Brendan Read
TMC
June 2005
You are browsing the archive for June 2005.
IBM Says: No Phreedom Phrom Phishing
June 30, 2005Is it possible that there's a cyclical rhythm to phishing attacks? Reading the wrap-up of IBM's May Global Business Security Index, you'll notice that phishing peaked in January, then dropped back, and then peaked again in May. Is it a coincidence that these are two periods when most university students are on breaks from school? Just a thought.
The report also notes that in May, more than 30 percent of e-mails contained some form of a virus. These items still cause a lot of damage to PCs both at home and in the office, proving that there are still many people out there who will actually open the attachment in an e-mail from bobbyxxxxxx with the words, "Hi! U Gotta See This" These must be the same people who continued to stick their fingers into electric sockets after age 3...
TES
IBM Report: Phishing Attacks in May Jumped More Than 200 Percent; Email Viruses up 33 PercentARMONK, NY --(Business Wire)-- June 30, 2005 -- Today IBM reported that phishing attacks increased 226 percent, while viruses and worms, such as Sober and Mytob, also continued to spread rapidly through email and web applications, according to its May Global Business Security Index.
IBM security experts attribute the increase in phishing attacks to the rise of zombie botnets being used to pump out massive volumes of the scam emails used in phishing attacks, as cyber-criminals look to increase their profits.
Today's Advertising "D'oh!" Moment
June 29, 2005Driving on Route 1 at lunch today, I spotted the following sign in the window of a Southeast Asian grocery store near TMC's offices in Norwalk:
Most Items: 99 cents (and up)
It's weird how many stores have exactly that same sale going on. What a funny world.
TES
Deloitte & Touche/P&AB Weight In With Data Privacy Survey
June 29, 2005For the second time in a week, a report has been released that documents Americans' high level of concern regarding data privacy and fears of identity theft. Seventy-eight percent of the 2,322 adults surveyed believe that consumers have lost all control of who collects their data and how the information is used. Though this survey does not register opinions on the the lack of action by U.S. government agencies, it does extrapolate that as many as 140 million U.S.
Aspect Releases Uniphi Suite 6.1; Integrates eGain E-mail
June 29, 2005As a follow-up to yesterday's announcement by Aspect of its Uniphi Suite version 6.1, the latest release of the company's applications convergence platform for contact centers, Aspect today announced a cooperation between itself and Web customer service company eGain Communications. eGain Mail, a component of eGain Service version 7, has been validated to work with Uniphi Suite 6.1 and provide users with a way to bring comprehensive e-mail customer care into their Aspect-based customer care operations (which already entail ACD, CTI and IVR functionalities). The goal was to allow agents using Aspect Uniphi Suite to access eGain’s centralized knowledge base.
“Contact centers using eGain Mail with Aspect Uniphi Suite can provide a consistent quality of customer service across e-mail, voice, Web and other Aspect-supported communication channels, ” said Brian Gentile, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Aspect. “Open standards-based solutions, such as these products from Aspect and eGain, offer businesses flexibility by enabling them to add multichannel capabilities to improve their customer interactions.”
“Our combined technologies can help companies differentiate themselves with the ability to respond promptly and professionally to customer inquiries, every time—regardless of media channel,” said Ashu Roy, chief executive officer of eGain.
The Birth Of Workforce Optimization
June 28, 2005You may be hearing quite a bit about "workforce optimization" really. Considering the speed at which industry buzzwords fly over our heads nowadays, it may have slid by without your noticing. This one, unlike a lot of other terms, is a good one. It's a term that's likely to be around for a long time to come.
What is it? It's essentially a merger of several industries.
In-Stat Study Notes Telecom Focus On U.S. Ethnic Communities
June 27, 2005It's no secret to anyone who works in the realm of marketing that the U.S.'s growing Hispanic community is now, and will continue to become, a hot commodity. Rising disposable income, increasing rates of broadband adoption and a preference to do business in their own language have all added up to make U.S. Hispanics one of the most targeted groups by the marketing and advertising communities.
The increasing success of niche-market teleservices providers, such as Texas-based Hispanic Teleservices Corporation (www.htc.to), attests to this trend. HTC bases its call centers in Monterrey, Mexico and services the U.S.
Call Centers: Please Stop Asking For My Phone Number
June 24, 2005Have you noticed lately that every time you call a company: your insurance agent, your car loan company, your cable TV provider: the first thing they ask you for is your phone number?
I know why they do it -- it's a unique way to track customer records, and since most people won't give out their social security numbers to anyone who asks, and your phone number is more unique than, say, your shoe size, birth date or high school locker combination, it's a good substitute.
