Since 2001, we have been in the business of helping organizations with their technology needs. Most of our new customers come from referrals from customers, word-of-mouth, or referrals from our Independent Business Partners (IBPs). Typically, our IBPs are companies or individuals in related industries with customers who use the products and services we sell like: hosted phones, internet connections, SD-WAN, contact center, etc. Over the past five years, that group has expanded to include other companies or people that are not directly involved in technology, but instead have customers who might need help with one of the following:
Our partners refer those customer over to us. We work closely with the customer and if they end up working with any of our 150 solutions providers, then the partner is paid a commission. Partners don't need to be an expert in what we do, but instead need to have relationships and the willingness to ask those people if they need help. This formalized referral program empowers our partners with supplementary monthly income while providing outstanding results for their customers. We are currently accepting applications for a handful of new partners across the country. If you are interested, get started today by completing a no-obligation Partner Application below. We look forward to helping you and your customers with all of their technology needs!
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City Communications can be a resource for dealing with the mandated work-from-home situation that we all face. Many clients are scrambling around to implement a new strategy or shore up the one that they had in place. Below are a few of the things that we might be able to help with:
Video Conferencing Meetings Collaboration We have a number of stand-alone solutions available including: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, If you have (or are interested in) a hosted phone solution, many of them include a conferencing option with the seats. We work with top companies such as: FluentStream, CityHosted, Nextiva, 8x8, Jive, and many more. There is a ton of promotions out right now and a lot of support. Work-from-home Kits We also have some providers that can provide turnkey solutions to working from home for your employees. The solutions could include: mobile wifi devices and plans, tablet devices, laptops, etc. Even more important is the fact that they can configure them and lock them down so that your employees are only using them for work functions and not other stuff. They can be pre-configured and dropshipped to your employees for an easy touch-free deployment. Typically there is a minimum of 25 devices for this type of service. Contact Center We have a number of solutions that would allow you to turn up a new group of agents working from home using their own internet connections while still giving you visibility, reporting, and remote listen and barge capabilities. Backup and Restore As we are having more people work from home, it is more critical to make sure that you have your services backed up and that they are easy to restore if you have a user accidentally (or intentionally) delete files. We have a number of providers that can help you with the configurations and policies necessary to work in a remote environment. Bandwidth for VPN, MPLS, or SD-WAN If you have an existing solution extending your local network, you may find that it was not built to have 100% of your employees working remotely. If you need to upgrade your current bandwidth or add additional redundant connections, we can help. If there is anything else that you are working on that I might be able to help with, please let us know. We would be happy to help try and run down a solution for you.
So many of us are navigating how to remain working and keep ourselves safe (and do the right thing for the greater society). When face with any of the three significant business impacts of our new working reality, there are numerous technologies and services (sometimes free or low-cost programs) to help you.
We are available to help you. All of City Communications is available to help you. Call us, email us, or request a 30-minute call with us about anything related to your communications, remote-worker, call-center, or expense management concerns. We're here to help.
Call Us at (800) 289-1828
or Are you going to Customer Contact Week in Vegas?
Tuesday, June 25th
8:00pm-11:00pm Mirage VIP Suite Las Vegas, NV If you are attending Customer Contact Week in Las Vegas, come join us in our luxury suite in The Mirage for a VIP Cocktail Social. AND Agency, City Communications, and Assero Security, are hosting this VIP, invite-only, event. Enjoy free cocktails and snacks, peer networking in a casual environment. Please RSVP below to be added to the guest list. You will be entered to win a $25 Starbucks Gift Card just for registering, even if you do not attend the VIP Social. For attendees, there will be drawings and winners will receive Amazon Gift Cards, Starbucks Gift Cards and other exciting prizes. We will email and text you the exact Suite # when it gets assigned to us at check-in. Not currently registered for CCW? Register today and get an additional 20% off your pass when you use the code 20CCW_PACE. Can't make it? If this time doesn't work for you, let's make sure and touch base regardless. Simply fill out the form with some days and times that would work for you so we can discuss any upcoming projects you have.
Contact center data is fricking fascinating. Most contact center systems come with reporting and monitoring tools that come with almost every contact-center system. Some are better than others, but most give you the kind of standard and custom reports, supervisory dashboards, and wallboard data to help you manage your contact center. The challenge for most of us is that the data is too exhaustive to digest and make sense of.
