Google Data

Posted by Adam Varga, lead engineer at Datalot

Editor's note: Our guest blogger is Adam Varga, lead engineer at Datalot, an online customer acquisition platform. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Customers like hearing a human voice on the other end of the phone line, not a distant, automated recording. At Datalot, we provide cloud-based call centers so that our client's potential customers always encounter a real person when they have a question, need help and make a phone call. We help companies in all lines of business, from health insurance to home improvement, find and connect with their customers because person-to-person interactions are a key ingredient in customer acquisition.
We built our first call centers using Windows computers, but that setup created headaches. I constantly had to adjust settings, restart machines or delete drivers that slowed down the call center computers. I felt like I was spending all my time troubleshooting Windows when I really wanted to focus on developing the software that would make our call centers more efficient. I needed to find a new approach.

Chromebooks were just the ticket. They’re simple for us to set up from anywhere and easy for call center agents to use. The Chrome management console allows for no touch deployment. It lets us lock down user permissions, set up the agent login page as a default homepage, monitor usage, and set the apps and extensions we want our agents to use. Standardizing on a single browser, Chrome, which powers Chromebooks also eliminates any app/browser compatibility surprises.

IT doesn’t need to worry about major problems slowing us down. Google ships the machines to the call center location and we set them up from our Brooklyn headquarters. It takes us very little time to establish a working call center anywhere.

The frequency and quality of Chrome OS updates also make it easy for us to focus on our clients, not our hardware. It’s especially crucial that these OS updates are sent to our machines automatically, so I don’t have to dial up the call center and tell agents to click the “update” button myself.

We’ve just touched the surface of what’s possible with Chromebooks. In the near future, we’ll leverage the User Management API to provide single sign-on for our agents and we hope to power entire call centers using only a Chrome extension. Chromebooks let us get our call centers up-and-running fast, so we know the human element that’s so important to our business isn’t getting lost because of IT issues. We can focus on building out our services and growing the company, and let Chromebooks handle the rest.