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...
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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...
Full Story »Tune In, Call in (And Donate), 'Hope for Haiti Now' Tonight 8pm
January 22, 2010Here's an important way to help relieve the distress and suffering of the Haitian people from the recent earthquakes: watching, and donating for The "Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief" telethon to aid the victims will air tonight at Friday, January 22, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.
CBS reports that an estimated 200,000 people were killed in the disaster. It and other networks and a host of other channels is broadcasting the event.
The warnings of (and responses to) Haiti
January 15, 2010The almost incomprehensible destruction and loss of life and immense suffering from the earthquake that struck Haiti--alas another disaster amidst the economic and political turmoil that for decades if not centuries that have ravaged the people of this nation--also serves as a warning for companies in their site selection decisions: wherever they locate.
The message is this: if you want your contact centers and other back offices to survive disasters in locations whether offshore, nearshore, or onshore then be prepared accordingly because the chances are increasingly excellent that no one else i.e. governments will protect you beforehand, during, or afterward. IOW you're on your own.
9-1-1 Operators' Jobs Secure With New Car Infotainment Systems
January 7, 2010The tough, dedicated professionals who staff the 9-1-1 contact centers, and those equally stressed pros who handle claims calls for health insurers who have been worried that the distracted driving laws being rolled out in the U.S. and Canada will result in fewer calls--and possible layoffs--can breathe easy.
That's because the automotive and tech geniuses have managed to come up with exciting new ways for motorists to maim and kill themselves and others that should compensate for the fewer injuries and deaths resulting from the new regulations.
The New York Times reports the new gizmos, which are being rolled out at the Consumer Electronics Show this week include "10-inch screens above the gearshift showing high-definition videos, 3-D maps and Web pages."
Yes, the devices do "prevent drivers from watching video and using some other functions while the car is moving, but they can still pull up content as varied as restaurant reviews and the covers of music albums with the tap of a finger."
Sure sounds like safety first to me.
My Top Trends For 2010
December 31, 2009
This is the time of year for predictions and trends forecasting in the coming year, so before the famous lit bill drops in New York City's Times Square I'll offer a few of mine for 2010 and beyond:
1. The arrival of web/videoconferencing
Videoconferencing especially has long been regarded even by me as a 'tomorrow technology' ranking somewhere up there with jetpacks and hovercars i.e. cool to have, but horrendously expensive and complicated to implement.
No more.
Can Social Media Influence Sales? Just Ask Simon Cowell
December 21, 2009If there is ever a demonstration that social media can make or break a product--and why enterprises should wrap tools and training with CRM strategies to effectively tap this new channel via their contact centers as presents to themselves-- then a recent U.K. Facebook-organized campaign to deny the debut single from the recent winner of Simon Cowell's X Factor reality show the hallowed position of Britain's top Christmas pop song should be it.
Lyndsey Parker's Reality Rocks blog, carried on Yahoo!, reports that the song, a cover of Miley Cyrus's 'The Climb' sung by X Factor champion Joe McElderry has been beaten out by a 17-year-old Rage Against The Machine track, 'Killing In The Name' 500,000 copies sold, compared to 450,000. RATM fan Jon Morter instigated the drive in what the blog reported was "a protest effort to stop Simon Cowell's empire from dominating the music industry--since Simon is the main X Factor judge, and X Factor winner McElderry just signed to Simon's SyCo record label.
Thinking Twice About Loyalty Programs
December 14, 2009
Developing customer loyalty through card/membership programs is a good idea, in theory and for the meantime in practice. Yet is this a short-term gig, about as effective cash/gifts/other goodies-based performance incentives, with the same inherent flaw?
Canadians (yes I'm one) especially are big on loyalty cards. You can't go into a store or gas bar or most any other business and not be asked for one here.
May Nortel Execs' Stockings Be Laden With Coal
November 30, 2009While Americans were stuffing themselves with turkey, the turkeys that are brooding over the maggot-infested remains of Canadian-HQ'ed Nortel have decided to munch on what meat is left.
Canada's CBC reported Thursday that Nortel's management approved a plan earlier this fall to reward themselves with salary increases, investments or bonuses. An internal document obtained by the broadcaster outlines a new compensation scheme for 72 Nortel executives that will see them get a total of $7.5 million on top of their current salaries in 2009.
Of those 72, 14 will be getting compensation of $500,000 or more.
Who Needs Telemarketers? Pay People To Tweet and Post Instead
November 23, 2009
Here's a budding new and potentially more profitable and much less costly option to those hated (and in turn heavily regulated) cold-call telemarketing calls: paying people to pitch goodies via their social networks i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.
A story published in the Nov.21 New York Times reports that Amazon.com will start "paying commissions to individuals who refer buyers to the site via Twitter messages. (People must first sign up for Amazon Associates, a program in which Amazon pays Web publishers for referrals to its site.)".
Want To Make Money? Shape Up Your Voice Self-Service
November 18, 2009OK contact center managers and execs, here's a winner of a tip to make money and not leave it on the table: clean up your automated voice a.k.a. IVR self-service and quit treating it as the back of the bus for all those 80 percent of non-elite customers who generate the 20 percent of revenues.
Because if you don't you're going to lose that 20 percent who can easily go elsewhere. And they may not come back when they do qualify to speak promptly to a live agent.
Make Customers Smile? Give Them Low Priced Half-Decent Products
November 13, 2009Image via Wikipedia
A Nov.11 Los Angeles Times column by David Lazarus makes more kicks at the commonly stated (if not truly believed, and for good reason) assumption of organizations, their contact centers, and their suppliers that customers really give a rat's hindquarters about customer service especially in this tough economy.
In the piece, titled 'The sad illusion of happy customers' Mr. Lazarus takes a sharp look at electronics retailer Best Buy's new nationwide marketing campaign 'They'll be happy, you'll be happy, we'll be happy.'
"What they're saying is that the company will bend over backward to help you shop for gifts this holiday season and will do whatever it takes to ensure that gift recipients are pleased with what they get. This, in turn, will warm the hearts of Best Buy shareholders.
"Happy customers is a long-term strategy for us," Best Buy's chief marketing officer, Barry Judge, told me.
