Brendan Read : The Readerboard
Brendan Read
TMC
| Contact Center/CRM Views and Analysis

Longview IoT Boosts Energy and Wireless Efficiency

Some of the biggest challenges slowing down the adoption of IoT are security, efficient battery usage and optimized wireless communications.One company has...

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Hallmark's Simple, Inexpensive Way to Boost Customer Satisfaction

In an effort to boost margins, companies often push more users to automated solutions such as FAQs, chatbots, voice bots and anything...

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Huawei Places the World's First 5G VoNR Video Call

Huawei recently completed the world's first voice over NR (VoNR) call. The voice and video call service was made using two Huawei...

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IGEL Advances Future of Work

IGEL is a provider of a next-gen edge OS for cloud workspaces. The company’s software products include IGEL OS, IGEL UD Pocket (UDP) and Universal...

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Tata Communications and Cisco Collaborate on SD-WAN

Tata Communications and Cisco have extended their partnership to enable enterprises to transform their legacy network to a customized and secure multi-cloud...

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How to Win the 50-Year-Old China Trade War

Today and this week in-fact is historic - the left and right in the U.S. agree that we have a major trade...

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Extreme Elements Enables The Autonomous Enterprise

Extreme Networks just announced Extreme Elements which in-turn enables the autonomous network and subsequently the autonomous enterprise. In a dynamic webinar, Dan...

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How To Win Contact Center Agent Loyalty

February 17, 2011

Contact centers are better than most service businesses when it comes to that. Retail is notoriously terrible when it comes to spur-of-the-moment shift and hours changing; employees are often sent home if sales are slack. On the other hand there is little freedom and freedom to move careerwise in contact centers and the work itself commands little respect. Therefore to retain quality people extra care must be given to permit them to have meaningful lives.

Tablets as Phones...Are There Signs of It Happening?

February 10, 2011

I like cellphones as phones and tablets as e-mail/texting/surfing means. I dislike the reverse: for me and many others cellphones are a terrible tool for communications other than voice. The keyboards may be suited for Tweets and texts but are just too tiny for serious e-mail/chat work for all as are the screens. And tablets as of yet, and for some unexplainable reason do not have cellphone i.e. voice call functionality built in. Now could it be that the device manufacturers may finally get it right by combining the two?

A Big Reason To Avoid Credit-Checking Contact Center Applicants: Lawsuits

February 4, 2011

Now there is another reason--and rightfully so--why contact centers should consign credit cards to the dustbin: lawsuits. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed suit late last year against Kaplan Higher Education Corporation for allegedly engaging "in a pattern or practice of unlawful discrimination by refusing to hire a class of black job applicants nationwide."

Mining The Social Channel for Customer Gold

January 25, 2011

The social channel appears on first glance to provide a readily-extracted motherlode of information and insights that can help firms retain and build relations with customers and attract new ones. For in the huge volume of conversations: blogs, comments on sites e.g. TripAdvisor et al, Facebook postings and Tweets are concerns, complaints, experiences and ideas about companies' products and services that are waiting to be mined, assayed, processed, refined and used.

Governments' "Gifts" to Cisco, Citrix, InterCall, Polycom, Vidyo, et al...

December 23, 2010

For if air travel weren't a nightmare already what with painfully cramped seating, made worse by salt-laden food at airport concessionaires (airline food was for the most part remarkably healthy with sensibly controlled portions), long delays, frequent cancellations, high fares and other examples of lousy service...and if going through security wasn't a hassle and humiliating enough...now there are the intimate "pat downs" that the overworked and customer-abused American and Canadian personnel have to inflict on fliers when the computers tell them to. This procedure may well be the last straw for travelers and organizations that are already fed up with travel.

Calling During the Holidays (and afterwards)? Be Nice, Not Naughty

December 17, 2010

the laws regulating calling hours, whom to call and what devices to be reach are strict and are enforced. The lumps of coal in one's stocking for being bad is nothing compared to those received from publicity-seeking elected officials: which are in comparison mere taps to those that can be wielded from annoyed customers via comments delivered through Tweets and posts.

To Improve Quality and Profits Get Rid of "HR"

November 30, 2010

Bright, helpful, results-oriented motivated individuals generate superior performance both in higher profits and lower costs. Yet how come so few firms do this? Why do despite new methods, technologies and best practices in e-screening and interviewing, e-learning and in-person training, voice and screen recording and quality monitoring and speech and desktop analytics and in supervisor management so many get it wrong: resulting in poor service, substandard sales and high and costly turnover? The answer lies in "HR": not just human resources departments but in the corporate "cost-center" mentality that staff are merely material: biomass to be sourced, transported (by themselves), sifted, processed, used and when finished, discarded.

Before Making Your Contact Center Wish List...

November 16, 2010

This is the season where individuals--and organizations such as contact centers--make their wish lists. Yet with budgets both household and corporate limited there is no allowance--or tolerance--for unused or misused items; the penalties include reprimands and threats to cut back on how much is given next year. Therefore it is essential that the items that go on the lists reflect critical and provable needs for which there are no on-hand or lower-cost substitutes. There must also be evidence that indicate these investments will be used and benefits quickly realized. The payoff is that in the well-run outfits, the centers that do just stand a greater chance of having more of their wishes granted.

Remembering and Honoring Our Veterans, And Those Who Serve

November 11, 2010

Remember and honor those who have fought and who are fighting, and have sacrificed and are being asked to sacrifice, for the freedoms we enjoy

Dismantling Obamacare Will Hurt Contact Center Employees, Businesses and The Economy

November 5, 2010

The new GOP-controlled House should take a second look at their promises to roll back the healthcare reforms initiated and pushed by U.S. President Barack Obama and passed by the last Congress. Why? Because such moves may end up hurting individuals, businesses (like contact centers) and the economy--contrary to these elected officials' claims that dismantling "Obamacare" will "help".
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