Case Study:

University of Alabama at Birmingham

The Call Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham processes more than 10,000 calls per day and is staffed by 34 full-time operators and supervisors. It serves 15,000 university employees, 16,000 students and the 900-bed UAB Hospital System. The Call Center utilizes a Nortel SL 100 PBX switch and Meridian 2616 telephones.

Starting From Scratch At UAB

The Challenge

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Call Center was using an obsolete computer telephony integration system that provided limited functionality to operators and no interface to data from other departments in the UAB organization. Manual updates of directory information, on call schedules and group paging lists were consuming growing amounts of call center supervisors' time, while the system's homegrown programming was generating a mounting internal burden of troubleshooting and maintenance. The Call Center was challenged with installing a fully featured CTI system that would not only meet its current needs, but also integrate seamlessly with an Oracle/UNIX-based ERP system that was scheduled to be rolled out University-wide in 2003.

The Objectives

• Answer at least 90-percent of all incoming calls within 12 seconds
• Automate updates of call center directory information through automated feeds from other campus and hospital departments
• Reduce daily time required for manual on-call scheduling
• Provide university and hospital employees access to directory, paging and on-call information without operator assistance
• Reduce internal cost and labor hours devoted to troubleshooting and maintaining a CTI system
• Reduce the time required for daily updates of emergency paging groups
• Eliminate the need to manually page group members outside the range of UAB's internal paging service

The Solution

The UAB Call Center replaced its limited call processing infrastructure with Amcom's CTI Call Center solution. The new system, which runs on a UNIX-based Compaq server network and features an Oracle database, ties in easily to other departmental systems and will be compatible with the university's future ERP implementation. It includes 24 Amcom Smart Console™ workstations, a full suite of operator applications including automated paging and on-call scheduling, as well as the Smart Web™ interface that enables employees to perform their own directory, paging and on-call lookups from their web browsers.

The Results

• The UAB call center is now answering 95-percent of its calls within 12 seconds, exceeding its original goal of 90-percent
• On-call schedules that previously took two days for call center staff to update now take only 30 minutes
• Internal calls to operators have been reduced due to the Amcom Smart Web interface, which gives employees direct access to directory and on-call information
• The UAB Call Center now has the ability to automatically page groups with varying members on call (and who use varied types of paging devices). The system automatically updates associated paging groups as an adjunct to on-call scheduling
• Management hours dedicated to daily system maintenance and troubleshooting have been drastically reduced

UAB Call Center Comments

Stephanie DeRieux, Call Center Director, University of Alabama at Birmingham:

"With my old system, I spent many hours at two or three o'clock in the morning dealing with down time and no support. Every time I went on vacation I was afraid I'd get a phone call that the system was down, time to come home. The new Amcom system—which is Oracle and Unix based—is very reliable and support is just a phone call away. It's refreshing."

"As soon as we load a new on-call schedule, the amcom system knows if that person is part of a group and updates the associated group automatically. We can automatically page an entire group with one keystroke."

"There's just not a better group of people than Amcom to work with. A CTI system can either make or break a call center manager—you can't have a lack of service for a minute in a hospital environment where people's lives are on the line. The Amcom installation was seamless, and it's worked beautifully ever since."

"We started using the new Amcom system on September 11th, just before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. So we had operators on this brand new system taking 2,000 extra calls in that first four-hour period! We could have temporarily gone back to our old system, but we didn't. I felt comfortable from day one that we were on the best system for any type of emergency we might be facing."