GDCC (US) – Cloud Hosted Deployment Driving Multiple CATI Platforms

Industry: Market Research
GDCC expands into the US to incorporate two existing contact centers, and replaces a premise-based predictive dialer with the Sytel system in the Amazon cloud.

About GDCC

GDCC is a leading independent data collection company providing international CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) and Mixed Mode (phone, web, face to face) fieldwork services. Clients include many of the top global market research and consultancy agencies, such as TNS, GfK, Ipsos, Maritz and Nielsen.

With a total capacity of 600 seats in state-of-the-art facilities in the USA, Netherlands, UK, Hong Kong, Turkey, Macedonia and Kosovo, GDCC operates 7 days per week. GDCC completed 500,000 interviewing hours in 2019 and are targeting 700,000 in 2020.

GDCC logo

The requirements

Having utilised the excellent productivity of the Sytel predictive dialer to achieve year on year increases in their data collection business in Europe, GDCC expanded into the US in 2019 to incorporate two existing contact centers. These centers had been using a hardware-based dialer but from experience GDCC knew that the Sytel system would significantly outperform it, and so wanted to implement the Sytel system for these as quickly as possible.

The previous system had relied on ISDN T1 connectivity to the public telephony network, but GDCC wanted to phase these circuits out and replace them with SIP connections, combining the considerable benefits of lower cost with fast and easy scale up/ down.

GDCC wanted to move away from the existing premise-based to a cloud hosted dialer model, with Amazon AWS as the preferred solution.

GDCC wanted to introduce a newly-deployed CATI platform provided by Nebu to bring these centers in line with the rest of GDCC’s sites. However, in the short term they needed to continue working with the previous CATI system during the migration.

The Sytel solution

The Sytel dialer can be connected to any SIP carrier, and is a software-only solution not requiring any physical equipment. As all servers can be virtual, it is well suited to running in Amazon AWS.

The Sytel installation was performed by Sytel engineers, experts in installation on AWS, using a tried and trusted methodology. GDCC’s technical team set up the AWS environment so that IP calls could be made over the internet from the Sytel environment in AWS to the carrier.

Using Sytel’s WebRTC softphone, the 150 interviewers were quickly able to make use of 300+ channels, with substantial improvements in dialing efficiency and productivity.

The softphone is very easy to deploy, running directly in the browser on entry level Windows PCs. Interviewers can be located anywhere in the world, and when necessary, GDCC have used interviewers located in Rotterdam for projects in the US. When COVID19 struck, the system was already prepared for GDCC to move almost all of its interviewers to work from home.

Sytel has integrations with all major CATI vendors, including both the new Nebu system and the previous system used by GDCC in the US. Great relationships with those vendors mean that as soon as Sytel adds new features to the platform, they are added into the CATI solutions.

The result

Kees-Jan Mars, CEO of GDCC said

“Sytel have been a great partner and have kept pace with our continual expansion. The implementation of Sytel’s solution in the US was smooth and hassle-free, allowing us to focus on telephone interviewing rather than technology. I really appreciated the project management provided by the Sytel team as well as the continual follow-up in the weeks after the installation.”

Michael McKinlay, CEO of Sytel, commented

“It is great to see a long-term customer go from strength to strength. GDCC have been a growing customer for many years and it is gratifying to see how Sytel’s technology and people have contributed to their success.”

What We Offer

Sytel Limited develops and supplies Softdial Contact Center® (SCC) - multimedia, multichannel, fully blended cloud contact center solutions.

Available by subscription as CCaaS, fully managed and supported by Sytel, or for quick and easy deployment by partners and enterprise users.

All Sytel cloud components are secure, resilient and scale seamlessly from 10 agents to 10,000+, whether local, mobile or remote.

Flexible Contact Center Software

Softdial Contact Center™ - rich functionality, all-in-one, designed to deliver at scale
  • Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)

    CCaaS for subscribers - global service​, with no upfront costs

  • Contact Center Platform – CCaaS Partners

    Build your own CCaaS business using the power and flexibility of Sytel software

  • Contact Center Platform – Enterprise

    High performance platform to drive contact center productivity – cloud, on-premise or hybrid

Blended Media Desktop

Fully customisable, multi-channel, multi-session workspace

Work Anywhere

Browser-based tools, no software installation required

Customise, Localise, White Label

Design all user interfaces to individual requirements

Integration via APIs

‘Swap out’ components and integrate with 3rd party apps

World Class Development

Continuous evolution pushing technical boundaries

Capabilities

Softdial Contact Center™ (SCC) is designed to be flexible, extensible and scalable, integrating with any legacy equipment, and meeting the most complex of requirements.

All Media Channels

Voice, chat, email, social, etc - fully integrated and blended

Agent Multi-Tasking

Work with multiple live contact sessions of any media channel

Dynamic Workforce Management

Automated, ‘best available’ decisions to manage agents and balance work load, across all media channels

Predictive Dialing

Best-of-breed performance under compliance

Optimised Inbound Routing

Smart rules and 'best-available' decisions to drive great customer service

Agent Scripts

Help agents achieve and maintain excellence

Voice and Screen Recording

See and hear exactly how agents are interacting

Analytics and Data Feeds

Measure and evaluate performance at every level

IVR, Bots & Conversational AI

Design effective automated flows or integrate with 3rd party providers

Customer Journey Tracking

Stored customer contact history, to aid routing and add context to conversations

Modules

Drive operational efficiency, increase customer satisfaction & improve agent performance

Softdial One™

Highly flexible unified web UI for agents, supervisors and administrators

Softdial Scripter™

Create complex process flow scripts for agents, IVR, chatbots and other applications

Sytel AI Dialer™

Maximum predictive dialing performance, under any compliance rules

Softdial Pathfinder™

Precise routing rules for ‘best available’ connection

Softdial Media Server™

Core telephony functions to manage all inbound/outbound SIP calls

Softdial Reporter™ 5

Fully customisable performance stats, charts and reports, across all channels

Softdial Publisher™

Comprehensive data output to build your own reports

Softdial Recording Monitor™

Audio and screen recording of agent activity to ensure the highest standards

Softdial Campaign Manager™

Automation to optimise any outreach strategy

Softdial Repository™

Central storage and configuration of common resources

Sytel Global Compliance™

Flexible ‘no contact’ rules to protect contact center and consumer

Solutions

Performance and efficiency for a wide range of business applications

By Business Type

Enterprise

A full featured contact center software solution, designed for optimum performance at scale

Small/ Medium Business

Options for SMBs to subscribe to our full-featured cloud service managed and hosted by either one of our partners or by Sytel themselves

By Industry

Customer Service

Connect quickly to well equipped agents

Market Research

Best-of-breed predictive dialing with CATI integration

Debt Collection

Automated inbound/ outbound blending integrated with any debt management app

Sales & Telemarketing

Maximise agent productivity with best-of-breed predictive dialing

Healthcare

Secure, highly-configurable multichannel communications for excellence in patient care