Brendan Read
TMC
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...
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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...
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SysAid's Lifshitz: The Cloud Will Dominate ITSM Market
Cloud computing has really become a household word with mainstream media outlets running stories on television about the growth in the space...
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Avaya Takes Networking Lead in SPB
At Interop Las Vegas 2013 Avaya was demonstrating their real-world Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) solutions and while interoperating with Spirent, HP and...
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Alianza Wants to Host Your Software Telco
The software telco(r)evolution representing the move from hardware to software is perhaps the biggest trend in the world of carrier telecom this...
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WebRTC Screen Sharing Using Openfire
I've written about WebRTC screen sharing, but today I came across another WebRTC screen sharing solution leveraging Openfire and using WebSockets and...
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LTE Network Interactions
According to a recently released GSMA Wireless Intelligence infographic, there are 163 live LTE networks today, and that figure is expected...
Full Story »Improving Capacity Through Virtual Call Centers
February 15, 2008
Here's a scenario: how does a company gain10 times the call center capacity while reducing tech support and maintenance costs by 41 percent?
Virtual call centers. Here's a link to an article in ComputerWeekly.com detailing a Scottish utility company that managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible via its Siemens Hipath DX/Genesys integrated contact center to expand its base call capacity to 250,000 calls an hour on a "pay-as-you-go basis."
TES
Virtual call centers. Here's a link to an article in ComputerWeekly.com detailing a Scottish utility company that managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible via its Siemens Hipath DX/Genesys integrated contact center to expand its base call capacity to 250,000 calls an hour on a "pay-as-you-go basis."
TES
Call Center Jobs: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
February 14, 2008
So what happens when a political party promises the creation of call center jobs, then loses control of the government? The incoming government says, "Nah, nah, we didn't promise them. The previous guys did. Sorry!"
Something like this happened in Australia. I guess that's the price you pay for assuming "government" is all one entity...like "The Borg" from Star Trek.
Resistance IS futile.
TES
Something like this happened in Australia. I guess that's the price you pay for assuming "government" is all one entity...like "The Borg" from Star Trek.
Resistance IS futile.
TES
Tight Retail Return Policies
February 13, 2008
Here's a customer service pet peeve that I've developed recently. If you have tried to return anything recently, you may have noticed that retailers have fairly seriously tightened up their return policies. I realize that the point is to catch "serial returners" who buy merchandise regularly knowing they are going to return it. But in my opinion, when the "net" starts to catch consumers with legitimate issues, it has been cast too wide.
According to the National Retail Federation, about 40 percent of retailers have tightened their policies.
My most recent aggravation?
According to the National Retail Federation, about 40 percent of retailers have tightened their policies.
My most recent aggravation?
The ATA Position On Do-Not-Call
February 7, 2008
You may have read that his week, Congress addressed two bills, H.R. 2601 and H. R. 3541, which will affect the future of the federal Do-No-Call Registry. Currently, there are approximately 150 million people who have listed their phone numbers on the DNC Registry, and there has been a large political effort to ensure that consumer’s information will not be purged from this list.
Sneaky ISP Fees
February 6, 2008
Want something to make you slightly queasy this Wednesday morning? Here's an article on MSBNC detailing a sneaky surcharge switch many broadband providers tried to pull on their customers. Stuff like this really hammers home the importance of examining your telecom bills and understanding what all the surcharges are about. Thank your fellow hawk-eyed broadband users for exposing this travesty.
Read about what companies' "Departments of Creative Fees with Obtuse Names" regularly design for their customers.
TES
Read about what companies' "Departments of Creative Fees with Obtuse Names" regularly design for their customers.
TES
2007 Outsourcing Market Trends
February 5, 2008
Outsourcing consultancy TPI keeps track of outsourcing trends across the globe and releases results on a quarterly basis.
This year's wrap-up for 2007 revealed a couple of interesting trends...with mixed results.
The fourth quarter of 2007 was the best since 2005 for number and annualized contract value of mega-relationships; however, the momentum insufficient to overcome early year softness; there were fewer total contracts and lower total contract value in 2007 compared with 2006. Interestingly, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) outsourcing surpassed the Americas for the first time in number and value of outsourcing contracts.
To view the presentation of the results for 2007, click here.
