Please note that this agenda is subject to change
Home Based Agents: Great Idea, Now Manage It
Working from home is a growing industry trend. This session will be led by an Amcom customer that has successfully implemented a home based agents program in their facility. Learn about the challenges faced, solutions found and best practices to take back to your organization.
Improving Patient Service by Leveraging Technology: What Can We Learn from the Hospitality Industry?
No doubt you’ve heard about the trend that many health care organizations are looking at hospitality industry leaders and determining how they can adopt such excellent guest service. Join us for this discussion and learn how simple technology solutions can pay big dividends in improving patient satisfaction in your hospital.
How to Measure the Effectiveness of your Call Center
You use stats everyday to measure the performance of your call center from codes and messaging to average speed of answer, time of call, and abandoned calls. You have all the rights stats in place, now how are you going to effectively measure your call center’s performance. This session will take you through steps and ideas on how you can use your stats to continuously improve your performance and show how your Amcom solution can help accelerate and improve these statistics.
Next Generation 911 for the Enterprise
What is Next Generation 911 (NG911) and how will it work? Join this discussion to gain an understanding of NG911 and how it will affect your organization. This session is intended for those new to 911 or those familiar with 911 and curious about new technologies changing the enterprise 911 landscape.
Moving Towards a Cellular Messaging Environment
As doctors are getting younger and younger, university hospitals and healthcare organizations are detecting a strong move toward a cellular messaging environment. Join this session to hear from several Amcom customers as they discuss roadblocks and solutions.
Communications and Compliance with the Joint Commission: Are You Ready For The Joint Commission Auditors?
There are several areas of organizational communications plans that are subject to Joint Commission review and testing. During this session, a roundtable discussion with an industry panel will address key areas within your healthcare organization communications plans that can be addressed and assisted through the use of Amcom applications. Join us for this interactive session to share your insights, learn from your peers how they have implemented Joint Commission compliance strategies, and discuss critical compliance areas that will not only improve efficiency and effectiveness, but also reduce risk and the stress associated with the unannounced arrival of Joint Commission auditors.
How to Get Software Approved in the Organization
As you all know, it can be challenging getting new software into your organization. Even though you and your team might see clear benefits, persuading upper management to make this investment can at times be tricky. What are the steps to get approvals? What is the best course of action? This presentation will go through what you need to provide upper management and other important steps needed to take in gaining approvals in your organization.
The Software’s Great, But Is Everyone Using It?
Your Amcom solution is only as good as how your staff uses it. Join this customer-led session to learn practical advice about how to successfully communicate the internal roll out of your enterprise application. Take away valuable tips on how to educate, inform and train your staff on how to take full advantage of your investment.
Centralized 911 Call Management
This discussion is designed to help you develop a comprehensive plan to centralize your 911 call management network and upgrade your E911 system. Strategies may include cost savings in your telecommunication budget.
How to Get Grant Funding For Your Emergency Management Solution Projects
Learn about grant funding opportunities and how to locate and apply for grants for your business. Discussion is designed to give participants an overview of the grant process for PSAP and some learning institutions.
Hospitality Industry Roundtable
Top hospitality organizations come together to discuss in an open forum how and why they implemented various programs in their properties, including personalized guest services, consolidation of communication systems, self-service staffing portals, and emergency management solutions. This roundtable is also an opportunity to talk openly with your peers in the industry about trends, challenges, and solutions to bring back to your organization.
Corporate Industry Roundtable
In the corporate environment, areas of attention are now, more than ever, focused on increased automation of processes and efficiencies, improved quality of communication and customer service, keeping employees safe in the event of an emergency and a rapid ROI. Attend this session to hear tips and practical advice from your industry peers on how they use their Amcom system to provide solutions for these areas of organizational improvement.
Roundtable Discussion: Government Trends & Technologies
During this open session, our government and military experts will lead discussion about current DoD, JITC and IA compliance directives as well as new Amcom product initiatives. They will cover certified applications in operator consoles, CTI interoperability, AHAMS/Morale Call, Web, and the emergency and incident management product suite as well as new opportunities and development in areas including centralization, CAP/EDXL and command/public safety.
Education Industry Roundtable
School safety concerns us all. Providing a safe environment for students, staff, and visitors is critical to your campus. This education industry roundtable will provide best practices and real world examples from your peers on what they have done to be prepared and improve safety within their organization.
Healthcare Industry Roundtable
Patient safety, consolidation and centralization of call centers, ROI challenges, streamlining your communications, doing more with less -- these are always items of concern in an organization. This healthcare-focused roundtable will provide you with an open discussion with your peers to share and find out what others have done to address these concerns.
