Recently in Call Center/CRM Category

This announcement came across our TMCnet news feeds this week:

MetLife's Customer Response Center Recognized for World-Class Customer Service Earns 'Center of Excellence' Certification

The release caught my eye in part because I have been a customer of MetLife for auto, home and term life insurance -- and a company stockholder as well. But MetLife's contact center has been on my mind lately because of some worrisome experiences I've had recently.

Most recently: In September I got worried because I had not received my MetLife bill (I'm on a monthly billing program that spreads out my enormous auto insurance bill over several months). When I first called to check on the bill, it was on a weekend. Surprisingly the call center was closed. This is a big insurance company. No 24/7 coverage?

As a working person, I figured my only option, then, was to deal with the IVR, which assured me that everything was fine with my account.

It lied. Within days, I received a notice threatening to shut off my auto insurance (you definitely don't want that to happen in Connecticut) and demanding immediate payment in full.

No choice but to call MetLife after work, squeezing in the call between the time I could limp into my front door one evening and the time when the call center would no doubt shut down for the night.

Long story short, I was able to reach a support specialist who could solve my problem, accept a phone payment and reinstate my monthly billing program -- in view of my many years as a customer and in view of my not having received my invoice in the first place.

The real hitch is this: That support specialist was a supervisor, and I was only able to speak with him after going through a low-level flunky who could not help me with my problem. Even worse, the low-level flunky at first told me that he could not help me with my problem and that no resolution was possible. He was very reluctant to put me through to a supervisor and only did so because I am a relentless bully when it comes to recalcitrant contact center agents and operations. I am usually polite and acknowledge that the problem is not their fault personally, but I insist that there must be someone who has the authority to deal with my problem -- so please find that person.

So I'm puzzled as to how MetLife's contact center got certified for its excellence. What about the tens of thousands of MetLife customers who are not relentless bullies? What happens to them when they call and hit the brick wall? I was curious to know something more about BenchmarkPortal's (the certifying agency) criteria for evaluating call centers, but couldn't find anything specific about that on their site.

Anyway, MetLife does get good marks for at least having a supervisor on duty who was willing and able to handle my problem and who displayed superb tact and consideration. But some points off their score for poor front-line staffing.

I'm still a MetLife customer. But while I was on the phone waiting for the supervisor, I was also on my computer -- and I had just typed www.progressive.com into the address bar on my Web browser.

AB -- 10/20/05

According to an announcement that came across our TMCnet news feeds today, Datatel is calling on SAS to add analytical capabilities to the services Datatel offers to colleges and universities. (See "Datatel and SAS Partner to Power High-Performance Higher Education.")

Reading the press release, I think the partnership is limited to improving the business intelligence (BI) capabilities of Datatel's ERP (enterprise resource planning) product. But I wonder whether the partnership could eventually lead to greater CRM (customer relationship management) capabilities for Datatel's products as well.

Not long ago, I worked on a consulting project with a graduate school that was using Datatel for managing student information among other things. The IT and business folks had been making a valiant effort for several years to get Datatel implemented in a complex multi-campus system with a corporate culture valuing decentralized authority ("They're a bunch of cowboys," one manager told me.) In spite of the hard work and difficulties involved in the implementation, the school was seeing a real payback in terms of their management capabilities.

I thought at the time that the school could really benefit from a CRM implementation, with the Datatel database as the core information repository. But when I discussed the idea with a few people, I found that the only one who had ever heard of CRM was the president. A lot of blank stares. The concept made sense, but it can be hard for a school or other non-profit organization to think of the people it serves as "customers" -- so the term "CRM" can grate a little bit.

The more I thought about it, the more I could see that the CRM model makes particular sense in the business of higher education. Think of the diversity of touch-points a college or university has with its students and the longevity of the relationship between school and student -- from the first time the school contacts the prospective student during high school -- all the way up though graduation and the alumni relationship -- even up to the former student's death, when the alum leaves a bequest to the school in their will! (Because the school has continued to be in touch through the years, as the alum was making his or her estate plans.)

