Recent Press Releases
June 11th 2008 NewVoiceMedia Goes Live at Capita Registrars
NewVoiceMedia has today announced a deployment of its ContactWorld Hosted Contact Centre platform at Capita Registrars. Capita Registrars provide share registration and value-added services to more than 2,000 companies in the UK; the head office is based in Beckenham, Kent, and there are four contact centres throughout the UK employing around 200 agents altogether. Whenever a shareholder in a company such as National Grid or Alliance & Leicester makes a registration enquiry they will actually be calling one of the Capita Registrars Call Centres.
Capita Registrars is part of the Capita Group Plc, a market leader in UK business process outsourcing. Capita Group also provides general business outsourcing services for organizations such as the NHS. Earlier this year Capita implemented a small contact centre for an NHS trust in Bradford, also based on NewVoiceMedia’s ContactWorld.
According to NewVoiceMedia CEO, Jonathan Grant, “Capita Registrars was looking for a hosted solution because these are faster to scale up and down according to business levels in any one month compared to the traditional hardware based approaches. They are also well-suited to handling multi-site operations as the supervisor can overview all operations on one screen as if everyone were in the same room.”
Rob George, Network and Telephony Manager at Capita Registrars commented, “We went through a rigorous testing of the ContactWorld platform capabilities, and when we went live on Monday June 2nd with our own call centre the transition was overwhelmingly smooth”. In addition to the contact centre activities, Capita Registrars now uses NewVoiceMedia as their Telephony Service Provider.
Grant concluded “The notion of a pre-integrated suite of applications for ACD, IVR, CTI and Call Recording among many others being available at the click of a mouse is winning incredible new clients all the time.”
April 24th Monster Travel goes live with NewVoiceMedia
One of the UK’s latest travel agents, Monster Travel, will differentiate itself by the strength of its call centre team and using intelligent telephony that returns callers to their usual agent whenever possible. The caller-focussed contact centre is based on ContactWorld from Hosted Centre provider, NewVoiceMedia. By treating callers as individuals and valued customers, rather than just the next person in the queue, Monster Travel intends to become branded as “My Travel Agent of Choice”.
“It’s never easy to start a new company, especially one entering the highly competitive travel industry where costs of entry are high, but margins are tight”, said Monster Travel Managing Director, David Hawke. “I anticipate that only 30-40% of our business will be taken over the web, so the contact centre and its experienced staff play will play a vital role in our strategy. Our customers often call several times before deciding on a trip, and our personalised customer service will speed up the process at every stage.”
Monster Travel is using a Hosted Contact Centre from NewVoiceMedia. Hosting allows the company to set-up in a matter of weeks and eliminates the need for the CapEx intensive investments traditionally required by customer premise equipment. Eliminating upfront investment, and being able to scale the solution to the number of agents as the company grows means that the costs are matched to the actual business needs. Ideal for a start-up, Monster Travel expects to run 50 concurrent agents within a matter of weeks.
Callers to Monster Travel will experience an individual caller treatment that can recognise VIPs or customers thought to be at the point of making an order and route them to the agent they last spoke to. Before the call is placed the caller could be offered a 10 second PhoneAd that would cross sell travel insurance if it is relevant, and the agent screen will be popped with all the known call history for that caller. Hawke reports that being able to say ‘Hello again Mr Smith, how was your ski holiday in Courcheval?’ is much more personal way of doing business. Should the caller wish to make a payment then a fully automated process is used to collect the credit card details. This Payment Card Industry compliant process not only improves security, it releases the agent 30-40 seconds earlier to wrap-up and prepare for the next call. All of which adds to overall call centre efficiency and ultimately the bottom line.
According to David Hawke, “The team at NewVoiceMedia have listened carefully to our vision and configured an industry-leading platform that gives us a real competitive edge.” NewVoiceMedia CEO, Jonathan Grant concluded “The Hosted Contact Centre empowers business of all shapes and sizes to set-up more cost effectively and to compete more efficiently. We very much look forward to working with Monster Travel to help them achieve their targets over the coming months.”
About Monster Travel
Monster Travel is a new online and call centre based travel agency selling a broad range of all types of holiday to ex UK holidaymakers, including package holidays, tailor made holidays, ski, cruise and city breaks. Monster is completely independent and therefore can access the widest range of operators and suppliers to give customers the ultimate choice in booking their holiday. For more please visit www.monstertravel.co.uk.
