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eDiscovery, FRCP and call recording

February 9, 2010 1:07 PM | 0 Comments

 

Electronic records discovery is a major burden that has been placed squarely on all businesses. Through the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), businesses of any size are required to provide all electronic records related to a suit or face draconian sanctions as opined by John Bace, research vice president at Gartner, Inc. (reference: http://www.channelprosmb.com/article/16270/E-Discovery-Is-for-SMBs-Too/). If a business cannot produce the requested documentation its only hope to avoid penalties is to show that it has good document retention policies in place and that they were followed in a routine, good-faith manner. Good luck to you trying to make that case as I imagine the standards being vague and interpreted differently across judges and jurisdictions.
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An Interactive 2010

January 31, 2010 12:36 AM | 0 Comments

My company has been focusing a lot of effort on developing an integration, multi-channel communications strategy for 2010. We firmly believe that our marketplace consists of individuals who each may prefer IM, web searching, social media, blog, email, telephone and in-person communications.

There has been much discussion lately about which is more important. I am preaching that each is most important, depending upon the individual who is communicating with us.

Some people believe phone calls carry the highest urgency and drive the fastest response. Others prefer social media and IM because it is what they are most comfortable with.

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In the Sept. 14th issue of InformationWeek it is reported that CUNA Mutual Group identified a key barrier to sales conversions in their call center: requiring forms be signed and mailed into their processing center in order to complete the transaction. The leakage rate is reported to be 80%...80%!!!

The company implemented a call recording solution to capture "voice signatures," eliminating the need for paper forms to be sent in. The results include a faster sales process, an immediate increase in monthly sales of 74% and approx. $1.8M in additional revenues. Continue Reading...

How to value happy customers

August 12, 2009 3:28 PM | 0 Comments
Isn't selling shoes one of the oldest retail sectors on the planet? There has been a village cobbler since the beginning of recorded history, right?
 
So how does an online shoe retailer build up its business to be worth over $900M in a period of 10 years? Zappos.com did just that, having agreed to be acquired by Amazon last month (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/technology/companies/23amazon.html?_r=2&hpw).
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Word of mouth has more outlets than ever before. People communicate with each other using tools like blogs, microblogs, social networking sites, text messaging and others. All this on top of traditional medium for communications such as telephone calls, letters and good ol' fashion talking face-to-face. That's a whole lot of words going from one mouth to many, many ears (or eyes).
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As Congress and the White House debate the fate of car dealers across the country (recent Detroit Free Press article) it has me thinking why this is one of the first issues dealt with by the auto makers. True, more dealers means the credit available to carry inventory is spread a little thin. Until now this has not been an issue and, really, once the credit markets return to normal this will be a non-factor.
 
Ultimately the reason may come down to customer service.
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I received this note from a customer of ours this week, Charlene Burgett, Administrator for North Scottsdale Family Medicine.

I just have to tell you of my recent "win" and [our voice document system] made it happen!  Just last week, I receive a phone call from a patient who was extremely upset because she received a statement from the imaging facility we sent her to for a CT scan.  She states that her insurance denied the claim because WE did not get a prior authorization and now she wants us to pay the $1,400.00 since it was our mistake.  I told her that these calls are normally called into the health plan and that we record all the incoming/outgoing phone calls and if she gave me a little time, I would research the issue and call her back.  I first pulled the patient's chart and found where the medical assistant documented the date and time that she called the insurance company for the prior authorization and we were told that we didn't need a prior authorization.  From there, I went to [our voice document system] and searched the date and extension of the phone call going outbound, looked at the times and found the telephone number that was called to the health plan.  I listened to the entire 4+ minutes of the phone call and we, indeed, were told that we did not need a prior authorization.  BINGO!  I called the patient back and played the pertinent part of the phone conversation and told her to call the health plan to let them know I had it recorded and would be more than happy to play it on the phone for them.  They did call back with the patient on the other line and I played the recording.  Of course, there was some hemming and hawing, but I just received today that they will "make a one-time exception" and pay for the test!  (I can guarantee you that they will pay again if I have a similar situation!)
 
So, the patient does not have to pay the $1,400.00 and the insurance company wasn't successful making it look like it was our fault (which is usually how they play it)!

