Customer Interaction Solutions articles from July 2008

Customer Interaction Solutions archives from July 2008

Our 27th anniversary.(Publisher's Outlook)(Column)
July 1, 2008... This month we celebrate the 27th anniversary of the launch of this publication, which started with the June/July issue of 1982. In a pioneering act, this publication began with a title, Telemarketing [R] magazine in 1982 with the tagline, "The...

Ten years of contact center history.(High Priority)
July 1, 2008... Back in the early 1980's, TMC decided to launch Customer Interaction Solutions and--as some of you may remember--in 1982 when it debuted it was called Telemarketing magazine. The terms call center, contact center, etc. did not exist at that...

Beyond cookie cutter-work-station cluster design.(ONLINE EXCLUSIVES)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... In the call center, workstations play an integral role in the productivity of both agents and supervisors. Call center furniture must not only be designed for comfort but also in a way that fosters communications and collaboration. The cluster...

Is The SAAS market as bad as Larry Ellison says?(ONLINE EXCLUSIVES)(Software-as-a-Service)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... In an earnings call last week, Oracle founder Larry Ellison dissed the SaaS industry, calling it a laggard that isn't really living up to the hype. "If you look at the leader, Salesforce. com, they don't make very much money and they've been at...

Levi Strauss relies on VoSKY Exchange to create unified environment.(ONLINE EXCLUSIVES)
July 1, 2008... Multinational organizations face an ongoing challenge of fostering a unified environment between dispersed offices. To implement an effective solution that also adhered to budget constraints, Levi Strauss & Co. turned to VoSKY Exchange. A...

"Consider the evidence carefully ...".(On The Line)
July 1, 2008... In summation in nearly every courtroom drama, an attorney will ask the jury to weigh the evidence and deliver a verdict. Regularly in Washington, D.C. and in state houses all over the country, the teleservices industry asks policy makers to do...

FTC conducts largest-ever telemarketing fraud sweep.(www.tmcnet.com/2138.1)
July 1, 2008... The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) nabbed 13 allegedly deceptive telemarketing operations encompassing more than 180 US and Canadian cases thanks to Operation Tele-PHONEY, the largest telemarketing fraud sweep ever coordinated by the agency....

U.S poised as strongest location.(www.tmcnet.com/2139.1)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... While offshore locations continue to generate the most new contact center employment it is the United States that appears to have the most potential. Site selection consultancy Site Selection Group (SSG) reported in May that the vast majority...

Convergys wins five-year contract.(www.tmcnet.com/2140.1)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Convergys has signed a new five-year $50 million contract with an unnamed multinational automobile finance company to provide it with customer management solutions. The client, who serves millions of drivers, needed a customer service provider...

Customers in Romania? have them speak to 'Carmen.(www.tmcnet.com/2141.1)
July 1, 2008... There is now help available at any time day or night for busy contact centers serving the growing Romanian market. 'Her' name is Carmen. 'She' is the first high quality synthetic Romanian-language voice and 'works' in IVONA Telecom speech...

Disconnect between C-level executives and contact center pros.(www.tmcnet.com/2142.1)
July 1, 2008... A study by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories revealed that customer care professionals and executives overwhelmingly agree that customer service impacts the company's brand identity, yet very few believe that their customer service acts...

ASC to intro products tailored for Genesys.(WWW.tmcnet.com/2136.1)
July 1, 2008... ASC, which provides communications recording and monitoring solutions, has introduced new version of its communications recording solution MARATHON EVOLUTION 8.0 and its monitoring solution INSPIRATION pro 8.0. Both products are specifically...

Foxgate expands Philippines operations.(WWW.tmcnet.com/21343.1)
July 1, 2008... Teleservices firm Foxgate Solutions has expanded its contact center in Cebu City, Philippines. The company cited the country's ability to maintain high levels of customer service at a reduced cost. The center services clients in the United...

nuBridges reps now certified customer support professionals.(www.tmcnet.com/2144.1)
July 1, 2008... nuBridges, which makes software and manages services has announced that 100 percent of its customer support reps are now certified Customer Support Professionals (CSP). The CSP program is sponsored by the Service Strategies Corporation, which...

SER solutions to integrate CPS with Nortel Suite.(www.tmcnet.com/2l45.1)
July 1, 2008... SER Solutions has partnered with Nortel to integrate its CPS Enterprise Edition out-bound solution to the Nortel Contact Center Suite in a reseller/OEM agreement. The integrated product include a unified agent desktop, single administration of...

Hispanic market to grow, pose challenges.(www.tmcnet.com/2146.1)
July 1, 2008... Se habla Espanol? Si! The National Association of Call Centers released a report on the Hispanic market that cites U.S. Census Bureau projections that by 2050 one in four Americans will be Hispanic compared with one in seven currently. This...

eLoyalty launches customer experience alerting capability.(www.tmcnet.com/2147.1)
July 1, 2008... eLoyalty has launched a new Behavioral Analytics capability that automatically creates alerts to identify customers who have significant customer service issues. Using this new functionality, the firm's clients can automatically identify...

