VoIP Is Ready For Prime Time In Contact/CRM Centers
For this installment of The Boardroom Report, Technology Marketing Corp. founder / chairman / CEO Nadji Tehrani spoke with Michael Mitchell, president and co-founder of Strategic Contact Solutions (SCS).

INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FROM THE WORKFORCE OPTIMIZATION EXPERTS: A SPECIAL EDITORIAL SERIES SPONSORED BY VOICE PRINT, PIPKINS AND SYNTORA

How “Real Time” Is Revolutionizing The Contact Center: The Essential Role Of Real-Time Analytics, Reporting, Scheduling And Training
By Patrick Botz, Voice Print International, Inc.
Up until a few years ago, the contact center was an overlooked and relatively untapped source of business intelligence. The full extent of its value to the enterprise as a whole has only come to light in recent years — mainly due to the emergence of technologies that enable organizations to capture and meaningfully evaluate multimedia interactions.

Leaving Behind The Days Of “Data Rich, Information Poor”
By Tracey E. Schelmetic, Editorial Director, Customer Inter@ction Solutions

SPECIAL FOCUS

Customer Inter@ction Solutions Celebrates 25 Years Of Excellence
For 25 years, Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine has been the voice of the call/contact center, CRM and teleservices industries. We’ve been often imitated, but never equaled. We have watched the industry germinate, grow, mature and prosper, and we’ve been extremely instrumental in helping it do so.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

What’s Next For CRM?
By Larry Barnes and John Yaggie, Avande
In the past six months, Microsoft has introduced new technology for everything from customer relationship management to business intelligence. What does it mean for your company? We’ve had the opportunity to work with the Microsoft products in clients’ IT environments, and in the process, we’ve uncovered several important considerations for any company, including those with CRM and business intelligence solutions — or custom applications — already in place.

OUTSOURCING

Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine’s Twenty-First Annual Top 50 Inbound Teleservices Agencies Ranking
This is the twenty-first year Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine brings you its “Top 50” Teleservices Agencies Ranking. In this issue, we’re presenting the “Top 50” inbound portion of the ranking. (The outbound portion of the ranking was highlighted in the March 2006 issue.) Since its inception in 1986, our “Top 50” ranking has been used as the benchmark for choosing large-capacity/sized teleservices agencies.

WORKFORCE OPTIMIZATION

Creating A Culture Of High Performance In The Contact Center
By Debbie May, IEX; and Mark Selcow, Merced Systems Inc.
Performance management systems help contact centers overcome challenges by combining data from their most critical systems to create an overall view of current business trends and operating conditions. Armed with this information, companies can form solid, actionable conclusions based on the operational results of the organization.

MANAGEMENT SCOPE

Training At The Desktop: Seven Strategies For Success
By Henry Lach, Syntora
The advent of e-learning as a strategy for training call center agents has yielded an efficient and cost-effective new toolset for sharpening agents’ knowledge and skills, but it has also raised a series of challenges. What kinds of instruction are best suited for delivery at the desktop? How does online coursework fit into the center’s overall workflow? How can it assist agents who are underperforming?

SPEECH-WORLD

Speech-World News & Definitions

The Speech Technology Excellence Awards
With new products and whole new categories of products in the contact center space, it is tough for our readers to keep up with the latest and greatest products and services. That is why Customer Inter@ction Solutions launched the Speech Technology Excellence Award: so we can judge the “best of the best” in speech technology and pass our findings on to our readers.

TMC LABS

This month, TMC Labs reviews Nuasis NuContact Center 3.0.

 Publisher's Outlook
 High Priority!
 Boardroom Report
 CIS News
 Last Call

TMC Labs Reviews
Visit The TMC Labs Page

Go to TMCnet.com for the latest communications technology news

Outsourcing: Minimizing The Data Security Risks With Secure Collaboration
By Cathy Planchard, TMCnet Columnist
In most outsourcing situations, organizations need to share sensitive data — much of it valuable intellectual property — with others. Keeping data secure can be extremely difficult when the information is in someone else’s hands, even if those hands belong to a seemingly trusted partner.

Cell Phone Privacy, Or Lack Thereof
By Tracey E. Schelmetic, Editorial Director, Customer Inter@ction Solutions
It appears that many wireless users are concerned that their mobile phone conversations and physical locations are not private. Of course they’re not. When you stand on a train platform screaming into your mobile phone that your boyfriend or girlfriend doesn’t appreciate your efforts at housekeeping, everyone can hear you. I know this is shocking, but it’s true.

Forrester: How To Get A Good CRM Consultant
By David Sims, TMCnet Columnist
Forrester finds that enterprises continue to invest heavily in CRM-related capabilities, expecting enterprises “to spend about $3 billion worldwide on new CRM software licenses in 2006.” Total spending with CRM application vendors, including vendor services and maintenance, “will exceed $8 billion.”

Unica, Oracle, Siebel Top Latest Forrester Survey
By David Sims, TMCnet Columnist
A recent Forrester Research report recognizes Unica’s overall excellence and cites Oracle’s Siebel Enterprise Marketing Suite as having the strongest product offering in the latest Forrester Wave Evaluation: Enterprise Marketing Platforms, Q1 2006.