Call Response – Now Apollo Call Centre

Company: NoeticaCustomer: Call Response (now Apollo Call Centre)Submitted by: MCC InternationalDate: May 2000Call Response is a multifunctional commercial call centre based in Dunfermline, Fife. Its clients include Mail Order companies, Advertising Agencies, Recruitment Consultants, Florists and Football Clubs.

The company offers its customers a variety of added-value services in which the call centre becomes an expert extension of the client’s own marketing and customer service operations. Call Response has built much of this sophisticated service offering using the capabilities of its call centre software – Synthesys from Noetica.According to Des Seenan, Managing Director of Call Response, “Synthesys gives us fantastic flexibility in the speed with which we can set up scripts and handle calls. With each new client we start with the computer equivalent of a blank piece of paper and design the script to suit our clients’ requirements exactly. Combined with the reporting functions in the background, it gives us a tremendous competitive advantage.

This is crucial as many of our clients are introducing innovative strategies and techniques in their marketplaces and they need to capture, measure evaluate and act upon advertising result as quickly as possible.”

Call Response’s Services

“We have a wide range of company profiles on our books and they all use different combinations of media; television, mail shots, newspaper and magazine. And whatever their reason (advertising; recruitment, television advertising campaigns, mail order, brochure requests, general enquiries or complaints) we handle the call the way our client wants. In fact, we normally provide more than the client had ever envisaged. We’ve just taken on a company in the south of England which sells brass fenders for fireplaces. Their first and immediate requirement when they contacted us was to have someone simply take messages when their office was unattended.

A brief discussion opened the door to order taking, brochure requests, enquiries and of course, messages. They advertise in Harpers and Queen, Country Life etc. and when our client’s telephone is engaged or a call is unanswered, the calls come straight through to us. We might be taking a brochure request, handling a product enquiry, directing the caller to the showroom, dealing with an irate customer, or a host of other queries. In effect, we’re their outsourced customer service department.

Return on Investment

“The return on investment with Synthesys is speedy – a critical factor for any business.

We were a start-up when we invested in the system, without a single client on the books! I think our payback period was about one year. On the other hand, if I had had clients lined up from the start, I think Synthesys would have paid for itself in just three months. Online support from Noetica has also been important, in that we can continue our day-to-day work while someone at Noetica in London is tapping into the system on our behalf. One of the main criteria when choosing our hardware and software was the ability to increase in size without a major restructure; Synthesys fitted that criteria. Synthesys has a Lego like functionality, so if we wish to increase our workstations, all we have to do is increase our license numbers.

Rapid Script Building

“A key benefit of Synthesys is its simplicity of use and flexibility, which means you don’t require a fully fledged IT department stuffed with programmers. It is very user friendly. An account manager can build exactly what the client is looking for, in the space of a few hours, and without compromise. Typically, client accounts can be up and running in two to three days.

Combined with our call centre management and our skilled staff, Synthesys allows us to look after virtually any type of call handling requirement, and allows our clients to develop their businesses in ways that they may never have imagined, and which previously they would never have thought possible.

Speedy Fulfilment of Client Needs

“The key capability of Synthesys is its flexibility. Its ease of use by non-technical staff allows us to react very quickly to customer needs. One of our clients who arrived back in the UK unexpectedly from abroad, rang up to say he no longer wanted faxes and e-mails sent to Switzerland, but to his UK office instead. We changed the system and had it operational in literally two minutes.

Sophisticated Reporting

“Synthesys allows us total access to the data captured in each call and campaign. Clients come to us because they know that we can offer reporting which, as far as they are aware, few others in the country can produce. We can produce reports on what’s happening at the touch of a button. We can give clients, instantaneously, an update on the type of calls that are coming through and the variety of issues being dealt with. We can give them a breakdown of the volume of calls that are taken throughout the day in time segments as short as half an hour, plus the media source that the calls are coming from.”This feature was used by one particular client to totally reschedule his television advertising slots to match the peak volume response times.

They were using a television company in London, who own ten or eleven different channels and the client’s media agency asked me how his client’s campaign was faring. I was able to tell them the exact number of calls that they were receiving at any given time. I could see it in front of me in real time. The moment a call is finished it registered on our system and we could therefore tell them exactly what was going on. As a result of rescheduling their ads the campaign just took off.

The result was tremendous, because they were able to pinpoint the exact times of different peaks and troughs of responsiveness. It’s a fantastic tool for any agency to have.” Having seen the results for this client we have been approached by the television company because a number of their advertisers are very unhappy with the response they get from their current call centre services.Similarly, advertising agencies throughout the country need to know how their campaign is progressing the whole time, so they can determine when the best time is to place the ads. The information we are able to produce is invaluable to them.

Support from Noetica

“The support that Noetica give us is very positive.

They’re very willing to listen and have always recognised the steps that they’ve needed to take to resolve a problem. They’ve put in place an excellent customer help desk, which is a direct, feed to the different departments that you need to talk to.”In short, we chose Synthesys as our strategic platform because it offers a level of flexibility which is critical to a company like Call Response – growing fast, maintaining a reputation for tip-top customer service, and delivering a sophisticated, rapid-response product.”