www.tmcnet.com/861.1
Study Shows UK Contact Centers Struggling with Training an Management:

Recent research findings published by the CCA, the Professional Body for Customer Contact and Kaisen Consulting indicates that there is still much work to be done in UK contact centers to improve recruiting, training and management of employees. Until these centers can master these elements, they will continue to struggle with increased costs and decreased customer service deliverables. As a result, they will be unable to maximize the full benefit that contact centers are designed to provide.

www.tmcnet.com/862.1
Interactive Intelligence’s Contact Center Software Earns VEGAS.com a Best Technology Innovation Award

In 2005, VEGAS.com, one of the largest city destination travel websites in the world, installed Interactive Intelligence’s Customer Interaction Center (CIC) software in its customer service center. Two years later the company won Contact Center World’s “Best Technology Innovation Award,” which was presented during the “Best of the Best in Americas” conference held earlier this month in Orlando, Fla.

www.tmcnet.com/863.1
Five9 and BayanTel Team to Offer Hosted Contact Center SolutionDesigned for Filipino Outsourcers

On-demand call center solutions provider Five9 Inc. has teamed up with telecommunications and Internet solutions provider Bayan Telecommunications Inc. to deliver Bayan On-Demand, a new hosted call center solution designed for outsourcers in the Philippines. Powered by Five9’s on-demand call center technology, the solution will at first be offered on a simple “pay-per-minute basis,” making it simple and inexpensive for companies outsourcing their contact center services in the Philippines to make use of the solution right.

www.tmcnet.com/846.1
Nuance to Develop New Mobile User Interface through Acquisition of TegicCommunications

In a move which will expand its presence in the mobile industry, speech technologies leader Nuance Communications Inc. has reportedly acquired Tegic Communications Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL which develops embedded software for mobile devices. The deal, which is valued at about $265 million, will give Nuance access to Tegic’s T9 predictive text input software, which has reportedly been shipped to more than 2.5 billion devices. Nuance will now begin to integrate Tegic’s next-generation integrated text and touch input solutions into its portfolio of voice-enabled applications for device control, mobile search, email and text messaging.

www.tmcnet.com/865.1
Amcat Developing New IP Contact Center Model

Amcat is reportedly developing a new enterprise IP contact center model, Amcat Interactions, a software-only solution designed to be highly adaptable to changing business requirements. Available as either a hosted and on-premise solution, this new generation contact center software is built on Amcat’s “Contact Center Software without Boundaries” design, which is said to help companies increase productivity while decreasing costs. The solution supports multi-location, distributed or home-based agents, meaning that agents can work from any location, anytime, and thus can be readily “activated” to meet spikes in volume. By leveraging a “virtualized” contact center environment, companies can better meet the needs of their customers by having just the right number of agents—including those with the right skill sets — available to handle phone, email, text and web-chat contacts.

Glowpoint Unveils Two-Way HD Video Solution for Call Centers

Some doubted that it would ever happen — and many questioned the value of even doing it — but video is now making its way into call and contact center software applications at a rapid pace. As such, Glowpoint Inc., a provider of IP-based managed video services, has introduced Customer Connect, a high-definition, two-way video call center solution, which can be integrated with any call center environment. The solution lets customers interact live with call center agents via a video link from, for example, a video kiosk, a designated “video room” at a retail store, or at a bank branch location. Thus it lets customers interact with agents in a highly personalized way that only video can deliver.

www.tmcnet.com/867.1
Avaya Survey Shows Customer Service and Unified CommunicationsKeys to Success

British companies consider customer service and unified communications (UC) to be the key to their success; at least according to research from Avaya. This global provider of business communications found this to be true in a survey of over 140 business managers and IT decision managers. Of those individuals surveyed, over 85 percent listed the ability to drive higher levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty through improvements in customer service was fundamental. Another 82 percent felt that one of the main drivers to move to a unified communications network was the enabling of effective event or incident response together with making business processes more efficient.

www.tmcnet.com/868.1
True Tally Selects Envox Solution to Drive Automated Surveys

