Lucent Technologies Unveils Breakthrough Call Center Software That Improves Customer Care, Increases Sales and Reduces Costs
Predictive Algorithms Change Call Center Paradigm by Bringing Agent to Caller
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--February 4, 1998-- Lucent Technologies today announced here at Call Center '98 breakthrough software technology for its CentreVu(R) Call Center Solutions that fundamentally changes the way call centers have traditionally tried to balance the appropriate levels of customer care with call center operating efficiency.
Called CentreVu(R) Advocate and CentreVu(R) Virtual Routing, the expert system software developed by Bell Laboratories uses five predictive algorithms to solve the primary problem all call centers face: How to simultaneously provide individual customer care faster, leverage agent expertise and time more effectively, increase revenue, reduce operating expenses and simplify call center management.
Now, instead of using the traditional ''first-in-first-out'' approach of queuing callers for the next available agent, CentreVu Advocate simultaneously looks at the needs of callers, their potential business value and desire to wait; analyzes the skills of the agents and predicts how soon they will likely become available; then decides which agents should be matched to callers, regardless of their position in queue. This approach shifts the paradigm of the call center to a model that -- for the first time -- more fairly balances the workload of the agents while matching them to the best prospect for the business.
''The software technology we announced today is an industry first that takes the call center to a higher level of productivity and efficiency, making it even more of a strategic asset,'' said Dan Carroll, vice president, Lucent Technologies Large Systems Markets. ''Lucent's unique call center solution makes it easier for agents to give callers the type of white glove service that generates customer loyalty and sales, but at a lower cost to the business.''
Crestar Financial Corporation [NYSE:CF - news], a regional bank with more than 500 branches, plans to trial Lucent Technologies CentreVu Advocate and Virtual Routing during the first half of this year. ''With customers ranging from individual consumers to large corporations, our challenge is to give each caller the precise level of individual care while providing an environment that balances agent skills and workloads against the needs of our customers,'' said Book Booker, Crestar senior vice president of Crestar Direct.
''Lucent's CentreVu Advocate and Virtual Routing is what we have been looking for to make our call center more customer-centric -- a strategic tool that enables us to exceed customer expectations in the competitive financial services market,'' he added.
CentreVu Advocate and CentreVu Virtual Routing automatically anticipate, control and optimize the allocation of call center resources to minimize caller wait times; reduce the number of abandoned calls; lower network costs; and balance workloads while matching callers with the agents who can best serve their needs. In addition, the expert software implements many of the programming tasks normally needed to execute these capabilities, simplifying the call center's operation and reducing the time call center managers need to spend monitoring operations.
CentreVu Advocate makes real-time decisions -- the best decision every time -- based on a business's objectives for the various levels of care it wants to give customers, how it wants to optimize agent skills and time, its sales goals, and the expense it is willing to allocate to meet those objectives.
Once these objectives are programmed into the software, CentreVu Advocate will consider all variables -- the time a caller will likely wait, the media through which the call has come in (phone, Internet, fax, video, e-mail), when the agent with the best skill set for the customer will become available, tiers of service, call volume, sales goals -- to determine the best and fairest use of the agent and the best call to take that will bring the greatest value to the business at that time.
CentreVu Virtual Routing works in tandem with CentreVu Advocate to replace the traditional method of queuing calls for the next available agent, regardless of location, with a more efficient routing method that reduces network congestion and costs. To get the caller to the best agent at the least cost, CentreVu Virtual Routing considers a range of variables -- the media caller is using, the skill set of the next available agents in all locations, caller location and likely wait time, and the time and cost of routing the call -- then selects the best call center for the call.
Both the CentreVu Advocate and CentreVu Virtual Routing can be integrated with Lucent's CentreVu Call Center Solutions platform, which is designed for Lucent's DEFINITY(R) Enterprise Communications Server. CentreVu Advocate and CentreVu Virtual Routing join other Lucent call center innovations -- such as call vectoring, skills-based routing and expected wait time -- that have become integral to call center operation. Lucent Technologies is a leading provider of call centers throughout the world, and offers its CentreVu Call Center Solutions in seven written languages and eleven spoken dialects.
CentreVu Advocate and CentreVu Virtual Call Routing are Year 2000 compliant. They will be generally available in the United States in the second quarter of 1998 and throughout the world by the end of this year, and will range in price between $20,000 to $160,000 based on the size of the call center.
Lucent has established a comprehensive program, CentreVu Year 2000 Compliance, to help its business customers bring their call centers into Year 2000 compliance through upgrades or migration paths. NetCare Services will support Year 2000 transitions with a new global program which includes consultation and project management.
Lucent Technologies (LU), headquartered at Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds, and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, and business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm of the company. For more information about Lucent Technologies visit its website at lucent.com. |