Innovative PIN-by-phone service introduced
Metavante Technologies and NewVoiceMedia announce agreement
April 2nd London: Card Payments Processor Metavante Technologies Ltd. and Hosted Telephony provider NewVoiceMedia have announced an agreement that will allow callers to retrieve essential card account information including their PIN securely over the phone. This service – a white label IVR (Interactive Voice Response) - developed by NewVoiceMedia and resold by Metavante, provides a more secure solution with significant cost savings to the card issuers subject to the normal waiver from MasterCard®. It also enables the cardholder to retrieve their PIN information in minutes from any location around the world.
The outsourced service is believed to be the first that allows third party card issuers to deliver sensitive information over the phone with no additional IT development. This newly developed solution requires a small amount of configuration by Metavante to meet the specific client’s requirements – and this work can usually be completed in a matter of days. Previously the development costs for any one issuer would have been prohibitive; this multi-tenant hosted solution shares the costs across all the clients so making the solution not only technically possible, but also very attractive financially. The first customer is expected to ‘go-live’ by the end of the month, and Metavante reports that 10 other clients are already in the pipeline.
Pre-paid cards are the new cash
All forecasts point to significant growth in the numbers of prepaid cards in Europe over the next five years. While some of these forecasts may be aggressive, it is clear that growth will be significant given the tremendous simplicity and usefulness of the prepaid card concept. Historically, cards have been a by-product of either a current account or the credit business. Prepaid is the ultimate card product, because it can stand alone, and be used by anyone.
In the past, card customers had to wait several days for a letter containing their secret PIN number to arrive before being able to utilise the card. This letter could only be sent to the recipient’s home address and could be intercepted, which is an ever present security threat. From the card issuer’s perspective, preparing and posting a letter is both time and cost consuming – even more so since they may need to be issued more than once if the client forgets the PIN. With the white Label IVR service Metavante now have a secure way of letting customers obtain their PIN number as well as their account balance and recent transactions over the phone. Initially, the development for the new service was aimed at prepaid cards; although the service will work equally well for any payment card.
The solution uses an automated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system from NewVoiceMedia. Callers are prompted to enter their card number and the access code previously issued during the application process. Once the caller is authenticated they receive the card PIN number as well as other services such as balance and recent transaction history over the phone. The fact that no human is in the loop, and secure encryption using a pair of Hardware Security Modules is used at both ends of the computer links, means that the system meets the rigorous PIN security standards imposed by the Payment Card Industry.
According to NewVoiceMedia CEO, Jonathan Grant, “It’s my money and I want it now!” was the driving force that led us to develop a secure service that allows callers to retrieve their PIN number over the phone. Grant added, “The Metavante solution is just one of many applications we now provide for secure transactions over the telephone. Being a Hosted solution means that we can deploy this service to new Metavante clients in a matter of days”.
Kevin Kelson, SVP Payments Processing at Metavante added, “Working with NewVoiceMedia on the IVR service has given Metavante a real strategic edge in this highly competitive market. This allows us to offer our clients a solution that is not only easy to implement, but also more cost effective and secure than traditional PIN Mailers”.
About Metavante Technologies
Metavante Technologies Ltd. is a leading European debit and prepaid card payments processor that became a Metavante company on 10 January 2008. Metavante Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: MV) is the parent company of United States-based Metavante Corporation. Metavante Corporation delivers banking and payments technologies to over 8,600 financial services firms and businesses worldwide. Metavante products and services drive account processing for deposit, loan and trust systems, image-based and conventional check processing, electronic funds transfer, consumer healthcare payments, electronic presentment and payment, business transformation services, and payment network solutions including the NYCE Network, a leading ATM/PIN debit network and provider of mobile financial services. Metavante (www.metavante.com) is headquartered in Milwaukee, USA. Metavante and NYCE are registered trademarks of Metavante Corporation, which is the principal subsidiary of Metavante Technologies, Inc.
NewVoiceMedia Launches New Credit Card Payment Service
Compliant with New Industry Regulations
October, 19th 2007: Europe’s largest hosted contact centre provider, NewVoiceMedia announced today that it has launched a safe payment service within its telephony infrastructure that will allow contact centres to comply with the new industry regulations that are coming into force in December.
