Start-up: creating an IQ Line outsourced call center

Client

The IQ Line outsourced call center has been a successful start-up, where the number of new work places increased from twenty to two hundred in the course of three months without losing even an hour’s work. At present, the call center is working on a 24/7/365 basis. The call center serves its customers round-the-clock, using advanced technologies: telecommunication, SMS, and online messengers. IQ Line provides the following services for its clients: hot line, service desk, telemarketing, research and questionnaire surveys, interactive voice response, and so on. This case describes the idiosyncrasies of bringing the IQ Line outsourced contact center into operation in 2009. 

The core of the problem

The objective for IQ Line’s top managers was to mitigate the risks and reduce the financial costs of the creation, further development, and support of the call center as much as possible. In order to ensure that the outsourced call center could continue to operate on a 24/7/365 basis, a functional, reliable, and affordable program solution needed to be sourced. Initial investment in call center infrastructure also needed to be reduced to ensure the manufacturer’s continued technical support and maintenance of the call center.

The principal objectives of the project:

1. To create a modern, functional and fail-safe outsourced call center, having kept financial costs to a minimum.
2. To bring the new call center up to maximum productivity as soon as possible using efficient resource management and business processes.
3. To allow for outsourced call center scaling with a simultaneous load increase, without resorting to replacement of the service platform.
4. To ensure high-quality customer service and continuous outsourced call center operation on a 24/7/365 basis. 

IQ Line managers turned to the market leader in the development of call center solutions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia—Noda Interaction Platforms.

The following allowed investments in IQ Line Start-up to be optimized: 

1. The option of leasing Noda Contact Center licenses for operator workstations without significant financial investment allowed call center output to grow in the shortest possible time. Over three months the number of new IQ Line work places increased from twenty to two hundred without losing even an hour’s work.
2. A Special Noda Contact Center solution allowed a free OS Linux version to be used to arrange operator workstations. This has significantly reduced the total cost per operator workstation. 

Implementation project brief 

In the course of the project, Noda specialists installed and integrated key components of the IQ Line outsourced call center: the call center’s VoIP communication platform, an information system and an operator workstation. The Noda Contact Center components were easily integrated with IQ Line’s fully customized client databases. At the request of IQ Line, a distributed call center with sites in three Russian cities was set up. At present, IQ Line’s OCC based on the Noda solution is handling inbound and outbound projects and ensuring continuous call processing at IVR level, as well as receiving and distributing calls between call center operators, and balancing the workload.

Use of predictive dialing

Aside from traditional campaigns such as telemarketing, questionnaire surveys, and the like, the Noda Contact Center solution allows IQ Line’s clients to launch bespoke projects. For example, the IVR service performs predictive subscriber dialing in accordance with an available database. As soon as the system gets through to the subscriber an audio recording containing a message is played. No operator assistance is required. This service saves time for call center operators and resources.

The creation of remote workstations 

The Noda Contact Center solution was improved and adapted to meet certain IQ Line objectives. For example, the option of engaging second line operators and customer specialists to process phone calls and support their own projects within the system has been made available in the call center. 

The Noda Contact Center solution is integrated with third party applications in the call center such as billing, CRM-systems, and databases. Thanks to this, operators use service scripts that contain all the information required to engage in dialogue with subscribers. Immediately upon project completion IQ-Line’s customers automatically receive reports on the call center’s operation. At the request of IQ Line, the Noda Contact Center solution was integrated with a Service-desk technical support system. 

The system provides an option to manage campaigns via a web interface The Noda Contact Center solution allows IQ Line administrators and supervisors to manage the call center’s work using a web browser. It is now possible to manage queues in real time, set rules for inbound call routing, and monitor KPI changes and the call center’s basic parameters from any location with Internet access.

Project results

The capacity to quickly start up and simultaneously implement multiple campaigns for different types of clients was built in to the call center. This has meant that in addition to major campaigns, minor campaigns could be implemented. Servicing these campaigns before the introduction of Noda Contact Center would simply have been unprofitable.

The IQ Line call center, which operates on the basis of the Noda solution, regularly uses predictive dialing for outbound campaigns in addition to progressive and preview. This helps minimize operator downtime and improve productivity in the call center. Reductions in customer contact costs were achieved through the use of IVR services and bulk SMS.

In order to maintain high-quality telephone-based customer service, Noda provides IQ Line with technical support (from the manufacturer). A fail-safe software solution ensures call center availability, providing customer service on a 24/7 basis. As a result, today IQ Line is one of the BPO market leaders in Russia. It is developing and competing successfully with the largest OCCs and is generating profit for its owners.