Under the agreement, ACCENT will retain the provider’s employees and management as well as assume its client contracts specifically related to the company’s Licensed Agent line of business.  Additionally, ACCENT will lease space in an existing call center facility located in Harlan, Iowa, expanding its footprint to eleven locations across North America, the Caribbean and the Philippines.  ACCENT’s new facility will accommodate up to 70 seats and will serve as a dedicated insurance customer engagement center to serve the needs of existing and future clients.

“Due to evolving regulation, we’ve seen a growing demand for licensed agents that can go beyond the traditional two-tier model of verifying the purchase of health and insurance products to perform the field agent role of selling policies, additional coverage and add-on protection across all stages of the customer lifecycle,” said Tim Searcy, ACCENT’s CEO.  “With the addition of this new line of business, we can now leverage the specialized skills of licensed agents to expand our customer engagement capabilities within the insurance and financial services industries.”

ACCENT is assuming more than 25 individuals that are licensed to provide inbound and outbound sales and customer support in both Life and Health and Property and Casualty insurance across all 50 states.  On average, the team has more than five years of experience selling and supporting a variety of insurance programs, including term life sales, tele-interview underwriter support, customer retention, premium reminder notices and first notice of loss.

Leading the Harlan team as engagement center director will be industry veteran, Gene Gettys.  Gene brings more than 20 years of operations management and leadership experience to ACCENT.  He has spent the last thirteen years managing licensed and non-licensed call center operations on behalf of a leading insurance solutions provider where he was responsible for site operations, including production, learning and development, operations support and licensing.  During his tenure, Gene managed the expansion and operations of call centers in three regions, diversified revenue streams from a fee-for-service to performance-based structure and managed a budget of $7 million annually.  His career background includes a variety of sales and operational roles of increasing responsibility for Jacobs Corporation, Premier Business Solutions, Inc., and The Principal Financial Group.

“ACCENT is a forward-thinking and fast-growing company with a near obsession for delivering outstanding customer and employee engagement,” commented Gene Gettys, ACCENT’s Harlan engagement center director.  “I couldn’t be more excited to join such an outstanding organization, which is well-known throughout the industry as a symbol of excellence and success.”

About ACCENT Marketing Services, LLC

ACCENT, a member of the MDC Partners Network, is the performance marketing company for brands that need to maximize their ability to engage with consumers and influence behavior, while generating a better return on their investment.  The company’s data-driven approach transforms customer service touchpoints across voice, online and social media channels into powerful relationship and brand-building tools.   Founded in 1993, ACCENT employs more than 2,500 people across the United States, Jamaica and the Philippines.  For more information, visit www.accentonline.com.

Media Contact:
Kelly Hilton, Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications
Office: 812.206.6215
Email: khilton@accentonline.com

To download a copy of the release in PDF format, please click here.

However, many times the importance of having an engaged workforce is overlooked. This is a recipe for failure for any business. Studies have shown a direct and significant link between the levels of how engaged employees feel and the level of productivity in their work. Employees who feel a sense of engagement work with more passion and feel a powerful connection to their company, with a belief that they can positively impact the quality of the company’s results. Organizations with high levels of employee engagement see high retention and production levels, and lower absenteeism among employees. The connection between employee engagement and the bottom line for an organization is clear and a crucial part of success.

But how does one define employee engagement? At ACCENT, we feel we stand apart because of our commitment to engaging our employees each and every day. We are an engagement company; an organization which prides itself on raising the bar when it comes to engagement in all facets of our business, with an especially high focus on our employees. Our definition for employee engagement is “the measurable degree of each employee’s emotional attachment to his or her job, team and the organization.” That deeper attachment influences an employee’s willingness to learn, grow and perform at work. We believe that when we create high levels of employee engagement, it yields higher returns for our clients and their customers.

To best perform the actions necessary to engage, we have pledged to create and maintain a positive environment where employees’ needs are met, a place where they:

•  Feel safe, respected and appreciated.

•  Have the opportunity to leverage their talents and strengths.

•  Are inspired by exceptional leadership.

•  Feel a sense of commitment from and toward ACCENT.

•  Are passionate and proud about delighting customers.

