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October 2008

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When Buying Solutions Look at Corporate Stability

October 28, 2008

I came across a fine in-depth report from Forrester Research, The Forrester Wave™:
Customer Service Software Solutions, Q4 2008

The study has an excellent premise: how the technology can help companies provide better customer experiences. Its author, Dr. Natalie L. Petouhoff, Forrester Senior Analyst, says "before a company even thinks about a software vendor they need to define their customer strategy, what they want their customer experience to be and how they want to provide service to their customers."

Then I saw the writeup on Entellium, which has been having its fair share of troubles lately, and I began to wonder: should such reports look at the vendors' financial and legal history and stability? That has a big impact on whether their technologies will deliver the goods; if the suppliers have gone belly-up who will be there to support the solutions and keep them updated? New owners of the firms or the patents may, or may not, decide to buy and continue to support all product lines and their customers.

Syntellect Acquires Envox

October 21, 2008

The acquisition of Envox by Syntellect for $14 million is the latest in a series of smart and timely consolidations in the maturing contact center/CRM solutions space, others being Verint and Witness and Aspect and Concerto (this juror is still out on the Convergys/Intervoice deal announced earlier this year).

The Syntellect/Envox deal appears to be an excellent and complementary match of two fine companies. Envox brings to Syntellect's table a global reach and technology heft, not to mention a $16 million per annum revenue stream: very handy in an uncertain marketplace. The menu of Envox's powerful communications platform, IVR, CTI, and Voice XML tools may well enhance Syntellect's flagship Customer Interaction Management suite.

Attention Outsourcers and Clients: It's The Service, S*****

October 9, 2008

When I saw the press release from the American Teleservices Association and DialAmerica reporting that most major teleservices clients would leave their outsourcer vendors because they were dissatisfied with them i.e. the service they were getting, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or curse or all three at the same time. Naturally I turned this into an article that I put on our site.

After all, what are teleservices firms in the business for, except to deliver services?

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