Frequently Asked Questions

What does Pronto Connections do?

Who do you hire?

What controls and systems do you have in place to ensure great agent performance?

How is your customer service?

What is your mechanism to ensure adequate staffing to avoid long rings or hold time?

Do you have back-up power and critical system components to be able to continue business in a crisis?

Do you offer a combination of automation (IVR) and customer service agents?

Are you web enabled?

How would you get us started?

• What does Pronto Connections do?

At Pronto, we help companies increase revenue and improve customer satisfaction by acting as their internal customer service, order processing, or lead generation department. We answer over 3.5 million calls a year, 24 hours a day, in English and Spanish. We also manage inbound email inquiries and provide reporting on all activity. We work with consumer product companies, non-profits and medical companies nationwide.

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• Who do you hire?

First we would like to describe our agent profile. No matter how much technology is provided with automated features and other desirable service enhancements, the selection, training and education of the Customer Service Agents is paramount to the success of your program.

As a company, we primarily hire (over 80%) full time customer service agents, and medical benefits are part of our employment package. These distinctions, as well as our extensive training programs, incentive plans, and strong culture of promoting from within, have enabled us to be successful in recruiting and retaining team members in English and Spanish.

Over 70% of our Customer Service Agents are bilingual and have 1-2 years of customer service experience prior to joining Pronto. A majority of our agents have some college education while many are students at local universities. We perform extensive behavioral screening that ensures we hire exceptional customer focused representatives.

We hire bright, responsible individuals who understand that this position is very detail oriented, we are clear upon hiring that all calls are monitored and that accuracy, courtesy, and account knowledge are extremely important.

For more detailed training outlines, please review our training page.

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• What controls and systems do you have in place to ensure great agent performance?

We have senior management on premise from 6:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. daily Monday through Friday. Supervisors are on premise 24 x 7. We have an on-call manager and an on-call technical staff available 24 x 7 x 365.

Quality is the base of our success. We listen to and score 3-5% of all calls handled each week. We review this information to access individual team member performance, script improvement and trend analysis. We continually use our analysis to understand which areas need attention related to additional trainings, script revisions or modifications. This feedback is also used to tailor monthly staff incentive contests.

Through monitoring, we enhance customer service skills and professional representation for our clients. Pronto uses monitoring to ensure that all client and company quality standards are achieved and that the Agents are providing consistency and excellent customer service on each call.

Quality Assurance provides prompt, individualized feedback for the education of our Agents. We use QA not as a weapon but as a tool to assist the agent to achieve the quality standards for the Client and Pronto. Our Quality Assurance team works hand-in-hand with our trainers.

Managers and Group Leaders monitor all new employees daily during their first few weeks, meeting with them daily to set expectations and review results.

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• How is your customer service?

Pronto has built its business with our exceptional focus on client services. Each customer is assigned an Account Executive from our team. We treat our Account Executives within our office as the customer. They are responsible for coordinating and delivering all the services that the customer requires in conjunction with: staff management, training, technology and information systems teams in a timely and professional manner. This method provides the customer with one point of contact for all their needs.

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• What is your mechanism to ensure adequate staffing to avoid long rings or hold time?

Our staff program structure and schedule is based on skill level routing through our ACD. Once an account is assigned to a level, team members within that level are required to go through our rigorous training before the account becomes active.

We rely on client information to ensure that we have an appropriate complement of staff members at the appropriate level available. Our ACD details information that we use to monitor customer activity in 15-minute increments throughout the day.

In addition, we create bonus and incentive programs for supervisors and management that is based on our service levels and making sure that 80% of the calls are answered in 20 seconds (three rings).

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• Do you have back-up power and critical system components to be able to continue business in a crisis?

On the telephony side we maintain 9 T-1s, seven voice and two data. These T-1s are programmed redundantly to route to the other carrier in cases of telephone network failure. An integral part of our ACD is its redundancy. Our telephone switch has both an A and a B computer that function independently; B backs up A in case of computer failure. Telephony is separate from data and can function independently.

We maintain a natural gas generator on the roof of our building. We are fortunate to be in an excellent area in Chicago and have experienced only one extended (two hour) power outage in 18 years.

In addition, we perform back-ups daily, and weekly (off-premise) to preserve client data. For serious disasters, we currently have two relationships with out of state providers to perform emergency back up services. In addition, we can contractually agree to certain emergency notification procedures processes for clients in the event of an emergency.

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• Do you offer a combination of automation (IVR) and customer service agents?

Yes. We can provide completely custom pre-announcements and greetings to manage traffic flow.

• Are you web enabled?

We are fully web enabled (and redundant). Many clients require that agents access systems external to our office for call handling.

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• How would you get us started?

Over ten years ago, Pronto developed the Pronto Timeline Process©. We believe our industry and business process expertise allow us to use this project management tool and gives us a competitive advantage in starting up complex accounts with multiple stakeholders. An excerpt of this process is listed below:

Information about the Pronto Timeline Process©

1. A Pronto team is identified.
2. A conference call or meeting is conducted with the Pronto team and your team. A plan is developed during the meeting by Pronto, and distributed to all of the participants. The plan is customized to meet all of the client objectives.
3. The Account Manager drives the Pronto Timeline Process©.
4. Prior to launch, the following steps are taken:
   
   1. Custom script development and data delivery
      
   2. Develop reporting requirements
      
   3. Profile Customer Service Agents needed
      
   4. Develop the training curriculum with client and train agents
      
   5. Develop disaster recovery process
      
   6. Develop action plan for the first week
5. Upon completion of the Pronto Timeline Process©, with client approval, knowing that everything has been thoroughly tested, the project will be launched.
   

Post Launch

1. The account executive is in frequent contact with the assigned contact/s during the start up phase. The account executive, along with the operations management team, monitors the agents and provides feedback.
   
2. Daily and weekly reports are reviewed for trends in order to evaluate performance and streamline processes.
   
3. The information is shared with the client team.
   
4. Meetings are conducted to evaluate individual agent performance, and review account developments.
   
5. Team Leaders and Supervisors monitor agents daily, provide education, coach, and motivate agents. Incentive contests and games are frequently played for motivation purpose.

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