Best Practices in Rolling Out an Emergency Notification System
An Amcom customer will cover the lessons learned in implementing their notification system. Discussion will include challenges you can expect, and tips to overcome them.
How Hospitality Uses Technology to Improve Guest Service and Strengthen Brand
This session will outline the elements of an excellent communications platform as viewed by many of today’s leading names in hospitality. These organizations have implemented several technologies in an attempt to define their brand as the best destination from a perspective of guest satisfaction and safety.
How to Consolidate Call Centers into One
Take a walk through the development and consolidation of a world class call center. Sheila Cook-Dolciame, from Parkland Health and Hospital System will go through the initial challenges faced integrating the call center, steps taken in beating these challenges and the impressive statistical results she has seen because of these efforts. This session is for anyone interested in consolidating their call centers.
Moving to a VoIP Environment: Corporate Trials and Tribulations
Why do organizations move towards a VoIP environment? What is the benefit? Learn the answer to these questions and more from an organization that not only has been through transforming their facility, but has also implemented this strategy globally. Hear these trials and tribulations, the solutions found and what it really means to have a VoIP environment in your facility.
General Opening Session
To kick off the conference, Amcom leaders will address the current state of the organization after the merger of XTEND Communications and acquisition of Telident 911 Solutions and share with you key goals in the coming year.
How to Upgrade Your Amcom Platform
Learn what is involved in an Amcom product upgrade. Discussion will be around the benefits of continuously upgrading your solution, a breakdown of each project phase, tips for a successful upgrade and what roles you and Amcom will be responsible for to streamline the upgrade process in your organization.
Customer Feedback Sessions
There will be three customer only sessions. These will be separated by platform - Amcom, XTEND, and Telident. These sessions are a forum for discussion on what we are doing right at Amcom and what you want us to improve on. Led by a customer volunteer, this is your opportunity to speak openly with your peers about concerns, considerations and ideas you have on products, services, support and Amcom as an organization. Use this time to get a better understanding of common challenges, possible solutions, and how Amcom can help. On Wednesday, October 15th, the management panel will go through all of your feedback line by line.
Technical Support: Working Together for Customer Benefit
This session, co-presented by New York and Minneapolis support managers Kevin Mahoney and Ian Campbell, will reveal new strategies the teams have developed to provide world class support. Topics will include Amcom’s new Service Level Expectations (SLEs), a tiered maintenance program, announcing our new combined CRM / Help Desk solution, as well as other process improvements on deck.
Modern Support Processes for IT Professionals
Information technology process and change management is one of the in vogue methodologies used in the industry today. More customers demonstrate the benefits of this modern approach as it is a true partnership between IT professionals and Amcom technical support. By attending this valuable session you will see how combined process and change management between customer and vendor significantly expedites problem resolution and ensures system stability.
System Wellness: How’s My System Performing?
Is your solution performing to its full potential? The System Wellness program offered by Amcom will help answer that question. After running system wellness audits at many customer locations, expert Brenda Wurst will cover what is involved in a system wellness checkup at your site and what the benefits will be to you and your organization.
Amcom Professional Services Update
Randy Hoffman will discuss the several changes that were made in the Professional Services group to better address implementation, training, application roll-out and support. He will also address where Amcom’s methodologies rank against the general growing trends in the professional services industry and what new services are available to your organization.
XTEND Division Professional Services Update
Hope Quennell will discuss the new services she has implemented in the professional services group at the XTEND division, including on-site implementation and in-house training. She will also detail how your solutions go far beyond a software application and what her group can offer to successfully support your organization’s initiatives.
XTEND Division Documentation Update
This session covers the changes to the XTEND documentation - what applications have been newly documented and updated. The kinds of information documented and the documentation process will be discussed: testing, concept explanation, and writing style and standards.
Overall Product Roadmap and Vision
Amcom leadership will provide a snapshot of what you can expect - product line by product line - over the next year. They will share key features to be included in upcoming releases and why they matter to your organization.
New WebXchange: Directory, Paging and On-call Scheduling Platform
An overview of brand-new version 7.0 - product features and how this version differs from our current product. WebXchange is a self-service communications portal used by best-in-class organizations from industries such as healthcare and hospitality. WebXchange enables a credentialed user to log in anywhere at anytime via web browser to view both their own on-call schedule as well as the schedules of others, perform directory searches and to send pages or messages. WebXchange integrates with your existing console database to expand these capabilities beyond your operator group, allowing the call center to focus on offering better customer service or other revenue-driving activities.
e.Notify 4.5 Product Overview
The new e.Notify V4.5 release is now available. During this interactive session, we will review many new features and explore common uses of the e.Notify system in healthcare and government applications, including compliance with the Healthcare Incident Command System (HICS) and the National Incident Management System (NIMS) frameworks that are becoming mandatory standards throughout all mission-critical organizations.
