Customer Interaction Solutions articles from January 2003

Customer Interaction Solutions archives from January 2003

The state of the industry: time to look at the crystal ball. (Publisher's Outlook).(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2003... As we begin a new year, it's time to asses the state of the industry by asking the following questions: * Is the contact center at a crossroads? * Where's the industry now? * What lies ahead? * What will grow and how fast? ...

Long live outbound calling! (Publisher's Outlook).(telemarketing)(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2003... The great news about the United States is that there are 280 million red-blooded, live consumers for every product or service we sell. The bad news is there are only 280 million consumers. You can bet that each one of these consumers has met up...

O baggage, where art thou? (High Priority!).
January 1, 2003... Dear Airline Executive: I heard you had another round of layoffs recently and I viewed the news with mixed emotions. Nothing is worse than leaving people without jobs. I hope that in your infinite wisdom, you were able to layoff the people...

Microsoft CRM. (Technology Highlights).
January 1, 2003... In the days of old, CRM (or customer relationship management, for the benefit of anyone who has been living on Mars for the last four years), used to be a luxury enjoyed only by the behemoths of the Fortune 500. For mid-market companies, the...

digiMine announces Customer Segment Manager. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... digiMine, Inc., a provider of data mining and analytic solutions for business users, has announced its new product, Customer Segment Manager. Customer Segment Manager is an analytics solution designed to enable marketers to define specific...

Phasient Learning announces Accent Reduction. (New Products).(an e-learning course)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Phasient Learning Technologies and Telemarketing Institute, Inc. has announced the availability of Accent Reduction, an e-learning course designed to reduce the accents of customer service representatives and others who speak accented English....

edocs launches eaCare for customer self-service. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... edocs, Inc., a provider of online account management and e.billing solutions, has announced the introduction of eaCare, the company's new platform for enabling customer self-service, With eaCare, edocs can help enable companies to deliver...

Concerto launches EnsemblePro 5.0. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Concerto Software, Inc., a provider of customer interaction management (CIM) solutions, recently launched EnsemblePro 5.0. EnsemblePro was architected to incorporate the functionality required by multimedia contact centers -- including ACD,...

Epicor enhances e by Epicor. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Epicor Software Corporation has announced feature enhancements to the latest release of its e by Epicor suite of integrated financials, distribution, customer relationship management, business intelligence and e-commerce applications for...

LumenVox launches Speech Recognition Engine for Linux. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Lumen Vox recently announced its new Speech Recognition Engine (SRE) v3.0 for Linux, continuing its multi-platform support of advanced speech recognition technology. The latest Linux version supports RedHar Linux versions 7.2 and later. SRE...

Rockwell FirstPoint Contact introduces IP Program. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Rockwell FirstPoint Contact Corporation, a provider of call center and contact center solutions, has announced the introduction of its Seamless IP Program, which was launched to reinforce the company's VoIP solution strategy. Seamless IP...

Parlance includes additional functionality in NameConnector. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Parlance Corporation, which provides a speech-activated interface for voice networks, has announced the enhancement of its standard NameConnector Service offering. Web-based administration tools enable selected users to add, modify or delete...

Left Bank Solutions launches workforce optimization system. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Left Bank Solutions, a provider of workforce management solutions, recently launched its Monet Workforce Management System, which was designed to optimize the workforce resources and performance processes of small and medium-sized contact...

Kanisa announces acquisition of Quiq Inc. (Happenings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Kanisa has formally announced the acquisition of Quiq, a provider of software designed to help harness the knowledge of user communities to augment technical support. The acquisition was intended to join together two players in knowledge-driven...

Rockwell FirstPoint Contact commits to China operations. (Happenings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Rockwell FirstPoint Contact has formally announced an expansion of its operations in China. It also signed an agreement with Digital China, an IT services provider and systems integrator, to act as a master agent for its business in the China...

