Electronic Information Systems Inc, the Stamford, Connecticut-based provider of automated call centre systems, has set up EIS Ltd in London, to target UK and European markets. Managing director, Bob Martin, believes that the UK’s automated outbound call processing market is still very young, but it is poised for explosive growth in the next several years as marketing and sales divisions shift their emphasis from direct mail to telephone sales – what a wonderful prospect! Based on predictive dialling in which a computerised database containing telephone numbers and demographic information is integrated with telephone switching equipment, by specialised software Computer Telephony Integration, it can be programmed to dial long lists of telephone numbers, switching only the answered telephone calls to operators: filtering out busy signals, ringing phones, and telephone answering machines. It detects the human voice within 20mS and switches the live call to an available operator and pulls down relevant details from the database. The aim is to optimise the amount of time spent on the phone and the company claims that operators with the system spend 30 to 40 minutes selling in the hour, against an optimum of 20 minutes before. The company has a pacing algorithm that adjusts dialling rates to keep all operators on the phone. EIS Call Manager offers the operator multiple scripted campaigns with conditional branching for the live calls and provides statistics and monitoring facilities on the campaigns. The system is used by American Express Inc and Citicorp and starts at eight stations and increases in multiples of eight to 96. Electronic Information Systems, Martin promised, will have an interface to every damn system there is.
