Customer Interaction Solutions articles from January 2006

Customer Interaction Solutions archives from January 2006

Welcome to the 25th year of leadership and commitment to excellence ... In call centers, CRM centers and customer interaction centers, Part II.(Publisher's Outlook)(Company Profile)
January 1, 2006... In my December 2005 editorial, I covered just a few of the highlights of what has happened since 1982 when this publication laid the foundation for the existing call center, CRM and customer interaction industries. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]...

Deconstructing the call center.(and their forecasts)(Column)
January 1, 2006... From where I stand here at the beginning of 2006, I see a slew of new and existing Web standards slowly being woven together to more tightly cement data flows between disparate vendors such as multiple outsourcers or home agents. Call centers...

The evolution of analytics and call recording.(Verint Systems's CEO Dan Bodner interviewed)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... The Boardroom Report provides the CRM, customer interaction and call center industry's view from the top, featuring the sector's first indepth, exclusive CEO-to-CEO interviews with leading executives regarding industry news, analysis, trends...

CEO Spotlight.(Mercom Inc.'s CEO Avi Margolin interviewed)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... This month, the CEO Spotlight speaks with Mercom's Avi Margolin. Mercom is a provider of interaction recording and performance evaluation solutions, scalable to meet the needs of very large to small organizations. Avi Margolin CEO ...

The TMC Seal of Approval.(2006 Recommended Vendor List)
January 1, 2006... The following Recommended Vendors have distinguished themselves by winning one or more of TMC's coveted awards, earning them the TMC Seal of Approval. CRM/Contact Center Software/Hardware Amae Software Aspect Software ...

Avanade leverages Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... Avanade Inc., a technology integrator for Microsoft enterprise solutions, has announced the availability of its Enterprise CRM solutions for Health Plans, Financial Services and Customer Care, leveraging the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 product....

SugarCRM introduces Sugar Suite 4.0.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... Open-source CRM provider SugarCRM Inc. recently announced the beta release of its Sugar Suite Version 4.0. Sugar Suite 4.0 introduces new functionality such as advanced reporting and customizable dashboards, campaign management, workflow...

Siebel and BEA Systems Announce joint solution.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... Siebel Systems, Inc. and BEA Systems, Inc., a provider of enterprise infrastructure software, recently announced the general availability of Siebel Component Assembly for J2EE-based BEA WebLogic Server 9.0. The combined offering is designed to...

Sigma Dynamics announces new applications.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... Sigma Dynamics has announced four new applications designed to bridge the operational and analytical worlds of CRM: Strategic Routing Analytics, Predictive Cross-Sell, Real-Time Customer Satisfaction and Six Sigma Customer Process Management....

PAR3 acquires EnvoyWorldWide.(PAR3 Communications Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... PAR3 Communications, Inc., a provider of enterprise customer communication solutions, announced recently its acquisition of EnvoyWorldWide, a provider of high-availability notification services for business continuity and emergency...

Alliance Systems selects Smart Catalog.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Alliance Systems, Ltd., a provider of communications and computing infrastructure solutions, and Endeavor Commerce, the developer of Smart Catalog, recently announced Alliance Systems' selection of Smart Catalog. Smart Catalog is a tool that...

IEX introduces TotalView InSight Performance Manager.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... IEX Corporation, a Tekelec company, recently introduced the TotalView InSight Performance Manager. Advanced features were designed to improve performance by providing contact centers with a unified view of operational metrics, helping everyone...

OutStart in Learning Management Systems Magic Quadrant.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... OutStart, a provider of software solutions for learning and knowledge-sharing, has announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the visionary quadrant in the "Magic Quadrant for Learning Management Systems report". According to the...

Study shows Americans are most impatient customers.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Preliminary research from Dimension Data's annual worldwide contact center survey shows that Americans are impatient when waiting in queue and are quicker to abandon calls than consumers throughout the rest of world. More than 360 contact...

Acxiom hires privacy officer.(Jennifer Barrett)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... As part of its continuing efforts at protecting data privacy and security, Acxiom Corporation has made several significant leadership appointments, with Chief Privacy Officer Jennifer Barrett being named Global Privacy Officer. Other privacy...

e-Glue Business Technologies announces e-Glue Direct for Quality.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... e-Glue Business Technologies, a provider of real-time adaptive solutions for customer interaction, has announced the release of e-Glue Direct for Quality, a new solution designed to deliver improvements in the quality of customer service by...

Nuasis launches IP migration incentive plan.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Nuasis has revealed that it will migrate call centers currently using outdated Aspect, Nortel, Avaya or Cisco ACD systems and apply $1,000 per agent license to the purchase of a Nuasis NuContact Center. For companies that require a multiple...