The Payment Card Industry (PCI) has created new Data Security Standard (DSS) regulations to further protect payments made over the phone. However this will require an update to their existing systems for many contact centres.
This technology, developed by NewVoiceMedia, offers a complete, hosted, automated credit and debit card payment service that will allow callers to make completely secure payments. The service integrates with either an existing telephony infrastructure or with hosted Contact Center environments, to allow secure payments, complying with all the new regulations.
Integrating with multiple card issuers, NewVoiceMedia’s technology has a mid-call capability that dramatically reduces the risk of customer and agent fraud. With this capability, it will no longer be possible for a caller’s personal details to be lost on a piece of paper within the call centre.
Richard Pickering, Director of Network Applications at NewVoiceMedia, commented: “This is a global issue. With the tightening of the regulations from the Payment Card Industry in terms of the DSS, we realised that we could offer a solution that enables companies to comply by the deadline of the 31st December 2007.”
Members of the PCI include VISA, Mastercard, American Express and Diners Club who are now threatening punitive measures against the non-compliant organizations including fines, and suspension.
There are also incentives programs for merchants who comply including lower transaction fees and VISA has set aside $20 million to reward merchants that comply.
For more information click here.
Kingston University Looks to ContactWorld For UCAS Clearing
September 2007: Kingston University successfully deployed ContactWorld from NewVoiceMedia to help it handle the large volume of calls during the recent UCAS clearing process. On the day A-level results were announced, the temporary 40 seat call centre handled over 20,000 calls from students looking for a place at the university.
The UCAS clearing period lasts a few weeks in August every year as thousands of A-level students call universities to discuss their results and course options with Admissions Tutors to gain a place. The challenges universities face are that the call volumes would normally stretch a mid-size contact centre, but university themselves have neither the trained call centre staff, nor the long term need that would justify the investment in an expensive call centre operation. Historically, Kingston University just had a telephone system that routed calls to one of two hunt groups only.
"The speed of setting up a hosted call centre operation and scalability are two of its real benefits ", commented Nick Bhugeloo, Operations Manager, Applicant Services. The University had previously used a Hosted Contact Centre service from NewVoiceMedia to capture callers’ names and addresses to fulfil requests for University and course brochures.
Just 10 days before going live an additional call plan was designed using the new Contact World service, with additional ACD call centre functionality plus new announcements and on-hold messages, recorded and installed the day before calls to book course places were due, following the release of “A” results. At 08:30, 16th Aug the University had 40 agents sitting in an examination hall taking over 20,000 calls from prospective students. After three days the number of agents could be reduced to 30 until the end of August, with just a handful then stretching into September.
NewVoiceMedia CEO Jonathan Grant commented, “This was a classic application for a hosted contact centre, the user needed a temporary facility and wanted to just pay for what they used. No other approach would have been so technically efficient in scaling up then down, nor so cost effective”.
Kingston now has comprehensive statistics on all call activity so that next year they can plan their clearing campaign even more effectively. As a follow through on the success of the clearing line, NewVoiceMedia recently received an order to deliver a hosted call centre service to Kingston University’s Finance department to enable them to respond to a forecast increase in call activity from students requiring information about financing their debt...
Tesco Property Market goes live with NewVoiceMedia ContactWorld
London 28 August 2007: Tesco Property Market has gone live with a bespoke telephony solution based on ContactWorld, the hosted telephony platform from NewVoiceMedia. A recent business venture for the supermarket group, Tesco Property Market has the goal of allowing homeowners to sell their house for a fraction of the cost charged by estate agents.
The ContactWorld-based implementation provides an automated sales service where anyone who sees a property ‘for sale’ board can immediately call in to hear details such as asking price, number of rooms and so on.
Callers are prompted to enter the unique reference number on the agency board outside the property. A module in ContactWorld, developed specially for Tesco, then blends property details held on the database with keyword phrasing of a voice artist to provide a natural sounding, one minute description of the property.
ContactWorld is the latest generation of hosted telephony platform from NewVoiceMedia. The modular platform was designed from the ground up for “Individual Caller Treatment”, a way of processing each caller in a special way according to spending patterns or previous call history.