•  See a connection between their future and their environment at work

 One of our core strategies when engaging with our clients’ customers is our Continuous Engagement Improvement Process. This is a five-step process that helps brands get the most out of their customer relationships by building long-term customer satisfaction through each interaction. It is centered on improving these relationships through better understanding of the customer and how best to engage with them.

The ability to engage our employees is especially important in our industry. Customer engagement is focused around establishing positive relationships between our clients and their customers, driven by a positive and sustained emotional connection between the two. Our employees are the voice for our clients. They are the ones interacting day-in and day-out with the customer, and through these interactions, they are the ones building the relationships. And if we want our customers to feel engaged, our employees must first feel engaged with ACCENT. Therefore, we have taken the five steps of the Continuous Engagement Improvement Process – listen, learn, connect, influence and optimize – and focused them on how to best engage our employees. Each step is broken down into three main features, which are made up of feelings that each employee should have met by ACCENT on a consistent basis.

In the following weeks, we will delve deeper into each step of the Employee Engagement Process – beginning with “listen” and the three features which employees should feel ACCENT is providing: that their basic needs are met to do their jobs, their understanding of the expectations for their performance is clear and that their opinions count in the organization.

Employee engagement is not an event; it’s a journey. It’s not a thing you do; it’s a thing you are. We feel that employee engagement through the Continuous Engagement Improvement Process will help build a culture at ACCENT that impacts every employee we have and gives them the tools to succeed. To build a company of fully engaged employees will have benefits that reach beyond our organization. It will impact everything and everyone we encounter; whether it is helping our clients expand the reach of their brands, increasing our business through new client acquisition or helping a customer through a problem and building a relationship at the same time. It also benefits the employees themselves, turning their time at ACCENT into more than just a job; they feel connected with the company and have a passion about living its values. When our employees are engaged, success becomes the status quo.

Also, stay tuned in the coming weeks as Searcy continues the discussion on the first step of the Continuous Engagement Improvement Process – Listen.

Carrie: Hi, I’m Carrie Schmelkin of TMCnet, and today I’m joined by Tim Searcy, Chief Executive Officer of ACCENT Marketing Services. ACCENT is the performance marketing company for brands who are passionate about keeping and growing customers. Tim brings over 25 years of direct marketing and teleservices experience to ACCENT. Today, Tim will shed some light on why the company was founded and why it created its Continuous Engagement Improvement Process. Tim, before we dive into the engagement improvement process, can you tell us a little bit about ACCENT and why the company was founded?

Tim: Sure – back in 1993, we wanted to have a vision where we could help really high quality brands at every stage of their customer lifecycle. We knew that data would be a key component of what would happen, but we also knew that throughout a lifecycle there would be touch points, opportunities where we would be able to interrupt negative things that happen with customers and create positive experiences. Basically, regardless of channel or point in the customer’s life, we help companies engage directly with their customers.

Carrie: Sounds great. So, customer engagement is obviously a hot topic in the customer service world right now. How exactly would you define it?

Tim: Well it’s funny – it’s been defined in so many different ways by so many different sources, it’s a lot like customer relationship management was a few years ago. Everybody has a different idea as to what it should be.  We try to follow Forrester’s definition, because we think it levels the playing field and makes it similar across a variety of thoughts. We see engagement as a level of involvement, interaction, intimacy and influence an individual has with a brand over time. That’s what it is, but what we’re about and how you go about doing it are a little bit different. We have to be seeking an ideal outcome in which that engagement, that intimacy, that involvement, that interaction, is positive for the customer and doesn’t vary by touch point or by channel.  By touch point we mean at what point in the customer’s life are they interacting with you as a brand, but we also look at channels and how they are interacting with you. Is it by phone, in person, is it by direct mail or somehow on the internet? All of those things we want to push toward an ideal outcome. It’s not a term that fits really well into a single concept; it’s more encompassing. But it’s also not a one-step, transaction-based process. That’s why we created the Continuous Engagement Improvement Process. Because we recognize that through data we were going to get a better understanding each time about how to improve that interaction with that customer regardless which channel we were communicating with them on. We also recognized that social media was going to add an entirely new dimension beyond most of the traditional communication methods, and that social media was going to make it much more complex, particularly when we got to that word “influence” that Forrester uses around customer engagement.

