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IT IS NOT UNCOMMON FOR HUGO PELAYO TO GET A MESSAGE telling him and his call center to be ready for 25,000 phone calls coming in an hour or so, the result of a customer running a TV ad for a new credit card promotion. But as CEO of CRM Mexicana, the fastest-growing outsourced call center provider in Latin America, Pelayo is not worried by such demands.

“Our AltiGen IP phone system will handle it,” Pelayo says with confidence. “If we need to make some quick adjustments or system changes, we can usually take care of them on our own. The system is ultraflexible, which means we can service our customers more effectively than anyone else.”

CRM Mexicana has grown dramatically in the past three years, which not coincidentally is as
long as the company has been using AltiGen’s Call Center solution. After starting in 2003 with its first AltiGen system for just 50 call center agents, CRM Mexicana will grow to more than 2,000 agents by the end of this year, operating in Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela. The common thread throughout that growth has been corresponding growth of CRM Mexicana’s AltiGen systems.

“Their growth was definitely being limited by a proprietary Siemens phone system they had in 2003,” recalls Antonio Trevino, CEO of iFone, AltiGen’s distributor in Latin America. “Even small changes could take days, and customers just weren’t willing to wait that long.”

A SMOOTH TRANSITION
Pelayo’s main concern with switching to AltiGen was whether his fledgling call center would be shut down for a prolonged period during the system cutover in a business that is inherently 24/7 in nature. The transition was completed with CRM Mexicana’s call center agents up and running on the AltiGen phone system in one weekend day. “We got the AltiGen system installed and running so quickly because it is so versatile and so easy to implement,” Pelayo says.

“This was a huge cost savings to us because we did not need to rent another office facility where our agents could work, and then move everyone back into the office after the system was installed.”

That was just the beginning. Soon word spread among credit card companies and other call center–centric businesses that CRM Mexicana was able to accommodate changes with the peerless flexibility that IP-based phone systems offer. The number of agents needed by CRM Mexicana grew almost geometrically, and additional AltiGen phone systems were added methodically and steadily to support this growth.

“That’s one of AltiGen’s most impressive features, namely its scalability,” says iFone’s Trevino. “With CRM Mexicana expanding throughout the region, AltiGen’s phone systems have the same proven ease of management and ease of use in all the markets where they are deployed.”

Meanwhile, CRM Mexicana has grown from a small firm of 50 call center agents to being the largest call center for servicing credit card requests in all of Latin America.

“AltiGen has been a huge part of our growth,” Pelayo concludes. “Self-management, scalability, and VoIP capabilities have all added to our success.”