The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is The Clash's London Calling, because every once in a while you need the music to kick you into gear:
3G network operator Verizon Wireless has been ranked highest in customer care among wireless phone service providers in J.D. Power and Associates' 2010 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study, Volume 1, released today.
Based on responses from more than 9,600 wireless subscribers who contacted their wireless service providers by phone, in stores or online last year and were surveyed by J. D. Power and Associates between July and December of 2009, Verizon Wireless "continued to perform as an industry leader with an overall satisfaction score of 753, 14 points above the overall industry average."
Verizon Wireless' score included former Alltel customers in retained markets.
Steven R. Smith, President, South Central Region, Verizon Wireless called it "an honor to receive such recognition."
Verizon Wireless has recently introduced an after-call survey to provide "fast, direct feedback from more customers," company officials said, "to help the company further improve the customer experience."
The company also continues to roll out its design in new and existing company-owned and -operated Communications Stores, offering shoppers the chance to experience their wireless voice, data, music and video services.
They were also cited for allowing customers to manage their accounts online using My Verizon, the company's online account management and customer service tool giving 24/7 online access to all their billing, payment and account-related information and the ability to view and pay bills online, check account balances, change addresses, track airtime usage, analyze monthly spending trends or change account features.
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Clickatell, a vendor of messaging, is providing in-country SMS alert services to Satelite Microfinance Bank in collaboration with Neptune Software. This means Satelite's customers "now receive real-time, priority alert messaging via Clickatell's Secure Enterprise Mobile Messaging Gateway, notifying them when transactions are taking place on their credit and debit accounts," according to Clickatell officials.
"Microfinance has fast become an important part of financial services as institutions serve previously under or un-served," said Pieter de Villiers, Clickatell CEO. "Providing reach, connectivity and ubiquity, mobility is standing at the center of this high growth sector as the next billion consumers begin to receive a whole new breed of financial services."
Experts estimate that 20-30 billion dollars are currently on loan to more than 50 million microfinance borrowers around the globe. Moreover, approximately 70 percent of the Nigerian population is un- or under-banked, which de Villiers called "an exploding demographic to take advantage of microfinance services."
Microfinance refers to financial services provided to low-income people, usually to help support self-employment. Examples of microfinance products include small loans, savings plans, insurance, payment transfer, SMS alerts and other services that are provided in small increments that low-income individuals can afford.
These services help families start and build "micro" enterprises, the small businesses that are important sources of employment, income, and economic vitality in developing countries worldwide since salaried or wage-paying jobs are scarce in many developing countries.
"We've been able to create a cost effective and reliable direct line of communication between us and our customers ensuring far more personalised and cost effective banking service," said Nnamdi Chizea, Divisional Head, Operations & Treasury Management for Satelite MFB.
Satelite MFB currently has operations in eight locations across Nigeria, an expansive ATM infrastructure, and inter-connected branches offering on-line real time transaction processing.
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Comverse has coupled its Business Support System and mobile Internet products to help operators capitalize on the explosive growth in data traffic, company officials say - "not only in terms of providing the right quality of service to end users, but also to extend revenue opportunities by implementing new data-centric business models."
For each mobile data network, operators establish rules, or policies, for the services now available to subscribers, such as on-line gaming and streaming video. However, standalone policy solutions are not a complete answer, Comverse officials say: "A merging of network policies with pricing policies is required. The subscriber data held in the BSS is key to delivering the required subscriber experience in the network."
What limits and conditions, for instance, are imposed on the use of these services? And what is the bandwidth and network priority applicable to these services? Too often, these policies are haphazard, uncoordinated, or even conflicting -- and in some cases, operators just offer flat-rate plans with unlimited service.
"Operators have discovered that flat-rate pricing for unlimited data usage is not working, both in terms of maximizing value and providing quality service for all subscribers, who are demanding a 'perfect' experience," said Gabriel Matsliach, President of Products and Operations at Comverse,a supplier of software and systems enabling messaging and other services.
