Good morning Paul,

Oh I see, (smile), in regards of not really knowing the particular names of some of the different phone and booking call centre software that you were successful in using with jaws. Thanks very much once again for getting back to me so soon with your so very helpful info below on your successful experiences of using Jaws in a contact centre environment.

Now when it came to heareing successfully in one of your ears the cusstomers from incoming customer service inquiry calls and hearing simultaneously successfully in your other ear Jaws to use the computer to properly take care of each customer’s inquiries; did you maybe use 2 separate earphone headsets, one over the top of the other with the incoming calls headset in one ear    and your jaws headset in your other ear or did you use only altogether 1 earphone headset that had been technically setup for you to hear your incoming customer calls in one ear and jaws in the other ear?

Also wondering was maybe the name of one of the contact centres that used web-based software that you found jaws work very successfully at named Millennium1 Solutions?

Any help you can maybe give me with the above curiosities would be so very, very much appreciated! Thanks very, very much once again in advance for any help you can maybe give me with the above concerns.

Kindest regards,

Hank

Hi Hank,

Not a problem, as for the specific software name, I’m  really sorry but I can’t actually remember the names. The booking software we used had been renamed internally  to fit our company brand profile  better and I can’t remember the name of the company that produced the underlying software. Same with the phones, we often changed phone software providers, I never really took much notice of the names of the different phone software. I was lucky in my last job though, as I was there for about ten years and any time the company would think of bringing in new software they would always consult with me first and often allow me to test the software, or have direct contact with the software company to discuss accessibility before the company went ahead with any new major software changes. I tended to find phone software has given me less problems  than the booking software which was often more of a bespoke set up for each company I worked for. I’ve never required any Jaws scripting in any of my jobs, but it really does depend on what software  the company is using. I’m sure there will be some people that disagree with this approach, but personally When I go for an interview at a company, I’m always upfront about my sight, I’ll explain during the interview about Jaws, I’ll also let them know how it hasn’t been a barrier to me in previous jobs, I’ll explain that if they decide to hire me that I  will accept the job  tentatively and will then be happy to come in one day and test jaws with their software  and only accept the job if my software works with their systems. This approach has personally worked well for me, but I have  a lot of experience in contact centres and that experience helps in the interview process. Although when I have gone in to test jaws it has often worked fine, there have been a couple of jobs where I’ve had to decline the job after coming in to test their software and discovering that Jaws was sadly completely incompatible. So as previously mentioned what software they use is going to play a huge part in this, but to end on a positive note jaws has been successful for me more times than it has failed. Again, wishing you all the best with the new job I hope jaws works  fine with their software.

Paul Lemm

Hello back Paul,

Thanks so very much for your very, very helpful reply email below and for saying for me not to hesitate to contact you in the future if I maybe have any more using jaws with call centre software questions. This is so very nice of you! Your wonderful help is very, very much appreciated! Again thanks very much!

Your very, very positive, helpful email below makes me think that it looks very very promising that I will be able to use jaws successfully at the local contact centre that it looks very good that I will be very soon hired at to work as a customer service agent.

If I can ask, can you maybe tell me what was the names of some of the particular diffrent call centre phone software and call centre booking software that you used successfully with jaws? Thanks very, very much in advance for any help you can maybe give me with this.

Kindest regards,

Hank

Hi,

I’ve worked in a few different call centres using Jaws.  There are tons of different phone software that companies use these days, I’ve worked with a couple and they are often web based programs, so tend to work well with Jaws in general without any adaptations being required, but as someone else mentioned it really just depends on which software system they are using. the phone software is usually used for making calls and transferring calls to other agents. Most modern call centres also require you to input  a code or select an option at the end of the call to specify what type of call it was, also if you need to take yourself out of an available ‘ready to take another call state’ you do this through the software, inputting a code or selecting an option which specifies why you are inactive, this stops further calls coming through to you, but also allows a manager to see who in the centre is free and who isn’t and why they aren’t available, as you might be on a break, doing some admin etc, if these are web based programs this is all normally pretty accessible with Jaws. Regarding taking calls, some contact centres still have a physical handset where you press something to accept the incoming call or you select answer on the phone software, others just send the next call straight to you. Normally with the latter you receive a beep (or something similar through the headset to signify that a call is just about to come through’. Without actually physically trying the phone software you won’t know how well it works with Jaws until that point.  I’ve mainly worked in sales, so there is usually a bookings system you will use to book in whatever you are selling, whether it is a sales role or not, there will probably be an internal system they use  which you will need to interact with to access customer data, so you will also need to find out if that is accessible with Jaws. In my last job the bookings system was also  a web based program so again jaws worked well with their software. If   the phone or bookings system are web based programs I found without a shadow of a doubt the most useful jaws  tool is place markers, if you haven’t used these already I’d recommend  playing around with adding them to web pages on your personal  PC to get used to using them, but basically you put them wherever you want on the page and then you can quickly navigate to that location. If their systems are web based programs if you add place markers you will  be able to more quickly navigate their software, or at least that’s what I personally found anyway. Good luck with the new job, as mentioned I’ve worked in various contact centres  since losing my sight and if they have good software then it’s a job which can be done well using Jaws. if you have any more questions, if I can answer them I will be happy to help if I can.

Paul Lemm