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and modern understanding of the psychology of our ability to interpret massive data sets visually (rather than in text, tables, or simple graphs), your current contact center reporting system lets you understand your business about as well as a mechanic can diagnose a poor-running car by looking at its license plate. We recently connected with an innovative service provider that has adapted a data visualization and consumption tool whose original purpose was to help military leaders consume massive amounts of data generated by modern, interconnected warfare systems. By representing complex data sets in visual, pattern-based presentations, they can be consumed and understood at a significantly higher level than the raw data contained within them. Now adapted to visualize contact center (and other business) data, their system can improve your understanding of your organization in three powerful ways. Empowered and engaged agents strive for personal achievement. At the agent level, this new data visualization tool provides a desktop dashboard applet/assistant that gives agents real-time feedback about their performance. Data is presented in a compact, visual way. Agents who strive achieve the goals and KPI’s set by their employers (agents who want to ‘win’ the contact center game and elevate themselves) can use the tool to measure their performance against goals and see how they rank against KPI’s and their colleagues. Think of it like a Fitbit for agents. Empowered agents achieve more. Empowered agents are more engaged with their work. An empowered agent workforce is more productive. Successful agents are more likely to stick. Empowering agent leads to efficiencies that lowers contact center labor cost. Operation Intelligence improves supervisor-to-agent ratios and lowers workforce costs. At the supervisor level, this powerful data visualization tool offers dashboards and triggers using pattern-recognition technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning to give supervisors the ability to spot where they need to coach their teams on the fly. This powerful assistive technology allows supervisors to serve more agents. A higher agent-to-supervisor ration means lower contact center labor cost and happier, more productive supervisors. Real-time feedback loops offer drive contact center strategy and performance. At the management/executive level, this category-establishing system visualizes the big picture. You’ll identify patterns in data and behavior that allow you to make quicker strategic and tactical and yield greater possible results. Imagine being able to look at one screen and know, from a pool of 1,000 agents, who your low performers are? Or imagine being able to ingest thousands of data points and identify a new opportunity for efficiency gains instantly? How could you drive results with that kind of insight? Have you ever seen a video of a child receiving hearing aids or glasses for the first time? That’s the same ‘Wow!’ moment we had seeing this system in action the first time. We’d like to share it with you. Fill out the form below, for a short introduction. ![]() The contact center is the primary point of contact with customers in the after-sales field, and in some cases, it serves as a point of contact in making before-sales decisions and even making some sales outright. This makes quality management in the contact center especially vital, and knowing how to address some of the most significant issues of quality in the contact center can represent new sales, kept — or even recovered — customers, and a better bottom line. Taking Care of Issues of Quality Management in the Contact Center Addressing issues of quality management in the contact center can deliver some significant benefits, but it's all about understanding how these issues impact operations. No One Wants to Work a Call Center Job. Less-than-pleasant working conditions, low pay, and a perception that the job itself is a career dead-end add up to make employee attrition a severe problem. There are several options to address this, including raising pay, limiting total numbers of calls handled, and instituting gamification options to take advantage of natural competitive urges. Which is best will vary by office. The Customers Aren't Happy Either. Dissatisfied customers are likely planning to leave, by some reports, and this makes first-call resolution vital. To get there, you need the best in call center agents — see the previous entry on how to get those — and you need to improve the quality and quantity of information available to those agents. Be ready to empower agents to do what it takes to satisfy a customer and if an agent ever has to explain to a caller why his or her hands are tied, scrutinize those circumstances. You Have All the Tools You Need, and Then Some. It's important to have the right tools for the job, but having them intermingled with every other tool in the hardware store will make them tough to reach when they're needed. Consider consolidation, slimming down the total tools you have on hand to focus just on what's needed. Look into new software that combines tasks and puts the right tool close to hand. The Best Way to Address Quality Management in the Contact Center These points will help you address several significant issues of quality management in the contact center. For those who haven't found their particular problem discussed, however, there's always more help available when you reach out to us at City Communications. Follow that link to check out our free download whitepaper explaining issues of cloud contact centers, then check out our other offerings to help fill in the gaps from there. Your contact center can be a powerhouse for your business, so get in touch with us to make it all it can be. ![]() When it comes time to take advantage of developments in cloud-based technology and build a cloud contact center, the good news is that there are plenty of alternatives out there to choose from. This is also the bad news; with so many options, the chance of picking a sub-optimal one increases dramatically. So how can a business make the distinction between a cloud provider that will make it rain and one with its head in the clouds? A few key points will help determine the best in the field. How to Identify the Best in Cloud Contact Center Providers Knowing the difference between good and bad providers can help keep many problems from ever arising. Since you count on your contact center being operational to handle customers, that makes the selection process that much more vital to your company's health. Consider Your Needs. There aren't really “good” and “bad” providers, so much as there are ones that work better with what you need than others. Knowing just what you want to accomplish with a cloud provider can better help you distinguish among the various options in the field. For instance, some providers will put a particular premium on data security above many other attributes. Start with Cloud Native. Even as you consider your needs, it's a good plan to start your search with “cloud native” operations. These have historically worked well with cloud contact center operations. Research from the Aberdeen Group found that CLTV rates improve 17% on average, and first-call resolution (FCR) improves 10% over other alternatives. Even interactive voice response (IVR) systems get a 14% better completion rate this way. Continually Update Your Considerations. In the same way you'd give an employee a regular review, do so with your cloud provider. Determine if it's had issues in uptime availability, or if it hasn't introduced the features you're looking for. In so doing, you can tell fairly rapidly if you're not getting the most out of the cloud contact center and if you need to make changes. What to do When You Need Help Setting Up a Cloud Contact Center Picking the right provider for your cloud contact center can be a challenge, so it's useful to turn to a firm that has plenty of experience as a cloud service provider. Start by getting in touch with us at City Communications. Not only do we have a wealth of cloud contact center experience, but we can offer immediate information as a free download— just click on the preceding link — that will show you exactly what we can do in response to your needs. So click the download button, and then reach out to us to make the cloud contact center process that much easier.