Convergys announces Baton Rouge center layoffs.(www.tmcnet.com/2l48.1)
July 1, 2008... Convergys let go 176 employees at its Baton Rouge, La. contact center in June but some of them may be recalled if there is demand. According to the Associated, Press, the teleservices firm stated that this move is considered to be only...

Report: utilities increase web-based self-service.(www.tmcnet.com/2149.1)
July 1, 2008... More utilities are attracting customers to self-service transactions on the Internet by broadening their online services. A new report by Charwell shows that during the past year utilities have expanded their web-based menus to customers. They...

RightNow to the white house?(www.tmcnet.com/2137.1)
July 1, 2008... CRM vendor RightNow Technologies has introduced RightNow May '08, the latest version of its enterprise-class, on demand customer relationship management product. And one of the beneficiaries could be presumptive Democratic Party presidential...

HiQube releases HiQube 5.0.(www.tmcnet.com/2150.1)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... HiQube, a developer of business intelligence (BI) software, has released HiQube 5.0, a new version of the company's flagship BI platform that has enhanced its multilingual and security capabilities. HiQube 5.0 now supports numerous additional...

Verizon business launches new center.(www.tmcnet.com/2151.1)
July 1, 2008... Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications, has opened a new contact center in Tulsa, Okla. to accommodate growing demand for its outsourced end-user IT help desk services. The new facility, which has room for up to 400 highly-trained...

Alcatel-Lucent and Convergys partner on Infinys.(www.tmcnet.com/2152.1)
July 1, 2008... Alcatel-Lucent will integrate Convergys' Infinys applications into its business support system (BSS) solution that will offer service providers a single BSS solution for today's service needs. Alcatel-Lucent will further strengthen its BSS...

Helio picks RightNow's Telecom support.(www.tmcnet.com/2153.1)
July 1, 2008... Helio, a U.S. mobile service provider has selected RightNow Telecom, RightNow Technologies' on-demand customer relationship management product for telecommunications companies to support and retain customers. Helio uses RightNow to send surveys...

Comcast opens Arab-language contact center.(www.tmcnet.com/2154.1)
July 1, 2008... Comcast has opened its first bilingual Arabic-English contact center, in Dearborn, Mich, to serve the southeastern part of the state, which has one of the United States' largest Arab populations. The new contact center's staff has been...

Newspaper: bad service news now travels at hyperspeed.(www.tmcnet.com/2155.1)
July 1, 2008... Contact center managers beware. Thanks to the Internet, bad news about a product or service, including customer service provided by one of their agents, may be known to the whole world in minutes. The Times-Colonist (in Victoria, BC, Canada)...

N.E.W. to open Arkansas contact center.(www.tmcnet.com/2156.1)
July 1, 2008... N.E.W. Customer Service Companies, which specializes in extended service plans and buyer protection programs for consumer products, will be opening a 250-agent contact center in Russellville, Ark. in late August. The new center would field...

Amazon to open new PA center.(www.tmcnet.com/2159.1)(Pennsylvania)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... In a bid to better serve their Northeast customers, Amazon has announced the opening of a new fulfillment center in Hazelton, PA. that will create over 1,100 jobs in the next three years. Hazelton is strategically located just off I-8land is...

Speechstorm now enables call personalization.(www.tmcnet.com/2157.1)
July 1, 2008... SpeechStorm's speech-recognition-based self-service solutions now offer that personalization thanks to having been integrated with the Intelligent Customer Front Door (iCFD) solution from Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories. iCFD enables...

Asian contact centers to grow.(www.tmcnet.com/2158.1)
July 1, 2008... Market analysis firm Datamonitor predicts that there will be four times as many new contact center seats in developing Asian Pacific markets as in developed markets. A new research paper published by it cites a combination of a growing middle...

Oman Air contact center goes 24/7.(www.tmcnet.com/2160.1)
July 1, 2008... Customers of Oman Air now have someone at the airline answering their calls, regardless of when they call, 24/7. And by year end they will be able to reach the carrier from wherever they are in the Middle East. Oman Air's contact center...

Lagan 311 to enable non-emergency Northern CA contact services.(www.tmcnet.com/2161.1)
July 1, 2008... Three Northern California municipalities--Solano County', Berkeley, and Oakland--have selected the Lagan 311 non-emergency call center solution. Lagan has partnered with outsourcing services provider Affiliated Computer Services to deliver a...

The devil's CRM deal: patronize the patron.(CRM, BPO & Teleservices)
July 1, 2008... And the winner of the 'Great CRM Idea: Patronize the Patron' award goes to London's Monmouth Coffee House, which operates on the principle of "Make every customer think he's as good a judge of quality as your best customer." The upside is...

