Call Center Solutions

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The business process modeling capabilities of StarPound Studio allow us to integrate customer data with our agent screens in real-time, develop new campaigns quickly, and refactor and reuse them for greater operational efficiency.

— Bill Coffeen, COO, NexxLinx

StarPound Technologies offers a next generation, multi-channel Contact Center that doesn't require a large up-front cash outlay, that bundles services into a transaction-based pricing model, that provides a single point of contact, and delivers the people, tools and technology to stay ahead of the most demanding clients.

Don't be left behind.

Overview

Customer contact centers are mission critical. They must quickly adapt to changing customer needs and expectations. Failure to do so risks damaging customer relations, inhibiting loyalty and potentially impacting sales. Based on years of contact center expertise, The StarPound Project has developed a software engine that helps companies better keep pace in this rapidly-changing field.

StarPound CORE™ coupled with our contact center module provides a free Open Source development engine that can easily breathe new life into existing contact centers or create new contact centers from scratch. With Studio CC, developers and process owners can have a Business Process Management-enabled development tool visually optimized for integrating voice, data and the Web within a contact center environment.

Contact and call centers are inherently expensive to operate, and can add an enormous strain on the IT staff. When your technical resources are dealing with large hardware-based phone switches, and antiquated methods of shaping call center flow, you lose in the end. Those resources should be deployed in a way that adds incremental value to the organization and the call center — not just "keeping it running."

For starters, using Starpound's software pretty much eradicates the need to have a hardware switch altogether. While the rest of the world is moving to a VOIP/SIP network, why are you investing significant capital in legacy approaches to driving traffic? Sure, you have VOIP on the desks of your call center agents, but are you still running all of those phone calls through a hardware switch in a closet somewhere? Tsk, tsk. StarPound's platform acts as a software switch, allowing you to truly take advantage of the economics behind VOIP and SIP.

Another frustrating part of managing call centers is the sheer effort required to make changes to inbound and outbound campaigns, and integrating the phone network into the agent's desktop. Most contact center vendors are happy to help you with this — and for good reason. Their systems are so complicated, and so siloed, that sometimes even making simple changes will require you to bring in a team of consultants to "enhance" your implementation. We think that is pretty silly.

In the StarPound world, an inbound call is a service request, just like a simple web service request. In a converged world, voice is data. You build a visual model to represent the desired flow of your call center's traffic. When you want to make changes, you simply edit the model and redeploy. Devlishly simple, yet ridiculously effective. And since StarPound is a software solution, scaling to handle additional traffic (or even new physical locations) is a breeze.

The Benefits

Significantly Reduced Costs

Contact (call) centers traditionally require a significant investment in proprietary hardware and software. StarPound's Contact Center module delivers advanced contact center functionality in an open source environment. There are no upfront costs or recurring licensing fees for using our product.

Tight integration with business processes

StarPound can help model and implement the entire workflow process of any contact center. It connects all the pieces from the Web and phone systems to internal business processes and data entry screens. That's especially important in these days of remote and widely dispersed agents - many of whom are working at home or offshore.

Since StarPound CORE™ is built around a web services architecture, it simplifies the process of putting the right contextual information in front of your agents. Every screen pop should count when time is money - and StarPound ensures this is the case for each and every call.

Speed of Deployment

StarPound reduces the time necessary to bring a contact center live by an order of magnitude. No more fiddling around with overly complicated hardware switches. And when you want to make a change to your call center flow, or integration into backend systems, you simply edit your visual business processes created in StarPound Studio™.

Flexibility

Need a faster way to implement new features on your existing call center platform? StarPound easily integrates with other contact center technologies, such as those from Avaya or eOn. Or, StarPound can be used by itself to generate advanced software-based VOIP contact centers, offering new levels of functionality as well as reduced overhead costs. No other contact center software vendor can offer all of this. And certainly no one else can offer these features for no upfront costs or recurring licensing fees.

Want to leapfrog existing platforms with a hosted VOIP-based contact center? StarPound can handle the entire job. And StarPound Technologies can even host the resulting application for you, allowing your transactional costs to scale with your business.

Stability

Because StarPound is open source, contact centers can benefit from the collective intelligence of a community of developers. The platform has been tested under a variety of system configurations and loads, and performs at a level consistent with the expectations of today's call center managers.

Ease of Integration into Agent Applications

Routing calls through a contact center and establishing connectivity between agents and your customers is only the first step. What matters next is how you are using technology to support your agents as they assist your customers. StarPound Studio™ makes it ultra easy to integrate just about any backoffice, legacy, or hosted system, including CRM, Case Management, and ERP systems.

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Salesforce.com

Parature

FirstWave

StarPound in the Wild

StarPound's platform is currently powering several industry-leading customer care centers, including NexxLinx, whose clients include some of the nation's premier companies and organizations such as SmartBargains.com, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, FedEx and the Library of Congress. StarPound is enabling these clients to extend their service leadership by enhancing their customer care capabilities, dramatically reduce operating expenses, and in the process, shift valuable capital to growth opportunities.

Case Study: 250 Seat call Center Saved 53%

A call center needed a transformation — fast! With three separate contact centers, each with its own aging communication technology infrastructure (Avaya, Aspect and Interactive Intelligence), this customer was bleeding cash and facing downward pricing pressure. This restricted its ability to upgrade its communication technology platform through zero CAPEX and limited new OPEX.

The Problems:

Losing clients
Aging technology
Unused CSR capacity
Financial Challenges
Future Uncertain

Requirements:

State-of-the-art technologies
No Capital Expenditure
Limited Operating Budgets
Stop client defection and grow the business
Get back to profitability

Change the rules of the game!

Following a recommendation to explore StarPound, they quickly realized that StarPound's open-source solutions was the right path forward. StarPound's integrated solution of hosted IP-based communications and customer interaction management technology provided the state-of-the-art technology and functionality needed — all without upfront capital expenditure. The results included incorporating a common communication infrastructure that offers new IP-based contact center services, reducing technology costs by 53%. The new StarPound customer then leveraged the platform's capability to generate additional revenue by offering new services to existing clients. In one instance, the client offered a speech-enabled voice self service (VSS) solution to a nationally recognized eTailer. The VSS solution - accomplished this without any integration costs or upfront software license fees - resolved 60% of calls, reduced the average cost per call from $3.85 to $0.30, and, most importantly, created a happy and loyal customer.

StarPound Services

In addition to providing an incredibly powerful, free, open-source software platform, StarPound offers a complete solution for contact centers.

Application development and integration
Business process modeling using StarPound Studio™
Data conversion services (e.g. when moving from closed solutions such as Avaya, Mitel, or eOn)
Enterprise-grade telephony services (inbound, outbound, voice, data)
Hosted/cloud solutions

Additionally, through our strategic partners, StarPound can assist you in completely outsourcing your entire contact center operation. If you are interested in a complete turnkey solution, and don't want to deal with facilities, hiring customer service agents, and deploying contact center technology, contact us for more details. Whether your contact center is 10 people or 10,000, StarPound can help you get there faster, cheaper, and in one piece.

For More Information

For more information on using StarPound in contact and call centers, contact us today!