Jonathan Grant, NewVoiceMedia CEO, said: “In creating a customised solution for Tesco Property we are able to prove the quality of what we can do at NewVoiceMedia. We feel extremely proud Tesco has chosen NewVoiceMedia to develop a technology that will represent its brand and are confident that ContactWorld will help Tesco Property Market to revolutionise the property market.”
Millions Lost Due to Missing Link Between CRM and Contact Centres
- NVM Seminar Highlights Innovative Use of CRM and Telephony -
London 02 July 2007: A recent seminar held by NewVoiceMedia, Europe’s leading Hosted Telephony Service provider, highlighted how contact centres are failing to fully utilise CRM data to drive new business initiatives. The event which showcased Individual Caller Treatment (ICT), a concept pioneered by NewVoiceMedia, found that this missing link between contact centres and CRM is costing businesses millions in lost revenues.
Keynote speakers at the ICT seminar held at the IoD City in London included Ajaz Ahmed the founder of Freeserve, Paul Alexander, a pioneer of the Tesco Clubcard and David Beard of Sage CRM. Delegates at the seminar included marketing and customer service representatives from the airline industry, finance institutions, retailers and utility sectors. The speakers also discussed the business drivers for personalised customer care and how contact centres are at the heart of any customer service strategy.
David Beard, Partner Development at Sage CRM commented “Whilst companies collected customer data and invested heavily on marketing campaigns to entice customers to make contact, many businesses fail to use the data they already have to use the contact centre to provide individualised customer care. Customers are at their most receptive when they call into a business. ICT will help businesses and contact centres provide the same level of highly personalised and interactive customer service that consumers enjoy online – over the telephone.”
“Getting callers to hold for long periods of time or asking them to go through endless menus is not the best way to make a customer feel valued” added NewVoiceMedia’s CEO Jonathan Grant. “ICT which combines CRM with telephony, offers businesses an intelligent marketing tool that can cross and up sell services to clients. It also has been proven to increase revenues by at least 5%, and massively boost caller satisfaction.”
ICT allows customers to be automatically fast-tracked to their dedicated agent, based on their previous call or based on the information a business might already have about the caller. The customer can also be played relevant, targeted messages (PhoneAds) if for any reason there is any delay in putting the call through - messages that are designed to appeal to them as individuals.
“To be a business pioneer, it is important to do the obvious before everyone else thinks it’s the obvious. I feel that what Google did for advertising and what Amazon did for retailing, Individual Caller Treatment will do for the contact centre,” concluded Ajaz Ahmed, founder of Freeserve.
NewVoiceMedia Awarded for First Class Customer Service
London 31 July 2007: NewVoiceMedia, Europe’s largest Hosted Telephony Service provider, has won two awards for its industry leading customer service in two categories at the ContactCenterWorld.com Members’ Choice Awards. Voted for by customers and members, NewVoiceMedia came Best in Class Customer Service for Internet Telephony in EMEA and was awarded First Class Customer Service for Multi-channel Contact Centre Solutions.
The Members' Choice Awards are based entirely on votes from end users and is unique as there is no judging panel. It aims to recognise organisations that provide not just solutions to contact centres, but also dedicated customer service to back it all up.
“On behalf of everyone at NewVoiceMedia, I am delighted to have won these awards” commented NewVoiceMedia CEO, Jonathan Grant. “They are testament to our 100% customer focused philosophy of developing a win-win partnership with all our clients. We were up against some formidable competitors in the market, and this shows that an ambitious and dynamic team can satisfy customers much better.”
NewVoiceMedia is at the leading-edge of highly functional, computer-enhanced telephony – it develops and markets its own range of Hosted Voice Applications for contact centres and advanced customer-to-business telephony. NVM solutions have been deployed into a diverse range of markets and customers, including Parcelforce, Payplan, Royal Mail, Thomas Cook Airlines and the BBC.
Parcelforce keeps afloat with NewVoiceMedia despite floods
When the water level rose in the streets around the Rotherham Parcelforce depot at lunchtime on Monday, the Customer Service Manager decided that the staff there could not continue to work safely, and decided to shut the depot.