Here are some of the departments (and notes about the type of contact involved) that might be able to benefit from a single view of the student (customer) housed in a database available to any school employee that comes in touch with a student throughout the institutional relationship:

Admissions/Marketing -- Contacts with guidance counselors (and other influencers) and prospective students in referring institutions. Contact during campus visits and similar promotional events.

Registrar -- Housing of student information, courses, schedule, grades, etc.

Student Services -- Housing, medical, parking, computing, library and other services.

Finance -- Billing

Financial Aid

Alumni Relations -- Contacts such as fund-raising, publications, volunteer service, networking, events.

Institutional Advancement/Development -- Fund-raising, planned giving.

Is a CRM product in Datatel's plans for the future, and could the SAS relationship put them on the path to providing CRM? I see a lot of potential for such an offering in the higher education market.

AB -- 10/20/05

In a memo yesterday afternoon, Bruce Cleveland, senior vice president for products at Siebel Systems, took a shot at Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff. Cleveland said that Benioff is "running scared" as he sees big companies entering the hosted CRM space.

Cleveland refers to a memo issued by Benioff earlier this week commenting on Siebel's pending acquisition by Oracle, announced Monday, Sept. 12, 2005. In that memo, Benioff said that as a result of the acquisition, "the same thing that happened to PeopleSoft will happen to Siebel, it will die."

Cleveland attacks one of Benioff's key arguments, around issues of technology platforms. Benioff had said that "Siebel OnDemand is written exclusively on DB2 and Websphere and runs in IBM data centers," and so Oracle would be unlikely to continue supporting it.

But Cleveland responds, "Now, given our close partnership with IBM, we have chosen to run Siebel CRM OnDemand on DB2 and on WebSphere, and to use IBM's world-class hosting services. But there is no technical linkage that precludes us from working with other companies."

Cleveland also quotes assurances from Larry Ellison Sept. 12 at Oracle's press conference announcing the planned Siebel acquisition:

"We think OnDemand is going to be increasingly important. We think the Siebel OnDemand products have -- are improving at a very, very rapid rate and we intend to invest in them heavily. In fact, we expect that all of the Siebel product features and functions that they have in the software products will migrate to the OnDemand products. So we think that is again a very important asset that we want to preserve and invest in as the acquisition is concluded."

Cleveland also responds to Benioff's mantra, "It's the end of software," calling it an "inane statement" to say that the practice of software development is coming to an end. He cites Siebel's continued growth in the CRM space as evidence that the company is far from dying. "Marc is not in the same league as Siebel Systems in terms of the breadth of solutions we provide for leading organizations worldwide," he says.

Cleveland says what's really going on is that Benioff is scared, "and when he runs scared he attacks." Scared, that is, of growing competition from Microsoft, SAP and Oracle, as well as "increasingly hungry and aggressive competition from smaller companies."

For further insight into the Oracle-Siebel acquisition, Salesforce.com's strategy, and the long-time Siebel-Salesforce acrimony, here are some recent articles on TMCnet:

Oracle Buys Siebel -- Rich Tehrani acknowledges that this makes sense as a business deal but believes "it is not a good deal for the customer."

Analysis: Will Siebel Customers Benefit? -- Bob Liu finds that the Oracle-Siebel acquisition "does remove the cloud surrounding Siebel's long-term viability and leadership," but it also raises questions in other areas.

The Enterprise Software Industry's Alamo: Remember PeopleSoft -- Tracey Schelmetic points out that so far Oracle's PeopleSoft acquisition doesn't seem to be going so well, according to some observers.

First Coffee Talks With Salesforce Pres. Jim Steele at Dreamforce '05 -- David Sims gets some interesting insight into Salesforce.com's strategy and the history of the Siebel-Salesforce rivalry.

AB -- 9/16/05

Today Vocal Laboratories (VocaLabs) is announcing Express Feedback, a survey service for customer service operations. For today's announcement, see the Vocal Laboratories press release on TMCnet.