RightNow integrates with Siebel. (Happenings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... RightNow Technologies Inc., a provider of e-service solutions, is offering Siebel software users a fixed-scope integration solution for adding multichannel e-service capabilities to their current enterprise CRM systems. The two companies feel...

360d Analytics announces new partner program. (Happenings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... 360d Analytics, a customer and agent analytics provider, recently began offering a new partner program for select contact centers and CRM consultants. Under the program, 360d partners will be able to provide its customer with advanced...

BroadSoft and Integral Access partner. (Happenings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... BroadSoft, Inc., a provider of voice applications and servers, and Integral Access, Inc., a provider of IP access networks, has announced the successful completion of interoperability testing between BroadSoft's BroadWorks solution and Integral...

Interactive Intelligence offers Interaction Supervisor. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Interactive Intelligence has designed its new Interaction Supervisor to help managers, system administrators and contact center supervisors more easily monitor real-time events and interaction statistics in order to help increase productivity,...

NetLert releases N-Contact. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... NetLert Communications Inc. (NCI) has announced the release of NetLert N-Contact vl.0, a new product designed to complement the company's suite of call and contact center communication solutions. N-Contact was developed to provide companies a...

Aculab releases latest text-to-speech software. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Aculab, a provider of enabling technology for the communications market, will unveil the latest version of its host-based text-to-speech (TTS) software. Now supporting the W3C standard speech synthesis mark-up language (SSML) as well as...

FrontRange Solutions announces new version of GoldMine. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... FrontRange Solutions Inc., a player in the customer relationship management (CRM) and customer service and support software market, has announced the release of GoldMine 6.0 Business Contact Manager, a contact management solution for small to...

SAP delivers Internet-based e-recruiting. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... SAP AG recently announced the delivery of automated, Internet-based e-recruiting capabilities in its human resources solution mySAP Human Resources (mySAP HR). mySAP HR E-Recruiting is comprised of three key features -- talent warehouse,...

Unimax and Vitel Software form strategic marketing agreement. (Happenings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Unimax, a provider of change management software for enterprise voice communication networks, and Vitel Software, a provider of performance management solutions for disparate telecommunications systems, have announced they have entered into a...

Aspect and Aliant Telecom expand relationship. (Happenings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Aspect Communications Corporation, a provider of business communications solutions, and Aliant Telecom announced they are expanding their agreement to market, deploy and support contact center solutions based on Aspect's voice-over-IP (VoIP)...

2B Technologies announces strategic development alliance with Sytel. (Happenings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... 2B Technologies, a provider of contact center technology, has announced the signing of a strategic development alliance with Sytel Limited, UK. The alliance was forged to allow 2B Technologies to deliver predictive dialing functionality to the...

Nortel and Stratus announce Symposium update. (Happenings).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Nortel Networks and Stratus Technologies recently announced global availability of the Nortel Networks Symposium Call Center Server Release 4.2 on Stratus Technologies' ftServer portfolio. Designed to provide constant uptime and improved...

NEC announces NEAX IPS-DM. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... NEC America, Inc. (NEC), a provider of communications products, solutions and services, has announced the availability of the NEAX Internet Protocol Server Distributed Model (IPS-DM). Part of NEC'S convergence solution, it was designed to allow...

Nortel Networks unveils new converged IP telephony products. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Nortel Networks recently announced the company's enterprise strategy to deliver end-to-end voice, data, multimedia and converged Internet Protocol (IP) solutions that were designed to enable businesses of all sizes to drive increased revenues,...

Correction.(Brief Article)(Correction Notice)
January 1, 2003... In the December edition, the 2003 Buyer's Guide, the enhanced listing for ASA Solutions was inadvertently omitted, If you are looking for consulting, systems integration or to add an IVR or speech recognition solution to your contact center, be...

Exstream Software announces version 3.5 of Dialogue software. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Exstream Software has announced the general availability of version 3.5 of its Dialogue software for personalized document creation across the enterprise. Version 3.5 enhancements include two new modules -- Enterprise Workflow, which allows...