Our healthcare system has too many competing interests and the power is in the hands of the payers. Simply using electronic records for health management will not change the situation. Medical providers must be vigilant documenting their communications in a manner that makes it easy to rapidly provide documentation when necessary to speed access to payments and externally provided services.

Voice documentation has a lot of promise in this field to streamline the flow of money and remove some of the operational inefficiencies plaguing the system.
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Contact center roots

June 23, 2009 9:04 PM | 0 Comments

I constantly feel tension between the sophisticated needs of the contact center and the demand for simplicity from the rest of the business in this sector. It's easy to be pulled too far in either direction and leave a significant portion of the user base dissatisfied.

Today I got to spend time using the Alpha-release of our forthcoming software version. It really got me thinking about how much room there is for us to make easier the job of contact center management. Our industry has done much to capture and aggregate information but not nearly as much to identify singular instances of success or issues whenever that may be convenient.

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breaking the silos

June 22, 2009 10:05 PM | 0 Comments
Hello! Sorry for the absence...vacations, conferences, etc. have made posting a challenge.

The good news is my time away has me refocused and charged up. I spent time last week at Mitel's business partner forum showing some of our recent innovations. Continue Reading...

Social media in business has been my pet topic of late. I believe network convergence has matured and is driving very creative application development focused on combining people and ideas rather than forms of communication. As these apps take root latency in decisions becomes less and less and organizations become smarter due to the network effect. It's the virtual equivalent of putting everyone in one room until a given problem is solved.

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Social media in the enterprise is a frequent topic these days. In my opinion the conversation is normally too narrow as it should include UC and VoIP in addition to the methods of interacting made famous by the likes of Facebook.

I think call recording can be a critical link between voice communications and these social media applications. Creating digital media out of voice communications that is indexed and automatically associated with the proper topic threads with the necessary layer of access permissions would streamline business communications by speeding information sharing and reducing miscommunications in an asynchronous way that works better in today's ever-more-busy lifestyle.

What do you think? Would you want to have some or all telephone conversations automatically published to subject-appropriate portals? Continue Reading...
As the leader of my business, I know I am supposed to seek out and listen to the voice of our customer. They will tell me - one way or another - what they like and dislike about our products and services, as well as where we need to be headed to continue to be relevant to them.

I also know this is not easy. Many customers do not want to take the time to tell me how to improve my business. Many contacts within my customers are content but somewhat disconnected from day to day use of our products. Continue Reading...

Helping to solve big challenges

February 23, 2009 3:55 PM | 0 Comments
Our healthcare system is a constant news topic today as the government looks at ways to make it more efficient and patient-friendly. One of the issues with the system is that of insurance. There are many statistics being tossed around noting how many have and do not have insurance, etc. What is sometimes overlooked is the burden the current healthcare insurance system puts on the overall healthcare system and thus those that do not have insurance.

Per research conducted a few years ago by the American Medical Association it is quite common for insurers to reduce, delay and deny claims that should be authorized. Continue Reading...

Maintaining high customer satisfaction levels in consumer services can be quite daunting. The first experience is typically a phone call to check prices, determine availability and schedule service. Then, an employee with little or no direct supervision will go onsite with a mission to deliver the service to the customer's satisfaction and collect payment, often after attempting an upsell to a premium service or to include an add-on.

Take for example, carpet cleaning. When scheduled, the consumer is usually thinking "I just want a clean, comfortable home for my family." But there are so many options and the prices can vary substantially.

We recently documented the case of a Stanley Steemer franchise in San Diego, CA, who uses our recording technology to ensure proper customer communications and immediately resolve any disputes over included services, schedules and pricing.

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Hot topic at ITEXPO East

February 4, 2009 9:25 AM | 0 Comments
I've spent much of the last day or so speaking with distributors and other partners interested in whether the economy is making it easier or harder to get attention from channel partners. My honest response is that channel partners are more eager than ever for applications and business solutions that make immediate impact in the form of ROI because their traditional product lines - communications platforms and phones - are not driving the same rate of sales as before.

End users need solutions to real problems around customer retention, business protection and cost reduction. Channel partners and VAR's are a sharp bunch; they want to sell what customers want.

So I am excited about our present opportunities. I'm interested to know what others think. Continue Reading...
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