If you've already made the decision to upgrade your contact center, discover the five vital questions to ask before deploying new contact center software. Doing so will help you make the most of the deployment and ensure that you've made the right decision for your business. Questions ranging from integration to tools to upgrades and more will help you start the process of integrating a successful contact center with a clear goal in mind. And once you're ready to begin, reach out to us at City Communications for assistance. We have the contact center and UC tools you need to reach your objectives.
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Now that you're aware of the questions you should be asking before deploying new contact center software, it's time to get started. At City Communications, we can give you the guidance you need to help make your contact center the best it can be. Our range of options and UC tools will equip you with the services you need for successful integration. If you're ready to start the process, contact us today. No matter where you find yourself in the journey, we can meet you there and ensure you get the resources that best fit your unique business needs.
![]() The best contact centers aren’t just focused on technology — they’re putting a lot of effort into making sure management knows what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and how to support their workers in the most productive manner possible. It’s not easy to manage a contact center, but with the right approach and the best tools, yours can be highly productive. Targeted coaching techniques can be a big advantage to employees who need that extra bit of personalized training. However, the best management environments are those where communication across the entire department is a priority. Good communication leads to faster conflict resolution. Furthermore, a lower level of conflict also improves workplace morale, which leads to better engagement and retention. Despite adopting top-notch management techniques, there are still many disadvantages to taking on an on-site approach to managing a contact center. In fact, many organizations are leaving it up to a third party, and this approach is catching on. Stop Wasting Time The prospect of having outside project management assistance for better outcomes is fast becoming a go-to decision for companies small and large. When you manage a contact center with professional assistance, you can get customized solutions without having to carry all the extra baggage that’s involved with an on-site management scenario. With a managed service provider, you can stop wasting your staff’s time waiting on hold with carriers and trying to figure out what issues are negatively impacting productivity. It’s “dirty work” that can be handled by someone else, preferably a team of experts that make it their full-time job. When you land on the right provider, you’ll get a veteran staff that has all the telecom experience necessary to track your issues and handle all of your trouble tickets, billing issues, adds, changes, moves and more. Finding the Right Carrier The right telecom management service will coordinate and record your services and issues with all your data and voice carriers. The best managers will serve as a one-stop portal where all the information you need is only a click away. Rather than pay for a suite of services you don’t need, find a telecom management provider that offers low monthly fees, yet can still keep an accurate inventory of vital information, including phone numbers, circuit IDs, account numbers and contract expiration dates. At City Communications, we are a the experts at getting our clients started faster with a variety of hosted options, and that means our clients aren’t burdened with depreciating capital equipment. We have access to the latest technology, and we handle all the upgrades and maintenance. Contact us today, and let’s talk about how we can help you manage a contact center. ![]() Your contact center agents face a challenge that is difficult for you, as their leader, to relieve. It’s boredom. While every manager wants a team that’s engaged and excited to be at work every day, there’s an inherent difficulty with contact center agents because what they do much of the time is routine and tedious. From answering simple questions to assisting with the payment of invoices and reordering, the calls that contact center agents field all begin to sound alike. It’s no wonder that across every industry turnover is high in contact centers with about a third of agents turning over constantly. Not surprisingly, the answer to boredom comes with new technology. While an automated telephone system can sometimes serve to only turn the boredom back on the customer, automation equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) can improve customer satisfaction and relieve contact center agents of their boredom. Cloud-based AI agents are able to handle an increasingly complex set of tasks, relieving live agents of a variety of mundane calls. AI agents can navigate items like bill payments, order status, confirmation of appointments, account updates and credit checks. All they need to complete these tasks is the ability to access your customer data and instructions on how to respond to a variety of circumstances. They need to be taught which calls to handle and which to transfer to a contact center agent. Cloud AI agents allow you to segment rudimentary calls to these automated bots while freeing up your contact center agents to handle the more interesting and complex cases. There are a couple of important benefits to this practice: · You’ll optimize your contact center, reducing the cost of each call and speeding up resolution on more complex cases. Each agent can now be trained for skills in handling complex customer service issues, allowing you to run your contact center more effectively and efficiently. · During high-volume periods, AI agents can lighten the load for contact center agents. · When you do experience turnover, you are able to reduce the number of agents you need to replace, allowing your best, loyal talent to deliver excellent service. · With additional professional training, your contact center agents are better-prepared to handle the most important issues and ensure your valued customers remain committed to your brand. If you’ve been contemplating the implementation of AI technology into your contact center, contact us at City Communications. We can help you make the right decisions to maximize your return on investment and explore new technologies for your contact center. |
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