Breaking out of the box - Diversified Investment Advisors' CTI customer support solution - Company Operations

Communications News, April, 1997 by Jim Stewart

This software supplied the "missing link" between the agent's workstation on one hand and Diversified's VRU, Nortel PBX and ACD, and Novell telephony server on the other.

Now the SS number is captured from the VRU and is used to automatically retrieve the customer record and send it to the agent. Sixth Sense automatically launches Diversified's internal CSW Workflow agent application and can prefill any required information.

The software applies rule-based intelligence to manage numerous intermediate steps. For instance, the software intervenes when an agent mistakenly activates his position ready indicator and a new call arrives while he is still updating a customer record. Sixth Sense protects the agent's current screen, not permitting it to be overwritten by the incoming call data.

Once launched, the Workflow application automatically retrieves plan-participant data by making a CICS transaction call to a mainframe at the Cedar Rapids office of Aegon USA, Diversified's parent company.

Initial measurements confirmed that Diversified is saving an average of 22 to 25 seconds on agent-handled calls, reducing the firm's direct costs and utilizing its staffing much more efficiently.

Because Diversified now presents a communications and software profile more consistent with RFP requirements, it has become easier to compete for new business. Wide-ranging automation software capabilities have paved the way to further enhance our call center operations.

Diversified has detected an emerging trend in which some companies outsource 401 K plan management and administration while retaining management of participants' queries. Increasingly the firm can provide such flexibility--still supported by Diversified's automation capabilities.

With one customer company, Diversified has the beginning of such an arrangement. When one of this customer's employees transfers out of Diversified's VRU, the call is automatically routed back to a human resources specialist at the customer site.

At present Diversified handles such calls as blind transfers. Eventually, though. when the call arrives at the customer site, software residing on its agent's workstation will capture the SS number accompanying the call.

Much as it does at Diversified's call center, Sixth Sense will then launch and control agent productivity applications at the customer site. These will retrieve the caller's account information from the customer's own data server or from Diversified's mainframe, automatically populating their agent's screen.

This flexibility will give agents at even the smallest customer company the high service level and advanced agent-automation capabilities of a full-fledged call center like Diversified's--in some cases with little more investment than installing Sixth Sense software on their agents' desktops.

While most 401 K plans are designed for midsize and large companies, Diversified offers small companies a plan that's best suited to their needs. The firm calls it Small 401 K. Aegon USA agents in Cedar Rapids presently handle queries from Small 401K plan participants as blind transfers from Diversified's VRU. These callers too will soon benefit from further automation, with Sixth Sense installed on Aegon agents' workstations.