The problem is, that most of us have many phone numbers today. Each time a company asks for my phone number, I respond, "I don't know." It's not that I don't know my own phone number, but it's impossible for me to remember WHICH phone number the company might have on record. My home phone number? My cell phone number? My work number? My former home's phone number? My former cell phone number?
The upshot is, half the time I offer up my home phone number, the agent responds, "Hmmm...we don't seem to have that number on record." We end up trying several before my record pops up. And I find that as I get older, "former" numbers, such as that of an old cell phone, get a little harder to call up out of the biological memory bank.
Though oddly, I do remember my high school locker combination.
TES
Data Theft? What Data Theft?
June 23, 2005Perhaps you've been keeping an eye on the rather regular incidences of credit card and other personal information going "missing" from some company or another's database...hackers, user errors, "lost" backup tapes...it's been all over the news in the last few weeks. It's like watching a leaky bucket lose water.
You've noticed it. I've noticed it. The media has noticed it.
Drowning In Reports? Leverage Customized Business Intelligence
June 22, 2005It's no secret that nowadays, companies are drowing in data. Every piece of software an enterprise uses today has built-in analytics and reporting functionality. Most companies are up to their armpits and sinking fast in data. Obviously, it's not enough just to possess the information...you need to know how to make sense of it.
Business data derived from the disparate departments of an organization are more useless than an icemaker in the Antarctic if the information isn't organized to be actionable.
FrontRange To Throw Its Hat Into The Hosted CRM Ring
June 22, 2005A lively early morning visit to TMC by FrontRange Solutions' VP of Products, Kevin Smith, yielded some interesting news on the company's future plans, both short-term and long-term.
What piqued my interest the most was their announcement of the company's intention to bring to market a hosted CRM solution next year. The as-yet-unnamed (or, if there is a name, it wasn't mentioned) ASP-delivered CRM solution will follow the launch of a new hosted IT solution.
Such a solution will be a hot system to watch, and give competitors (Salesforce.com, Siebel) a long run for every bit of their money. FrontRange is practically a household name: this company counts fully half of the Fortune 500 as customers, and is one of the few companies able to boast very strong growth in its licensing revenue.
Additionally, the company will be announcing plans to expand into new product arenas.
Calling All Teleservices Agencies: Get Listed In The "Who's Who"
June 21, 2005
Each year, Customer Interaction Solutions magazine publishes its comprehensive list of both U.S. domestic and foreign teleservices agencies. This list, which will be published in the October 2005 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions, is considered THE definitive source for shopping for outsourced customer services. (Please note: This listing is for companies that offer call/contact center services to other companies on an outsourced basis.) Please send an e-mail to Editorial Director Tracey Schelmetic (tschelmetic@tmcnet.com) with the subject "Who's Who" and provide the following information: Company nameCompany contact personPostal addressPhone numberE-mailWeb addressType of service: (see below) A: Inbound B: Outbound C: Multilingual services D: Interactive E: E-mail capabilities F: Other Web-based communications (text chat, co-browsing, videoconferencing, etc.)
267,000 Subscribers Can't Be Wrong
June 21, 2005This morning brings the announcement of Salesforce.com Summer '05, the 18th inception of the San Francisco-based company's wildly successful hosted CRM system. Along with new features debuted with Summer '05 is the announcement that the company has created the world's first hosted operating system, Multiforce 1.0.
I agree in part with Marc Benioff's statement that Saleforce.com is, "the most robust, flexible and customizable on-demand applications that precisely conform to their business processes," but after having spent some time with SugarCRM (see blog from yesterday), I don't know if I'd call Salesforce.com "the most customizable." Still...it's a product a great many people have had astronomical success with, and it certainly turned the enterprise business software industry on its ear.
Full release below.
TES
Salesforce.com
(NYSE: CRM), the technology and market leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM), today announced the general availability of Summer '05, the 18th generation of its industry-leading on-demand Salesforce and Supportforce CRM solutions. The Summer '05 product launch also includes Multiforce 1.0, the world's first on-demand operating system, the Customforce 2.0 on-demand application customization tool and the Sforce 6.0 on-demand integration platform.
The Wind From The Sun
June 21, 2005Having been a science fiction fan most of my life, and in particular a fan of the great Arthur C. Clarke, I was extremely pleased to read this bit of news today about the launch of the very first solar sail-powered craft. In recent days, I've picked up and re-read my ancient copy of "The Wind From The Sun," Clarke's 1971 collection of short stories. The book's titular story involves a race between solar sail crafts of different nations.
For someone like me, it's particularly poignant to note that the experiment has been funded by sci-fi author Carl Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan.
