FrontRange Solutions Unveils GoldMine IP Voice Suite
FrontRange's (news - alerts) newly announced customer communications product, GoldMine IP Voice Suite, combines two business technologies: IP telephony and customer relationship management (CRM). The offering delivers an enterprise-class VoIP telephony application that includes full integration to GoldMine Corporate Edition CRM to help companies elevate the quality of interactions with their customers, which in turn can boost sales, increase customer loyalty and raise the productivity of service teams. The new product includes an advanced software-based IP telephony system (FrontRange IP Office) with unified messaging, auto-attendant, inbound and outbound productivity applications, as well as easy-to-use management tools. For example, as calls ring to service employees, GoldMine IP Voice Suite triggers screen pops of customer records from the GoldMine database. For outbound calling campaigns, users can click to dial from customer records, as well as other features added to improve productivity such as preview dialing, calling scripts and campaign status reporting. http://www.frontrange.com

Teleperformance USA And CallTech Communications Merge
SR.Teleperformance (news - alert), a Paris-based provider of outsourced customer care, has announced the merger of its two most significant U.S.'business entities: Teleperformance USA and CallTech Communications, LLC. Teleperformance USA operates in five countries with over 10,600 contact center stations and 11,600'employees, providing U.S. domestic, nearshore and offshore customer care, technical support and inbound sales solutions to U.S.-based companies in multiple industries. CallTech has over 4,800 employees in nine U.S. call centers and provides technical support and customer services to companies primarily in the telecommunications, technology and Internet services sectors. The merged company retains the Teleperformance name and is comprised of 32 contact centers, over 16,500 employees and more than 15,000 workstations. Dominic Dato, CEO of Teleperformance USA, said, 'We continue to be extremely impressed with the management team of CallTech and the systems the company has developed to provide better management reporting and analysis, especially the Call Center Management reporting System (CCMS). This merger will generate an even stronger outsourcing alternative for our U.S. clients seeking domestic and/or offshore solutions.' www.srteleperformance.com

Richardson Launches Selling Diagnostic Tool
Richardson (news - alert), a sales training and consulting firm, has announced the launch of a new Web-based Consultative Selling Diagnostic Assessment Tool as a part of its sales, service and sales management performance improvement solutions. Richardson’s new Consultative Selling Diagnostic Assessment Tool was created to provide salespeople with insights into their sales approach and effectiveness. It consists of 24 targeted sales performance-based questions drawn from Richardson’s 27 years of experience and research in working with large sales organizations. As salespeople respond to the 24 questions and make sales strategy and skill decisions, each participant receives specific and confidential feedback on his/her strengths and areas for growth. The data provide salespeople with an awareness they can use to maximize their strengths and develop plans to close skill gaps.
The Consultative Selling Diagnostic Assessment Tool can be used stand-alone or integrated with Richardson’s Consultative Selling classroom and/or interactive Richardson QuickSkills e-learning training programs. Developed with Skill Measure, a developer of assessment and diagnostic tools, the Consultative Selling Assessment Tool complements the Developmental Sales Coaching Diagnostic Assessment Tool for Managers. www.richardson.com

Salesnet Introduces 25th Anniversary Edition
On-demand CRM provider Salesnet (news - alert) has announced the'launch of the 25th Anniversary Edition of its enterprise on-demand CRM product, which offers 250 new features and heralds Salesnet's CRM venture into marketing automation, including lead management, campaign management, HTML e-mails and more. To prepare current and potential customers for the new release, Salesnet launched an official preview Web site, Salesnet25.com, in September 2005. Each week, since the launch of Salesnet25.com, the company has revealed several new features for customers to review. By demonstrating the nuances of each new feature in an interactive way, customer and prospects have been able to digest the features without being overwhelmed with a slew of new capabilities all at once. The Salesnet 25th Anniversary edition includes enhancements and new functionality, such as a new lead management module to help improve sales effectiveness, as only qualified leads are 'converted' to sales; campaign management to allow users to track and measure the effectiveness of specific marketing campaigns and store campaign information in one central location; HTML e-mail, which provides designated individuals'with the ability to create HTML e-mails using a WYSIWYG e-mail editor; and user interface customization and administration, which enables companies to customize the application to match any company's corporate vernacular and style. www.salesnet.com

Convergys Merges CRM And Billing With Infinys CSM
Convergys Corporation, (news - alert), a provider of outsourced customer care, human resources and billing services, has announced a new upgrade to Infinys that makes it the first modular, convergent billing solution to link the worlds of customer relationship management (CRM) and business support systems (BSS) for communications service providers, according to the company. Infinys CSM brings customer order and billing information directly to the primary screens that CSRs reference. It presents the information so CSRs can resolve inquiries in real time, increasing responsiveness and first-call resolution while reducing call processing time by up to 40 percent.