Parcelforce Worldwide uses NewVoiceMedia's ContactWorld service as a Virtual Call Centre solution to route calls to their 53 depots and call centres. As an end-user configurable solution, the depot manager was able to make real-time changes themselves via a few clicks on a web site, and divert calls to the Doxford Call Centre, with no interruption of service.
Patrick Morgan, Operational Support Manager of Parcelforce, said "having the NVM ContactWorld solution that non-technical depot managers can configure in real time enables us to continue to provide a professional service to our customers, despite unexpected occurrences like severe weather conditions or terrorist action" .
In response to the terrorist bombings on 7/7/05, Parcelforce were able to re-configure the call centre solution across most of the London region within 20 minutes.
Sainsbury's call on NewVoiceMedia during floods
NewVoiceMedia provides the `corporate voice` for Sainsbury's. On 26th June, local flooding caused a problem at Sainsbury's Careline and the site had to be evacuated two hours before their normal closing time...
On Monday 26th June the UK was hit by severe weather that caused a months rain to fall in just a few hours in some areas. Local flooding caused a problem at Sainsbury's Careline based in South Yorkshire and the site had to be evacuated two hours before their normal closing time.
Anticipating further difficulties the following day, a call was made to NewVoiceMedia for a special message to be recorded at 5:30PM, just as the offices were due to close for the day. Nevertheless, the staff at NewVoiceMedia responded and a few hours later the message was professionally voiced and ready to use. In spite of this precaution, the Careline staff rallied brilliantly and managed to offer the same high level of service to its customers as usual.
"It was a great service", commented Andy Benzie, Contact Centres Manager for Sainsbury's, "not only did NewVoiceMedia respond quickly, the work was done out-of-hours at short notice". Hampshire-based NewVoiceMedia provides the `corporate voice` for Sainsbury's main UK call centres.
ContactWorld Launched
May 24th 2007: NewVoiceMedia, one of Europe’s leading Hosted Telephony Service providers, has launched ContactWorld, a next-generation platform for voice applications such as virtual contact centres, call recording and conferencing.
ContactWorld solutions are delivered from Telco Grade application hubs that support PSTN, mobile and VoIP technologies and NewVoiceMedia's solution can achieve cost reductions of 60% compared to conventional solutions. End-users can also change any aspect of their system in real-time, it also empowers "Individual Caller Treatment" a new service that can turn a call centre into a highly-focused, precision marketing tool.
"Cost savings of 60% compared to traditional approaches are easily possible", commented NewVoiceMedia CEO Jonathan Grant. "There is no hardware, no bespoke integration developments, no capital expenditure and no hidden costs." The simplicity of deployment combined with the hosted model brings such functionality to the huge SME market, as well as departments of larger enterprises (help desks, accounts payable, HR etc.) that would not see themselves as classic call centres.
With ContactWorld everything is web configurable in real-time by end users, including call routing, interactive voice response, computer telephony integration and wallboard reporting. This is believed to be unique in the marketplace, traditionally even small changes would involve the use of expensive system integrators and several days work. In trials, one ContactWorld user made four changes in a day, themselves.
Individual Caller Treatment
Individual Caller Treatment (ICT) is a new service from NewVoiceMedia and it could herald the end of "Press 1 for this and Press 2 for that". It certainly improves the way organisations handle inbound calls. ICT differentiates callers in real-time based on corporate information mapped by the users`own CRM systems, or by web searches made on-the-fly.
At the simplest level, ICT could mean bumping a caller higher up the queue because the last time they were held on-hold for a long time, or automatically routing VIP callers along the `red carpet` to their agent and bypassing the usual touchtone menuing system altogether. One NewVoiceMedia client automatically routes every one of its 50,000 clients to the most appropriate agent as they proceed along a multi-stage business process.
It was able to redeploy 12 staff members to more productive tasks by eliminating two minutes of questioning for each caller: questioning that would have been too complex for an IVR system and too bothersome for the caller to wade through. The efficiency gains are striking; it also builds corporate brand values and makes the caller more receptive to doing business.
And it is at this point that Individual Caller Treatment can create the most impact. ContactWorld can play individually-targeted and relevant marketing messages (PhoneAds) during queueing to increase revenues by cross-selling products or up-selling services. For example, a bank could offer insurance or mortgage deals to specific callers living in a targeted postcodes.
