CRM News: Call Centers

Next-Gen Collaboration: Q&A With Avaya President of Global Services Chris Formant
March 01, 2010

With last summer's launch of Avaya Aura and the purchase of Nortel Enterprise Solutions and Nortel Government Solutions in December, Avaya has placed itself squarely in the No. 1 spot for the global enterprise telephony and unified communications, audio conferencing, enterprise messaging and contact center/ACD spaces.

The Year of the Customer: Balancing Service and Efficiency
February 09, 2010

The big question as we move through 2010 may be, "What does the future hold?" But really, the past year will give us a clearer glimpse into the future than any crystal ball possibly could. 2010 is the year of the customer. December 31st, 2009, marked the end of one of the toughest years companies have faced in decades.

Blow Up Your Service Organization - and Rebuild It With the Customer in Mind
February 04, 2010

Businesses all over the world have made enormous investments in service -- both in people and in technology. The amount of thought dedicated to service is enormous, and the time spent trying to make service divisions more efficient is countless. Guess what? Most of this money, time and effort has been wasted.

Putting Support Centers In High Gear With Enterprise Search
January 28, 2010

Aberdeen Group's September 2009 report "Enterprise Search - Discover the Next Opportunity for Growth" investigated the strategies and tactics companies have used to drive productivity and improve customer service using enterprise search. In that report, Aberdeen used four key performance criteria to distinguish Best-in-Class companies.

Hiring Is In Again at Indian Outsourcing Firms
January 21, 2010

India's top three outsourcing companies are ramping up hiring and increasing pay as global corporations, mainly from the U.S., send more work offshore to cut costs as they emerge from the downturn. Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro expanded their global workforces by an average of 5.1 percent last quarter, together adding 16,701 employees, company documents show.

Transforming Financial CRM From Retention Mode to Growth Mode
January 19, 2010

As financial institutions gear up for 2010, many companies are still on the long road to recovery after facing some of the most difficult challenges in years. Mortgage defaults and foreclosures, new regulations on credit card and bank fees, and the constant barrage of related news stories sent customer call volumes through the roof in 2009.

IRS Puts Customer Service on Hold
January 08, 2010

Need help with your taxes? Good luck reaching the Internal Revenue Service. Three out of 10 people who call the toll-free help line this tax season won't get through to a human being -- and that's if the agency meets its goals for service. Callers lucky enough to get through will have to wait on hold an average of nearly 12 minutes.

Dissolving Customer Support Communication Barriers
December 11, 2009

Companies are gearing up for a strong finish to 2009, and consumers are gearing up to acquire more high-tech gadgets from big box stores and online retailers at highly competitive prices. This is a great time to consider how companies can ensure customers are satisfied and successful with their purchases and how they can plan ahead for 2010.

On the Prowl for New Ways to Cut Contact Center Costs
November 09, 2009

Contact center operations are constantly under scrutiny. They're complex, they're expensive to run, and employee retention and training can be problematic, to say the least. Contact center managers have a never-ending desire to streamline operations to keep spending in check.

Meet-Up Month: RightNow, Sage and Microsoft
October 28, 2009

Colorado Springs is an interesting place. Despite the name, there are no "springs" -- it's an arid place in a valley surrounded by the southern Rocky Mountains and Pikes Peak National Park. The springs were an invention of the railroads seeking to establish a destination for vacationers. Good idea; it's a nice place.

CRM + BPM: Raising the Customer Experience Bar
October 16, 2009

For decades, organizations have been dealing with the challenges of driving more effective customer service. Traditional CRM solutions have focused on presenting consolidated customer information, but they still rely heavily on employees to resolve customer issues. This means that the customer's experience can vary greatly depending on the manual processes and efficiency of the staff at any given organization.

Employee-Customer-Employee: Closing the Feedback Loop
October 09, 2009

Organizations with the most loyal customers not only measure and monitor employee interactions with customers, but also share that feedback with employees. This creates a closed-feedback loop that allows customer-facing staff members to understand the impact of their interactions on customers, enabling them to improve those interactions over time.

Avaya Caters to SMBs With Kinder, Simpler IP Office Release
September 22, 2009

Avaya has launched Avaya IP Office, a new version of its flagship product line targeting the SMB space. Changes to the product, now in version 5, include new configurations for certain user roles, such as customer service agent or mobile worker, as well as new functionality.

The Shifting Call Center Paradigm
September 16, 2009

What is it about customer service that drove three major CRM companies to make announcements about their service products within days of each other last week? Oracle and Salesforce.com each announced new or completed development of functionality, and RightNow said it bought HiveLive, a social networking solution provider.

IVR Systems: Are They Done Yet?
September 11, 2009

Remember the bad old days of customer self-service? Automated systems would present you with five or more different options -- any one of which could lead to five or more other options. With touchtone systems, accidentally pressing the wrong number at a prompt could result in instant death by disconnection. Then came the speech-recognition systems, with their own specific tortures.

At Home in the Virtual Office
September 10, 2009

Today's volatile economy is pushing more companies to consider the merits of a virtual workplace for some or all of their employees. Often, however, the idea fails to go anywhere because neither managers nor their workers are sure how to get started. Also, attitudes among some old-school managers pose hurdles that block workers from pursuing virtual workplace opportunities.