The announcement says that Express Survey calls back a customer "within minutes of the end of the call, and matches caller opinions to a recording of that specific call," providing added insight into the customer's experience with the call center operation. Express Feedback administers the survey using a live agent rather than a robot.

This new survey service seems especially geared toward providing better information about calls that didn't go so well. For one thing, I can imagine that a live questioner would be much more welcome than an automated system for an infuriated customer. And because Express Feedback connects the survey response with a recording of the call, an investigator will be better able to find out what went wrong with a call.

In today's announcement, VocaLabs CEO Peter Leppik confirms this intent: "End-of-call surveys typically miss the opinions of callers you wish to hear the most from: those who disconnect before the call completes. Past methods provide some information on caller attitudes and opinions, but because Express Feedback matches specific caller feedback to individual call recordings, it also tells you why callers form the opinions they do, where when and how a problem arose, and what needs to be done to improve the caller experience."

AB -- 9/14/05

In a communique released today, Bruce Cleveland, senior vice president for products at Siebel Systems, claims leadership in the hosted CRM space for Siebel's CRM OnDemand product and emphasizes the company's commitment to the space.

Evidently triggered by the release of Siebel's quarterly financial results, today's message says that in the second quarter CRM OnDemand achieved total contract value (TCV) of $20 million versus only $10.6 million in the first quarter with year-over-year growth of 249%. Total user count grew to an estimated 40,000.

Cleveland's message includes some comments about what makes for a successful CRM implementation:

"A successful CRM project requires great technology but technology alone is insufficient. Senior executives want to see measurable business value from their CRM solutions—to grow their existing customer base, to retain their best and most profitable customers, to target and acquire new customers and to provide unmatched customer service. A hosted, on-premise, or hybrid approach to CRM is simply the delivery model to reach these desired business outcomes and not the root cause of success. As such, we have seen large enterprises select our hosted CRM solutions, while we’ve seen mid-sized companies purchase our on-premise software."

Cleveland cites Siebel's in-progress implementation of CRM OnDemand for Pulte Homes, the largest U.S. homebuilder, as a prime example of the relevance of a hosted solution for even a large company. He quotes Pulte CIO Jerry Batt explaining the choice of CRM OnDemand for the project: "We selected Siebel CRM OnDemand based on Siebel Systems’ thought leadership in front-office applications and the company’s domain expertise in working with large companies to solve complex business problems. We also valued the breadth and depth of Siebel’s world-class toolset, its impressive R&D infrastructure, and its strong built-in analytics capabilities."

Cleveland's message also cites recent endorsements by analyst firms Forrester, Gartner, Nucleus and Yankee, as well as customer wins over rival Salesforce.com. He claims "a 58% overall win ratio" over Salesforce.com in the second quarter.

AB -- 7/27/05

I thought this news item from Noble Systems Corporation was worth noting, as I have not seen it reported elsewhere:

Noble DCRT 4.0 Delivers the Newest Generation in Contact Center Management & Reporting From Noble Systems

Noble Systems is a developer of contact center technology. DCR stands for Dynamic Center Reporter; the new release provides an improved graphical interface for managing agents, lists and programs and for real-time reporting.

What is the product like? Noble's Web site doesn't show you much, other than these images from a PDF brochure, which might give you some idea of the user interface:

AB -- 6/29/05

Traxi Technologies, a communications and IT services firm, informed me of a new product release today. The new product, Volcrum Voice, adds VoIP call recording to their Volcrum product line, developed to integrate enterprise phone systems and applications. The company describes Volcrum as a "suite of tools that lets you manage, integrate, control and administer your VoIP phone system seamlessly with the rest of your information technology infrastructure."

Traxi's news release from today is available on TMCnet at:

Traxi Technologies Introduces Volcrum Voice, a VoIP Call Recording Package

The announcement describes Volcrum Voice's capabilities as follows:

"Volcrum Voice contains a call recording component that allows calls to be archived for subsequent searching and playback. This application is ideal for customer service departments, contact centers, and regulated entities, resulting in better quality assurance, increased sales and customer satisfaction rates.