Convergys’ experience managing more than 54,000 CSRs handling about 1.7 million interactions per day in 68 contact centers worldwide was instrumental in developing the CSM application, which complements service providers’ current CRM and billing systems. Infinys CSM can be implemented as a standalone application or as part of an integrated Infinys solution.

The solution offers: online charging, which provides carrier-grade online charging across both prepaid and postpaid services; true “quadruple play” convergence support to enable the real-time creation, bundling and management of voice, video, data and wireless services across both wireless and wireline delivery networks; Linux support to provide operators with a higher degree of hardware platform flexibility; and reduced cost of ownership through reduced systems integration, customization and operation costs. www.convergys.com

Business Objects To Acquire Firstlogic
Business intelligence solutions provider Business Objects (news - alert), recently announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Firstlogic, Inc.(news - alert), a global provider of enterprise data quality solutions and services. Building on the company's EIM (enterprise information management) strategy, the acquisition aims to provide customers with a single, consistent view of their business, improve the trust and confidence in the information needed to make better decisions and accelerate compliance initiatives.

The acquisition will be an all-cash transaction of approximately $69 million and will be accounted for under the purchase method of accounting. In 2006, the transaction is expected to be accretive to Business Objects on a non-GAAP basis and dilutive on a GAAP basis due to one-time charges and purchase accounting adjustments. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2006. www.businessobjects.com and www.firstlogic.com

NICE And Avaya Extend Alliance
NICE Systems (news - alert) and Avaya Inc. (news - alert) have announced they have signed an agreement that extends their scope of collaboration to deliver the benefits of IP contact centers to businesses. Building on their existing partnership and a shared vision for IP-based contact centers, the two companies have developed a joint offering of a suite of applications, are pursuing strategic marketing initiatives together, and aim to increase resources to leverage shared business opportunities. The joint solution provides quality monitoring, branch recording, centralized storage, liability and interaction analytics. It is an integral part of NICE's unified product architecture, and leverages the Communication Manager API of Avaya Applications Enablement Services (AES), a suite of Web services that provides rich integration with Avaya's converged communications applications. As part of the Avaya Customer Interaction Suite, Avaya's IP contact center solutions can help businesses seamlessly link together a distributed environment, including agents, branch-office employees and knowledge experts in any location ' to serve customers with improved speed, accuracy and efficiency. Avaya gives contact centers the ability to use IP-distributed architectures to flatten, consolidate and extend operations by supporting new remote, branch, satellite or global agents. This can result in reduced costs by removing network hierarchy application and server duplication, as well as management overhead. www.nice.com and www.avaya.com

Verint Expands ULTRA Actionable Intelligence Suite
Verint Systems Inc., (news - alert) a provider of analytic software-based solutions for communications interception, networked video security and business intelligence,'has announced ULTRA IntelliScreen, a new analytical solution for generating actionable intelligence from unstructured data displayed on desktop screens. IntelliScreen is the latest addition to the ULTRA Analytics suite, which consists of IntelliFind speech analytics and IntelliMiner performance analytics solutions. The trio provides a comprehensive view of business processes, customer interactions and performance trends and delivers actionable intelligence about quality and performance issues across the enterprise. ULTRA IntelliScreen monitors activity on the desktop screen of a contact center agent or back-office worker and tracks application usage, data entry and screen content. IntelliScreen then analyzes these data and can trigger a broad range of actions and alerts based on the resulting intelligence. These alerts can provide insight into operational performance and business process issues, automate agent assistance and trigger target coaching or other actions. With ULTRA IntelliScreen, enterprise transaction information, such as call outcome or transaction value, is intelligently linked to customer interactions. The data can then facilitate optimization of front- and back-office processes, enable targeted data mining of specific transaction types and power more effective speech analysis. ULTRA's root cause analytics automatically surface potential quality and performance issues that are not yet identified before they impact operational efficiency or threaten customer satisfaction. In other Verint news, the company recently announced its acquisition of CM Insight Limited, a privately-held customer management solution provider that helps enterprises enhance their customer experience and improve the quality and performance of their contact center operations. Founded in 1998, CM Insight has 23 employees and is headquartered in Weybridge, UK.www.verint.com