New EasyRun release unveils Universal Queuing.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... Easyrun, a provider of contact center solutions and CTI integration, recently announced a new Universal Queuing feature as part of its new EPICCenter release, in addition to other enhancements at every level and in every aspect of the solution....

Data Collection Resources upgrades CEMS.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Data Collection Resources, a provider of affordable quality monitoring, call center recording and e-learning management solutions for call centers in North America, has announced the general availability of its CEMS Release 5.2. CEMS 5.2 offers...

Avidian Technologies announces Prophet 3.0.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... Avidian Technologies recently announced the launch of Prophet 3.0, the newest version of its Outlook-based sales software solution. Avidian also announced that Prophet will be available for the first time for enterprises with Prophet Enterprise...

inQ's live chat turns online visitors into qualified sales leads.(Customer Inter@ction NEWS)
January 1, 2006... inQ, an online marketing company utilizing live chat to put salespeople on the Web, has announced the addition of leadQ to their live chat marketing solutions for businesses. leadQ is a lead generation solution that can be used to qualify site...

IP contact center technology: eliminating the risks (Part XI); Achieving multisite efficiencies.(INNOVATIVE IDEAS FROM THE NEXT-GEN CONTACT CENTER EXPERTS)
January 1, 2006... IP contact center technology provides multisite organizations with the opportunity to gain economies of scale in their technology investments by replacing dedicated site-specific systems at different locations with solutions that can be shared...

Is on-demand CRM right for your customer service organization?(CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT)(Company Profile)
January 1, 2006... Outsourcing all aspects of a customer service operation continues to be a growing trend. More than 15 percent of all service centers are outsourced today, up from 10 percent just a few years ago. It seems that every aspect of the operation is...

Agent self-service: take control of your destiny.(WORKFORCE OPTIMIZATION)
January 1, 2006... It's not enough to simply say that a company can attract employees by providing them with the tools they need to do their jobs. Increasingly, employees expect to be given the tools they need to manage their careers as well, using the...

Virtual Realty: the virtual call center for branch office organizations.(CONTACT CENTER TECHNOLOGY)
January 1, 2006... Many organizations thrive by having both the critical mass of a very large national or global entity and the physical presence and customer relationship potential of a small local business. Banks, insurance companies and real estate companies...

Reach 690,000 communications professionals each month with the world's leading communications & technology site!(ranking of websites according to the internet traffic)
January 1, 2006... www.TMCnet.com TMCnet Traffic Analysis Note: Alexa.com ranks Web sites to their proximity to being #1. The lower the number, the higher the ranking and therefore the greater the traffic. Yahoo!, the world's busiest Web site, is ranked...

2005 product of the Year awards.(MANAGEMENT SCOPE)
January 1, 2006... 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. Listed here are products and services that...

Moving to IP telephony in the contact center.(IP CONTACT CENTERS)
January 1, 2006... Thorough preparation--and some good advice--will deliver huge benefits and help prevent common challenges when deploying IP-based contact centers. Internet telephony (IP)-based telephony is fast becoming the standard for many service...

Metaphor Solutions and XO Interactive forge reseller agreement.(SPEECH-WORLD[TM])(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Metaphor Solutions and XO Interactive (XOI) have announced a reseller agreement for XOI to deploy Metaphor's speech IVR applications on XOI's hosting infrastructure. The partnership enables XOI to offer all 30 packaged and configurable Metaphor...

Loquendo releases ASR 7.0 solution.(SPEECH-WORLD[TM])
January 1, 2006... Speech technology provider Loquendo has announced the release of its Loquendo ASR 7.0 product. The new release for Loquendo Automatic Speech Recognition offers new features and, according to the company, represents a significant step forward in...

Roland Barthes.(SPEECH-WORLD[TM])
January 1, 2006... "Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive." --Roland Barthes (1915-1980), French semiologist

WOZ (Wizard of Oz) testing.(call centers using new speech applications)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... The process of creating a mockup of a new speech application and then listening live to callers' interaction with the system for the purpose of usability testing. The Wizard of Oz reference comes from the fact that the user is unaware he or she...

Synchrony.(TMC[TM] LABS)
January 1, 2006... Synchrony Cincom Systems, Inc. 55 Merchant St. Cincinnati, OH 45246 Ph: 800-2CINCOM Web: www.cincom.com With technology constantly changing and new communications methods being created, companies are yearning for...

The inbound New Year, and a New Year of inbound.(call centers and their technology)(Column)
January 1, 2006... Despite the fact that this column is appearing in the January issue of this magazine, I'm writing it on December 21st, the old-fashioned festival of Yule, or Midwinter, which marks the winter solstice. This time of year always seems to lead...