"Bringing together capabilities from Comverse ONE Billing and Active Customer Management with those from the Comverse Mobile Internet HUB," Matsliach said, adding that "allows telecom operators to manage all policy dimensions to capture all revenues as defined by the operators' monetization policies."
It is clear, Matsliach says, that policy "must be managed on many levels to unlock value for both the operator and subscriber. You must consider subscriber data, application needs, device capabilities and network conditions."
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Competition Technology, a software developer of technology for sports and "competitive activities," has released "seeme active baseball for iPhone and iPod touch," company officials say. Seeme active baseball "enables anybody to capture, comment upon and share player stats, scores, and highlights while watching from the bleachers or dugout," company officials say.
The app can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store for only $1.99. Access to users' accounts on www.seemeactive.com is free.
Providing instant results from the game to the Web, seeme active baseball "makes it simple to save and automatically share baseball and softball stats through its interface," company officials say. "Capture batting, pitching, fielding, and base running stats with just a couple finger taps."
Then once saved on the iPhone, the stats are automatically accessible in the competitor's account at seemeactive.com. Friends and family can receive notifications of stats as they're added and review results as they happen from any device with web access. Which is useful if you can't be there in person.
Mike Egan, President of Lakeside Little League in Northern California, said not everybody can make it to every game, "and seeme baseball helps keep everybody up to date. And the ability to review stats as the season progresses and from year to year is going to be popular with our players."
Competitors can permit a friend to enter results on their behalf while they're competing, and allow others to freely add comments or just view the results. The sharing functionality also enables users to have stats automatically posted to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to let friends and family get the results as they happen.
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A new white paper released by Tompkins Associates, a global supply chain consulting firm, highlights what the paper's authors say are "the benefits that are continuing to drive the growth of voice technology at SAP customer organizations."
These benefits include "accuracy, productivity, visibility and control of core warehousing functions," they say.
Authored by Tom Singer, principal at Tompkins Associates, the paper, "Voice-Enabling Your SAP Warehouse: Building the Business Case for Voice Technology," examines the primary drivers of the increasing role of voice in distribution center and warehouse applications and reviews "key areas of consideration" in evaluating the need for voice against other technologies.
"As more DCs and warehouses have realized the advantages of voice, it has become more popular," says Singer. "But the technology's popularity should not win out over ensuring that you are making the right decision for your operation. What it boils down to is selecting the right tool for the job. In many cases, voice-centric solutions are an extremely effective technology for improving productivity and performance in SAP enterprise organizations."
The white paper recommends that SAP organizations conduct an in-depth evaluation and build a solid business case for implementation, including a thorough understanding of the operational situation, the added value new processes can offer, and the associated costs. When quantifying the benefits, companies need to understand the engineer-based analysis.
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Sybase, a vendor of enterprise and mobile software, has announced that PlayPhone EMEA, a branded mobile entertainment vendor, has selected Sybase IQ to provide information about its customers and marketing campaigns.
"When you're running a business like ours, success is all about generating volume," explains Simon Rose, PlayPhone director of infrastructure for the European, Middle East and Africa region. "That requires the rapid planning and execution of simultaneous, large-scale marketing campaigns."
Using Sybase IQ, "PlayPhone can now meet the customer demands, target customers and plan, execute, monitor and fine-tune marketing campaigns to achieve the best return on its marketing spend," said Andrew de Rozairo, Business Development, Strategic Partners EMEA, Sybase.
Rose said "Sybase IQ has enabled us to gain a single view of our data for reporting and data mining purposes. It's been extremely stable and reliable. Having the ability to use the developer edition of Sybase IQ has allowed us to try different things before actually implementing them."
Sybase Professional Services created a proof-of-concept with Sybase IQ running on Red Hat Linux on a commodity server and employing the SAS Business Intelligence Server as its front end.