NewVoiceMedia held a seminar on Individual Caller Treatment on May 23rd at IoD City, London. Guest speakers included Ajaz Ahmed, the founder of Freeserve. "I feel that what Google did for advertising and Amazon did for retailing, Individual Caller Treatment will do for the call centre," he quoted.
NewVoiceMedia Implements 300-seat Virtual Call Solution for Payplan
On-demand business telephony services provider, NewVoiceMedia, has completed the implementation of a 300-agent virtual telephone solution for Payplan across four geographically-distinct sites. Payplan is one of the UK's leading all round debt solution providers.
Payplan's value to its customers is based on providing ethical, free of charge debt solutions to those in financial difficulties, struggling to meet debt repayments. Calls to Payplan are now automatically routed either directly to the caller's case manager, regardless of where they are based, or to an agent with the correct level of knowledge and skills to assist with relevant support and advice.
Paul Merritt, Commercial Director, Payplan, commented: "Following the introduction of a 300-agent virtual call facility by NewVoiceMedia, we at Payplan - the Free to Client Debt Solutions Company - have experienced increased efficiencies with our call-handling operation. Call routing, enhanced management statistics and ease of use have provided us with a very good all round telephony solution."
The NewVoiceMedia solution delivers full management statistics and reporting, enabling adjustments for call management and performance improvement, allowing Payplan to resource their offering with maximised efficiency.
Anthony Buxton, Finance Director NewVoiceMedia, commented: "Payplan are one of the most reputable debt repayment organisations in the UK, and NewVoiceMedia is proud to have been chosen to help them to bring excellence in customer service to the forefront of their business."
NewVoiceMedia help Parcelforce Worldwide to distribute packages faster
Reducing storage costs and improving cash flow
Wednesday 19th July 2006. On-demand business communications providers, NewVoiceMedia have developed an inbound network-based contact centre solution to manage customer interaction for Parcelforce Worldwide’s Customs Charge Recovery System (CCRS). The solution will enable Parcelforce Worldwide’s non-contract customers to pre-pay customs charges on international packages via the telephone or web prior to delivery, saving time for the company and the customers, reducing warehousing costs and improving cash flow.
Parcelforce Worldwide receive thousands of imported items at their International Hub in Coventry every day. Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue levy import duties, VAT and other charges on these items that have to be paid before the goods are released to the recipient. Parcelforce pre-pay any duties owed on behalf of the recipient so that the parcels are released by HMRC and delivered by Parcelforce Worldwide’s national network as swiftly as possible. A unique reference number is applied to the parcel and the customer is automatically sent a letter by first class post advising them of the parcel’s arrival with details of the unique reference number, customs charges due and Parcelforce Worldwide’s local telephone number to call to arrange automated payment and make delivery or collection arrangements.
NewVoiceMedia’s inbound network-based application enables Parcelforce Worldwide’s customers to simply phone into the telephone number quoted on the letter, key in their parcel reference number using a DTMF (dial tone multi-frequency) telephone keypad, select a method of payment and arrange delivery or collection. The CCRS automatically looks for other packages for the same addressee and provides options for delivery/collection for any other waiting packages at the same time.
“The CCRS takes over 7,000 calls a week as customers call in to make their payment and arrange delivery of their packages. The service is available 24 hours and day, seven days a week – just when our customers obviously need it. The rate of turnaround of our parcels is even better than expected, reducing storage costs and improving our cash flow. This will be significant during our busy Christmas period as previously over £250,000 per week of capital could be tied up in HMRC payments” said Emma Bailey, customer service policy manager, Parcelforce Worldwide. “Our recent launch of the same system accessed through our web site, Parcelforce.com, has provided customers with multiple access channels and increased the use of NewVoiceMedia’s integrated system even further – we are thrilled for both our business and our customers.”
NewVoiceMedia have also provided bespoke greetings and messages for the new service, ensuring that Parcelforce Worldwide customers are guided through each step of their transaction in a professional, easy to use and friendly way.
Jonathan Grant, CEO of NewVoiceMedia said, “I am delighted that Parcelforce Worldwide have chosen to work with us on this latest project. Customer satisfaction is vital to every business and we are committed to delivering user friendly solutions to our customers that add real value to them and to their customers”.