CUSTOMER INTER@CTION SOLUTIONS — December 2011

2012 Buyer's Guide

Feature Articles

The Intersection of Customer Effort and First Call Resolution
Of all the metrics in a call center, first call resolution often has the biggest impact on customer satisfaction, yet it is also one of the most difficult metrics to measure.

Shifting from Mass Marketing to One-to-One Marketing
In response to decades of marketing overload, consumers have adapted the way they absorb information. Today's consumer hears an operator on the phone or glances at a piece of mail and decides in an instant whether it has value. Messages not immediately identifiable to the individual are promptly cast off into a sea of irrelevant clutter.

Zeacom Answers the Call for Fidelity Communications
Fidelity Communications is a triple-play service provider with a solutions portfolio of services that transcends the traditional boundaries of high-speed broadband, cable and legacy telecommunications.In addition to facing fierce competition from service providers with nearly unlimited resources at their disposal, such as AT&T, the company must also adhere to government regulations that require its contact center agents to live answer calls from no less than 80 percent of its customers in 20 seconds or less.

CALL CENTER TECHNOLOGY

Hold-Free Aims to Improve Customer Service
Customer service has become a joke to most consumers, but not a particularly funny one. In recognition of that fact, many businesses are working to make improvements on this front. But that can be an expensive proposition. To help make better customer service more easily attainable, Hold-Free Networks recently launched SaaS-based services that put "a pretty face on customer service".

OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT

Innovating the Back Office
Contact centers have been in the forefront of advancements in telecommunication, collaboration and customer service, being first with contact routing based on skill and experience, enterprise presence and instant messaging, recording, coaching, softphones, reporting, administration, social media integration and so on.

Listening on All Channels
Whether you're designing a mobile app, redesigning an IVR or an agent desktop, you know that understanding - and using - voice of the customer is critical for effective solutions. But you don't have budget or time for focus groups, surveys and all that entails, you say.

CRM, BPO & TELESERVICES

Hold-Free Aims to Improve Customer Service
Customer service has become a joke to most consumers, but not a particularly funny one. In recognition of that fact, many businesses are working to make improvements on this front. But that can be an expensive proposition. To help make better customer service more easily attainable, Hold-Free Networks recently launched SaaS-based services that put "a pretty face on customer service".

Columns

Publisher’s Outlook

Gary and Mary West: Improving Health Care Through Disruption
Coming off the first six months of 2011, Interactive Intelligence enjoyed cloud-based revenue growth numbers of 58 percent while orders increased a whopping 146 percent during the same period. Moreover, the cloud accounted for 26 percent of the company's total new order dollar volume in the first half of 2011..

HIGH PRIORITY!

Five Things Customer Service Operations Need to Improve
As another year comes to a close and I think back to what was the year 2011, we've certainly seen some remarkable changes in the contact center and CRM industries, not the least of which is the elevation of social media to a legitimate part of the customer engagement exercise. The fact is that most companies are now at least considering what social media means to them and how they should handle it.

Ask the Experts

A Customer IP Communications System Roadmap
The best way to choose and implement a new enterprise communications system successfully is by first preparing a system roadmap. To make an informed decision when preparing such a roadmap, it’s vital to know what systems currently exist, the justification factors for a new system, what’s coming by way of next-gen solutions, and recommended planning guidelines to help you move your communications system forward.

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Customer Interaction Space Sees Consolidation
The last few months of 2011 were an active time for consolidation in the customer interaction solutions space. News broke in mid October of Alcatel-Lucent's selloff of its Genesys customer service solutions. Shortly after that, Oracle revealed plans to acquire RightNow Technologies.