Brendan Read
TMC
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,"...
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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...
Full Story »Led Zeppelin Ring Tones
October 15, 2007
Spotted this on the feeds today, and it makes me wonder...are Led Zeppelin fans REALLY likely to download custom ring tones and wallpapers?
I had rather imagined that those who download stuff like that are more in the market for boy bands and pop music. Do Baby Boomers really go in for all the cell phone personalization business?
Maybe they do. I imagine Verizon wouldn't pursue it if they didn't think it was viable.
OK...I feel hopelessly un-hip now.
TES
I had rather imagined that those who download stuff like that are more in the market for boy bands and pop music. Do Baby Boomers really go in for all the cell phone personalization business?
Maybe they do. I imagine Verizon wouldn't pursue it if they didn't think it was viable.
OK...I feel hopelessly un-hip now.
TES
Disney Customer Service
October 12, 2007
There's an article on MSNBC today about airports turning to Disney for tips on customer service:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21225028/
It's worth the read. If you've ever been to a Disney park and you know a thing or two about customer service, you're likely to observe that nobody does it better than Disney. Crowd control and queue management have been turned into art forms by Disney, and the company also does very well with one-on-one customer service.
I once personally observed a customer service miracle at Disneyworld: my then three-year-old niece was eating a Mickey-shaped ice cream off a stick. It was a hot day, and as ice creams do in hot weather, the ice cream fell off the stick, dropping onto the pavement.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21225028/
It's worth the read. If you've ever been to a Disney park and you know a thing or two about customer service, you're likely to observe that nobody does it better than Disney. Crowd control and queue management have been turned into art forms by Disney, and the company also does very well with one-on-one customer service.
I once personally observed a customer service miracle at Disneyworld: my then three-year-old niece was eating a Mickey-shaped ice cream off a stick. It was a hot day, and as ice creams do in hot weather, the ice cream fell off the stick, dropping onto the pavement.
Tech-themed Baby Clothes
October 10, 2007
Tired of sports-related clothes for boys and flowery, princess-themed clothes for girls? (Nothing like setting your kids up for marketing-approved stereotypes from the get-go.)
Try CleverCuties.com, a Web site devoted to parents who are proud to be geeks. (Geeks being the bringers of knowledge and all...who isn't proud to be a geek?)
The moment I spotted this, I knew I had to have it:
TES
Try CleverCuties.com, a Web site devoted to parents who are proud to be geeks. (Geeks being the bringers of knowledge and all...who isn't proud to be a geek?)
The moment I spotted this, I knew I had to have it:
TES
Nobel Prize for Nanotech Computing
October 9, 2007
It's nice to see a Nobel prize in Physics won by researchers in the computing industry:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21202515/
While I certainly love to (try and) read about quantum theory and really way-out stuff, it's good to see a Nobel in this category getting grabbed by some individuals with practical applications for their work.
TES
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21202515/
While I certainly love to (try and) read about quantum theory and really way-out stuff, it's good to see a Nobel in this category getting grabbed by some individuals with practical applications for their work.
TES
Buyer's Guides
October 4, 2007
It's fall...time to think "Buyer's Guides." Every year, the December issue of Customer Interaction Solutions is our print Buyer's Guides. We know everyone wants to be in it. You know you do. It's time to create your basic listing so your company will appear both in print AND in the online versions. If you think you already have a basic listing, double-check it: anything older than July of this year will not be picked up...you need to update!
To create/edit your Buyer's Guide listing for any of TMC's publications, or to see about purchasing an enhanced listing, visit http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/bg.htm.
TES
To create/edit your Buyer's Guide listing for any of TMC's publications, or to see about purchasing an enhanced listing, visit http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/bg.htm.
TES
Spam Headlines
October 2, 2007
I normally don't even register the spam anymore, I just delete it in large blocks. But every once in a while, a headline makes it through my pre-coffee subconscious. (And let's face it, my subconscious is the only part working before coffee).
Yesterday, for some inexplicable reason, every other spam I received was something about yachts. Buy yachts, sell yachts, check out this yacht, do you want a yacht?
Yesterday, for some inexplicable reason, every other spam I received was something about yachts. Buy yachts, sell yachts, check out this yacht, do you want a yacht?
It's Beginning To Sound Like E-commerce Christmas
October 1, 2007
I'm always amazed at how early Christmas decorations start showing up in retail stores. All I can say is, I'm glad for Halloween.
Why?
Halloween, being a huge merchandising opportunity (candy, costumes, decorations, plastic skulls made in China, cheap fog machines, compilation CDs of spooky music, fake plastic tombstones, etc.), does us a favor. It "holds back" the Christmas merchandising until, at the very least, November 1st.
Why?
Halloween, being a huge merchandising opportunity (candy, costumes, decorations, plastic skulls made in China, cheap fog machines, compilation CDs of spooky music, fake plastic tombstones, etc.), does us a favor. It "holds back" the Christmas merchandising until, at the very least, November 1st.
How Not To Do Customer Retention
September 25, 2007
This is one of those customer service stories that make you want to bang your head into the wall.
Last year, I stopped using my regular small-town oil company because the fixed price they were offering was a lot higher than what other companies were offering. I would have liked to remain loyal to them, but the cost difference was just too great to ignore. They had bought all their oil in bulk just before prices dropped and, though I felt sorry for them, decided that my budget came before my customer loyalty. I ran with another company.
Last year, I stopped using my regular small-town oil company because the fixed price they were offering was a lot higher than what other companies were offering. I would have liked to remain loyal to them, but the cost difference was just too great to ignore. They had bought all their oil in bulk just before prices dropped and, though I felt sorry for them, decided that my budget came before my customer loyalty. I ran with another company.
Low Call Center Expectations
September 24, 2007
I paid my credit card bill late last month.
I had a million excuses. The plumbing was on the fritz, my water heater had exploded, I didn't check my e-mail, I forgot to write the due date on my calendar, the planets weren't in alignment and my tux didn't come back from the cleaners. All things said and done, it just slipped my mind until the day after it was due.
That said, I was mighty irked when a $30 late charge showed up on my bill. I was indignant.
I had a million excuses. The plumbing was on the fritz, my water heater had exploded, I didn't check my e-mail, I forgot to write the due date on my calendar, the planets weren't in alignment and my tux didn't come back from the cleaners. All things said and done, it just slipped my mind until the day after it was due.
That said, I was mighty irked when a $30 late charge showed up on my bill. I was indignant.
Biz IT Pro Delivers CRM Solution for QRPS
August 31, 2007
David Sims is reporting on Business IT Professionals, Inc. (Biz IT Pro), a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) products vendor, and their brand-new CRM product, based on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform.
The solution is being developed for QRPS, Inc., an administrative consulting firm.
“We had reached our limit of usability with the ACT! database. Moving to CRM will allow us to redesign how we store our proprietary information, while substantially improving our productivity,” stated Forrest Knowles, President, QRPS.
For more, check out David’s article here.