This year's wrap-up for 2007 revealed a couple of interesting trends...with mixed results.
The fourth quarter of 2007 was the best since 2005 for number and annualized contract value of mega-relationships; however, the momentum insufficient to overcome early year softness; there were fewer total contracts and lower total contract value in 2007 compared with 2006. Interestingly, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) outsourcing surpassed the Americas for the first time in number and value of outsourcing contracts.
To view the presentation of the results for 2007, click here.
B-to-B Telemarketing
February 4, 2008
I often get questions about outbound telemarketing calls to places of business, and how companies can stop them. (Here's a piece from the Raleigh News & Observer on the topic.) The answer is, you probably can't, unless you ask each solicitor to list you on their internal do-not-call list. The Federal Do-Not-Call Registry is for personal, home phone numbers, not places of business.
Many companies hesitate to put their business numbers on any do-not-call lists, mindful of the fact that it could affect legitimate incoming business calls.
Many companies hesitate to put their business numbers on any do-not-call lists, mindful of the fact that it could affect legitimate incoming business calls.
Outrageous (Call Center) Interactions
February 1, 2008
If you have been a call center agent for any length of time, there are probably some calls that you will never forget. Calls during which you started to wonder who was trying to upsell whom. Calls during which you felt more like a therapist than a customer service rep. Even calls that were so weird, you became convinced you were being filmed for a new "Candid Camera" reality show.
Interactive Intelligence wants to hear about them.
Interactive Intelligence wants to hear about them.
Agents And I.D. Theft
January 31, 2008
When the topic of customer data privacy comes up, there is a lot to talk about. Encryption, standards, firewalls, software, monitoring...and it's all great.
The problem is, most of it fails to address the most common origination of customer identity theft: the call center agent who walks out the door at the end of his shift with a list of social security and/or credit card numbers.
As you'll see in this story, a former TeleTech employee was recently convicted of using customer information to open accounts in others' names and changing the address to his own, allowing him to have merchandise sent to himself.
Many companies nowadays are trying to combat this kind of identity theft by allowing no paper whatsoever in the call center (notepads can be used to jot down customer information), and allowing agents no access to personal e-mail so they cannot cut and paste information into an e-mail and send it to themselves.
Some companies are even offering solutions for call centers who take credit card information over the phone: the agent is required to transfer the customer into an IVR, which takes the credit card information and processes it automatically. The agent never hears the credit card information.
One doesn't like to think one's employees could be thieves, but let's face it: there are thieves in every profession, and pretending that you have none in your organization is wishful thinking.
TES
The problem is, most of it fails to address the most common origination of customer identity theft: the call center agent who walks out the door at the end of his shift with a list of social security and/or credit card numbers.
As you'll see in this story, a former TeleTech employee was recently convicted of using customer information to open accounts in others' names and changing the address to his own, allowing him to have merchandise sent to himself.
Many companies nowadays are trying to combat this kind of identity theft by allowing no paper whatsoever in the call center (notepads can be used to jot down customer information), and allowing agents no access to personal e-mail so they cannot cut and paste information into an e-mail and send it to themselves.
Some companies are even offering solutions for call centers who take credit card information over the phone: the agent is required to transfer the customer into an IVR, which takes the credit card information and processes it automatically. The agent never hears the credit card information.
One doesn't like to think one's employees could be thieves, but let's face it: there are thieves in every profession, and pretending that you have none in your organization is wishful thinking.
TES
Is Your Call Center Ready?
January 31, 2008According to holiday numbers for 2006/2007 (not this previous holiday season) released by the National Retail Federation, brick and mortar holiday retail growth was just three percent. Online sales, however, grew 19 percent.
According to researchers the e-tailing group, which recently released its 10th Annual Mystery Shopping Study and measured over 200 metrics on 100 consumer e-commerce sites in the fourth quarter of 2007, there has been both an increased presence and better execution of features that either deliver a richer, more robust experience and technologies that enable faster, more efficient shopping.
As more and more people who have never lived before the Internet age become consumers with good disposable income, shoppers' expectations for sterling online shopping experience is going to rise. This means well-designed Web sites with Web 2.0 technologies are a MUST, as is multichannel customer service that makes shoppers think, "Wow."
