FurstPerson and Vonage to Highlight Impact of Hiring on Customer Experience

CHICAGO, April 6 /PRNewswire/ -- FurstPerson, a Chicago-based company that provides pre-employment hiring solutions to the contact center industry, announced today that its upcoming Webinar, "The First Step Toward Improving the Customer Experience:  Recruiting and Hiring the Right Agents," will feature Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE: VG) Vice President of Customer Experience Mike Trotter, who will share his experience in hiring for the right competencies. He will be joined by FurstPerson's President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jeff Furst. The free 60-minute Webinar will be moderated by noted industry expert Keith Dawson, a principal analyst in the information and communication technologies practice of Frost & Sullivan.  It will be held on Thurs., April 8 at 2:00 P.M. ET/11:00 A.M. PT.

The discussion will outline how hiring in contact centers will become the strategic equivalent of technology and operational leadership in the past.  Those interested in workforce management; agent hiring, training and retention; and, improving the quality of customer service will find this seminar invaluable.  Specifically, attendees will learn:

• Methods to link key business goals back to the hiring process;
• How candidate competencies can make or break the customer experience; and,
• Ways to quantify the hiring process within the customer experience.

"The contact center is the most common channel for your customer to experience your brand," said Dawson.  "In the past, hiring in the contact center has been tactical, where success was measured against the center's internal call metrics.  In today's social environment – where word of mouth about your organization can spread virally – it's even more critical to align metrics to the business goal of elevating the customer experience and achieve that by strategically bringing on the best talent to meet that objective."

"Customer service begins with hiring the right employees in the first place to enhance your customers' experience," said Furst.  "In the ultra competitive telecom industry, customer experience can serve as a point of differentiation.  Vonage is a prime example of a company that has realized its business and operational goals of improving the customer experience using FurstPerson technology in its contact center."

To learn more about the event and register, click here.  

About Vonage

Vonage is a leading provider of high-quality voice and messaging services over broadband networks. Our award winning technology serves approximately 2.4 million subscribers. We provide feature-rich, affordable communication solutions that offer flexibility, portability and ease-of-use.

Our Vonage World plan offers free unlimited calling to landline phones in all cities and locations in more than 60 countries with popular features like call waiting, call forwarding and voicemail - for one low, flat monthly rate.

Vonage's service is sold on the web and through regional and national retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and is available to customers in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. For more information about Vonage's products and services, please visit http://www.vonage.com.

Vonage Holdings Corp. is headquartered in Holmdel, New Jersey. Vonage(R) is a registered trademark of Vonage Marketing Inc., a subsidiary of Vonage Holdings Corp.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com

About FurstPerson, Inc.

FurstPerson operates a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) contact center hiring system called 1stHire that is used in over 600 locations across North America, Europe, and Asia. FurstPerson's contact center solution includes contact center simulations, problem solving tests, personality tests, and analytics that are all integrated into a hiring solution that enables contact center hiring managers to reduce contact center turnover and hire individuals that perform better on the job.  For more information, visit http://www.furstperson.com.

SOURCE FurstPerson, Inc.