Posted by Mark Fichera on Mon, Jul 12, 2010 @ 06:32 AM
Jeff Velodota, whose 23-year career in the call center industry spans all facets of call center operations, has joined OnBrand24 as Vice President of Sales.
“Jeff is a call center industry leader,” said Mark Fichera, CEO of OnBrand24. “He has an outstanding record of delivering great client service – from inbound call center customer service to outbound lead generation and sales appointment setting. We look forward to the highly positive impact Jeff’s expertise will have on the success of OnBrand24 clients.”
Jeff spent most of his career rising through the ranks at a major call center services company, beginning as a telemarketer in 1987 while a college student at the University of Connecticut, from which he earned a Bachelor of Science degree (with honors) in accounting. He eventually became Vice President of Client Services and Sales.
Instrumental in building that company into a Top 25 call center services provider, Jeff was involved in all aspects of its business, client service and marketing operations, including implementation of advanced call center technology.
“OnBrand24 has a great group of clients and a highly talented and experienced group of managers and call center agents,” said Jeff. “As a leading Massachusetts call center, OnBrand24 draws on a great talent pool in the Boston area. OnBrand24 is poised for great growth.
“I’ve always found it very exciting to partner with clients in developing the call center strategy that will boost their sales, improve customer service and customer satisfaction – all the while lowering their business costs,” said Jeff.
Outside of work, Jeff is an avid motorcyclist. But he says his greatest passion in life is being a good father to his four-year-old son.
Welcome Jeff!
Posted by Mark Fichera on Tue, Apr 27, 2010 @ 08:37 AM
So many customers, so little time… That was the challenge Alpha Software, a global leader in database application software, faced earlier this year when it released Version 10 of its Alpha Five flagship product. In the world of database apps, Alpha is nothing short of legendary. Since its inception more than 25 years ago, the company has developed a highly loyal user community that today numbers in the hundreds of thousands.
When Alpha launches a new product version, one of its biggest challenges is contacting its enormous installed base.
So Alpha assigned OnBrand24 the critical assignment of telesales market outreach to existing Alpha Five customers. The project has been hugely successful, exceeding Alpha’s expectations and leading to additional telesales assignments for the call center service provider.
"OnBrand24 has been absolutely great," said Brett Johnston, Sales Manager at Alpha Software. "We’ve been very impressed with their ability to establish a highly capable team that quickly developed a strong technical grasp of our technology and the ability to communicate new product features in a compelling way. We quickly came to regard OnBrand24 as a satellite office for us, a direct extension of our sales and marketing team."
With four call center agents assigned to the Alpha team, OnBrand24 has averaged 1,500 calls per week, selling large numbers of Version 10 along with significant sales of training DVDs, educational classes and professional services. Alpha reports an impressive 5-1 return on their telemarketing investment – for every dollar spent on the project, the company is realizing $5 in revenues.
"This was a big challenge for us, but we have talented call center agents with the technical background and the smarts to quickly master Alpha’s needs," said Mark Fichera, CEO of OnBrand24. "We are proud to contribute to a highly successful product launch for Alpha Five."
In addition to boosting Alpha revenue, OnBrand24’s outreach program also supports Alpha’s customer relations strategy. As existing users of Alpha Five upgrade from versions 8 and 9 to Version 10, their loyalty to Alpha software is perpetuated.
Alpha has received positive feedback on OnBrand24 customer service. After completing a purchase of Version 10, a customer emailed Alpha that the OnBrand24 call center agent he spoke with "was professional, knowledgeable, polite, engaging and very good at eliciting insights about the product that only come from many years of using it seriously. I can’t remember the last time I had such fun on the phone purchasing software. You would be well advised to count yourself lucky to have her representing the ‘public’ face of Alpha."
Based on the project’s initial success, Alpha has added to OnBrand24’s assignment, including sales of training products, mentoring and professional services, along with a five-day user group and training class in Las Vegas.
"Many of our customers have been with us for a long time – the Alpha user community is very tight," said Johnston. "I was amazed at how quickly OnBrand24 became an integral part of our culture. With OnBrand24, we’re selling more copies of Version 10 and refreshing more customer relationships than we possibly could on our own."
Posted by Mark Fichera on Sat, Feb 06, 2010 @ 06:56 PM
A call center services company is only as good as the quality of its call center agents. At OnBrand24, we have a major advantage: our agents are residents of Massachusetts, which offers one of – if not the – deepest pools of professional talent in the country.
In fact,
a recent study ranked Boston the third smartest metropolitan area in the country. Historically, Massachusetts has always been brainy. Having found themselves in an inhospitable climate and with few natural resources, the original Massachusetts settlers quickly realized they had to rely on intelligence and hard work for survival and success.
Today, the Boston metropolitan area is chock full of universities and college graduates. Our companies lead the country in innovation, and our influence on the worlds of politics, media and culture is disproportion to our size.
So when OnBrand24 needs to hire call center agents we have a large population of highly articulate, educated, professional people to draw on.
The result: our clients get agents who go way beyond merely reading a script. They have the ability to immerse themselves in the products, marketing messages and customer requirements of our clients. They have the professional background to converse effectively with senior-level business managers. They have the business acumen to identify decision makers and sales opportunities.
We’ve harnessed our agents to a proven call center methodology and comprehensive roster of inbound and outbound services that make us one of the most talent-rich customer services call centers and lead generation companies anywhere.
Sure, you can go to other cities and other parts of the country for your call center services. But before you do, keep in mind what Mark Twain said after he visited Boston:
“In New York, they ask how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, they ask who were his parents? In Boston they ask, how much does he know?”
-- Mark Fichera