ATSI Warns Of Toll-Free Fraud
The Association of TeleServices International (ATSI) (news - alert), the international association for the owners of telephone answering services and small call centers, has issued a fraud warning to all businesses that use toll-free numbers for advertising. ATSI has also notified the FBI. Businesses that use toll-free numbers for advertising are being targeted by fraudsters who illegally divert calls to themselves to capture inbound sales calls, revenue and customer names and data intended for legitimate firms. ATSI has stated that it's important businesses understand how the fraud is instituted: The perpetrator calls a legitimate business's long-distance provider and tells the provider that he or she is from that legitimate company. He or she explains that due to an equipment failure or some other emergency, the legitimate business's toll-free number needs to be rerouted so it is terminated on the criminal's telephone system. Then, when the phone number is called, it gets answered by the scammer, who sells similar services. In one instance, the perpetrators put a system in place that allowed them to reroute calls further so they could pick times of the day and week to take a company's calls. At other times of day, they routed calls back to the company so it was less likely the legitimate company would discover that its lines had been hijacked. ATSI suggests that companies check their toll-free numbers regularly at different times of the day and week to make sure they are ringing to their business. Also, companies should consider creating passwords or other types of security measures with their long-distance providers to limit how toll-free lines can be rerouted.www.atsi.org

Amcat Wins Contract With German Outsourcer
In a three-way contest against rival vendors, Amcat a provider of call center technology solutions, has announced the win of a major contract to supply an inbound/outbound contact center solution to walter TeleMedien-Group (news - alert), one of Germany's largest call, communication and service center companies. The initial deal is for 620 seats with a further 1,000 to be rolled out by end of 2006.

The General Manager for Telemedien Verwaltungs GmbH (IT-division of walter TeleMedien-Group), Manfred Plaar, commented, 'In order to make the right selection, we developed a trial campaign involving three short-listed vendors of contact center solutions, all of which were invited to work on campaigns with a leading German mail-order company. Amcat came out the clear winner on all fronts. The agents were able to embrace the system immediately. They liked the ease-of-use, the simple-to-understand screens and the powerful dialing functionality. As a result, productivity using the Amcat system was highest. In addition, our business is incredibly fast-moving and dynamic.'

The initial distributed contact center system has been installed at the company's headquarters in Ettlingen and at two locations in Magdeburg. All sites will be connected via the company's wide area network. Amcat will provide on-going support, development and consultancy services from its office based in Munster, Germany. www.amcat.com

Inova Introduces OnTrack
Inova Solutions(news - alert) recently introduced Inova OnTrack, the company's next generation of LED displays. OnTrack displays combine an energy-efficient design with new features for easy installation, simple operation and fast troubleshooting, helping lower the cost of ownership for this visual communication technology. The OnTrack product line includes the M Series, which plugs into an electrical outlet but uses up to 70 percent'less power than other displays, and the patent-pending X Series, which makes use of power over Ethernet technology to draw both data and power from a single Ethernet connection. The X Series eliminates the cost of installing AC outlets and runs on only 15 watts of power, providing significant energy savings.

All OnTrack models feature integrated network connectivity to provide instant data delivery over standard Cat-5 cabling. Ultra-bright LEDs, a wide viewing angle and an anti-glare coating provide optimum readability to distances of 100 feet and beyond, offering broad coverage for open environments such as contact centers, network operation centers and manufacturing floors. Lightweight construction with multiple mounting options, including VESA, allows easy installation, while onboard status lights and remote display access through Telnet or SSH make for quick troubleshooting and simple firmware upgrades. www.inovasolutions.com

