Customer Service

Amazon Tops Customer Satisfaction Charts in 2012
February 27, 2013

Consumers continued to put their trust in e-commerce websites in 2012, according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index released Tuesday. The ACSI, produced in partnership with the customer analytics experience firm ForeSee, showed e-commerce sites making incremental gains in customer satisfaction ratings.

Where Customers Go, Salesforce Service Cloud Follows
February 26, 2013

Salesforce.com on Tuesday unveiled Salesforce Service Cloud Mobile, the first of a number of mobile computing initiatives planned for this year. Salesforce.com is stepping up its focus on mobile in 2013, said Michael Peachey, senior director of solutions marketing.

Holistic Tech Support in a DIY World
February 23, 2013

The evolving technological needs of consumers have prompted changes not only in tech support services, but also in the business strategies of technical support providers. Those providers need to adjust their business models in order to effectively meet consumers' needs and remain relevant. At first glance, many recent innovations would seem to eliminate the need for tech support.

Elevating Customer Service to the Next Level
February 21, 2013

Do you dread calling a company to get customer support? Most of us do. We are on hold forever and the problem drags on way too long, leaving brand loyalty damaged. Some companies are solving that problem by partnering with Support.com -- building customer loyalty, developing a competitive advantage, and turning a profit at the same time.

Building Social Into the Customer Service and Support Infrastructure
February 19, 2013

Surprisingly, many customer service organizations have yet to put their toes in the water when it comes to social media engagement. In fact, fewer than half of them actively respond to consumer complaints via Twitter and other social media channels. For companies that do actively engage in social media for customer support purposes, the average response time is an estimated 24 hours.

Harris Poll Delivers Top Reputation Ranking to Amazon
February 14, 2013

Amazon, purveyor of everything you would need for a Valentine's Day dinner -- wine, food, romantic music, a DVD of Casablanca -- received a lot of love from respondents to the 2013 Harris Poll Reputation Quotient study released this week; it rated Amazon the top spot among 60 of the most visible U.S. companies.

Big Data for Marketing
February 13, 2013

The marketing funnel is not exactly a new idea. Neither are sales or customer service, though all have morphed considerably from what they were more than a decade ago when CRM began. Sales and service evolved organically, making incremental changes as markets transformed and new technologies became available.

NextPrinciples Makes Integration Paramount
February 11, 2013

NextPrinciples has launched Insight-To-Action, a social analytics and engagement product that integrates with a handful of CRM applications. The company is in talks with other vendors to expand the integration of the platform, said Ted Sapountzis, head of marketing and product management for NextPrinciples.

Rethinking the Service Paradigm
February 06, 2013

I just got off a phone briefing with Freshdesk, an Indian company with a subscription customer service and support system that it refers to as a "help desk." Freshdesk's got most of the bells and whistles you might expect to find in a solution like that, and it has gamified the business processes as well. That's what inspired this column.

With LiveOps, All Customer Channels Are Created Equal
February 01, 2013

LiveOps this week debuted LiveOps Engage, a browser-based desktop agent app that centralizes myriad channels -- phone, email, live chat, SMS, Twitter and Facebook -- on one screen. The screen also displays the history of past interactions with the customer. "This release is bringing together all of the channels of communication, both inbound and outbound," said CEO Marty Beard.

Customers Just Want to Be Tweeted Right
January 29, 2013

It's fairly common practice today for major brands to have a social media team at the ready to respond to customer complaints on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. The practice is so widespread that the Call Center Satisfaction Index report released last week by CFI Group found that call centers should perhaps be renamed "contact centers."

We'll Call You: Putting an End to On-Hold Misery
January 28, 2013

It's a universal reality: Customers dislike waiting on hold. Now call-backs and virtual queuing are changing all that. "Our basic mission is to improve the call center experience," said Shai Berger, CEO and cofounder of Fonolo. "The heart of what we do is replacing hold time with a call-back."

Call Centers Jump on the Mobile Bandwagon
January 14, 2013

Mobile devices are changing both how customers get in touch with call centers and how companies respond to those calls. The days of customers sitting at kitchen tables on landlines waiting for agents to answer their calls are gone. Now, they're calling from smartphones and clicking on apps, and call centers are adapting to this new mobile reality.

Answer Customers' Calls - Even When the Phone's Not Ringing
January 10, 2013

By now, common sense, the business media and practical experience have taught the lessons of multi-channel engagement for service. Businesses have come to realize that they need to provide service in whatever way their customers wish to receive it, whether it's through the phone, via chat or text, over email or through social media.

Voice of the Customer: Analyzing What People Say and How They Say It
January 02, 2013

Call center software can now identify everything from anger to dissatisfaction in the voices of customers. Since call centers are all about voices, it makes sense to analyze those voices in order to provide better customer service. The field of voice analytics, in fact, has become a big business.

Predicting the Future Is Not for the Faint of Heart
December 19, 2012

I was doing some research in the Time Magazine archives -- the best ones I have seen, by the way -- the other day and came across this nugget from 1962: "Despite the discouraging results so far, many scientists argue that military-space research will ultimately produce an overflowing cornucopia of marketable consumer products, from supersonic planes to small nuclear reactors for home power."

CR's Cellphone Service Rankings May Help Businesses More Than Consumers
December 03, 2012

It's that time of year again: Consumer Reports has published its annual list of best cellphone carriers. Verizon is at the top, having received the most favorable scores for voice and data service quality. It also scored well for staff knowledge and resolution of issues. Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T each got middle to low marks, especially in the voice and text service quality categories.

Blazeloop Collects Customer Feedback on the Spot
November 30, 2012

Benbria has launched Blazeloop, a customer engagement platform that revolves around one pointed question aimed at the consumer: How did we do? The theory behind the Web-based app is that most customers do not take the trouble to complain about little things -- but it is those very little things that can drive them away.

The Most Desirable Customer Data Plays Hardest to Get
November 29, 2012

As a callow youth, I enlisted in the Navy and found myself at sea aboard the USS Gray as a bosun's mate. That meant standing a lot of watch on the bridge, and being on the bridge meant knowing how to report positions of other things based on a 360-degree arc. The idea was to have a 360-degree view of what was out there -- primarily so we didn't run into it.

It's Still Voting Season
November 28, 2012

Have you voted yet? Not in the presidential election -- this is more important! I am talking about voting in the CRM Idol competition. It's time! OK, I know what you are thinking: What is CRM Idol? It's the brainchild of Paul Greenberg, and its purpose is to find the hottest emerging company in the front-office market.