Brendan Read
TMC
10 Lessons from Volleyball, Part 2
Part 1 of the 10 Business Lessons from Volleyball can be found here. In volleyball, the only play you control yourself is...
Full Story »
CloudTC and N-Able Acquired
"Australian-owned IP PBX systems company, Vixtel, has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley based glass phone developer, CloudTC, for an undisclosed figure,"...
Full Story »
ProfitBricks: Where InfiniBand Meets Cloud 2.0
In a recent meeting with William Toll and Pete Johnson of ProfitBricks, the pair were ecstatic to explain how their company has...
Full Story »
Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead
By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent
Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.
When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.
The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.
Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.
Full Story »
10 Lessons from Volleyball
I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...
Full Story »
Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week
There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...
Full Story »
NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability
One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...
Full Story »Cable Company IVR Crimes
March 10, 2008
I got my online version of the ASRNews and was interested to read about two cable giants: Charter and Comcast, and the fact that ASRNews tested their IVRs and found that the data customers feed in to the system is not used for CTI screen-pop purposes. Basically, Charter and Comcast are using their IVRS merely to annoy customers at the front end.
Said the newsletter, "This month we tested Charter Communications. No CTI. They gather ID information from the caller and then throw it away. Comcast does the same thing. These folks should either implement CTI of get rid of their IVR that is doing nothing other than irritating callers."
Said the newsletter, "This month we tested Charter Communications. No CTI. They gather ID information from the caller and then throw it away. Comcast does the same thing. These folks should either implement CTI of get rid of their IVR that is doing nothing other than irritating callers."
More high-quality customer service from the cable companies.
First-Call Resolution Podcast
March 5, 2008
First-call resolution, as a call center principle, gets a lot of attention, and for very good reason. While 10 different call centers may not agree on their management, hiring, training and technology approaches, all 10 will probably agree that first-call resolution is far and away the most important metric to master. Why? It's a realistic way to achieve increased customer satisfaction at lower operating costs.
D&D Creator Gygax Dies
March 4, 2008
Gary Gygax, co-creator with Dave Arneson of the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons died this (Tuesday) morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin at age 69.
Read CNN's brief obituary here.
Read CNN's brief obituary here.
Marketing Salaries Guide
March 4, 2008
Crandall Associates, a company that does executive recruitment for the direct marketing and telesales industries, has released its "2008 National Salary Guide, Direct and Interactive Marketing."
The guide keeps tracks of salaries (high and low ranges, sub-divided by years of experience) nationwide for job titles such as:
Internet Marketing Manager
Market Research Director
Media Planner/Analyst
VP of Marketing
Customer Service Managers and Directors
The full report can be ordered online at www.crandallassociates.com.
TES
The guide keeps tracks of salaries (high and low ranges, sub-divided by years of experience) nationwide for job titles such as:
Internet Marketing Manager
Market Research Director
Media Planner/Analyst
VP of Marketing
Customer Service Managers and Directors
The full report can be ordered online at www.crandallassociates.com.
TES
Call Center Life Saver
March 3, 2008
Next time you're getting heated with a call center agent, calm yourself down by thinking about this story: a man telephones a call center for a routine address change. While on the phone, he suffers a massive brain hemorrhage. The call center agent, recognizing the threat, calls emergency services and provides them with the caller's home address (which she has on her computer screen). Emergency services saves the man's life.
OK...maybe it's not a COMMON scenario, but it happened recently.
TES
OK...maybe it's not a COMMON scenario, but it happened recently.
TES
Canadian Call Center Woes
February 28, 2008
Here's an article from the Edmonton Journal about the closure of a Toronto Dominion Bank call center in the city, for a net loss of about 140 jobs.
Though this is a Canadian company shutting down a Canadian call center, there have been other Canadian call center closures that can be laid at the foot of the weak U.S. dollar.
Outsourcing to Canada (an important destination in the so-called "near-shore" outsourcing model) is no longer saving U.S. companies money due to the unfavorable exchange rates for the U.S. dollar.
A recent Datamonitor report covered on TMCnet by associate editor Patrick Barnard revealed that companies are truly starting to pack up Canadian operations.
Though this is a Canadian company shutting down a Canadian call center, there have been other Canadian call center closures that can be laid at the foot of the weak U.S. dollar.
Outsourcing to Canada (an important destination in the so-called "near-shore" outsourcing model) is no longer saving U.S. companies money due to the unfavorable exchange rates for the U.S. dollar.
A recent Datamonitor report covered on TMCnet by associate editor Patrick Barnard revealed that companies are truly starting to pack up Canadian operations.
Video Gaming Widows
February 25, 2008
Have you ever been thrown over on a Saturday night by The Horde?
The New York Times had an amusing...but true-to-life...piece recently about how video gaming, particularly online role playing gaming, affects romantic relationships.
Did you know they make children's clothing...even baby clothes... with World Of Warcraft themes?
Do I sound like I speak from experience?
TES
The New York Times had an amusing...but true-to-life...piece recently about how video gaming, particularly online role playing gaming, affects romantic relationships.
Did you know they make children's clothing...even baby clothes... with World Of Warcraft themes?
Do I sound like I speak from experience?
TES
Another Upside To Virtual Call Centers
February 21, 2008
As if we needed any more evidence that home-based agents and virtual call centers were the way to go, here's yet another: plan a physical, brick and mortar call center, and the neighbors start complaining that it will cause too much of an increase in traffic and parking congestion, not to mention scare the birds away.
TES
TES
Call Center Space Availabilities
February 20, 2008Looking for ready-made call center space in the U.S. or abroad? It might be your lucky day. The Site Selection Group (www.siteselectiongroup.com) keeps track of vacated/available/ready for sub-lease contact center space and is reporting the following to be available:
Addison, Texas: 137,992 sq. ft.
Workstations: 600 expandable to 1,000
Austin, TX: 92, 633 sq. ft.
Workstations: 605
Salina, KS: 44,876 sq. ft.
Workstations: 250 expandable
Clarksville, TN: 52,000 sq. ft.
Workstations: Estimated 500
Tucson, AZ: 27, 255 sq. ft.
Workstations: 200 to 250
Hawkesbury, Ontario: 41,019 sq. ft.
Workstations: 420
Manila, Philippines: 366 workstations
For more info, contact The Site Selection Group directly at 214-271-0580.
Feeling The Love From Offshore Outsourcing
February 19, 2008
Here's a piece on TMCnet today that takes a look at the pitfalls, both obvious and hidden, of offshore outsourcing and how to overcome them. First, it's important to identify the problems.
My favorite snipped from this article was that one company discovered that an agent at one of its foreign call centers was ending customer calls with, "I love you." He thought it was a great way to show customers he cared. Sometimes...agents can care a little TOO MUCH.
The best way to make offshore outsourcing work for you is to get a better handle on training. Studies show that even if a foreign call center agent has a heavy accent, if he or she handles the call the way a North American customer expects (use the right words, strike the right tone and effect good results), accents are immediately forgiven.
And your customer will know you love them without you have to tell them, which...let's face it...is a tad creepy.
TES
My favorite snipped from this article was that one company discovered that an agent at one of its foreign call centers was ending customer calls with, "I love you." He thought it was a great way to show customers he cared. Sometimes...agents can care a little TOO MUCH.
The best way to make offshore outsourcing work for you is to get a better handle on training. Studies show that even if a foreign call center agent has a heavy accent, if he or she handles the call the way a North American customer expects (use the right words, strike the right tone and effect good results), accents are immediately forgiven.
And your customer will know you love them without you have to tell them, which...let's face it...is a tad creepy.
TES