Merced Systems Launches Version 2.7
Merced Systems Inc., (news - alert) a provider of contact center and operational performance management applications, has announced the release of Merced Performance Suite 2.7. The Merced Performance Suite was designed to increase the efficiency of contact centers by consolidating data from disparate sources, delivering advanced analytics, providing personalized dashboards, and integrating workflow and process improvement tools. The version 2.7 enhancements were added to allow customers to more rapidly automate critical managerial tasks through additional pre-configured workflows and new offline features. Additionally, enhanced data management capabilities further reduce application administration and deliver the lowest total cost of ownership on the market. The new version introduces features such as additional pre-configured workflows, which represent best-practice processes for agent development and performance improvement plan (PIP) tracking; extended data management capabilities to allow customers to more easily and rapidly extend their applications; and offline features to integrate paper-based processes with online activity tracking and archiving. www.mercedsystems.com

Interactive Intelligence To Launch Hosted Notification Service
Interactive Intelligence Inc., (news - alert)has announced it will offer a hosted notification service, branded under the name icNotify. icNotify was designed to cut costs associated with outbound customer interactions by automating traditional manual processes and eliminating the need for on-premise customer equipment and network bandwidth. The icNotify service, initially targeted at financial service institutions and physician offices, provides outbound notification services for automated messaging, with the added benefit of giving subscribers flexible, multichannel contact options based on their unique needs.
Examples of how businesses can use the icNotify service include financial institutions that want to send customers notification of loan status, fraud alerts, deposit confirmations and portfolio updates. Physician’s offices can use the service for notifications such as prescription reminders, appointment reminders, “agent-less” health education campaigns and patient satisfaction surveys.

The icNotify service is switch-independent, so it can work with a variety of third-party PBXs and IP-PBXs. The service will be delivered through landline and mobile phones, e-mail, fax, pagers, PDA devices and short message service-enabled devices. The icNotify service will also make use of text-to-speech, speech recognition, pre-recorded messages, on-the-fly message recording and self-service options — the latter designed to minimize inbound call volume in response to outbound notifications. www.inin.com

Talisma Announces Talisma Professional Edition
Talisma Corporation, (news - alert) a provider of customer interaction management solutions, has announced the immediate availability of Talisma Professional Edition for small and mid-sized companies and departments within large enterprises. Leveraging the cost-effective Internet medium, Talisma’s new applications offer single or multiple online communication channels, such as self service, chat and e-mail, helping enable businesses to deliver improved customer service. Talisma Professional Edition includes Talisma Email, Talisma Chat, Talisma Telephony and Talisma Knowledgebase/Web self-service. Competitively priced, the solutions were created to provide small and mid-sized organizations with the ability to offer improved levels of customer service regardless of whether there is one customer service agent or many working from a small office, a dedicated call center or remote locations. According to the company, Talisma Professional Edition delivers measurable return on investment within hours or days of implementation through increased customer interaction efficiency and effectiveness. As part of the solution, Talisma is offering complimentary initial and ongoing Web-based training courses, helping ensure both a rapid implementation and ongoing success.

Talisma Professional Edition communication channels can be delivered as on-demand or onsite applications and are designed to stand alone or work effectively together as an integrated suite. Channels and users can be added as needed. Also available as a host-to-own, Talisma Professional Edition can seamlessly transition from an on-demand to onsite solution as a company’s Internet technology needs change. www.talisma.com

eStara Launches 'Click-to-Chat' Application
eStara, (news - alert) a provider of multichannel communications solutions, has announced the launch of its real-time text chat solution. The new product was designed to enable eStara customers to offer Click-to-Chat service in addition to eStara's flagship Click-to-Call solution, or as a stand-alone product. The Click-to-Call and Click-to-Chat solutions enable online shoppers to directly communicate with a human customer service representative at the click of a button. Analyst research shows that enriching e-commerce with these solutions reduces shopping cart abandonment, increases transaction conversion rates and boosts revenue.'

Using its patent-pending cross-channel data passing technology, both eStara's Click-to-Call and Click-to-Chat solutions can help ensure continuity of experience for online shoppers as they transition from the Web to a voice or text chat conversation. Cross-channel data passing creates a seamless experience by transferring information about the customer and the context of his or her online session directly to the customer service representative (CSR) at the time of the call or chat initiation. The CSR's software can be configured to display this information directly on the agent's desktop screen, or it can use the incoming data values to trigger lookups into the company's own databases to retrieve related details (customer records, purchase history, billing information, etc.). www.estara.com

