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[I310]Inside Sales Customer Service

by Melissa Vokoun, Mel

However, some entreprenurs and small business owners may have a common misconception thinking their inside sales professionals and the customer service staffs also possess the same abilities and desires in keeping the business running and growing

Every sales trainer has heard the: "not in the budget" "we are not big enough for training and coaching" and "I am the sales manager-trainer" answers before and that type of response only makes me more committed to help them see the importance of investing some monetary resources into turning their operation into a successful and cohesive sales and service organization.

I have first-hand experience not thinking it was a necessary investment. As a result of a major business crisis for my sales organization in the mid-90s, I became convinced that sales and customer service training was needed to save the company. After finding that I needed to retool and retrain my staffs in order to weather the storm of losing our largest vendor, I had no alternative but to make a necessary monetary investment in trying to recover from this loss. In looking back at the results before and after the training, I see that I had made a HUGE mistake and probably lost significant revenues by not taking that step 5-8 years earlier.

The sales training that I chose was not appropriate for my team of "inside sales" account managers, but it was all I could find at the time. Without the convenience of the internet and websites, I had to rely on a referral from a business associate who gave me the name of the trainer and the program. The trainer tried to modify the program to address the needs of my company and ultimately it did help me to retool the entire sales and customer service team.

It was at that time that I decided that there was a lack of assessment and training programs that were targeted to the small inside sales team and small customer service staff -- but these companies need that type of process training and coaching more than the Fortune 100 organizations.

As a small business owner, investigate the overview of training and coaching systems. Make sure they meet your appropriate needs and offer the following services: A comprehensive Assessment and Sales Training System for smaller inside sales organizations (2 - 20 Inside Sales Executives), an Assessment and Training for Inside Sales Managers and a complimentary coaching system for Customer Service Departments (3-10 CSRs).

Several training organizations have developed programs like these and they can be the best investment you make in your own company.

Some of the most well-known training programs demand months of training and high-ticket pricing. That is overkill for most businesses. The training should have elements of onsite training, follow up, and offer teleclass and teleseminars on an ongoing basis for brush up and advanced skills. Any program you choose should be able to assess if the sales and service teams to assure they are well-suited for their jobs. If they are - the training will be completed in less than 3 months with a minimum of disruption in the company.

Results are almost immediate. Proper assessment, training and ongoing coaching provide a way to set goals, develop a process, overcome fear of cold calling, a method of improving their vocal skill to make a greater first impression on those critical calls. Training organizatins should have additional modules as needed for more advanced training. The basis of successful programs are very simple: If you have a passion for sales, or the emotional empathy to be a great customer service representative, then any program you choose must provide the training and coaching to make your employees excel. For Business Owners, it is an opportunity to insure results and growth in revenue and satisfaction with customer service and support.

Most large insurance companies, banks and financial services organizations continue to rely on IBM mainframe applications to run their business. In doing so, for many, the use of 3270 terminal emulation as a method of accessing proven legacy applications is still a requirement.

The Terminal Control feature of Zephyr's PASSPORT Host Integration Objects (HIO) software has been used by a number of leading firms to embed 3270 terminal emulation inside core desktop application suites, including:

- One of the top three U.S. providers of auto insurance has embedded PASSPORT within their client-based corporate application suite, including a key claims workstation application, collectively offering 3270 access to 30,000 employees and agents

- One of the top 10 property and casualty insurers in the U.S. has extensively integrated PASSPORT into desktop applications that require 3270 connectivity, providing integrated host access to 40,000 employees

- A Fortune 20 company has embedded PASSPORT within their insurance and healthcare applications, creating an automated solution that accesses 3270 applications used in the U.S.

Medicare system

Embedding a robust Windows terminal emulator within an agent, claims, call center or customer service application suite, and making use of the emulator's rich scripting and application integration capabilities to improve overall productivity, can make great financial sense. This is especially true given the high cost of reengineering a legacy application or replacing it with an expensive packaged application that may not fully meet all requirements. By comparison, the point-to-point host integration model used in terminal emulation is very competitively priced.

Why consider bundling terminal emulation inside a client-side application suite?

For starters, an integrated desktop system is secure, cost effective and involves very little risk in terms of development. Once the application suite is finalized, it's also much easier to support.

Today, most desktop systems are locked down to avoid potential security problems. Further, a typical PC often contains a group of solid applications that have already been licensed and paid for. Given the value of the proven business logic found in mature IBM 3270 mainframe applications, it can pay to marry these two worlds. Once partnered, the emulator can be used to avoid duplicate data entry by copying host information into multiple applications, scripts can be used to automate the navigation of host menus, skip 3270 screens and much more.

Using the PASSPORT Terminal Control

PASSPORT HIO offers a programmatic, object-oriented method of integrating IBM 3270 mainframe and IBM 5250 AS/400 host applications with .NET, Visual C++ or VB applications using the host screen as an API (screen-scraping). The Zephyr solution features a mature TN3270 and TN5250 communications module and Object API, based on the IETF OHIO standard, and can be used on a Windows XP or 2000 desktop. PASSPORT HIO can also be used from a Microsoft Windows 2003 or 2000 Server. SSL security is included as a standard feature of the application.

To embed terminal emulation inside a client application, the PASSPORT HIO Terminal Control is used to create a terminal emulation display and keyboard object that runs in conjunction with a session object. The session object maintains the host screen buffer and performs all communication with the IBM mainframe or AS/400 system. The terminal control object provides a user interface for a specific session object.

PASSPORT HIO includes a Type Library, created using COM standards, that provides a core set of classes and methods to integrate host information at the data stream level. PASSPORT HIO also includes sample C# .NET, VB .NET and Win32 C++ (non-MFC) Sample Console Application programs to illustrate the use of these COM objects and their methods to open a session, connect to a host, get the host presentation space, field attributes, manipulate the host presentation space, and more. Any Microsoft programming language that supports the ActiveX COM interface or .NET can be used with the Zephyr application.

For the technical specifications of the PASSPORT HIO Terminal Control visit our web site at:
http://www.zephyrcorp.com/legacy-integration/legacy-integration-dev.htm

To Download a free trial of PASSPORT HIO or to view a sample embedded 3270 terminal emulation application included within the free trial version, visit:
http://zephyrcorp.com/downloads/legacy-integration.asp

Summary

The PASSPORT Host Integration Objects Terminal Control can be used to embed 3270 terminal emulation inside critical, desktop-based call center or customer service application suites. In doing so, organizations gain the use of a secure, cost effective, low risk platform for application integration involving IBM mainframe systems.

Terminal emulation is much less expensive than alternative host integration solutions, and once development is complete, a client-based platform is easy to maintain and support. Organizations that use 3270 host applications can quickly lower total cost of ownership through the use of these secure, reliable systems.

Article Source : Excellent Customer Service

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Both Melissa Vokoun & Zephyr Development are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Melissa Vokoun has sinced written about articles on various topics from Ezine Articles, Customer Service and Leadership. Melissa Vokoun - From 1983 to 2005 she was COO and VP of Sales and Marketing for a telecom distributor. Her passion for recruiting, training and managing these staffs was instrumental to the company. To learn more about the. Melissa Vokoun's top article generates over 14800 views. to your Favourites.

Zephyr Development has sinced written about articles on various topics from Customer Service, Project Management and Computers and The Internet. Zephyr Development Corporation is a highly respected developer of advanced terminal emulation and host integration solutions for Microsoft Windows.