Envox has announced that Envox CT ADE has been chosen to power thephone-based survey solutions of True Tally. Envox, the global provider of IPbased voice solutions announced today that its widely used IVR development tool will help drive campaigns for this survey and database company. Outbound phone-based surveys that are able to understand what respondents are saying are a vital marketing tool for gaining insight into customer behavior and delivering well-qualified sales opportunities to a wide range of organizations. To create highly targeted lists based on zip code, income, age and other essential information True Tally draws from many public and private data sources.

www.tmcnet.com/869.1
Epicor Enhances Epicor Clientele CRM.NET 8.5

Epicor Software Corporation has announced significant enhancements to its Epicor Customer Relationship Management Suite, Epicor Clientele CRM.NET 8.5. These enhancements have been implemented to enable transparency and extensibility, broaden visibility and enrich usability. Built with 100 percent Microsoft .NET managed code and employing an adaptable service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach, this new release now supports Epicor’s Productivity Pyramid. Through the combination of Epicor Portal, Service Connect and Information Worker, the Epicor Productivity Pyramid draws together people, processes and applications.

www.tmcnet.com/870.1
Call Center Recording in the Hosted Environment

The rate at which contact centers are going hosted is increasing rapidly today. Agents are working from remote places like their homes and the need for giant inhouse infrastructure to run a call center is no longer the case. But just because there aren’t the traditional brick and mortar facilities, doesn’t mean delivering consistent quality services, and training to achieve those desired results is not still needed.

www.tmcnet.com/871.1
Alcatel-Lucent Launches OmniTouch with CRM Integration

Alcatel-Lucent has launched the Alcatel- Lucent OmniTouch Contact Center Premium Edition, a contact center product designed for mid-market businesses and offering pre-integration with some CRM applications. This latest contact center product bundles the Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX platform with Genesys 7 software, taking a “user-centric” approach that provides what company officials describe as “an advanced multimedia contact center with a fully centralized, graphical management environment that simplifies deployment and boosts customer value.” Its features include call qualification, management of real-time business conditions, and innovative collaboration capabilities that link agents, experts and customers.

www.tmcnet.com/872.1
Tigerpaw CRM, Rackspace Hosting Strike Deals With Kaseya

Tigerpaw Software, a vendor of IT business management software, has entered into a technology alliance with Kaseya, a vendor of Managed Service Automation software for IT providers. Officials of both firms say the move is to "enrich the platform for the delivery of IT managed services through the integration of functionality between Kaseya and Tigerpaw CRM+." Tigerpaw CRM+, integrated with Kaseya's MSA software, enables end-to-end CRM, service automation and inventory tracking while delivering a complete view into clients' IT environments, according to Tigerpaw CEO Dave Foxall.

www.tmcnet.com/873.1
SugarCRM Announces Meet-Up Group Starting in Atlanta

SugarCRM Inc., a vendor of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, has announced the Atlanta Meet-Up Group, which is focused on Sugar best practices. SugarCRM users and enthusiasts from the Atlanta metropolitan area gather on "Sugar Wednesday" to teach each other new SugarCRM capabilities and techniques, swap tips and tricks, and answer Sugar-related questions at the Atlanta SugarCRM Meet-Up Group.

www.tmcnet.com/874.1
Report Covering Call Center Manufacturer Revenue Puts Avaya onTop for 2006

A new report from the Telecom Intelligence Group puts global call center manufacturer revenue for 2006 at $2.4 billion and predicts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR), based on seats, of about 3.9 percent. Leading the pack in all three vendor categories (agents, systems and revenues) for 2006 was Avaya, with 37 percent of all agent shipments. Nortel and Cisco shared second and third place, respectively, in both agents and systems, with a combined 23 percent of the market. Nortel also was second in total worldwide revenues, while Aspect was third.

www.tmcnet.com/875.1
Merchant Lynx Using Amcat's Contact Center Suite to Boost Agent Productivity.

Merchant Lynx, a national leader in credit card processing, has reportedly selected Amcat's customer interaction solutions to help boost agent productivity in its customer contact center. Specifically, Merchant Lynx is using Amcat's Contact Center Suite as the focal point of an integrated customer acquisition and sales processing system. By integrating Amcat's web-based appointment scheduler and automated outbound contact system with Merchant Lynx's database, Merchant Lynx has gained an automated appointment setting and customer acquisition process which has helped improve agent productivity.