Synergex introduces new analytic application. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Synergex has announced the release of its new graphical analytics subscription service, Synergy/VisualSmart, for independent beta testing. A three-dimensional analytical application, this version of VisualSmart was designed to work with data...

Performix debuts Emvolve Real Time. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Performix Technologies, a provider of enterprise performance management software, recently announced the launch of Emvolve Real Time, the company's new solution for delivering performance information in real time directly to the desktops of...

emailtopia announces latest version of e-mail management software. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... emailtopia, a provider of e-mail management software, has announced the launch of Response Manager 3.2. Response Manager is an intelligent, server-based e-mail management tool that integrates with standard e-mail clients, and is used to route,...

NetByTel adds features to its voice recognition phone solutions. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... NetByTel, a provider of voice-enabled, phone-based self-service, recently announced enhancements to OpenVoice 3.0 designed to give enterprise and government clients a choice of ways to help reduce operational costs, drive incremental revenue...

Bay Bridge Decision Technologies introduces CenterBridge 2.5. (New Products).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Bay Bridge Decision Technologies has announced the release of Version 2.5 of CenterBridge. CenterBridge is an enterprise-class forecasting, resource planning, budgeting and analysis system for large or multisite inbound customer contact...

CRM applications: licensed or hosted which is better for you? (Customer Relationship Management).(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2003... Customer relationship management (CRM), with an emphasis on customer service, is crucial to business sustenance, especially in today's economy in which companies are increasingly relying on business from their existing customer base. When it...

Outsourced CRM: keep the strategy, lose the infrastructure. (Outsourcing).(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2003... In the past several years, CRM has become one of the most promising, compelling and confusing concepts. CRM -- which on a high level encompasses the thorough understanding of customers, how to interact with them, how to make that process more...

Separating myth from reality: how outsourcing can improve ROI and lead to greater profitability. (Outsourcing).(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2003... Outsourcing is a business practice that is often too easily dismissed because of long-held mis-perceptions. We often hear that "it's more expensive to outsource" or that "customer management is too strategic to be handled by a third party."...

Customer Inter@ction Solutions' 2002 Product of the Year Awards. (Call Center/CRM Management Scope).(Buyers Guide)
January 1, 2003... Each year, Customer Inter@ction Solutions[R] magazine bestows its Product of the Year awards on companies that have demonstrated excellence in technological advancement and application refinements. These are products and services that have gone...

TMC Labs review. (TMC Labs).
January 1, 2003... Downtime is a very costly factor that is often overlooked by businesses, Even if downtime is considered, sometimes the optimal solution to minimize downtime is not deployed. For organizations that depend on technology for their business,...

Missouri: touring call centers in Mid-America. (RE: Locations).
January 1, 2003... In a past article on call center site selection strategies, I wrote about the "Small Town Call Center Strategy" in which I extolled the virtues of rural America. These are areas with a population of less than 50,000 that unfortunately do not...

Glasgow: The location for a twenty-first century contact center. (RE: Locations).
January 1, 2003... This past autumn, I, as Customer Inter@ction So1utions[R]' roving editor-on-the-spot (a self-anointed title, but I like it), had the unique experience of visiting Glasgow, Scotland, with the intent of looking at the city as a European call...

Ask Dr. Jon. (The Purdue Page).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Dr. Jon Anton (also known as "Dr. Jon") is the Director of Benchmark Research at Purdue University Center for Customer-Driven Quality. Have a Question? E-mail him at DrJonAnton@BenchmarkPortal.com. Q: Do you know current figures on...

Research highlights from Purdue University. (The Purdue Page).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Top Bar Chart Question: In your most recent experience in calling for customer service assistance, how did the telephone agent do in satisfying your needs and handling your call? Finding: he chart shows responses to whether the caller felt...