From the TMCnet Blogs

Convergys
In his “First Coffee” blog, TMCnet’s David Sims writes:

Convergys has announced the availability of a platform-independent On-Demand Voice Authentication product, which Convergys clients and non-Convergys clients can implement by enrolling the voice signatures of their customers and employees.

Included in this product is voice biometric security from the Voice Signature Service provided through Convergys' partnership with TradeHarbor. The idea is that upon enrollment, companies can authenticate agent-assisted and consumer transactions more securely than with a traditional ID + PIN authentication.

Convergys officials describe it as a "no-capital expense deployment," touting its pay-as-you-go model. A person's voice signature is as unique as a fingerprint and can be used in legally binding documents and contracts if allowed by applicable law.

“Today’s voice authentication is a competitive differentiator because it is new. However, with the increase in online transaction activity and increase in mobile device use, voice authentication will quickly go from being a nice-to-have to being a must-have for companies that want to retain their customers,” says Bill Livingston, vice president of services architecture and deployment, TradeHarbor.

Visit David’s blog at http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/

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Can UC Save You Real Dollars?

In his On Rad’s Radar, Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO (News - Alert), Inc writes:

We hear a lot about Unified Communications today. UC this and UC that. Even Cloud Telephony and UCaaS.

The main buzz is around the savings from UC. If you have a distributed workforce, then unifying on a communications platform with a collaboration module can improve productivity.

The productivity gains only come if the technology is easy to use, reliable, and intuitive. By intuitive, I mean that unlike some CRM and telco software platforms, the software was created with the user in mind and doesn't require a lot of thinking on how to do something. It needs to be like WYSIWYG.

Anything done by committee means it will be drawn out and frustrating. The current collaboration software I have seen are really just document sharing applications and some white boarding online. 

UC's benefits come from a geographically dispersed workforce or a virtual office setting. It's similar with VoIP. If you are making a lot of in-state calls to other branches, the cost savings from VoIP diminish. When people are working on the same project but aren't in the same building or city, making progress is tricking because audio conference calls, IM/chat and email are one-dimensional. Video conferencing, webinars, document sharing, and whiteboarding - all can lead to productive gains. 

It looks like a lot of the UC hype is based on productivity gains and time savings, not so much real actual dollars. Aspect (News - Alert) rolled out Microsoft OCS globally and is seeing over $1 million in real savings. So there are real dollar benefits to UC if it is rolled out correctly with proper training.

Visit Peter’s blog at http://blog.tmcnet.com/on-rads-radar/

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Don't Cut Customer Outreach in a Recession

In his Communications and Technology Blog, Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) writes:

It is fascinating to hear industry execs speak of how most of their customers are cutting back on their spending so in response they reduce their spending on new customer acquisition by cutting PR, marketing and sales budgets.
For those companies who are able, now is the time to keep the above budgets steady or even increase them. Marketing today has evolved light years from where it was in the past. You can now track page views, clicks, browsing behavior and response to various creative graphics and messaging. In short, you can determine how to spend outreach dollars more effectively today than ever before.

And most companies don't realize this. They sadly have top level managers who indiscriminately cut customer outreach dollars because that made sense to them in the past when measurement techniques were in the stone ages.
What needs to be factored into the equation is the fact that customer outreach has evolved and disciplines like SEO, SEM, social networking, PR, live and web events need to be continued - in order to get more customers.

Sometimes a change in messaging is needed as well. For example, the hair dye company Just For Men is now running ads on TV which imply their product can help candidates on job interviews. Genius (News - Alert). By definition, many will infer the product can help them keep their job as well.

Visit Rich’s blog at http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/