The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Dwight Yoakam's wonderful acoustic.net, the 2000 solo acoustic reworkings of gems from his back catalogue. Some songs shine brighter in this setting than they did with full band backing, notably "Readin', Rightin,' Rt. 23" and "Little Sister:"

Virgin Games, Virgin's on-line gaming offering, is claiming an average e-mail response time of "less than five minutes" to customers, following the implementation of a multimedia contact center product from NEC Philips Unified Solutions. The combined multi-media contact center is a first within the Virgin Group, breaking away from their traditional telephony based applications.

The NEC Philips tool combines call, chat and e-mail customer contact facilities. Virgin Games officials say they've seen a 200-300 percent improvement in service delivery since the product was implemented, as well as "average abandonment" rates dropping to below one percent. Operations Director Christina Thakor-Rankin said "most companies consider 2-5 percent abandonment acceptable."

The company went live with the new tool, which uses IP and contact center technology from NEC Philips, in November 2008 with the launch of its in-house Customer Support Team. The company decided at the time to replace its previously outsourced customer support functions, company officials say, to ensure "full ownership of and a better, more streamlined customer experience."

Thakor-Rankin said that "at launch our volumes went through the roof and whilst we aim for First Contact Resolution wherever possible, the fact that some customer interactions require some investigation means that unfortunately it is not always possible to give an instant response. " She said in the last five and a half months "we have received 25,000 hits across all media, be it call, chat or e-mail."

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Aspect, a unified communications vendor, has announced that one of its customers, Fran Horner from NorthShore University HealthSystem, won the 1to1 Customer Champion Award from industry journal 1to1 Magazine. 

As the senior director of patient access, Horner was cited for "driving patient services initiatives and using the UC application for the contact center capabilities from Aspect." In recent months NorthShore improved its contact center satisfaction level "from 60 percent to up to 98 percent," lowered agent turnover by 58 percent, and boosted the "calls answered within 30 seconds" metric to 82 percent, Aspect officials say.

"The patient experience begins the moment you call a healthcare provider," said Horner, stressing the need to keep the process "as pleasant as possible." Horner said it was "gratifying" to have their work at NorthShore University HealthSystem "validated by 1to1 Magazine."

Horner and NorthShore University HealthSystem decided on what Aspect officials characterized as a "people-focused, cross-departmental initiative supported by technology." NorthShore, a healthcare provider based in the northern Chicago suburbs, implemented the inbound, outbound, voice portal, recording and workforce management capabilities of Aspect's UC application for the contact center, Blended Interaction. Horner established new recruiting and training initiatives to deal with patient inquiries.

The 1to1 Customer Champions are chosen by 1to1 Magazine based on "their ability to transform customer loyalty into profit," publication officials say.

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Noting that companies today are "increasingly selective about their technology spending, putting pressure on value added resellers to provide one-stop value for software products and professional services," Tricension officials have announced that the organization has achieved Microsoft Business Solutions Certified Partner and acceptance in the Microsoft Services Provider Licensing program.


 

"Our Dynamics CRM practice has continued to grow and with the current economic environment, clients were increasingly shying away from capital purchases and looking for a more manageable technology cost model for Microsoft Dynamics CRM," says Mike Lammers, Tricension's President and Chief Business Architect.

The Service Provider License Agreement lets firms offer hosted Microsoft licensed products on a monthly basis. Tricension's Software as a Service offering is focused on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, "complimented with Exchange 2007 and SharePoint," company officials say. The firm pairs Certified Microsoft Dynamics professional services with the Dynamics CRM hosted product.

"Clients are asking for low cost of ownership ways to automate business processes," Lammers notes.

Kansas City-based Tricension targets "C-level managers in mid-market companies who have a high level of frustration with their current technology," company officials say, as well as serving "well-managed young companies."

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Tighten your belts, campers, the news isn't good: According to new research from industry analyst firm IntelliCom Analytics, North American Business Communications market revenues plunged by 29 percent in the first calendar quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. 

All of the major providers tracked in the IntelliCom report saw year-over-year declines, with the top five -- Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, Mitel, and NEC -- dropping 20 percent or more.

These figures, from the "IntelliCom Market Performance Dashboard First Quarter 2009 Report," are based on "total manufacturer product revenues associated with premise-based communication platform hardware, software applications, and end user devices," IntelliCom officials say.

"Q1 represented the first full quarter impacted by the general economic downturn, and the impact was severe with North American businesses dramatically reducing spending on Business Communications solutions and related applications," stated Frank Stinson, Partner and Senior Analyst at IntelliCom Analytics. "This market decline is unprecedented in both its breadth and depth. No one went unscathed."

The silver lining in all this is that total market penetration in Q1 was "generally consistent" with established trends. Cisco continues to hold a nearly 10 point lead over second place Avaya, while Nortel remained in the number three position it occupied prior to filing for Chapter 11 protection in January. Stinson said to expect "significant dynamics" over the next several quarters, however: "We expect the next several quarters to be particularly significant, especially for those players in a weakened condition... whether that be through aggressive competitive tactics or acquisition."

The IntelliCom Market Performance Dashboard looks particularly hard at core telephony software, platform hardware, end user devices and emerging Unified Communications applications.

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None of that doom 'n' gloom for some companies, however -- Host Analytics, a vendor of SaaS corporate performance management products, is ramping up its "blazing hot" quarter with the launch of Host Analytics version 9.0, the company's 17th major product release in the last nine years. 

Company officials say the newest release introduces "new functionality designed to make the SaaS CPM suite more comprehensive, extensible and usable," with "a more comprehensive feature set for the financial consolidation module of the Host Analytics suite, eliminating the complex macros and scripting required in spreadsheets and legacy tools." 

The launch of v9.0 caps a busy spring for Host Analytics. Last month the company announced it closed a Series B financing which they say raised "multiple millions of dollars," and in April Host Analytics passed the 8,000 paying-user milestone.

Jon Kondo, CEO at Host Analytics, said "curiously, the 'CPM system' Host Analytics most often replaced when we began in 2000 is the same product we are displacing in the market today -- Microsoft Excel. Though great for any number of basic projects, Excel lacks the functionality, agility and accessibility required by business in the midmarket and beyond to execute CPM thoughtfully and strategically."

Host Analytics officials are also announcing a Team Edition - Financial Consolidation, designed to replace Microsoft Excel and legacy on-premise products in midsized companies and enterprises, as well as a series of new partnerships with SaaS-focused ISVs and systems integrators.

Version 9 also has enhanced Excel integration for dynamic access to actuals, budgets and forecast values for custom and ad hoc reporting and analysis. Extensibility has been enhanced to support SEC-required XBRL reporting through NeoClarus, web services based integration to ERP, CRM and HCM data sources through Boomi, and custom reporting through Microsoft Reporting Services documents that can be run within the Host Analytics suite. Usability improvements include reduced process steps, task lists, wizards and Web 2.0-based toolbars and menus.