Carrie: So you started to touch upon it, but please tell us a little bit more about the Continuous Engagement Improvement Process that ACCENT has created.

Tim: Well, in many customer engagement processes you have to start with information, and we think that the five-step process that we use starts first with listening. You have to be able to listen to your customers and be able to codify what they are telling you. You have to learn from that, which is our second stage. You have to figure out how you are going to connect with that customer, which is something along the touch points that I mentioned, but in addition to the touch points being in the lifecycle, also those channels. Fourth, you have to make a determination as to where influence is going to make a difference in improving that customer engagement. And finally, you have to look at the economics of your relationship and how you are going to optimize. So our five steps are to listen, learn, connect, influence and optimize. When we’ve done this on behalf of clients we help them understand their customers better but we also increase tremendous efficiency by doing two things: driving new revenue, which is always valuable; but also eliminating the waste and cost of communicating with customers in means that they don’t like. We want to improve that lifetime value and drive that greater return on investment. That’s what we mean by being able to have that kind of engagement with customers. We look at a Customer Return of Engagement^℠, or “CROE”, as our method of measuring that.

Carrie: That sounds great. So why haven’t more companies adopted this idea of customer engagement?

Tim: You know, it’s interesting – it’s become a bit of a term of the day. You’re seeing more being written about customer engagement, but I think as companies are really scratching the surface around this, their challenge comes down to something more structural. Companies are not designed to look at their customers across all lifecycles and all channels, or even by customer segment, in a single place. So consequently, there’s a lot of fiefdoms or silos created in organizations in which budgets are bucketed by either channel, or by time in the lifecycle or by the segment of population being served. So in many ways our own companies, our own businesses, aren’t built effectively for this. This is why it’s so valuable for a company to move to an outside provider, like ACCENT. So we’re in a position to actually move seamlessly across all of the major silos and budgetary groups within an organization to provide a more holistic view of customer engagement

Carrie: Thanks so much Tim, that was wonderful. And to all of you who are listening, thanks so much for joining us today. Please check back to TMCnet in the coming weeks as we talk to Tim again and hear about the first step of the Continuous Engagement Process.

The Customer Engagement Channel is designed for decision makers from service providers to enterprises seeking information about how to engage today’s distracted consumers in real-time conversations across contact center, online and social media channels.  Information provided on the channel addresses issues important to decision makers, including how to profitably acquire, support, retain and grow customers across every lifecycle stage.

Visitors to the Customer Engagement Channel can also find valuable resources such as feature articles, industry news and white papers covering topics like conversion marketing, customer care, social media support, brand loyalty and customer lifetime value.

The Customer Engagement Channel can be found at:                                             http://customer-engagement.tmcnet.com.

“Today, consumers have more power than ever to positively or negatively impact brands and that power grows every day,” commented Kelly Hilton, Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications at ACCENT Marketing Services.  “As the leader in customer engagement, ACCENT is pleased to partner with TMC, the leader of communications and technology media, to create a customer engagement channel exclusively for brands that want to transform their customer service channels into powerful relationship and brand-building tools.”

TMCnet is the leading website for communications and technology professionals, covering VoIP, IP communications, CRM, contact center and information technology topics.  As a full-service news portal, the site provides a multitude of educational platforms, including global online communities, channels, podcasts, webinars, white papers, TMCnet Mobile and more.  It is visited by nearly two million unique monthly visitors and generates more than 40 million page views every month, according to Webtrends.

“TMCnet welcomes ACCENT’s Customer Engagement Channel into our Online Community program,” stated TMC President Dave Rodriguez.  “ACCENT Marketing Services is a well-respected customer engagement leader that shares our vision of advancing new technologies. Our Online Community program is a powerful community-building vehicle assisting our partners in building their brand, while contributing to the vast array of valuable content, which drives traffic to TMCnet, the most visited communications and technology website in the world.”

