Customers

CRM vendors -- the champions of customer service best practices -- received dismal ratings for their own treatment of online customers in a new survey. The Customer Respect Group has rated customer service in such industries as banking, airline and travel, telecom, consumer goods, manufacturing, foo...

I am a bit of an economics junkie. My interest in the dismal science carries over from my interest in evolution and can be summarized as, why things are the way they are and how they got that way. I am currently finishing up a book that gets me where I live, Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinc...

Lest any doubt remains that U.S. customers do not appreciate hearing heavy accents when they're on the phone with contact center agents, a new survey reveals that this is, in fact, one of the top sources of frustration among those who call for assistance. Difficult-to-understand accents was the top ...

Genesys has released two products aimed at easing deployment of the Genesys Voice Platform by two of its user constituencies: managed service providers of Genesys applications and companies that have implemented both SAP and Genesys. The Genesys Customer Interaction Portal for Self-Service signals a...

When the sales team operates with urgency, the soul of a company is alive, thriving and growing. The sales department is the company's heartbeat and is absolutely necessary to create a sense of purpose and maintain a constant focus on delivering value to customers. Great salespeople are constantly t...

Avaya has rolled out two products aimed at expanding its footprint in the mid-market segment, as well as a completely new venture for the on-demand space. The new applications include a single-server product called Avaya MultiVantage Express, which offers IP telephony, messaging, contact center and ...

Cisco Systems has released the next version of its Unified CRM Connector. Like previous versions, it links into the Microsoft CRM application to provide integrated contact center-CRM functionality. Version 3.0 of the Unified CRM Connector, however, is much more appealing to users than its predecesso...

Aspect Software has announced it is supporting the emerging open source Internet protocol for PBX -- the Asterisk Business Edition -- with a software package that includes the Asterisk Business Edition license; SIP phones; application servers and IP gateways; interoperability with Aspect contact cen...

Personal banking is called retail banking in the biz because traditionally consumer banking occurred in a building on Main Street, Anytown, U.S.A. The bank sat among department and hardware stores, coffee and flower shops. In the eyes of consumers, it was another downtown retailer. But in the mid-1...

You don't need to go far to see how different the 00s are from the 90s, just take a look at selling. Ahh, the 90s, lots of people in sales tell me you didn't make sales calls in the 90s, it was more like making appointments to take orders. Gurus of selling like Jim Dickie of CSO Insights, reported...

The trend of Americans and Canadians buying call centers in India is driven by the low cost of these facilities and by the speed with which buyers can begin using them. The first article in this series focuses on the advantages of buying a facility with less than 100 seats in Bangalore, primarily ...

Paul English, a Massachusetts-based software engineer turned customer service "guru," has become famous nearly overnight for his "dial zero for a human" automated phone system revolt. Judging from the widespread phenomenon and national attention, this is a customer service movement long overdue. H...

Genesys has updated its contact center and workforce management software suites. The former adds intelligent contact center routing functionality in a software-only application. The latter update includes the ability to dynamically reschedule agents in the middle of the day in response to call volum...

In August 2005, specialty retailer Casual Male struck a bargain with its customers: If it didn't have a best-selling item in a particular size or color in stock, it would get it within five days. If it couldn't deliver, the customer would get the item for free. Nine months later, Casual Male is out ...

Few events are likely to have a more devastating effect on a company -- or even the industry it represents -- than being exposed for deliberately misleading customers about the safety of its products. The sunscreen industry may be forced to crawl out of a ditch due to this sort of deception. Last mo...