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.”
“Details of family members?” Goodness, do we really want to escalate to that level? “Okay, look, buddy, you call me to sell magazines one more time and I swear I’ll go by your mother... let’s see, Gladys, isn’t it? Yeah. Gladys. I’ll go by Gladys’s house and... and... steal all her mah jongg tiles. Hey I know how to play hardball, pal, so I don’t think I’ll be getting any more of your calls, capish?”
Read more here.
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Amdocs, which sells tools and products to assist with the customer experience, has recently produced a study titled “Stop Going It Alone: Using Managed Services to Enhance the Customer Experience.”
Managed services might not be the first thing you think of when looking for a way to provide a compelling customer experience,. You’re not alone: Over the past decade, Amdocs officials say, service providers (and others) considered managed services primarily as a way to control and reduce costs.
But more recently, a growing number of service providers have begun to view managed services partnerships as opportunities for improvements in service quality and consistency, Amdocs officials say, “launching new operations, and executing modernization and transformation projects, as well as cost savings and efficiencies.”
In the last few years alone, such service providers as AT&T, Sprint, Bell Canada, BT, Vodafone and T-Mobile have signed large managed services deals that focus heavily on business process improvement and systems transformation, according to Amdocs officials.
Read more here.
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A recent survey of over 400 contact center professionals presented by inContact shows, company officials say, “accelerating spending on self-service, primarily to reduce operating costs and increase customer satisfaction."
Note the order of “reduce operating costs” and “increase customer satisfaction.” That’s right. The research finds that low success rates still bedevil contact centers, as many survey respondents admit that they’re “still searching for optimal strategies for self-service.”
The survey was conducted by ICMI and sponsored by inContact, which sells on-demand call center software. “Self-service options, including inbound and outbound interactive voice response and Web-based tools, are often the first touch point a customer has with a company,” said Mariann McDonagh, inContact Chief Marketing Officer. “When executed well, self-service enables customers to resolve issues on their own and via the channel that they most prefer. The trick is implementing the solutions effectively.”
Read more here.
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With more electronic media such as e-mail, chat, Twitter and others are used in customer communication in addition to calls, according to officials of Monet Software, “the question of forecasting and scheduling resources for those channels becomes more important.”
In a recent blog post the company presented three suggestions “that might help you better manage multiple channels in your service center.”
First, forecast and schedule based on response time and urgency of the various channels. Determine which communications merit an instant response, which need to be answered that same day and which are of “soon as we get around to it” importance. Classify your inbound calls, chat e-mails, letters and outbound calling accordingly.
Monet officials say there are two good models for forecasting workload for non-call channels. Use the transaction history for each channel: If you have historical numbers, you can forecast based on those, figuring the number of emails, average work time for e-mail, efficiency. The post itself goes into greater detail on how this is done.
Read more here.
