
El Diario’s team of executives at the new corporate headquarters in Manhattan rely on the Avaya IP VPN phones that link them to the IP Office at El Diario in Brooklyn. A handful of employees also need to be able to work remotely and have the Avaya IP VPN phone at home. The phone connects to IP Office lines and trunks to provide employees all the capabilities they have at the main office.
The IP Office implemented at ImpreMedia was configured by Converged Communication Systems, a certified member of Avaya’s BusinessPartner program and an Avaya “SMB Expert” reseller.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for ContactCenterSolutions and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
