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Analytics and Contact Centers, Employee Development Culture, Social Media in 2011, CRM Cloud Computing

January 27, 2011

A blog post at Medarch.net offers some insight on how “analytics and contact center quality monitoring are changing the way companies do business and dramatically improving contact center operations.”

Of course managers want “quick and accurate insights into the effectiveness of their contact center operations” in order to make decisions, but as the post notes, “they don’t have the time or resources to listen to and review the vast amount of customer interactions handled by the agents every day.”

Plus, “these days there seems to be more sophisticated tools including multimedia recording, desktop analytics, instant chat, self service options in the IVR, cloud computing... Therein lays their dilemma -- so little time, so much to accomplish in the course of a day.”

Novacroft's Contact Center, Streamlining Customer Onboarding, OnHold Music, Are Offices Shrinking?

January 27, 2011

GMT Corporation officials report the company has been selected by Novacroft to optimize its 100-seat contact center in Northampton, England.

Novacroft, which designs, develops and manages end-to-end smart ticketing products for the concessionary bus and rail industries, has selected GMT Planet to “improve agent productivity and better manage agent labor costs.”

According to GMT Planet officials, within four months of implementation, “Novacroft improved agent usage by more than 25 percent, consistently achieved employee satisfaction levels of greater than 98 percent and increased revenues and conversion rates.”

In late 2009, Novacroft officials say, they knew that as its contact center grew, it was not running as efficiently as it could be.

Reverse Phone Directory, Amdocs' Customer Experience, inContact Contact Center Survey, Monet Service Center Help

January 27, 2011

The Reverse Phone Detective, according to company officials, is “unconventional and advanced software” that caters to the needs of those who are subjected to such irresponsible situations as “nuisance callers specially the telemarketing calls that you get throughout the day.”

The Reverse Phone Detective, restricted to the U.S audience only, works both on cellular and land numbers. As company officials explain, “the software uses the techniques of geographical location finder in its Caller ID detection software and works extremely well to unravel the intricate data of a caller. The data so unveiled consists of fields such as identity, location, whether it’s a land or cellular connection, details of family members, immediate neighbors and more.”

Cellhut's Customers, Consumer VoIP, Customers On Hold, AT&T Customer Options

December 22, 2010

Saying that they’re helping with “defining new ways to communicate with people through unlocked phones,” Cellhut officials have announced what they say are “the latest products on the market at some of the lowest prices available.”

This combination makes Cellhut “the site to go to for the latest in unlocked gadgets,” company officials say, adding that “the accessories sale also makes a great way to produce stocking-stuffers for other people.”

In one of the better quotes we’ve heard from a tech vendor in quite some time, Cellhut officials note that “staying up-to-date isn't an easy feat to accomplish, but somebody has to ensure that the products in stock are worth the customers' time.”

Indeed. By “searching through all the tech review website and message board to stay up to date, Cellhut makes sure that the only phone in stock are worth the customers time. This promise has been the motto of Cellhut for years and years.”

Read more here.

…

Akron, Ohio-based Virtual Hold is trying to help establish a new meme.

Yes, we all know Black Friday, the day of shopping mall hell following Thanksgiving. “Now known as Cyber Monday, November 29 is the start of the online holiday shopping season,” company officials said recently.

Tagged: AT&T, AT&T U-verse, Cinemax, Customer service, Cyber Monday, Dan York, HBO, Television : Related Tags: company officials, customer service, verse online, cellhut officials, voice services, customers

Call Center Staffing, Telemarketing Report, Caller Rights, Call Center for Blind Employees

December 22, 2010

See if you agree with this statement: “The overwhelming majority of ongoing call center expense is related to staffing.”

Of course you do. As officials of Monet Software noted recently, “optimizing the personnel resource is critical. Overstaffing results in needless spending for unnecessary staff, while understaffing will lower service levels, increase staff turnover and impact your revenues.”

Monet WFM Live is desgined to help users automate tasks that have an immediate impact on the bottom line through what company officials describe as “more accurate call volume forecasting, staffing calculations and scheduling and daily performance tracking."

Breaking down the ROI to their Monet Workforce Management offering, company officials say it can result in measurable improvements in the following areas:

More efficient scheduling and agent usage. The savings associated with more efficient scheduling includes reducing overall staff hours and need for overtime and identification of overstaffing.

Tagged: ACSI, American Customer Satisfaction Index, Business, Call centre, Claes Fornell, Interactive voice response, Skilcraft, Telephony : Related Tags: property managers, skilcraft products, telemarketing software, industries blind, management companies, center

Converting Customers, NetSuite Stock, Contact Center Outsourcing, Customer Trends

December 22, 2010

JSE-listed telecoms operator, Vox Telecom, is “making progress” converting its least cost routing (LCR) customers onto its own network.

According to industry observer, Chanel de Bruyn, it’s happening as the lower interconnect rates come into play: “CEO Tony van Marken on Thursday said that the group would exploit the lower interconnect rates, which is the rate operators charge to carry each other’s traffic, to offer a competitive basket of voice solutions for all traffic types.”

As de Bruyn pointed out, earlier this year, South Africa’s largest mobile operators “reduced their peak interconnect rates, which are also called mobile termination or call termination rates, to 89 cents a minute. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa has also determined that the two largest operators would have to reduce their peak and off-peak rates to 40 cents a minute by March 2013.”

This April, TMC reported that VOX Telecom froze the renewal of client contracts to align the new agreements with the revised cell phone interconnection rates, but the move reduced earnings in the half-year to February by 18 percent.

“As the cost of cross-network calls falls, there will be less need for least-cost routing services, so providers that offer them as their sole service are under threat. Although the bulk of Vox's earnings comes from least-cost routing, it has diversified into areas such as internet services,” company officials said at the time.