IP comes of age:.(CALL CENTER Technology)(Company overview)
July 1, 2008... If your contact center has installed, or is planning to install an IP-based voice system, for reasons such as finding it to be the best choice in replacing your old ACD or supporting a new site or remote or home agents, then your facility is on...

51 reasons why CRM is like sex.(CRM, BPO & Teleservices)(customer relationship management)(Editorial)
July 1, 2008... Just for a change of pace, we're publishing this less than serious look at CRM as a diversion from your usual fare. If you think you might be offended by the author's comparison between CRM & sex, you are under no obligation to read this...

Why performance analytics is important.(WORKFORCE Optimization)
July 1, 2008... Contact centers generate vast amounts of vital information from customer satisfaction surveys to operational data. This is data that individuals at every organizational level need and can benefit from, such as the contact center agents who need...

The IP Contact Center Technology Pioneer Awards.(AWARDS & Recognition)(Internet Protocol )(Awards list)
July 1, 2008... Customer Inter@ction Solutions realizes that technology is the key to the success of any call center, as we have been editorially covering call center technology for 25 years. We also realize that with new products and new categories of...

How business can learn from Obama.(from the TMC net BLOGS)
July 1, 2008... In his VoIP blog, Rich Tehrani writes: I came across an article [published by The Street.com] which shows how a small company can use the methods Obama utilized in the election to help them compete with big players in the market. Some of...

Tringme offers enhanced click-to-call.(from the TMC net BLOGS)
July 1, 2008... In his VoIP and Gadgets Blog, TMC CTO Tom Keating writes: Many click-to-call (c2c) solutions require connecting two legs of a call, which adds additional cost. TringMe has just launched enhanced click-to-call solves this multi-leg cost...

Amazon outage ... UK frenzy to blame?(from the TMC net BLOGS)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... In his VoIP Authority blog, Internet Telephony's Greg Galitzine writes: According to a report on the UK's Daily Express, customers of Amazon's UK Web site took advantage of a pricing error. The site reported that for two hours, the...

Data centers find they can't afford not to "go green.(from the TMC net BLOGS)
July 1, 2008... In TMCnet's "Green Blog," Mae Kowalke writes: In the data center market, the need for green technology solutions to reduce energy consumption is rapidly becoming imperative. That's according to executives who gathered for a panel recently...

SSA on the road to transformation.(from the TMC net BLOGS)(United States. Social Security Administration)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... In his Hyperconnected Enterprise Blog, Tony Rybczynski, Director of Strategic Enterprise Technologies for Nortel writes: Tom Hughes, CIO of SSA, had a keynote at the Nortel User Conference, on his perspectives on VoIP and UC. SSA recently...

Eight ways to ruin your business.(Insider's Report)(Column)
July 1, 2008... I remember the day I learned we were being sold. I wasn't shocked. Or angry. Or even sentimental. I was too numb for all that. You see, my company had been dying for years. Sure, we had some profitable quarters. We'd hold rallies and host...

Self-service drives contact center success.(From The Analysts' Desks)
July 1, 2008... Traditional call centers were both an asset and a liability to the organization as they fulfilled a need by operating as a point of contact for the customer, yet they also incurred significant cost without directly driving revenue. Over...

Study reveals contact center disconnect.(From The Analysts' Desks)
July 1, 2008... Within the global contact center industry, one of the biggest disconnects is between C-level organizational executives and contact centers. Executives will promise one thing and contact centers will actually see another altogether. Executives...

Agent at home: more than wearing slippers to work.(Innovative SOLUTIONS)
July 1, 2008... Agent at home" is more than a new buzz phrase or job title that takes business casual dress to an extreme level. Instead, it is becoming a key asset in the contact center industry that is increasing overall contact center performance, agent...

Formula for sales success: four factors that increase sales exponentially.(Innovative SOLUTIONS)
July 1, 2008... How does a contact center build the perfect customer experience? There are the quantitative variables, such as staffing levels, hold times and abandon rates, which are relatively easy to define and measure. On the other hand, there are the...

Executive roundtable: CRM.(CRM, BPO & Teleservices)(Discussion)(Company overview)
July 1, 2008... Customer relationship management (CRM) in name has been around for about 10-12 years. Yet the concept: knowing your customers and delivering the level of service to them that is appropriate for their existing and future importance has long been...

Being contact centers' best friend.(Logout)
July 1, 2008... The media is the best friend of whatever communities it covers, whether specific geographies, academic, ethnic, occupational or religious entities, or business, institutional, and/or nonprofit organizations. By being there for them the media...

Love, call center style.(Ask the EXPERTS)
July 1, 2008... One of the most reliable ways we gain knowledge is by learning through others' experience. Since the launch of the Outrageous Interactions promotion, I have been flooded with zany stories. I've been in the call center industry for some time now...