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Call Center Software | A Call Center with a Twist
June 30th 2010
An interesting story popped up on the latest issue of Forbes. It’s about Televerde, a telemarketing firm based in Perryville, Arizona, that sells high-end hardware and software packages. What makes Televerde unique is its call center. Televerde staffs its call centers with 250 female prisoners from the nearby Arizona State Prison Complex.
Televerde pays employees the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, of which a third of it is given back to the state to pay for the prisoner’s room and board. By the time the employee has finished her sentence she typically has about $15,000 in savings, a good nest-egg for starting over. A steady job like this also builds self-esteem and teaches valuable marketable skills. It may be for these reasons the recidivism rate for these prisoners is far lower than the national average.
Televerde out-performs some of its non-prisoner using rivals, in no small part due to a lower turn-over rate. The average Televerde staffer stays on for four years, while a rival sees employees leaving after two. Televerde’s lead generation rates are also higher.
Televerde is another example of how today’s call center model is changing. Backed by innovate thinking, and new, more robust call center software, the call center owner has more workforce options than ever before.