The U.S. Marine Corps created the Toys for Tots program in 1991. The program collects new, unwrapped toys each year and distributes those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community in which the campaign is conducted.  The primary goal of the foundation is to “deliver through a new toy at Christmas, a message of hope to less fortunately youngsters that will assess them into becoming responsible, productive, patriotic citizens.”  From in 1991 – 2008, the Foundation supplemented local toy collections with 81.3 million toys valued at $487 million. Click here if you would like to donate toys  or you may click here if you would like to make a monetary donation.

The San Buenaventura Mission has organized a Can Food Drive in order to help feed the homeless and less fortunate in our community this winter. Alert Communication has made it our goal to provide 40 can food baskets for our local Mission.  Everyone has worked hard and enthusiastically in order to make this possible.

The mission of the Coats for Kids organization is to provide new winter coats to children in need, ensuring more children will stay warm in the winter, avoid getting sick, and thus enabling them to attend school regularly. Click here if you would like to make a donation. 
 

“By working collectively as a team we have been able to give back and help the less fortunate children in our community. We are all thankful for what we have been blessed with and grateful to share it with someone who needs it. Just thinking about all of the families we’ll touch this holiday season warms my heart.” said, Andrea Donati, Alert Communications Program Coordinator.

In today’s world, appointment scheduling is more than just choosing a time and recording a name. With the abundance of advanced technology surrounding us today, more organizations are required to have an appointment system in place to successfully capture clients.

What information needs to be collected?

Contact information, date, and time are all fairly straightforward pieces of information to be collected.  More extensive data, however, has a better chance of getting lost in the daily shuffle. This is where a call center can help your business organize crucial information. An appointment can include several variables in addition to simply meeting with the client. For example, besides the main contact information it would be helpful for the office to know who will be attending the appointment, what documents they will be bringing, and if they have any questions or concerns before their appointment.

A call center can also help you collect alternate customer contact information. Some people prefer not to be contacted by phone to confirm their appointment, but rather by email. An agent can gather additional information such as an alternate phone number and address. An alternate phone number can be useful to the office if the client cannot be reached at their primary phone number. An address may be necessary in case the office would like to send any forms or questionnaires for the client to complete prior to their appointment. As some businesses may have several locations, it’s also crucial to document which office the client will be visiting.

As every business owner knows, each client must be catered to differently in order to keep them satisfied. Ultimately customers care about receiving high quality services in an efficient amount of time. With the help of a call center, you can rest assure that all calls will be answered in a timely manner and scheduled accurately to keep you and your customers satisfied.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support.

Alert Communications has been honored with the exclusive ATSI 2011 Award of Excellence for the seventh consecutive year, receiving this honor at ATSI’s 2011 annual conference in San Antonio, TX. Out of the approximate 2,500 call centers across North America and the UK that could choose to participate in this annual competition, we placed top ten of the nation for proven dedication to quality customer service and excellence in the telephone answering service industry.

Says Kim Starr, President and CEO of Alert Communications, ““I am very proud of our staff. Throughout this past year they have developed and implemented many new training platforms which will positively impact our customers for years to come and this award is the icing on the cake for all of their hard work.”

This award is presented annually by the ATSI, also referred to as the “Association of TeleServices International”, the industry’s trade association for telecommunications providers and call center services. ATSI association includes telephone answering and message delivery across North America and the United Kingdom.

ATSI contracts independent judges to evaluate message services over a period of six months. Scoring criteria include response time, courtesy, accuracy, and overall service to clients. If a company scores 80% or better in ALL categories, they earn ATSI’s coveted award of excellence. Alert Communications scored 97.3% and placed 7^th overall out of hundreds of competitors in this international competition.

ATSI’s award of excellence is one of the most rewarding in the industry. “ATSI prides itself in agent training through many mediums… the “secret caller” program is an intense program extending throughout the year, with test calls being made to registered participants and handled by random agents”, says Michael Fultz, ATSI President.

If a company qualifies for this prestigious award, they have set the bar high for quality in the telephone answering service industry, according to ATSI. We are extremely proud to have earned this recognition for the 7^th year in a row and to place in the top ten in the nation for dedication to quality customer service. We’ll continue to show our clients and callers the same commitment and enthusiasm in the upcoming year. Thank you ATSI for recognizing Alert for another year!

I could give you a long list of things to try on your web site to increase customer loyalty, but I’d rather give you some tips to make sure you don’t lose it.

