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February. Charles Baudelaire referred to it in his poem Spleen from
Les Fleur du Mal as, Old Pluvius, month of rains, in peevish mood pours
from his urn chill winters sodden gloom. Sure, in February, the
daylight is short (besides, I live in Connecticut, not Paris, and February
means snow, not rains), but as opposed to sodden gloom, to me
February has meant we have spent January catching up from the long
Christmas/New Years break and the attendant reflection on the old year
and the resolutions of the new, and are now ready to get back to business
in earnest.
For me, February also means another information-packed issue of Customer
Inter@ction Solutions. This month, Im especially excited about
the Communications Solutions section, which makes its debut in
this issue of Customer Inter@ction Solutions. As the influence
and functions of contact centers (through CRM, collaboration and
e-commerce) spread throughout the enterprise, this new section will allow
us to expand our scope of coverage to keep up with the changes. As Chris
Donner reports in Mission-Critical Call Centers,
the feature article in Communications Solutions, with IP
networks, multimedia, e-commerce and m-commerce, we see the inevitable
displacement, or at least challenge, of the traditional PBX/PBX-adjunct
solution. Chris seeks out the opinions of Jon Shapiro, CEO of Alliance
Systems, Greg Colaluca, vice president of services of e-talk and Roger
Iannetta, product manager, DC Networks Division, at APC, to explore how
capacity, uptime, service/ upgrade assurances, application availability,
costs and power control stack up with industrial computers versus
off-the-shelf PCs. If you are truly interested in keeping your contact
center up and running 24/7, I urge you to read Chris article. As well
as providing articles, the Communications Solutionssection will
bring you the latest news on communications convergence technologies and
provide guides to providers in this space.
February is also the month for us to honor the winners our annual MVP
Quality Awards. The companies represented here have submitted
impressive documentation of the quality procedures they practice in their
contact centers, and we are proud to provide them to you as bastions of
quality. And while Im speaking of quality, the Call Center/CRM
Management Scope section features two articles, the first by Pamela
Trickey and Penny Reynolds of The Call Center School, and the second
by Frank Nigro of WorldCom, that address one
of the most crucial determining factors in providing quality online
service: your agents. Both articles focus on training and equipping your
agents for success online, which in this tight economy should be at the
top of every companys priorities list. Also on the topic of quality, Dara
Mirsky, vice president of Online Content and Development here at TMC,
addresses the quality of online customer service she experienced over the
recent holiday season.
Beyond the element of quality, there are many factors that go into
maintaining your customer base. In the Customer Relationship Management
section, Quaero Corporations Naras Eechambadi
examines the basics and then goes beyond the basics to teach you how to
keep your customers coming back for more in Keeping Your Existing
Customers Loyal."
Anne Morrison of American Management Systems
Corporate Technology Group takes on an architectural metaphor to
describe the multichannel CRM environment of todays contact center,
with a focus on building the foundation and then making your structure
weatherproof in Multichannel Customer Contact Centers: The House That
Customers Built."
Every month we bring you the providers of key technologies in our How
To Buy Products & Services section. Up this month are providers
of speech technologies, whose products and services are gaining increasing
acceptance among the public because in the past few years they have become
very reliable. And, for companies that deploy speech technologies, they
have found they can provide better, more consistent service, 24/7 while
also lowering operating costs. Other monthly features include the reviews
of our TMC Labs engineers (this month, products by Yub
and ObjectWorld), Technology Highlights and,
of course, the latest product news.
So, pull up a chair, sit back and enjoy this months issue of Customer
Inter@ction Solutions, which will be sure to get your mind off
Februarys rains or snows while providing critical information to help
you keep your company snug against the cold winds of these chill economic
times.
Sincerely,
Rich Tehrani
Group Publisher, Group Editor-in-Chief
[ Return
To The February 2002 Table Of Contents ]
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