About ACCENT Marketing Services, LLC

ACCENT, a member of the MDC Partners Network, is the performance marketing company for brands that need to maximize their ability to engage with consumers and influence behavior while generating a better return on their investment.  The company’s data-driven approach transforms customer service touchpoints across voice, online and social media channels into powerful relationship and brand-building tools.   Founded in 1993, ACCENT employs more than 2,000 people across the United States, Jamaica and the Philippines.  For more information, visit www.accentonline.com.

Media Contact:
Kelly Hilton, Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications
Office: 812.206.6215
Email: khilton@accentonline.com

ACCENT Marketing Services Launches Customer Engagement Channel on TMCnet (pdf)

The foremost difference is the focus of the interaction.  For traditional CSRs, the focus is to get the most commerce out of a call in the shortest period of time.  The interaction is short and straight to the point with little to no personal interaction – a bit like a fast food drive-through.  With our Engagement Specialists, the focus has breadth and depth.  The interaction is not just about helping a consumer, or selling a product or service – it’s about really listening to the consumer as an individual, thinking proactively about their needs, learning about what’s important to them, attempting to resolve multiple issues in one interaction, and providing a WOW experience all along the way.  Much more like a luxurious fine dining experience!

Another key difference about our Engagement Specialists is that they are able to leverage multiple communications channels – such as voice, online, social media and chat – to interact with customers.  We are able to meet people where they are, so to speak, versus the typical experience with Customer Service which is primarily a single channel – the phone – and requires dialing through layers and layers of IVR to get to the final destination. And with our Engagement Specialists, we are able to leverage consumer information to inform and enhance the current interaction as well as future interactions.

A third area that differentiates our Engagement Specialist from a traditional CSR is how we recruit, onboard and develop team members.  In many traditional Call Centers, CSR positions are considered an expendable commodity.  Candidates must possess only basic service skills and are hired and trained on a limited range of topics.  For our Engagement Specialists, we look for broader experience, a deeper ability to demonstrate exceptional verbal and written communication, a desire and ability to quickly connect with a consumer, think on their feet, multitask appropriately and the passion to create a great experience.  We select talent with the intent for long term investment in human capital and create a culture that highly values talented people in these roles.

ACCENT believes that Employee Engagement leads to Consumer Engagement, and we invest in creating the same experience for our team members that we ask them to create for our clients’ customers.  A positive and rewarding environment, interactions customized to the individual, dynamic approach to short term and long term needs, and an optimizing approach to the overall experience  – all in all – we LIVE the brand of Engagement every day.

“After an extensive search to find the right individual to lead our IT team and bring the necessary strategies required as we move the business forward, I am happy to welcome Jim to ACCENT,” said CEO Tim Searcy. “Our internal IT systems and operations play a crucial role in the success of our customer engagement solutions for both our clients and their customers. Jim brings deep experience in running global IT solutions, and with his leadership, we look to further grow this area of our business.”

As CIO, Ferrato will help drive ACCENT’s outsourced customer engagement solutions across phone, online and social media channels through the support of business and technical initiatives both within the organization and externally with clients. His responsibilities will also include leading the company’s efforts to establish and implement new and emerging communication channels to transform customer services touchpoints into customer engagement and brand-building opportunities on behalf of ACCENT’s clients.

Prior to joining ACCENT, Ferrato served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Protocol Global Solutions, a provider of business process outsourcing solutions specializing in contact center services. During his time at Protocol, Ferrato had oversight of IT consolidation and integration across five independent operating divisions.  He was responsible for corporate security initiatives, PCI and HIPPA compliance, and delivered over $1 million in annualized savings through telecom consolidation and maintenance contract realignment.

Ferrato’s industry experience also includes time at Aspect Communications, where he was the vice president of worldwide professional services, and a number of roles at Stream International, including vice president and chief information officer.

He received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Rhode Island and his master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from Boston University’s Graduate School of Management.

About ACCENT Marketing Services, LLC

ACCENT, a member of the MDC Partners Network, is the performance marketing company for brands who need to maximize their ability to engage with consumers and influence behavior, while generating a better return on their investment.  The company’s data-driven approach transforms customer service touch points across the phone, online and social media channels into powerful relationship and brand-building tools.   Founded in 1993, ACCENT employs more than 2,500 people across the United States, Jamaica and the Philippines.  For more information, visit www.accentonline.com.

