Don Casler

Says Don Casler, information technology director for Colorado-based contact center, Education Sales Management: "The remote capability of our unified communications-based product has permitted us to focus on our core business instead of things like real estate, furniture and fixtures.

Says Don Casler, information technology director for Colorado-based contact center, Education Sales Management: "The remote capability of our unified communications-based product has permitted us to focus on our core business instead of things like real estate, furniture, and fixtures.

Says Don Casler, information technology director for Colorado-based contact center, Education Sales Management: "The remote capability of our unified communications-based product has permitted us to focus on our core business instead of things like real estate, furniture, and fixtures.Our remote 'flex' employees can now handle inquiry calls, provide customer service, and even manage departments from the comfort of their homes.This has made recruiting much easier and has improved job satisfaction while reducing agent stress.Looking back, I honestly can't imagine how we got along without this technology."

Final Word: It is often said that the goal of technology is to simplify our lives.While traditional telecommunications technology certainly fulfilled this goal when phones and fax machines were agents' only tools of the trade, as new communication mediums have infiltrated contact centers, these same technologies are proving to complicate, not make easier, the lives of employees.

Don Casler, ESM's information technology director, says that digitally recording calls has also helped ESM work more effectively with Sylvan Learning Systems.Sylvan franchises learning centers across the US where students receive tutoring.Casler says that learning center managers sometimes request that ESM agents provide detailed information about specific centers, like their class schedules, when speaking with potential customers.

But agents first need to answer callers' general questions about the tutorial program.Casler has illustrated this point more than once by sending an e-mail message to center managers containing clips of agents assisting first-time callers.

Casler anticipates the company will also ramp up efforts to assist eSylvan, an affiliate of Sylvan Learning Systems that provides on-line tutoring.He says that when visitors to the eSylvan Web site enter their contact information into a Web form, eSylvan saves the date as a text file and e-mails it to ESM.Because ESM plans to step up its outbound calling campaign, the company plans to use Interactive Intelligence's Interaction Dialer predictive dialing software before the end of the summer.

Agents already make a limited number of outbound calls without using a dialer, usually in response to voice mail messages that callers leave after business hours.Casler expects an inevitable upswing in outbound call volumes, but he says that he'll apply the same standard for measuring the quality of outbound and inbound calls.

"It's about the same quality assurance process," he says.

Don Casler, ESM's information technology director, says that digitally recording calls has also helped ESM work more effectively with Sylvan Learning Systems.Sylvan franchises learning centers across the US where students receive tutoring.Casler says that learning center managers sometimes request that ESM agents provide detailed information about specific centers, like their class schedules, when speaking with potential customers.

But agents first need to answer callers' general questions about the tutorial program.Casler has illustrated this point more than once by sending an e-mail message to center managers containing clips of agents assisting first-time callers.

Casler anticipates the company will also ramp up efforts to assist eSylvan, an affiliate of Sylvan Learning Systems that provides on-line tutoring.He says that when visitors to the eSylvan Web site enter their contact information into a Web form, eSylvan saves the date as a text file and e-mails it to ESM.Because ESM plans to step up its outbound calling campaign, the company plans to use Interactive Intelligence's Interaction Dialer predictive dialing software before the end of the summer.

Agents already make a limited number of outbound calls without using a dialer, usually in response to voice mail messages that callers leave after business hours.Casler expects an inevitable upswing in outbound call volumes, but he says that he'll apply the same standard for measuring the quality of outbound and inbound calls.

"It's about the same quality assurance process," he says.

Don Casler, ESM's information technology director, says that digitally recording calls has also helped ESM work more effectively with Sylvan Learning Systems.Sylvan franchises learning centers across the US where students receive tutoring.Casler says that learning center managers sometimes request that ESM agents provide detailed information about specific centers, like their class schedules, when speaking with potential customers. But agents first need to answer callers' general questions about the tutorial program.Casler has illustrated this point more than once by sending an e-mail message to center managers containing clips of agents assisting first-time callers.

Casler anticipates the company will also ramp up efforts to assist eSylvan, an affiliate of Sylvan Learning Systems that provides on-line tutoring.He says that when visitors to the eSylvan Web site enter their contact information into a Web form, eSylvan saves the date as a text file and e-mails it to ESM.Because ESM plans to step up its outbound calling campaign, the company plans to use Interactive Intelligence's Interactive Dialer predictive dialing software before the end of the summer.

Agents already make a limited number of outbound calls without using a dialer, usually in response to voice mail messages that callers leave after business hours.Casler expects an inevitable upswing in outbound call volumes, but he says that he'll apply the same standard for measuring the quality of outbound and inbound calls.

"It's about the same quality assurance process," he says."We want to make sure that agents cover certain key information during each call, like tuition and the duration of each class that eSylvan offers."

Time Life Creates Libraries Of Digital Call Recordings Time Life Libraries' Woodson recalls the first day he used call monitoring and recording software at one of the company's call centers.Within the first hour, he listened to a call during which the customer hung up and the agent continued speaking as if he were making a sale to that customer.