Eloqua To Offer Conversion Suite Winter 2006 Release
Automated demand-generation software provider Eloqua Corporation, (news - alert) recently announced the launch of Eloqua Conversion Suite Winter 2006. The latest version of the company's integrated demand-generation platform offers marketers new capabilities and feature improvements to help drive demand and cultivate the prospect information needed for closing a sale. Eloqua Conversion Suite is an on-demand solution that automates and integrates workflow across the key sales and marketing functions of e-mail, direct mail, Web site analytics, campaign analytics and sales force automation to improve the quality and quantity of sales leads, eliminate waste and accelerate the entire selling process. Integration on Demand is a new integration engine that provides both technical and functional connections via the Web to a range of CRM applications and other third-party business applications. Eloqua's integration architecture minimizes marketing's reliance on IT, putting them in control of data resources and extending their visibility. According to the company, the innovation will power a number of packaged integrations to leading CRM systems that Eloqua will make available this year, an example of which is Eloqua's recent product announcements for salesforce.com's AppExchange.www.eloqua.com

Telrex Announces IP Call Recording For Covad's Hosted PBX Service
Telrex, (news - alert) a developer of call recording and monitoring software for small and medium-sized businesses using IP-PBXs or hosted PBX services, and Covad Communications, (news - alert) a provider of integrated voice and data services, have jointly announced the availability of CallRex call recording with Covad's vPBX voice services. CallRex brings a full-featured, software-only IP-based call recording solution to Covad's vPBX service. With CallRex, Covad has said it can now attract customers that require call recording for training purposes, dispute resolution or regulatory compliance. www.telrex.com and www.covad.com

LSSi's National Database Named 'Most Accurate'
For the fourth year running, The Paisley Group has determined that LSSi's (news - alert) national database of 'telco-fresh' telephone listings is the most accurate in the industry. The Paisley Group is the telephony industry's leading measurer of directory assistance accuracy, customer fulfillment and customer care. The Paisley studies provide industry analysts with the clearest picture of the true accuracy and completeness of directory assistance databases. Their 2005 study compared the LSSi U.S. database with those of other NDA database suppliers. The 2005 study was designed to test database accuracy under the actual conditions faced by directory assistance operators. It was based on 600 real directory-assistance calls and was not limited to standard searches, but also included requests for hard-to-find listings, new listings, listings that had been disconnected, listings that were requested out of order and listings with incomplete details. Once again, LSSi's accuracy score exceeded 99 percent (study margin of error '0.7 percent). For carriers and other DA providers, the accuracy of listing data is a core concern. With roughly six billion calls being made to directory assistance each year, an error rate of just two percent produces 120 million misses, increasing provider operating costs and eroding caller satisfaction. www.lssi.net

TCIM Services Names EVP/COO
J. Bryan Gross, a long-time senior executive in the teleservices industry, has been named the new Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of TCIM Services, (news - alert) of Wilmington, Delaware, the industry's first ISO 9002-certified firm and the industry's largest woman-owned firm.

'We're excited that Bryan has chosen to join us at TCIM,' said Linda C. Drake, chairman and founder of TCIM Services, a privately-held firm. 'The people of TCIM Services have distinguished themselves in our growth since our founding. We are now ready to move our organization to the next level.'

With over 18 years at the executive level in the contact center industry, Gross joins TCIM Services from ACS, a $5 billion publicly held provider of outsourced business process and technology outsourcing, where he had profit and loss responsibility for $250 million in revenue including operations and relationships in four countries on three continents. He has also held executive positions at Sprint, MCI and Teletech. www.tcim.com

Exstream Launches Dialogue In Japanese
Exstream Software , Inc. (news - alert) has announced the general availability of Dialogue in Japanese. Dialogue is the company's enterprise software designed to allow companies to create and manage higher quality, fully personalized communications of all types for delivery through high-volume print/mail, real-time and Web-based channels. Exstream first announced the availability of its double-byte character set (DBCS) version of Dialogue to support Asian business requirements in April 2002 (version 3.0). Since then, Exstream has been active in the Japanese market, announcing a formal partnership in November 2004 with Kanematsu Electronics Ltd. (KEL) in Tokyo to market Dialogue in Japan. The localization of Dialogue for Japan ' meaning the user interface has been adapted to its language, standards and cultural norms ' includes expanded DBCS functionality and meets specific needs requested by Japanese organizations.www.exstream.com

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