Aspect, a global provider of unified communications (http://www.aspect.com) and collaboration (http://www.aspect.com/IT-Services/Collaboration-Services) services and software, today announced its customer, Pinnacle Security, a leading provider of residential and commercial security systems, has won Speech Technology magazine's 2010 Implementation Award for impressive results attained through the deployment of new speech technology in their contact center during the past year. Pinnacle's award-winning results stem directly from their implementation of Aspect's Productive Workforce (http://www.aspect.com/Contact-Center-Software/Productive-Workforce-UC-Application) and Seamless Customer Service (http://www.aspect.com/Contact-Center-Software/Seamless-Customer-Service-UC-Application) contact center applications integrated with Microsoft Tellme hosted speech solutions. The comprehensive solution comprises an automated system Pinnacle has named "Voice Qualification (V-Qual) System Sales Solution."
V-Qual was sought out by Pinnacle to streamline their sales and call center process. A large majority of Pinnacle's sales are made directly to consumers in their homes by salespersons in the field working to qualify customers and finalize sales. This door-to-door model typically required two call center contacts to secure an appointment with interested customers. The first was a credit screening. Upon satisfactory completion, and further interest from the customer, a second call to an agent to discuss packaging and pricing terms was made. With a goal to automate at least one-third of the overall sales call volume, Pinnacle began searching for an automated speech solution that would reduce headcount at the call center and minimize the duration of each call, while bringing more predictability to their door-to-door selling model.
Solution SelectionAfter evaluating several speech solutions, Pinnacle chose Aspect. "We were looking for a large player that worked with companies of our size and beyond. We wanted an enterprise solution -- not just best-of-breed components, but one-stop shopping and full integration. That's what we found with Aspect," said Bill Pratt, Pinnacle's senior director of customer care. "They dealt with 10,000-plus agents at one particular company and that appealed to us, as did their integration with a lot of other Microsoft components. That was a big plus for our IT team."
Whether utilized in a call center that services only telephony-based calls or in a more complex contact center that may include email, fax, web chat and other communication modes, Aspect's Seamless Customer Service application offers contact center managers comprehensive control and visibility over the customer experience. Customers seamlessly traverse from self-service to live agent assistance which has helped Pinnacle reduce call duration, and live agent requirements while expediting service.
The application's Ask an Expert capability powered by Microsoft unified communications capabilities provides presence information and one-click contact capabilities, and further, it enables scheduling of knowledge experts outside the contact center in the enterprise to address customer inquiries and issues.
Aspect customers deploying Seamless Customer Service have seen significant customer satisfaction improvements, increases in first call resolution, productivity improvements, and reduction in overall maintenance costs that have had meaningful bottom-line impact. It is powered by the Aspect@ Unified IP@ product that unites core contact center capabilities in a software-based platform.
Productive Workforce enables companies to optimize contact center resources while promoting continuous improvement. The Aspect application unites workforce management, quality management and performance management within a centralized platform to reduce the cost per customer interaction and improve the customer experience. Productive Workforce leverages workforce optimization capabilities from the Aspect PerformanceEdge@ (http://www.aspect.com/Contact-Center-Software/Architecture/PerformanceEdge) platform product and provides organizations the insight to apply the right number of agents with the right skills, at the right time to satisfy customer needs. It delivers essential workforce management forecasting and what-if scenarios to determine optimal staff and resource requirements for inbound and blended operations. It can help reduce hiring and administrative costs, maximize agent productivity and retention, and increase customer satisfaction and revenues.
Post-Implementation ResultsBefore the Aspect implementation, Pinnacle relied on live agents to field new account processing calls from sales reps, and a service level that required no less than 90 percent of calls answered within 10 seconds. The agent headcount needed to meet that standard was extremely high and costly. After a three-month implementation and training phase, the company saw quickly escalating benefits, including a 35 percent reduction in both the use of live agents and headcount.
Based on conservative projections of the current data, Pinnacle is well poised to achieve an estimated 70 percent adoption rate of the V-Qual System by salespeople for its peak selling period of April through September. This level of buy-in and the corresponding 35 percent reduction in both live agent call volume and headcount equates to a projected one-year cost savings of $700,000 - $800,000.
Further benefits of the V-Qual System include the reduction of manual data entry error and the ability of Pinnacle's salespeople to close deals more quickly because of the automated system's streamlined data processing. In fact, Pinnacle has shaved total call time by an average of 4.5 minutes to deliver a more satisfying customer experience.
"Pinnacle clearly understands the customer relationship, cost and competitive benefits that result from employing advanced contact center solutions designed specifically to meet their unique requirements. The Seamless Customer Service and Productive Workforce solutions from Aspect eliminate IT complexity, providing ease of integration and reduced implementation and maintenance costs while delivering business-critical functionality," said Serge Hyppolite, director of Interaction product management, Aspect. "Pinnacle's long-term vision and adoption of Aspect and Microsoft technology solutions position them favorably to deliver exceptional customer experiences within a highly effective operational model."
An expanded version of the results (http://www.speechtechmag.com/Archives/ArchiveIssue.aspx?IssueID2000) has been published in the July/August 2010 issue of Speech Technology magazine.
About PinnaclePinnacle Security is an industry leader in providing quality residential and commercial security solutions to help individuals realize the peace-of-mind that comes from protecting the things that matter most. Pinnacle is headquartered in Orem, Utah, and has sales offices throughout North America. For more information, please visit www.pinnaclesecurity.com (http://www.pinnaclesecurity.com) .
About AspectAspect is a global software and IT services firm specializing in applying Microsoft@ unified communications and collaboration to help customers achieve optimal results through enhanced business processes across the enterprise and in the contact center. Aspect provides IT consulting, integration services and business applications. For more information, visit www.aspect.com (http://www.aspect.com) .
Follow Aspect on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC (http://www.twitter.com/AspectUC) .
Aspect, Unified IP, PerformanceEdge, Productive Workforce, Seamless Customer Service, and Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
