September 2006 Archives

Workforce optimization provider Witness Systems recently announced that principal global market consultants Oscar Alban and Bill Durr have begun authoring a blog about the global call center market. Oscar and Bill have recently returned from a tour of the Asia-Pacific region, and have outlined their experiences and observations on the blog, which can be viewed at www.improveeverything.com

Take a look to learn about what's happening in this region of the world that is becoming increasingly strategic to the call center market.

TES

Investors waiting for good news are going to have to wait a little longer, the company revealed today in a press conference. Instead of a boost, says the company, 3Q results are going to look like more of a slump: http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2006/mft06091923.htm

Between coups and riots in foreign countries, I think the general weather forecast for the next few days, market-wise, is going to be mostly cloudy with a chance of rain.

TES

Many North American companies have found success and value outsourcing their customer care needs to India and the Philippines. Traditionally, though, Southeast Asia has not been an ideal choice for Western European countries, since European language skills outside of English are scarce in Southeast Asia (with the exception of Spanish in the Philippines).

As a result, Eastern Europe is really heating up: Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary, for starters. We've even seen large Indian outsourcers actually subcontracting their business to Eastern Europe (see this article the Czech Business Weekly), a region that is still inexpensive compared toNorth America or Western Europe in terms of outsourcing, but has the language skills Western European countries need.

TES

If you haven't done it recently, now's the time to either create your free listing for the Customer Interaction Solutions annual Buyer's Guide, which is our December issue, or update your existing listing.

You can create or edit your listing via the link below. All current entries will appear as a basic listing in the printed Buyer's Guide in December. If appropriate for your business, you can also create your INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine Buyer's Guide listing via this link.

http://www.tmcnet.com/scripts/bg/bgform.asp

TES

It seems that the planetoid body far on the reaches of our solar system that was responsible for Pluto's demotion from actual planethood to dwarf planet status has a new name that proves that astronomers do, in fact, have a sense of humor.

The newly classified dwarf planet (which was temporarily called Xena) has been named, fittingly, after Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos and discord.

California Intstitute of Technology astronomer and discoverer of the planetoid body, Michael Brown, has stated that the choice for the planetoid's  "too perfect to resist". Quite.

TES

Join me at 1:00 EST today for a Webinar sponsored by Bay Bridge Decision Technologies. The Webinar is entitled, "Long-Term Planning by Facts: Avoiding the Dangers of Educated Guesses" and will cover long-term planning and budgeting for the call center. This session will provide an enlightened look at some of today’s most pressing issues and trends and how a defensible long-term decision can be made from factual analysis and simulation.

The Webinar will begin at 1:00 EST time. To sign up, visit http://www.tmcnet.com/webinar/baybridge/bay-bridge-decision-technologies-web-seminar.htm

See you then!

TES

TMCnet's Susan Campbell wrote an article today called, "Study: Customer Satisfaction with VoIP Higher than Traditional and Mobile Services" about a survey conducted by Level 3 Communications. The article states that, "In fact, the study reveals that 86 percent of VoIP customers are very satisfied with their service, compared to 74 percent satisfaction among traditional landline customers and 66 percent satisfaction among wireless customers."

I can happily report that I am one of those people who are happier with their VoIP service than other telecom services. But I've got an easy reason:

Former bill from SBC for the privilege of keeping a (practically unused) landline: $42.

Current cell phone bill, for the privilege of using my phone maybe 60 minutes per month: $40.

Vonage bill: $14.99 plus tax.

Whoever said "money doesn't buy happiness" never considered that saving money on telecom bills can bring something close to it, at least in a small measure.

TES

How many misfortunes of its own making can a company reasonably sort through per quarter? We'll soon find out, since Dell is in the news again today in a negative light. The business news this Monday is highlighting new troubles the PC company is having with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). Dell is putting off releasing its second quarter reports after the SEC has raised questions about, among other things, Dell's accruals, reserves and other balance sheet items. According to statements made by Dell, these "questions" may ultimately end up affecting previously reported results.

Dell has also been in the news lately after over four million laptop batteries were recalled because of incidences of the batteries actually bursting into flames. Additionally, the company has of late been all but christened the Poster Child for bad customer service, an unsavory distinction usually reserved for cable and wireless companies.

The SEC probe was, in fact, launched over a year ago, but Dell has only recently made the issue public, perhaps unwilling to bring yet another negative issue to the forefront.

TES

Who's Who In Teleservices

Once again, the editors of Customer Inter@ction Solutions will compile what is one of our top five most popular and requested resources: the annual Teleservices Agencies Who’s Who listing. To continue to make this a highly valuable tool, we would like to include as many global outsourced contact center services providers as possible.

We invite you to submit your company's information for inclusion in the Who's Who, which will be published in the November 2006 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions. 

 (Please note...this listing is for companies that provide call center services on an outsourced basis, NOT for software or hardware providers.)

Please e-mail your company name, Web address, e-mail address, postal address and phone number to me, Editorial Director Tracey Schelmetic, at tschelmetic@tmcnet.com. Submissions must be received by Monday, the 11th of October if they are to be included. Please title your e-mail with the subject "Teleservices Who's Who," and use the key below to indicated what type of services your company provides (this is very important).

Key:

A. Inbound
B. Outbound
C. Multilingual Services
D. Interactive (IVR)
E. E-mail capabilities
F. Text chat

I look forward to receiving your listing!

TES