Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

August 05, 2008

Jacada Signs Agreement with Telecom Provider

By David Sims

TMCnet Contributing Editor

Jacada (News - Alert), a vendor of desktop and process products for customer service operations, has announced that it entered into a material agreement with a new customer, a large telecommunications provider headquartered in the United States.

The majority of the revenue from the agreement, which was contracted through a Jacada global systems integrator partner, will be recognized in the current quarter, Jacada officials say.

The telecommunications company provides broadband services to customers in the United States, and its support contact center services customers who need help with their DSL, satellite television, long distance phone, or high-speed Internet service.

By "integrating the multiple disparate applications that the customer service representatives must access on each call," Jacada officials say, and by optimizing and automating key call processes, the company hopes the Jacada unified desktop will help improve customer service and retention, and reduce costs.

"The pressure on telecommunications providers to improve customer service has never been greater," said Sheryl Kingstone, director for customer centric strategies at the Yankee Group (News - Alert) research and consulting firm. "As their offerings are increasingly commoditized, the one remaining differentiator is customer service and these companies' call centers are often plagued with a mass of aging, complicated and inflexible information systems."

Joe Horne, senior vice president, Americas sales operations for Jacada, and not the NFL wide receiver, who spells his last name "Horn," said it's even more accentuated "in a highly volatile and commoditized market like telecommunications, an industry where a clear link between the quality of customer experience and companies' financial performance has been so visibly established."

Last year Sertel S.A., a Spanish provider of integrated customer support and services, deployed Jacada call center products to increase customer service efficiencies and "provide accessibility for visually impaired agents," Jacada officials said.

The agreement was developed through Jacada reseller, Datapoint Spain. Sertel S.A. is a customer management company that provides multi-channel service and support including telephone, fax, Internet, SMS, Web, and e-mail.

Mario Medina, communication and technology director for Sertel S.A., said prior to this project, "our visually impaired agents were not able to access the systems they needed to complete customer interactions. We selected Jacada products to provide extended accessibility to our business systems for these visually impaired agents in order to enhance their performance within the customer service environment."

Sertel, part of the ONCE Foundation in Spain, handles more than 25 million customer contacts annually, and has more than 750 operating sites in Spain, which service more than 300 clients across the financial services, telecommunications, tourism, insurance and utilities industries. Thirty percent of the agents working for Sertel have disabilities.

Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users. Today’s featured white paper is ApplianX IP Gateway as a VoIP-Enabled Programmable Switch, brought to you by Aculab (News - Alert).

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David�s articles, please visit his columnistpage. He also blogs for TMCnet here.

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