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CRM Excellence Awards

July 2001
 

[ Go Right To The Awards Winners ]

In Search Of (CRM) Excellence
We editors of Customer Inter@ction Solutions' recently challenged companies that provide customer relationship management (CRM) products and services to show us how they are leading the pack in developing software and programs that measurably make customers' lives easier and their interactions with companies more pleasant. We asked submitting companies to provide us with an essay, in case study format, demonstrating directly qualifiable results that a client using the product or service experienced as a result of the implementation.

In choosing the winners, we looked for results that clearly benefited customers. In many cases, the results reported were extremely company-focused. Comments such as, "The client was able to reduce its call center staff by 20 percent" or "ROI improved 25 percent in six months" were plentiful, hinting that many companies still don't "get" CRM. The winners, listed below, told us about average hold times decreasing, accuracy increasing, the attitudes and training of contact center agents improving, Web-based communications channels expanding, the reduction of call abandonment and pertinent historical customer data becoming available to agents, thus eliminating the need for customers to enter their account numbers a multitude of times or retell their stories and problems to three different departments.

Following is a list of special companies. These are organizations that have a mission to help your company serve your customers better and faster. We invite you to spend an hour with them and imagine the possibilities they present to your own customers.


CRM Excellence Award Winners

Alorica, Inc. Composit Communications Neteos, Inc. SAS Institute
Apropos ConverTec Inc. NSDI TelePerformance Synchrony Communications, Inc.
AskIt Systems, Inc. eshare communications, Inc. Oncontact Software Unipress Software, Inc.
Avaya, Inc. ExpertCity PAR3 Vividence
Broadbase Software IEX PeopleSoft, Inc. WebEx Communications
CallCenter Technology, Inc. Interactive Intelligence Remedy Corporation White Pajama
Cisco Systems Kana Communications RightNow Technologies Witness Systems
ClientLogic Knowlagent Rockwell Electronic Commerce

Alorica, Inc.
Ed Kisman
630-775-1900
Product: Helix by Alorica (HbA)
"Today, Alorica takes care of all its major client's customer interaction and support activities in 28 countries, including call center, service, repair, parts, merchandise returns and swapping, warehousing, distribution and logistics services."

Apropos
John Werneke
630-575-7807
Product: Interaction Vault (iVault)
Client reports that, "Since the implementation of iVault, we were able to immediately view the entire history of all our customer interactions. In less than a week, iVault has made an impact on our support center by allowing agents to enhance productivity and offer improved quality assurance."

AskIt Systems, Inc.
Alison Russell
866-652-7548
Product: AskIt
"The online self-help solution worked so well that within a month, e-mail volume dropped by 50 percent: 200 e-mails a day to 100, of which most were questions about specific orders."

Avaya, Inc.
Deborah Kline
908-953-6179
Avaya CRM Solutions, Interaction Management Solution
"Since implementing the Avaya solution, the client company's CSRs answer 98 percent of all incoming calls live, in spite of an overall increase in call volume of 18 percent."

Broadbase Software
Jessica Hohn
508-810-3356
Product: Broadbase E-Service Suite
Client reports, "Our reps' productivity is skyrocketing thanks to the Broadbase e-mail management, self-service and chat features we've implemented.

CallCenter Technology, Inc.
Diane Stuckey
678-494-7000
Product: PRISM
Client quote: "We've freed our supervisors from the reporting function and tremendously increased the productivity of our reporting group. Instead of months of intensive in-house development, we had PRISM up and running in under two weeks."

Cisco Systems
Sales Dept.
800-553-6387
Product: Cisco Customer Interaction Suite
"Customer response to the new services has been phenomenal."

ClientLogic
Channing Rollo
615-301-7145
Service: Customer Care, Customer Experience Management
"In the first quarter of 2001, ClientLogic's technical support services achieved an impressive 94.3 percent customer satisfaction rating from client's customers."

Composit Communications
Peter Kenyon
800-789-2999
Product: CIMphone v 2.0
"Today (post-implementation), approximately 90 percent of inbound calls are routed directly to the appropriate CSR, who accesses client-specific information via automatic screen pop."

ConverTec Inc.
Doug Moffat
905-469-0413
Product: CALL Link for Norstar
"Client's average transaction time dropped 30 percent to 13 seconds per call after installation. They experienced a 95% reduction in the abandoned calls that were in queue, and a 30 percent increase in calls processed...all with no additional staff."

eshare communications, Inc.
[email protected]
866-4eshare
Product: eshare NetAgent
"We were looking for software that could scale as needed. We found that eshare does that exceptionally well."

ExpertCity
Shannon Kelly
805-690-6448
Product: DesktopStreaming
The client company found that, "Handling time has been reduced by 60 percent as a result of DesktopStreaming. We can see exactly what the customer is doing and the result of that action. ExpertCity's product takes all the guesswork out of it."

