A Daly City, California-based capital recruiting and hiring firm for call centers has selected an Orlando-based unified communications and self-service platforms provider to enhance its hiring solutions using the firm’s hosted Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service.

 

Evolv On-Demand is using Voxeo Corp.’s IVR platform to speed up the agent hiring process for call centers, the companies announced today. Evolv helps companies identify and hire better agents who will stay longer, be more productive and provide outstanding customer service.

 

Plagued by time-consuming phone interviews when reviewing applicants, Evolv sought a solution that would help the company be more efficient. The firm tested Voxeo's IVR platform with its automated Web-based application and screening process and found Voxeo’s (News - Alert) automated outbound calling solution helps reduce time spent handling candidate calls.

 

"A significant part of Evolv's value is delivered by ushering the best call center applicants quickly and intelligently through the hiring process," said Max Simkoff, CEO of Evolv, in a statement. "After a thorough evaluation, we found that Voxeo was the ideal partner in allowing us to take this a step further by automating a traditionally manual and time-consuming step in call center hiring: phone screening."

 

Under the new system, candidates go through a position-specific, pre-hire assessment online, after which Voxeo will trigger an outbound call for the candidate. After the applicant answers a series of questions regarding motivation, skills and work style, recorded responses are made available within seconds for recruiters or hiring managers to review.

 

The technology helps Evolv fast-track highly-qualified applicants through the hiring process. What’s more, it helps Evolv reduces the time spent evaluating candidates, particularly ones that aren’t a good fit.

 

 “Evolv has developed a thought-leading approach to call center recruiting and hiring and we look forward to contributing to their continued growth," said John Amein, senior vice president of strategic partnerships at Voxeo, in a statement.

 

Evolv’s sourcing, selection and hiring solutions have helped call center organizations reduce agent turnover by 15 percent, boost hourly agent productivity by 20 percent and cut cost-per-hire by 35percent, the company said.

 

Previously, Evolv offered a toll-free number that applicants were asked to call to complete their application. But that IVR system was difficult to program and configure, and was often unreliable, the company said.

 

Despite the slow economy, Voxeo has expanded its solutions in recent months. As TMC (News - Alert) reported, the company acquired VoiceObjects, a Germany-based group with a U.S. subsidiary in San Mateo, California, last December. That firm helps enterprises and large carriers create and deploy applications for the phone, especially larger, more complex applications.

 

In other news, Voxeo recently broadened its communication efforts and acquired Sacramento, California-based IMified, a company that makes software for instant-messaging applications. According to TMC, Voxeo can build an enhanced instant-message response system into its platform and design its own communications applications for customer service use.