Date published: 01.09.08 - not release date

Contact Centre completes emergency evacuation within hours of Hurricane Rita - Amcat VoIP call centre technology saves coin company $1m

Manchester, UK, 16th November, 2005 - Amcat, a global leader in call centre technology solutions, has helped The United States Rare Coin & Bullion Reserve headquartered in Texas save an estimated $1m in sales, by enabling it to re-locate its endangered Beaumont, Texas location in a matter of hours. The company was able to take advantage of the flexibility afforded by its VoIP multi-site call centre configuration implemented by Amcat. They were able to move both the people and equipment from the endangered Beaumont location and easily re-establish operations by combining with the Austin, Texas location within hours of Hurricane Rita, the category 4 storm, hitting the Gulf Coast last month. US Rare Coin and Bullion Reserve did not experience downtime or loss of services while other businesses and competitors lost their call centre operations for several days or even weeks.

According to Steve Orlando, Chief Operating Officer, “As the hurricane approached, we assembled our disaster team and contemplated what we could do. We realised that we could take advantage of our VoIP configuration and actually relocate our Beaumont agent-only site to our Austin location. The relocation would be a matter of deploying the PCs and connecting our router to the main Amcat server in Austin. We called Amcat and confirmed that our plan would work. Not only did they agree, but Amcat felt we could accomplish this all with just our internal IT staff.”

The company quickly decided to enact their plan and move their entire Beaumont call centre operation to Austin Texas, 250 miles away from the danger area. Steve Orlando comments on the event, “We had seen the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, and realised that being directly in Rita’s path could seriously impact our business. . As the storm struck the Texas coast, we simply reconnected all the Beaumont equipment ourselves and re-established communication with the Austin Server using VoIP addressing. Within 12 hours, we were working again. We literally plugged the equipment back in, turned on the computers and we were back in business”.

Steve explains the role of Amcat’s contact centre technology, “Using the VoIP capabilities from Amcat, we had a perfect business continuity plan. We already had virtual telephony connectivity between the Austin and Beaumont sites, which meant that any incoming calls could be easily re-routed to Austin without having to change any numbers. The centralised database meant that we did not to have to take files or any other customer contact information with us.”

Amcat president, Richard Costello commented, “The advantages of IP contact centres have been discussed thoroughly, but usually from the perspective of saving money on communication costs between locations and its overall flexibility for (MACS) Moves, Adds and Changes. However, the benefits of IP contact centres from a business continuity perspective should now be explored by many organisations. The relocation of the Beaumont site to Austin would have been more difficult or virtually impossible to accomplish in the time frame that occurred if the system had been a hard-wired TDM configuration.”

Damage from Hurricane Rita meant that the United States Rare Coin and Bullion Reserve Beaumont office would be out of commission for three weeks. Steve Orlando concluded, “We really didn’t miss a beat thanks to hard work by our staff and the Amcat system.” The company estimates that it saved over $1million in potential lost business by having flexible technology in place that could provide a quick and alternative solution in the event of a major disaster.

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Editor’s Notes:
About Amcat:
Amcat™ is a leading provider of intelligent contact centre solutions to power dramatic increases in productivity, agent professionalism, and campaign management flexibility. Amcat solutions enable companies to increase operating efficiencies and to continually enhance the quality, capabilities and services available in their contact centre. As a result, contact centres see a dramatic increase in outbound and inbound productivity, a higher level of agent professionalism and the ability to make rapid adjustments to campaigns and operations. Founded in 1991, Amcat has a global customer base of more than 1,100 contact centres. For more info visit www.amcat.co.uk or call 0800 169 2028.

About United States Rare Coin and Bullion Reserve:

United States Rare Coin and Bullion Reserve (USRCBR) is a leading distributor of U.S. minted gold and platinum coins. The company specialises in providing both modern and older, rare coins to its customers. For more info, call (512) 249-5194 ext. 120.
www.usmoneyreserve.com

Press Contact: Jane Moores, TTA Communications LTD. Tel: 00 44 (0) 1454 318722. e-mail: jmoores@ttauk.com

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