What does it take for call center success? A variety of factors, of course.

As with any industry, a specific set of criteria must be present in a community for a call center facility to operate efficiently and profitably.

Key assets critical to a call center’s operational health include such things as an ample and educated work force, employee training options, the proper facility, supportive telecommunications infrastructure and affordable operating costs.

Another important part of this equation is energy. Many call centers run on a round-the-clock basis, and this translates into a non-negotiable need for sufficient energy sources, and perhaps more importantly, reliable energy.

Utility companies are typically important partners when it comes to siting call center projects.

Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) is one utility that has extensive experience in dealing with call centers, and it has the track record to prove it knows what it’s doing.

This heartland utility company has a variety of ways in which it assists companies looking to set up a call center. In fact, NPPD has assisted with the location of six call center projects in Nebraska during the past two years.

“NPPD keeps a good database for buildings and locates them on www.callcentersites.com,” said Mary Plettner, an economic development consultant with NPPD. “We attend the call center trade shows to promote Nebraska. And when a Nebraska community says ‘we want a call center,’ we help them get ready.

“That could mean helping them by doing mock prospect visits or advising them on how to remodel existing buildings to make them attractive to call centers. For example, making sure the building has good lighting or separate security entrances can help them get closer to a doable deal,” Plettner said.

Plettner said that many call centers these days are especially drawn to rural areas, and that is part of Nebraska’s appeal to these companies.

An example is national insurance company Ameritas, which put its call center for dental claims in Wayne, Neb., population 5,000.

“Many companies are expanding to rural areas because the work ethic is wonderful, the people are dedicated and they don’t job-hop,” Plettner said. “We are told by companies that their Nebraska call centers are their highest performing sites in the world.”

Progress Energy Establishes New Call Center

While it may be common to hear about call center operations for a variety of industries, it’s not always so common to hear about a utility company setting up its own call center.

But utility companies, like any business, must be equipped to field a slew of phone calls from customers.

For Progress Energy Florida, a call center must be especially effective since it must deal with customers calling in with issues ranging from line problems to natural disaster emergencies.

Storm readiness was a major reason behind Progress Energy Florida’s recent establishment of a new 70,000 square foot customer service center in Pinellas County, Fla.

“During the past two years, we have been investing resources to better serve our Florida customers,” said Bill Habermeyer, president and CEO of Progress Energy Florida. “During hurricanes, major storms or other outages, this new customer service center improves the company’s storm readiness and becomes a critical element of Progress Energy’s customer service response.”

So what type of energy back up system does a utility company require?

“Our Bayside call center is supported by a 1,000 KW generator, which will permit us to maintain normal business operations for up to 48 hours,” said Aaron Perlut, a spokesman for Progress Energy. “Progress Energy has three customer service centers (Lake Mary, Fla., and Raleigh, N.C.) that provide redundancy to our system.”

Other features designed to help the facility “weather the weather” include newer construction methods and special window coatings.

“The new facility that we selected is much more storm-hardy than our old facility, largely in part because of the more stringent construction standards in the mid-1990s vs. the 1960s,” Perlmut said. “All of our customer service personnel in Pinellas County are centralized in our new facility. We’ve also added hurricane-resistant window coatings and have 24-hour-a-day on-site security.”

As with most new facility projects, work force issues were also of utmost concern.

“We chose a centralized location in Pinellas for our employees’ commute to work and not too far from our old facility that served us for many years,” Perlmut said. “Our new location helps us attract future employees from all areas of the immediate counties we serve as it is centrally located.”

Progress Energy Florida is a subsidiary of Progress Energy and is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Fla. The company serves more than 1.5 million customers in the Sunshine State.

Raleigh, N.C.-based parent company Progress Energy also provides services to customers in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Utility Infrastructure Key For Dell

Affordable utility rates and telecom infrastructure were instrumental in securing Dell’s customer contact center in Southern Idaho in 2002.

The computer company opened its Mountain Time Zone facility in Twin Falls, Idaho, in February 2002, after a speedy and unprecedented 10-week crunch to get the deal together.

About 200 people were initially employed, and three weeks after opening, the company announced an expansion that added 200 more people. Three months later, it again expanded, adding 125 people.

Today, the Twin Falls technical support center is home to more than 630 employees, and the operation is again being upgraded to facilitate further growth.

Dell’s phenomenal success first began upon discovering the right real estate coupled with advantageous infrastructure.

Utility reliability was a huge factor for the company once it found a former Albertson’s grocery store site.

“While Dell was curious about the estimated cost of annual power usage at the building where they would locate, they were very interested in the reliability of the electrical feeder line that would provide them with power,” said Dan Olmstead, community relations manager for the Southern Idaho region with Idaho Power, a subsidiary of IDCORP Inc. “Idaho Power supplied them with records of the few outages over at least one year on that feeder line, along with explanations about the causes of the outages. Dell was pleased to see not only very few outages, but that all of them were caused by situations beyond Idaho Power’s control (i.e., car hitting a power pole, etc.).”

Not only did Dell require impressive electrical reliability, it needed high-speed telecom infrastructure as well.

Jay Larsen, Idaho manager for business enterprise with Qwest Communications, explained the importance of redundant fiber paths for Dell.

“Once they located the perfect location for this facility, Dell had to make sure there were redundant fiber paths available near this facility,” Larsen said. “Fortunately, Qwest had three fiber routes, or rings, already in existence in Twin Falls that Dell could tap into. Even better, the main fiber path was just a few hundred yards away, making hook-up to their building quite simple.”

In simplest terms, redundant fiber paths give businesses a seamless backup communications system should one system go down, which customers are never even aware of.

“Call centers can’t afford the significant business losses if a fiber path should fail,” Larsen said. “We have built a self-healing fiber network all throughout Idaho to make sure our customers never have a cease in service.”