IEX
Lisa Ashton
972-301-4864
Product: TotalNet Call Routing
"The system's scheduling, reporting and real-time features allowed the client to achieve its goal of having customer service representatives on the phone for 7.5 hours of an eight-hour shift."

Interactive Intelligence
Christine Holley
317-715-8220
Product: Customer Interaction Center (CIC)
The client, a full-service teleservices and fulfillment agency, said, "With CIC, we no longer have to depend on our local carrier. CIC gives us an exceptionally reliable system that lets us create customized interaction services in-house."

Kana Communications
Daphne Alden
415-778-2111
Product: Kana Response
"With the help of Kana Response, the client now maintains an impressive 12-hour service level at least 90 percent of the time."

Knowlagent
Elaine Daly
678-356-3416
Product: KnowDev 5.0
A user of KnowDev, Knowlagent's agent training software, reports, "Annual turnover among contact center agents has decreased from 65 percent per year to almost 31 percent after implementing KnowDev."

Neteos, Inc.
Thom VanHorn
781-466-0112
Product: eRMNow!
"The client's customer support representatives can now instantly receive and log service cases, monitor service level agreements and delegate problem-solution activities to any part of the organization, from corporate headquarters to the U.K. office."

NSDI TelePerformance
Lee Allum
866-TP-America/404-256-4673, ext. 538
Service: Care-Trac
The client, a large insurance company, indicated that, post-implementation, "Eight-five percent of our members found their calls to be helpful. We're happy."

Oncontact Software
Margaret Gerstenkorn
262-375-6555, ext. 2250
Product: Client Management Software (CMS)
"Thanks to CMS, the client is able to generate 2,600 qualified sales leads annually, nearly tripling previous results and producing a whopping $100 million of opportunity."

PAR3
Sales Dept.
866-410-PAR3
Product: Intelligent Response Platform
PAR3's product, which allows users to send relevant alerts to customers via telephone, e-mail, pager, fax or wireless device, has helped a loan and mortgage company improve two-way communication with its customers. "The alerts provide customers with more frequent and timely information on loan status and helped the loan company increase loan closure rates by reducing incoming status calls."

PeopleSoft, Inc.
Leslie Johnson
925-694-5684
Product: PeopleSoft CRM Sales; PeopleSoft CRM Service
"Since the implementation of PeopleSoft CRM, the client has grown in revenue by more than 300 percent. It has added over 300 people, including over a dozen IT professionals."

Remedy Corporation
Steve Balentine
650-919-5717
Product: Remedy Customer Support
"The client reduced call center operating costs by 15 percent during the first six months after the implementation and was able to re-energize its call center staff and improve their morale."

RightNow Technologies
Monica Remely
406-522-4262
Product: RightNow Web
"According to the client's Webmaster, in the week after implementing the product, phone calls were slashed by at least 50 percent."

Rockwell Electronic Commerce
Sales Dept.
800-416-8199
Product: Spectrum
"The client, a large airline, has boosted productivity and cost-savings by one percent, which translates into big bucks for a call center of its size."

SAS Institute
Walter J. Maczka
919-531-5350
The client reports, "SAS gives us the ability to collect customer behavior information, learn about our customers and then do something strategic about it."

Synchrony Communications, Inc.
Kathleen Riehle
513-608-0395
Product Synchrony 4.0
"Upon implementation of Synchrony, the client's call abandonment rate dropped from 15 percent to 4 percent, a 73 percent reduction."

Unipress Software, Inc.
Debbie Ingram
732-287-2100, ext. 938
Product: FootPrints
"On the whole, response times are much faster; more than 650 tickets have been closed in just four months, and productivity in the MIS department is at an all-time high."

Vividence
Sales Dept.
877-485-0630
Product: Vividence XMS
The client, a Web-based real estate company, reports that, "The number of leads distributed to real estate agents in the months following the Web site redesign increased over 150 percent."

WebEx Communications
Sales Dept.
877-932-3911
Product: WebEx OnCall
"Implementing WebEx immediately improved the client's ability to address customer needs and increased the support staff's productivity by an estimated 20 to 30 percent."

White Pajama
Ellen Pensky
510-259-2535
Product: Contact Center Solution
"Having e-mail and chat channels in addition to telephony allows agents to communicate with customers in multimedia during the sales process, dramatically reducing the length of the sales cycle."

Witness Systems
George Johnston
770-754-8651
Product: eQuality Balance/eQuality Evaluation
"The client has seen an increase in its agents' technical abilities. Coaching sessions with agents and supervisors have eliminated 15 to 20 seconds from average call times, which has resulted in significant cost savings."

[ Return To July 2001 Table Of Contents ]


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