• Keep it simple – If your web site is too difficult for people to navigate, they will look elsewhere. Use easy-to-read signs to guide them, and make sure your navigation bar is simple and in the same spot on every page.
• Deliver on promises – Nothing is more aggravating than finding out “guarantees” are only lip service. If you’re not going to do it, don’t put it on your site.
• Limit bells and whistles – You want people to immediately know what you do. Don’t distract them with flashing icons, pop-up windows and rotating banner ads.
• Be current – Promote new products, services, discounts and special offers. Tell people when an out-of-stock will return. Don’t frustrate them by waiting until check out to tell them.  
• Don’t hide your contact info – If it’s too difficult to reach you, visitors may go elsewhere. Offer a variety of ways to reach you – toll-free phone number, e-mail address or a live, online chat.

While you work to discover new ways to build customer loyalty with your online presence, be sure your site isn’t working against you.

Is there something else you’ve done to make sure you’re not damaging customer loyalty? Please share your comments.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support including: Call Center Service, Live Answering Service, Spanish Answering Service, Attorney Answering Service, Virtual Receptionist Service.

This past weekend I attended a tradeshow promoting Alert Communications’ attorney answering services. Based on the traffic at our booth, I’d say it was very successful. Many well-qualified candidates interested in using our services stopped by to ask questions and learn more. But since I would like some sales figures to confirm our success, I won’t make a final decision until we’ve done some follow up, and I see those final numbers in a few weeks or a month.

As I said, we had a lot of traffic. The people were very nice and had a lot of great questions to ask us. Are you available 24/7? Do your agents speak Spanish?  Can you schedule appointments for me, and how do you do it? What makes your service different from other call centers/answering services?

All the visitors spent a lot of time explaining their situation and gave us a chance to tell them how our lawyer answering services could truly help them. But guess what the most popular question was — How much is it?

That same question was asked in a variety of ways. I quoted rates, explained our services are month to month and did my best to help them see our value. I made a point of explaining that our attorney answering services are designed to help them capture new clients they might otherwise lose. And I pointed out that  additional business would pay for the cost of our services. I was doing a good job, but not nearly as good a job as my existing clients did for me.

It was great! THEY were great! Many of our clients stopped by our booth to say hello and tell us what a great job we do. On several occasions, I had 5-10 people at my booth when an Alert client stopped by to sing our praises. This was live, word-of-mouth advertising that was better than anything I could possibly say to prospective clients.

Our current clients explained how great our staff is, how friendly they are, how our account managers help them and — best of all — how they had no idea how many calls they were missing until they started using our services. They went on to say their practices were growing because they were no longer missing those calls. If only my cell phone shot video, I would have some great video testimonials for our Web site!

While there are any number of effective online, electronic and printed ways to advertise in today’s business world, I have to admit there’s still nothing that beats the impact of word-of-mouth advertising.

If you don’t know what your clients are saying about you, it’s time to go find out.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications is a 24/7bilingual inbound call center, specializing in professional attorney answering, virtual receptionist, Spanish answering and business answering solutions.

In January we orchestrated a new process for destroying sensitive documents and routing waste paper from our Dumpster.  This material is now deposited in locked, sixty gallon containers provided by a mobile shredding service.  Once per month its truck will service these containers.   The contents will be shredded onsite and carried to a recycling facility.

Last month we also learned the score on the Dumpster service we retain with our local rubbish company.  We discovered our Dumpster is part of a “unicycling” program that permits both recyclables and “messy” trash in it.  The “messy” trash must be bagged and tied shut.  Recyclables, such as hard plastics, containers numbered 1 through 7, and cardboard may be put loose inside the Dumpster.

The dynamics of recycling at Alert are improving.  Most of us now have desk caddies for collecting paper during our shifts that is easily transferred to the sixty gallon containers at the end of the day.  Break rooms now have four bins for sorting various types of trash: aluminum cans, plastic beverage bottles, all “other” recyclables, and one for “messy” trash.  We’ll continue to redeem aluminum and plastic beverage containers for cash while depositing the other types of trash in our “unicycling” Dumpster.  Our answering services representatives and others in the company are eagerly participating in the recycling efforts.

Over the next few months we’ll be rehearsing this new version to an old song when sorting our trash plus developing a process for recycling hazardous items that cannot safely be put in our Dumpster such as electronic equipment, batteries, and computer hardware.    It may take time to perfect our performance, but the melody we’re playing now will take us to the top of the chart as we pursue our “green” goals at Alert Communications.