Brendan Read
TMC
Effectively Telling Your Product's Story
One of the most interesting aspects of my career is watching the thousands of companies I have met over the years make...
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Dialogic and Cisco Round Out Day's NFV News
It’s been a busy week regarding NFV and the software telco (R)evolution. First off Dialogic had some solid thoughts on six of...
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The Big Deal about Big Data Analytics
By Greg Owens, Senior Director Customer Experience Solutions Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent
The rise of big data is causing service providers to ask some big questions: How should we store our data? How long should we keep it? What parts of it are relevant to our business? Most importantly, how do we get value from it? To turn big data into a big deal, service providers need to extract insights that can help them make smart business decisions and improve the customer experience.
The value of big data is all in what useful and actionable information it can provide. I find it exciting to see how service providers use big data analytics to gain new insights and solve complex problems. With this post, I’ll look at some new research by industry analysts and three key opportunities that big data analytics presents to service providers.
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WebRTC: The Revolution Won't Occur Without a Media Server
Next Thursday at the WebRTC Conference and Expo, I’ll present a conference keynote that might not be exactly what attendees expect...
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Software Telcos Based on NFV Want Less Equipment Provider M&A
Mergers are nothing new but about a decade ago in the telecom market they reached a fever pitch when SBC purchased AT&T...
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Linux Foundation Embedded Solutions Director's Case for Open Source and Connected Car
The car of 2013 is different from the one I learned to drive, a 1974 Ford Maverick with rear federal bumpers, aluminum...
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Business Video and Queen Lead Guitarist Brian May
"A good video can make all the difference," says Brian May (Ph.D. Astro-Physics and Queen lead guitarist). Such is true for business!Even...
Full Story »RightNow Acquires Salesnet
May 22, 2006RightNow Technologies has just announced that it has bought Salesnet, an on-demand CRM provider. The acquisition was engineered to bring to RightNow Salesnet's sales workflow automation expertise. Jonathan Tang, president and co-founder of Salesnet, will become vice president of sales solutions at RightNow.
RightNow has stated that its goal is to support Salesnet’s existing customers and ultimately provide a seamless upgrade path to broader customer experience management solutions. Salesnet’s corporate office in Boston will become RightNow’s Boston office and will continue to include development, sales, marketing and support functions.
TES
New Call Centers
May 19, 2006The growth of call centers, both U.S. domestic and international, is becoming hard to ignore. As consumer companies finally start to realize that the quality of customer service they provide is becoming the primary determinant factor in whether they keep or lose customers, these organizations are scrambling to build world-class facilities.
And it shows in the amount of recruitment taking place.
Issues Facing Call Centers
May 17, 2006A public relations person sent me an e-mail today; she was doing a little information scouting on behalf of her client. She asked me what I thought the three biggest issues facing contact centers today were. I came up with these three:
1) Raising customer service quality while simultaneously lowering costs.
2) Fighting high turnover by improving training and helping agents feel like professionals and not bodies in chairs.
3) Keeping abreast of new technologies in an era in which corporate management won't purchase new software/equipment unless it can prove immediate ROI.
But then...I don't work in a call center every day. I'd be interested to hear other opinions about this.
TES
Also Sprach Zarathustra
May 10, 2006On MSNBC today: "Mexican Monolith Could Change History" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12703283/
Surely I'm not the only one who read this story with Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra," the theme music to 2001: A Space Odyssey, in my head?
Skippy's Birthday
May 8, 2006I have a goldfish. The golfish's name is Skippy. (This is starting out like a pre-K "I Can Read!" book, I know.) The fish sits in a tank on my desk and is both the unofficial mascot of the TMC Editorial Team, and a favorite amusement of the young children of fellow TMCers when they visit.
Yesterday was the third anniversary of my acquisition of Skippy, for whom I paid 12 cents.
Verizon Causes Pain
May 8, 2006Here's a link to today's blog from Caroline Mayer from the Washington Post. Her issue is the continuation of the appalling customer service from Verizon. Since Verizon is one of my pet-peeve bad customer service organizations, I thought I would share:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thecheckout/2006/05/verizons_big_disconnect.html#comments
The comments posted to the blog, most of them by people who have run into the same problems (or worse) point to the fact that this company has GOT to clean up its customer service. What's the use of having a first-class network when you abuse your customers?
TES
Colbert & The Blogosphere
May 4, 2006Whatever your opinion of Stephen Colbert's presentation at the recent White House Correspondents' Dinner, you must admit that it has created an interesting phenomenon.
Though the speech and its fallout have been barely mentioned on the mainstream news Web sites and in newspapers, it's currently one of the most hotly debated topics in the blogosphere. Why the disconnect?
I have no idea.
Keef Vs. Tree
May 1, 2006Several news agencies are reporting that Keith Richards was injured over the weekend when he fell out of a palm tree in Fiji. There is no word yet on what exactly Keith was doing in the palm tree, but his handlers confirmed he was flown from Fiji to New Zealand for treatment of a mild concussion.
According to medical sources, the symptoms of concussion include vagueness, confusion, speech problems, memory problems, unusual behavior and dilated pupils.
Yup.
The doctor that confirmed the concussion in Keith surely deserves an award for "Differential Diagnosis Of The Year."
TES
PS: I hope Keith gets well soon. Fairfield County wouldn't be the same without him.
Nice Acquires IEX
April 28, 2006NICE Systems this morning made an announcement that I, for one, didn't see coming: its acquisition of Texas-based IEX Corp. as well as performance management provider Performix. Ultimately, the combination of the companies should create a behemoth call center entity that provides all manner of recording, monitoring, workforce management and performance management in one package.
After I've had some time to digest the news, I will share some more thoughts with readers.
TES
PS: In an earlier version of this blog, I goofed and stated that NICE had bought Blue Pumpkin, when in fact that was Witness Systems. That's what you get for blogging before you have had your second cup of coffee. Thanks to the reader who pointed that out.
Customer Service E-mails
April 24, 2006I just sent a query to my credit card company via their Web site asking about their surcharges on transactions made in foreign countries (I'll be going on vacation this spring.) I've used this method before. When an agent answers my question, I get a notification to log into my account and view the response.
It used to annoy me that so many telecom and financial services companies no longer make their phone numbers easy to find.
