By David Sims
[email protected]
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is… well, let’s bring up iTunes, click on Library, hit “Shuffle” and see what
we get… okay, play… ah, it’s Lou Reed’s “Intro/Sweet Jane” masterpiece from Rock’n’Roll Animal. Nice start to the
day:
First CoffeeSM’s unofficial position as chronicler of bad customer relationship
experiences with online vendor Caiman.com is becoming known around the
blogosphere, as “Mark” writes in to say:
I had a similar experience with this
dishonest vendor (caiman.com). I bought a CD from them via Amazon.com and it
has been 6 months now and I have still not received it! Worse, they are not
responding to emails. I get sick thinking about how much $$ they are making by
not sending the product that people have ordered.
I am taking this up
with Amazon and expect a full refund. They made the business decision to
partner with this vendor and they should follow up when the vendor does not.
Amen. It’s one thing to get ripped off by a vendor, which
happens, unfortunately, in the online world. It’s another thing for reputable
online vendors to partner with vendors who have so many complaints about such
behavior, because here’s the business point: Customer experiences will always reflect on the company whose name is
on the door. In this case that’s Amazon.com.
The absolute lamest excuse possible in business is “That’s
not my issue, that’s my partner’s problem.” Wrong answer, go to jail, do not
pass Go, do not collect $200.
If Dave’s Mart is selling Fritz’s Cookies, and customers
come to Dave saying “These cookies you’re selling have Asian bird flu and three
of my kids have died,” Dave does not say “Gee, sounds terrible, but that’s not
my problem, here’s Fritz’s number, thanks for your business, see you back at
your usual shopping time.” If Dave ever wants to see aforesaid customer again
he apologizes, makes it right and tells Fritz no more cookies for me, thanks.
Go sell somewhere else.
This is CRM, people: Keeping customers by doing what it
takes to ensure the quality of the customer experience. Therefore “It’s not my
problem, it’s a supplier issue, thank you, next please” is not CRM, it’s
kicking your customer in the butt a second time.
Read what Mark says above, paying special attention to the
second paragraph. Companies who don’t do something about bad suppliers soon
become indistinguishable from the supplier.
…
CallMiner, a developer of speech analytics
software has announced the award of a five-year GSA contract, GS-35F-0131R.
CallMiner sells software and applications which let agencies mine intelligence
from all recorded interactions.
CallMiner’s inclusion on the GSA schedule was enabled by an
agreement with Carahsoft Technology, a government IT firm based in Reston, Va.
The CallMiner Suite uses patent-pending speech recognition technology that
converts recorded calls to minable data. The CallMiner Analytics Suite uses
data mining and trend mining techniques to analyze recorded interactions that
uncover both content and intent embedded in the recordings. This lets call
center supervisors mine call content in real time, and hopefully identify call
trends and opportunities that, until now, were too costly and time consuming to
analyze.
…
Calypso Wireless, Inc. has announced that
it has received a purchase order for
$23.3 million from Centconet SA for the delivery of the Calypso C1250i Dual
Mode WiFi-GSM-GPRS VoIP cellular phone, which runs on Intel PXA series
application processor and Microsoft WinCE 5.0 operating system and the Calypso
C750 WiFi phone.
“Centconet has decided to launch the Calypso Wireless C1250i
dual mode cellular phones and C750 WiFi phones. We have placed a purchase order
with Calypso Wireless for $23.3 million to purchase 35,000 Calypso C1250i
WiFi-GSM-GPRS VoIP cellular phones and 45,000 Calypso C750 WiFi phones,” confirmed
J. Poincot, General Manager of Centconet SA.
Poincot said Centconet will be using Cisco Systems Aironet WiFi Access Point
and gateway controllers and Nokia routers. Mobile users will be able to switch
from a conventional cellular tower to a WiFi Access Point “and save money when
making a VoIP call using Skype,” he claimed.
“With an estimated 800 millions cellular phones to be sold world-wide in 2005,
this order is an forward step of Calypso entering the mobile market with the
ASNAP patented technology U.S. Patent #6,680,923.” says Alfredo Sarrazin, Vice
President of Sales of Calypso Wireless Inc., who probably doesn’t talk like
that in real life.
…
Genco today announced it has formed an alliance with KeyTone
Technologies to provide hands-on RFID training in a real supply chain
environment.
With many analysts predicting a shortage of RFID
professionals, the alliance combines supply chain management experience of Genco
and RFID application development and deployment experience of KeyTone to form
one comprehensive training program. The training program will be marketed as
RFIDApplied2U, in another example of the Princefication of our language.
Attendees will undergo a workshop on how to develop an
execution plan, set up a pilot environment based on the execution plan and test
a sample application. They’ll be asked to provide up to five cases of their own
product for enabling with RFID.
“This is a unique offering that is not being offered at any
other RFID training facilities. By tagging their own product, participants will
begin to see immediate results, which are relevant to their respective
businesses,” claims Cary Cameron, Genco’s Vice President of Strategic
Technologies.
Initially, there will be two courses offered, RFID for Managers and RFID
Operations and Project Management, followed by RFID Application Development and
Integration and RFID Networking & Troubleshooting later in the year. The
first course will be held on February 7, 2006.
…
Zi Corporation has launched six new
language databases for its predictive text products. Zi’s eZiText for one-touch
entry prediction and eZiTap for intelligent multi-tap entry are now available
in four new languages for the Indian wireless market and two new languages for
the African wireless market.
The new products allow subscribers in these emerging
wireless markets can now enter text more quickly and customize their mobile
phones through the use of personal language. Zi now supports 54 language
databases, enough for more than two thirds of the world’s population.
“With mobile subscribers in both Africa and India growing at a rapid pace,
these low penetration, high growth markets have specific language needs,” said
Milos Djokovic, chief technical officer and chief operating officer, Zi
Corporation.
Research firm Gartner predicts that the Indian cellular
services market will reach $24 billion by the end of 2009, and other sources
point to India as one of the fastest growing markets in the world, adding
nearly 2 million new subscribers each month.
In the Indian subcontinent, added to its existing language
offering of Hindi, which has 340 million speakers, and Urdu, with more than 10
million, Zi is now supporting predictive text messaging technology for 227
million Bengali speakers, 66 million Tamil speakers, 50 million Punjabi
speakers and 46 million Gujarati speakers.
In Africa, Gartner predicts wireless subscribers to grow from 92 million in
2005 to nearly 154 million by 2010. Zi’s new African language databases will
enable service to over 50 million Swahili speakers and 6.4 million Afrikaans
speakers.
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