SugarCRM: The First Open-Source CRM
June 20, 2005I'm recently back from a tour of Northern California companies, and still have a lot of notes to assimilate. One of the biggest standout companies was SugarCRM. What an interesting story they have to tell. For those of you unfamiliar with the Cupertino, California-based SugarCRM, the company offers the first completely open-source CRM product.
The Bizarre Nature Of Internet Newscasting
June 15, 2005I'm out on the road this week, visiting vendors up and down the Northern California coast. But I have a great "Web news" story to relate. Of course, it's only great in retrospect. It wasn't great at the time.
About 9:00 pm PST last night, I was checking e-mail, with a television doctor drama (House M.D.) on in the background.
Germans Host Mobile Phone Throwing Contest
June 9, 2005Ever wanted to hurl your phone away from you in frustration? Unless you're Russell Crowe in a New York hotel lobby, chances are, you generally restrain yourself. But now's your chance to do it officially, with chances to win prizes. On June 25th, Germany will play host to an expected 160 contenders in the mobile phone throwing championships. The winner will, of course, be eligible for the world championships to be held in Finland this August.
Where Has The Money Gone? On Training, Of Course
June 9, 2005In the June issue of Customer Interaction Solutions magazine, Wade Baker, CEO of Sivox Technology, wrote an article entitled, "Simulation Training: The Power of Continuous Performance Optimization." In it, he discusses the importance of not only training, but training properly. SIVOX, which offers a product that allows agents to interact with virtual customers via real-seeming but simulated customer situations, believes that simulation is the very best way to train agents well without compromising customer service.
Wade's article includes some interesting statistics about training. Perhaps these statistics will surprise you, perhaps not:
Two-thirds of contact center costs are related to agents, with the total costs to train new agents estimated to be $15 billion per year, according to Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. Inc. Here is the business problem contact center operators face:
Ninety-two percent of consumers form their image via the contact center;Two-thirds of costs are related to agents;30 to 60 percent agent attrition;Cost to recruit and train a new agent is $10,000;Nearly 1.5 million new agents are recruited and trained each year in North America;Total annual cost of recruiting and training new agents exceeds $15 billion; andOne percent reduction in turnover equals $500 million annual savings.
For companies that still believe that the call center is a cost center, think again.
How Exactly Is Outsourcing To China Going To Be Better Than Outsourcing To India?
June 7, 2005According to yet another study, this time from DiamondCluster International, "buyers of outsourcing services in growing numbers are dissatisfied with offshore service providers." Why? Probably because their customers are dissatisfied with offshore outsourcing. Other studies have borne these facts.
But the most striking part of the study is this: "China rapidly emerging as next offshoring hot spot. In 2004, only six percent of survey respondents said they planned to establish offshore operations in China. Today, that number has soared to 40 percent."
OK, let's get this straight.
Data Brokers Doomed To Walk The Same Path As Outbound Telemarketing
June 2, 2005Rampant abuses by a few attracting the attention of politicians and legislation? A slew of state laws to be followed, plus pending federal legislation? Strong lobbyists arguring for self-regulation? Public outrage? Is it 2003 all over again, when outbound telemarketers found themselves bound to obeying a federal do-not-call list?
No, but it's like one of those formulaic romance novels where you merely change the names and occupations of the principal characters, slap a new photo on the cover and re-publish it.
This time, it's the personal data brokers getting the heat turned up. (Granted, in some instances, the outbound telemarketers and the data brokers are one in the same.) The recent and very public shakeups that followed the announcements by companies like ChoicePoint Marketing and LexisNexis, plus a half dozen others, that personal information on hundreds of thousands of people had been stolen by crooks have begun the same domino-effect process that we saw two years ago with do-not-call legislation.
The only reason we even know about the loss of personal data by these companies is because of a California state law that requires the disclosure of such an event by a company. Were it not for California, the public would be none the wiser now. Based on these high profile data thefts, many other states have either passed or have pending legislation regarding the theft of these data (North Dakota's law went into effect yesterday).
London Underground To Be Mobile Friendly By 2008
June 1, 2005It's a shame, really. There are few places left in the world where one can get a break from the seemingly endless chatter of addicted cell phone users. Subways used to be one of them.
The London Underground, the oldest subway system in the world, was a shelter for millions of Londoners during the Blitz of World War II. To date, the Underground, like dozens of other urban subway systems, has been a refuge where one can read, snooze or stare into space, free from being subjected to a neighbor's loud 40-minute conversation to his cousin detailing his recent hemorrhoid surgery.
It seems the respite will soon be over...according to the London Times Online, the city of London has detailed plans to build an underground network to allow mobile phone and laptop users access to wireless signals while they commute.