Smart Console 4.5 Product Overview
The new Smart Console V4.5 is here. This session will be focused on the new features provided within the release, and will provide you with the opportunity to discuss the areas of the product that are important to you and your operators. The Smart Console V4.5 release provides you with the opportunity to renew the look and feel of the Console user interface to the extent that you deem appropriate. A completely updated user interface can be implemented with this release, and includes a full graphical configuration tool to enable you and your partnership with the Amcom professional services team to provide your operators with the exact set of updated screens and tools to continue providing exceptional customer service to every caller.
XTEND Platform Console Overview: MediCall, AnswerPro and XpressDesk
Come to this session to learn more about the XTEND platform consoles and discuss the various enhancements and innovative product features that have been updated since the last XTEND users’ conference. There will also be time for a ‘did you know’ section that will go over less popular features in console you might find useful. This session is great for anyone who is an existing XTEND console customer and who would like to hear more on how to care for your console and maximizing the wealth of information you have invested in it.
Smart Speech 4.5 Product Overview
With increasing industry (and CFO!) requirements to do more with less, it continues to be a constant battle for balance between call center headcount and world class service objectives. The use of proven speech recognition technology to offload repetitive and routine call types increases each year, and the Amcom Smart Speech product has been among the leaders in accurate and efficient call automation. This session will provide you with an update on where and how the product can be deployed, improvements in technology, and an opportunity to interact with the Amcom Smart Speech team to discuss applications, upgrades, Version 4.5 plans and future requirements that will directly impact your ability to provide innovative applications and world class service to your customers.
iSED Speech Recognition Product Overview
iSED is a family of speech recognition applications designed to offload a large percentage of main number callers before these calls inundate the switchboard operator group. It uses the Nuance Voice Platform (NVP) engine and digital telephony cards in order to recognize spoken names and efficiently transfer the calls to the number associated with that name in the database profile. This session is for anyone looking for a proven method of offloading internal dial-zero calls to the operator group, or a speech-enabled front end allowing callers to direct themselves to their intended party without operator intervention.
Smart Web 4.5 Product Overview
As the enterprise user becomes more self-sufficient in seeking organizational contact capabilities via web directory services, paging services, On-Call schedules and personal profiles, it is increasingly important to provide easy-to-use, web-based tools. This session will focus on the latest Smart Web V4.5 product release, as well as application usage, deployment options and internal marketing roll-out ideas for success within your enterprise.
Public Safety Solutions Overview
As anyone in public safety knows, a solution that can accelerate emergency response time to a 911 call is dire in protecting people and ensuring business continuity. This session will take you through the public safety solutions Amcom offers, how the software unifies administration and 911 call taking into one, convenient system, and how these solutions can fit easily into your existing PBX and IP environment.
Call Center Recording and Quality Management Overview
Come learn the buzz about MediaSTAR, a package unique for its combination of call logging functionality with quality management tools into one offering - at one cost. MediaSTAR goes beyond traditional call logging to embrace call center quality management. This includes features such as real-time agent monitoring tools, call scoring with graphical reporting features, total call recreation via screen capture paired with call audio (version 3.0), and tight integration with the Amcom and XTEND product line. MediaSTAR includes unique features not found in traditional call logging systems, such as the ability for supervisors to monitor each agent’s line status in real time. This session is for anyone considering implementing a call recording/logging product for their organization.
Emergency Notification and Incident Communications Summit
As Amcom has grown in partnership with our customers over the years and has also grown our product line, the necessary communications integration points and application functionality offered and used within your organization has significantly increased. Addressing each area of critical communications during daily events while preparing for business continuity and disaster recovery can be a daunting task. This session will provide you with an opportunity to not only learn about solutions for E911, mass notification, incident management and public safety requirements, but will also offer a chance to review your requirements and initiatives with your peers and specialized product experts in each integrated area of the emergency communications ecosystem.
Call Accounting in the Organization
Does your organization track and monitor telephone calls? If your organization generates any level of telephone traffic, you are acutely aware of the associated costs. Careful management of communications systems is critical to your bottom line. Come learn about the Amcom Eclipse call accounting system and the benefits it can bring to your organization.
In addition to all general and breakout sessions, Amcom will be providing specific product training with flexible schedules such as Sunday afternoon, during the conference and immediately following. Information will be available soon.
If you have any questions about Connect 08, please contact Emily Vogt at 952.230.5346 or evogt@amcomsoft.com.