COMPANY OVERVIEW
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Call Center with $400M annual revenue
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190 Employees
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Created from the merger of 3 other call center type companies
• Somerfield, Inc
• Specialized in 1st party collections
• Charleston & Associates
• Specialized in 3rd party collections
• Telecomm Sales, Inc
• Specialized in 1st party telemarketing of various products
• SCI has since discontinued this part of their operations
COMPANY ORGANIZATION
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No formal organization
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No formal reporting requirements
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No data standardization
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No continuity plans
IT ORGANIZATION
ISSUES
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Frequent System “Outages” in the listed peripherals:
• Davox (Predictive Dialer)
• Siemens switch
• Website/FTP
• AS/400 (Client/collections information system)
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General data mismanagement
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Payment systems between 1st and 3rd party collection methodologies
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Poor database usage for financial/accounting reporting
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Lack of a continuity plan
• Nightly back up of “critical files” relevant only to the Davox
SYSTEM “OUTAGES”
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6-10 outages per year, at least 1 lasting a week long.
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Has cost the company several major clients
Purported Reasons
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Hardware (Davox and AS/400) is severely aging
• No supporting documentation for either exists anymore
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Manufacturer support is slow to respond
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One server for client interface
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It’s not reported whether or not IT staff have skills to maintain hardware
DATA MISMANAGEMENT
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Standard protocol sees the Dialer Administrator (DA) manually transmit campaign
data from FTP site and import it into the Davox.
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Frequent errors occur as a result of this manual transmission
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Results in data for previously closed account being lost
Purported Reasons
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DA mistakenly overwrites previous campaign IDs with redundant and/or new data
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No documentation for job responsibilities
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Training is lacking
PAYMENT SYSTEM CONFUSION
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1st party payment systems are controlled by automated interface between Davox
and Lyricall script application.
• Forces agents to use a specific set of data elements to process payment
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3rd party collections agents are more autonomous
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3rd party collections agents process payments outside of company/contract
policies
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Results in partial payment postings and inconsistencies in systems that manage
payments
Purported Reasons
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3rd party agents get lazy, bypass some of the screens that 1 st party agents are
forced to use
FINANCIAL/ACCOUNTING USE OF DB
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Accounting staff typically conduct their work from data extracts taken at one point
in the month
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Therefore, data being used is not “current”.
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Clear reconciliation of data from the several managements systems is almost
impossible
Purported Reasons
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Reports generated from all systems use inconsistent data elements
• Makes for manually intensive data manipulation
LACK OF A CONTINUITY PLAN
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No continuity plan exists
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IT has no disaster recovery protocols
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Several outages annually make this recipe for disaster
RECOMMENDATIONS
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Using a model based in Enterprise Application Software solutions, SCI should
completely reexamine their hardware/software configurations, update their identity
management system and integrate all of their systems into one database.
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System outages can be mitigated by implementing one hardware solution that
handles all of the major benefits of the Davox and the Siemens switch.
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Data mismanagement can be mitigated if IT developed an automated transmission
protocol for campaign data (i.e. SCI website interfaces directly with SQL database).
• Also, sufficient training and documentation of duties in this department is essential
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Payment system confusion would be lessened if IT developed a separate UI for
agents handling 3rd party accounts.
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IT must hire competent database/query managers to supplement accounting’s
needs
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A continuity plan must be developed.
REFERENCES
1. The History of the Predictive Dialer.
http://www.promero.com/call_center_intelligence/predictive-dialer-history.asp
2. Sue Conger. SUPPORT CENTER, INC. (A). University of Dallas
3. Enterprise software. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_software
QUESTIONS
1.
One main reason for campaign (new customer account info) data loss is:
a) FTP site is not backed up
b) The data is not transmitted in the correct format
c) Dialer administrator user error
d) Flat files are not supported in the current DB environment
2.
Why is a continuity plan important?
a) So business operations are not severely damaged during system outages
b) Data recovery is seamless
c) Mitigates loss of client relationship due to IT related problems
d) All of the above
3.
What is the problem caused by the difference in payment systems between 1 st and 3rd party agents?
a) 3rd party agents don’t get their commission checks
b) 1st party agents don’t have access to credit card machines
c) 3rd party agents skip steps, potentially creating violations of company and contract policy
d) Automated payments systems are untrustworthy.