"Volcrum 's core technology design allows it to integrate with any application from packaged software to proprietary applications. The product suite provides a flexible set of tools that lets companies manage, integrate, control and administer an IP phone system (VoIP) or traditional phone system seamlessly with the rest of its technology infrastructure."

Lou Person, president of Traxi Technologies, describing the rationale for Volcrum Voice, says Traxi is seeing many companies upgrading phone systems and applications. "Over half of those making the change," he says, "are moving to VoIP because they are interested in the additional applications VoIP provides, such as phone and data integration. Volcrum Voice implements that vision one step further and increases the application richness of the phone system." Person says that Volcrum Voice can "integrate your contact database and record calls for subsequent mining and playback."

This image of the Volcrum Voice archive screen gives you some idea what the user interface is like:

Traxi is now developing voice-to-email and email-to-voice products to add to the Volcrum line.

AB -- 6/22/05

Performance management developer Centergistic Solutions today released Version 4.0 of its AgentView Enterprise product for contact centers, providing new Microsoft security features. Centergistic's complete announcement is available on TMCnet at:

Centergistic Solutions’ Announces Release of AgentView Enterprise Version 4.0 Performance Management

The new version of the platform attempts to decrease vulnerability of the product to malicious attack and intrusions.

Today's release also says that AgentView 4.0 "comes with enhanced graphics and more flexible layouts to create a high impact unified view of information that is more eye-catching and even easier to maintain." Centergistics uses a dashboard-type interface to integrate "data from various systems" and present "intelligent real time metrics and alerts to managers, supervisors and the workforce."

In writing about products, I like to check the company's Web site to look for illustrations that show what the product is like. I think this is particularly important for companies marketing software products. Purchasers need to be able to see what the user interface is like.

So I was disappointed when I visited Centergistic's Web site and found very little visual representation of the product. Sometimes this lack is due to paranoia -- someone in the company is afraid that the competition is going to learn too much about their product and somehow take advantage of their openness. More often, it is just lack of marketing resources and expertise. Nobody thinks to get good visuals up on the Web site, or nobody has time to do it.

In any case, it's pretty hard from the Centergistic Web site to get an idea what the user experience is like. I did find this one low-resolution graphic which gives some idea what Centergistic's interface is like:

AB -- 6/21/05

I was interested to see this announcement today:

Domestic Violence Hotline Calls for Support Funds Needed to Implement Map Locator and Telecommunications System

This story comes from ESRI, a developer of geographic information systems (GIS), and the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH). The hotline receives calls from domestic violence victims and families and attempts to connect them to community resources such as shelters.

The center wants to update its call center system so as to be able to respond more quickly and better determine a caller's location. Today's release describes the upgraded system being planned:

Lindsay Hernstrom, ESRI technical marketing analyst and member of the technical team for the NDVH call center application, explained that they are designing an integrated on-screen system that automatically identifies the general geographic area of the incoming phone number, allows search and selection of appropriate services from the database of providers and shelters, and can map the street locations of the selections. The system will maintain caller anonymity.

"The call is not geocoded to the street but to a general geographic level because it is designed to pick up only the area code and three-number prefix," says Hernstrom, adding, "The advocate on the phone needs to be able to drive the application and say, for example, find me a shelter within five miles of the caller that accepts children and has Spanish speakers.

"Since they are often providing a life-saving service, it is important for them to quickly find the most accessible help for the caller."

The agency is seeking donations to help fund the project. For details, see contact information in today's news release.

AB -- 6/3/05

This morning, Accurate Always announced the release of a new series of call recording systems, the Voxida 3000 digital voice recording series. Accurate Always makes turnkey recording systems for quality monitoring and recording in contact centers. Their systems are able to log digital and analog telephone and radio, proprietary PBX, intercom, turret and VoIP calls.

Today's press release is available on TMCnet at: