Engineered Protection Systems Secures Commitment to Customer Service

CallRex Call Recording and Monitoring Software Utilized to Document Calls and Improve Customer Service Delivery

View a printable version of the Engineered Protection Systems case study.

Since 1955, the family-owned Engineered Protection Systems, Inc. (EPS) employees have been protecting North and West Michigan and five surrounding states. Founded in Grand Rapids, MI, the modest company has grown into a multi-state company with eight offices and thousands of satisfied customers. EPS ranks amongst the top 30 largest security providers in the United States, and prides itself on its commitment to customers and personal service.

Customer Focused

The EPS Web site proclaims that it takes an “old-fashioned approach” to helping customers –they talk to them instead of requiring customers to navigate unwieldy self-service Web sites or automated phone trees. On average, calls are answered by a real person in less than 30 seconds. EPS is staffed 24 hours per day, seven days a week, and fields calls within a central call center.

For years, EPS has recorded calls using an analog call recording solution. In an effort to update the servers and capitalize on new technologies, EPS chose to leverage the IP capabilities of their ShoreTel telephone system and switch some of their operators over to IP telephones. The move allowed EPS to utilize one port on their voice switch for five telephone lines rather than one port per analog telephone line.

Initially, EPS selected a vendor that claimed to provide full-time recording capabilities for internal and external telephone calls on ShoreTel systems. The solution did not provide reliable recording for extension-to-extension calls and provided inconsistent results. Therefore, EPS chose to work with their ShoreTel reseller, Millennia Telecom, to evaluate alternative call recording solutions. Three solutions were brought in-house for 30-day evaluations. CallRex Call Recording software from Telrex was included in the tests, and eventually selected by EPS as the final call recording solution.

Rock Solid Solution

"The installation was excellent. CallRex was up and running very quickly with no problems," said Eric Hoskinson, director of technology for Engineered Protection Systems, Inc. "CallRex is rock solid for recording calls, and it worked perfectly from the beginning."

CallRex is a non-invasive, all-software IP call recording solution that utilizes innovative packet-sniffing technology. CallRex software captures VoIP packets via port mirroring at the data switch and employs ShoreTel's Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) in a ShoreTel Application Server (Distributed Voicemail Server) to receive call control information. When calls are initiated or received, CallRex begins to record the associated voice packets and enables real-time call monitoring. Caller ID (CID), Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) and additional call details are captured by CallRex. Look back call recording capabilities can also be enabled, allowing staff to activate call recording at any point in the call, capturing the complete call from start to finish, regardless of when the call recording is initiated.

Managers and administrators can view the status of employees' telephones through the CallRex client. The easy-to-use interface presents information about which telephones are in use, which telephones are being monitored and recorded, as well as call time, caller ID, outbound number dialed and more. Live monitoring can be completed by authorized users with the click of a button, allowing managers the opportunity to remotely monitor calls and provide immediate feedback to employees.

Making Call Documentation Easy

Call recordings are utilized by EPS for dispatch verification as well as for operator training. When an alarm is activated, EPS contacts the customer to verify the nature of the alarm and to dispatch the appropriate emergency services. "The recordings allow us to gather more information after the fact as to the details of the incident and gauge the communications that took place between the operator, customer and alarm responder," stated Hoskinson.

The CallRex client interface allows managers and administrators to quickly search for calls using a variety of search criteria, including number dialed, date/time of the call, or the agent who handled the call. Call recordings can be played back through users' PC speakers or exported and e-mailed as standard .WAV files.

About Telrex

In addition to call recording, Telrex also provides call center optimization solutions designed specifically for small and medium businesses, such as:

• CallRex Call Recording™: Call recording and monitoring
• CallRex Agent Evaluation™: Call scoring and agent coaching for call centers
• CallRex Workforce Management™: Forecasting, scheduling, and adherence monitoring
• CallRex Speech Analytics™: automatic analysis of recorded calls
• CallRex API™: custom integration solution for CallRex call recording software

CallRex was the first call recording and monitoring solution to be certified interoperable with ShoreTel 7.0. As a ShoreTel Certified Technology Partner, Telrex works closely with ShoreTel to ensure interoperability and deliver a seamless customer experience.

Founded in 2000 to address the rapidly growing need for VoIP recording and monitoring, Telrex pioneered the VoIP call recording market with the release of CallRex. CallRex was the first packet-based, VoIP technology to record and monitor telephone calls on IP or IP-enabled telephone systems.

Telrex is privately held with corporate headquarters in Kirkland, Washington.

Learn more about Telrex's call recording solutions for ShoreTel systems.

View a printable version of the Engineered Protection Systems case study.