Read more here.

…

According to authors of a recent report titled, “Key Consumer Trends for Insurance Providers in 2010,” available from Market Publishers, the global financial crisis “has had an impact on all consumers and their attitudes and motivations for buying insurance.”

In this “challenging environment,” the report’s authors found, “it is no longer sufficient to react to consumer behaviors, rather insurers need to understand the trends and influences behind insurance purchasing decisions.”

One strategy they recommend for growth-hungry insurers is “to establish operations in rapidly expanding markets where demographics and economic conditions favor growth the most. This has been the strategy of a few insurers in recent years, with mixed results.”

For the wave of consumers “across all markets,” the report finds, streamlining lifestyles “has had direct implications for insurance markets.

Tagged: Business, Chanel, Cloud computing, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Enterprise resource planning, NetSuite, Software as a service, Tony van Marken : Related Tags: contact center, center outsourcers, interconnect rates, shares netsuite, lower interconnect, percent

Cellhut and Customers, On Hold, Contact Center Outsourcing, Callers' IVR Rights

December 18, 2010

Saying that they’re helping with “defining new ways to communicate with people through unlocked phones,” Cellhut officials have announced what they say are “the latest products on the market at some of the lowest prices available.”

This combination makes Cellhut “the site to go to for the latest in unlocked gadgets,” company officials say, adding that “the accessories sale also makes a great way to produce stocking-stuffers for other people.”

In one of the better quotes we’ve heard from a tech vendor in quite some time, Cellhut officials note that “staying up-to-date isn't an easy feat to accomplish, but somebody has to ensure that the products in stock are worth the customers' time.”

Indeed. By “searching through all the tech review website and message board to stay up to date, Cellhut makes sure that the only phone in stock are worth the customers time. This promise has been the motto of Cellhut for years and years.”

And we thank them for it.

Read more here.

…

Akron, Ohio-based Virtual Hold is trying to help establish a new meme.

Yes, we all know Black Friday, the day of shopping mall hell following Thanksgiving. “Now known as Cyber Monday, November 29 is the start of the online holiday shopping season,” company officials said recently.

Tagged: Black Friday, Business, Business Services, Customer Management, Customer service, Cyber Monday, Interactive voice response, Telephony : Related Tags: contact center, company officials, customer service, clear callers, multi channel, callers

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Nuance and IVR, Boost Mobile, Customer Care, Plantronics Headsets

November 28, 2010

Boost Mobile, which works on the no-contract wireless industry side of the street, unveiled its latest campaign, featuring a 20-foot tall giant who, in the words of company officials, “is having a rough time dealing with his stature.”

It’s in the service of promoting Boost Mobile $50 Monthly Unlimited with Shrinkage. The storyline is that while this can't shrink all of the challenges associated with being a giant in a normal sized world, “it can shrink the monthly payments on a no-contract unlimited plan available on the NationwideSprint Network with on-time payments.”

And who better to convey that message than a 20-foot giant?

"Like our Giant, we've all wished we could shrink something, especially cell phone payments," said Caralene Robinson, director-Brand and Marketing communications, Boost Mobile. "With Boost's Shrinkage plan the longer you stay, the less you pay. Our customers, big or small, can watch their monthly payment shrink from $50 to as low as $35/month by simply making 18 on-time payments."

Read more here.

…

Nuance Communications announced that their technology now powers the voice search capabilities on the new Price Check IVR app by Amazon, for iPhone.

Using the same core voice technology found in the Dragon Dictation and Dragon Search apps “downloaded by millions of mobile consumers worldwide,” Nuance officials say, “Price Check by Amazon lets users simply speak the name of any product when they are shopping to receive instant prices for that item onAmazon.com.”

Customers can also use the app to scan a barcode, snap a picture or type a product name to return product matches and pricing from Amazon.com and its other online merchants.

"Price Check by Amazon demonstrates the power and efficiency that Nuance's voice technology brings to the mobile shopping experience," said Michael Thompson, senior vice president and general manager of Nuance Mobile, in a press release.

MVNOs Take Heart, Sicap Loyalty, BI From Raw Data, Acxiom's Customer Loyalty

November 28, 2010

You’re a voice mobile virtual network operator. As such, do you find your marketing campaigns delivering customers who always remember your Carrier Access Code (Prefix)? Do your customers always use your Carrier Access Code to make International long distance calls? Is your cost of customer acquisition and retention something to be proud of?

If not, well, you have a friend: “We understand that as a MVNO, it's always a challenge to ensure that your target audience remembers your Carrier Access Code and that they prefix the same before their destination number while making long distance calls,” said officials of Reve Systems.

In fact, that’s why the vendor introduced iTel MVNO Smart, a mobile application specially designed for end users of MVNO service providers.

Carphone Warehouse CRM, Phone.com Wins, VoIP Issues, Speedflow's CallMax

November 28, 2010

A recent examination of the BPM used for the Carphone Warehouse revealed some interesting findings.

“The Carphone Warehouse has already seen early benefits from its BPM implementations,” say official of Macehiter Ward-Dutton, who conducted the study. “Processes linking CRM and billing functionality are now in place and are able to be changed much more quickly than would have been the case using ‘traditional’ integration methods. In another project, a telecoms service activation process has been implemented centrally and made available to retail operations across Europe, bringing major time-to-market benefits for new products.”

The company’s fast growth, combined with the way it’s grown -- “blending organic growth with a very proactive approach to acquisition of businesses in order to enter new markets and territories” -- means it has a base of complicated applications. This is a big IT challenge, given all the legacy demands.

As a result, Carphone Warehouse decided to implement not just a new billing system, but a new CRM system as well.

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