Media Contact:
Kelly Hilton, Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications
Office: 812.206.6215
Email: khilton@accentonline.com

 ACCENT Marketing Names Jim Ferrato as CIO Press Release (pdf)

Employees will sell a variety of loyalty products, including membership and insurance services as well as financial services programs.  ACCENT will immediately begin hiring for 40 customer engagement specialists with plans to add an additional 80 employees over the next three months.  In total, ACCENT will employ 210 people and generate a payroll of approximately $6 million in Monroe once the program is fully launched.

“We are thrilled and honored to have earned this new business and the opportunity to add new talent to our organization,” said Tim Searcy, ACCENT’s CEO. “Our Monroe engagement center has a proven track record of providing outstanding sales support for brands that are passionate about keeping and growing their customers.  Today, we are one step closer to again filling this center to capacity and reestablishing our position as a preferred employer in the Monroe community.”

“Since partnering with ACCENT to assist in the opening of its Monroe location, we have had a positive and beneficial relationship, and I am pleased to see them continue to fulfill their commitment to bring back jobs to this community,” Louisiana State Senator Francis Thompson said.  “I have personally met many of ACCENT’s employees.  They have a great team and are a high-caliber organization. I am sure that’s the same quality of talent they’ll continue to hire.”

“We are excited that ACCENT is creating up to 120 new jobs in Monroe,” said Mayor Jamie Mayo. “The City Council and I were proud to have made the city’s initial investment back in 2007 when ACCENT first opened here. This is another example of how our city is making remarkable progress in job creation and expansion.”

To assist in recruiting and hiring the customer engagement and management positions needed to support the client, ACCENT is partnering with the Louisiana Economic Development Department’s FastStart™ Program. FastStart is a provider of customized employee recruitment, screening, training development, and training delivery for expanding companies in Louisiana.

“We excel at helping a company ramp up its employment quickly,” commented Jeff Lynn, executive director of Louisiana FastStart, which was ranked No. 1 in the U.S. by Business Facilities magazine. “But what really sets us apart is our ability to customize a company’s training needs from a blank slate to a fully prepared, engaged and talented workforce that’s ready to perform from day one. We look forward to helping ACCENT accomplish that goal, just as we have done for dozens of companies in the manufacturing, aerospace, video game development, agribusiness and telecommunications sectors.” Tana Trichel of the Northeast Louisiana Economic Alliance added, “This expansion is one more big win for Northeast Louisiana, a growing economy.”

Newly hired engagement specialists will receive training where they will learn about the client and how to sell its loyalty products and services.  Upon completion of training, engagement specialists will enter Learning Lab, a two-week training course in which they will be moved into a controlled environment and begin taking live calls.

ACCENT is currently seeking employees with at least six months of customer service experience and an aptitude for sales.  Additionally, applicants must be at least 18 years of age and have a high school diploma or equivalent.  Former ACCENT employees who left the company in good standing as well as any applicant who meets the qualifications for the position are encouraged to apply.  All interested applicants can apply through the careers section of ACCENT’s website at www.accentonline.com.  ACCENT will also co-host a job fair with the city of Monroe on Wednesday, Nov. 16 from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. at the Monroe Civic Center.

Opened in 2007, the Monroe center is the only ACCENT facility located in Louisiana and one of nine customer engagement centers worldwide.  This is the second client ACCENT has added to the Monroe facility this year.  In February, ACCENT announced it was hiring 40 employees in Monroe to provide member care on behalf of a leading provider of weight management services.

About ACCENT Marketing Services, LLC

ACCENT, a member of the MDC Partners Network, is the performance marketing company for brands who need to maximize their ability to engage with consumers and influence behavior, while generating a better return on their investment.  The company’s data-driven approach transforms customer service touch points across the phone, online and social media channels into powerful relationship and brand-building tools.   Founded in 1993, ACCENT employs more than 2,500 people across the United States, Jamaica and the Philippines.  For more information, visit www.accentonline.com.

Media Contact:
Kelly M. Hilton , Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications
812.206.6215 – office / khilton@accentonline.com

 ACCENT Marketing Adding 120 New Jobs in Monroe Press Release (pdf)