From the TMCnet Blogs

Contact Center Update
In his Communications and Technology Blog, Rich Tehrani writes:

There are some very positive contact events worth sharing. The first bit of news has to do with how Voxify helped callers prepare for hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Voxify used its managed speech solutions to help hotels and airlines handle massive call volumes which peaked as the hurricane got closer. Callers not only made calls to reserve rooms and forms of travel, they also called to reconfirm reservations.

In other good news, AT&T has opened a call center in Detroit, Michigan to provide DSL service and support. This is an important move as it follows a pattern of other companies moving jobs from other countries back to the US. It should be mentioned the contact center industry can do wonders for the midwest where many manufacturing jobs have been lost.

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

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

Charging that marketers “often ignore a critical measurement -- customer attitudes and emotions -- when examining customer behavior,” Allegiance, a vendor of enterprise feedback management products, is offering “Do You Know Why Customers Really Buy,” described as a white paper explaining “how new feedback technology can provide essential attitudinal data to help determine how to present the right message to the right customer at the right time.”

Most businesses focus on geographic, demographic or psychographic data to analyze customer behavior, the study finds adding that “many use systems such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to track customer transactions. However, an attitudinal approach to modeling behavior uncovers the reasons why people do what they do.”

The purpose of the paper, its authors say, is to understand the “spark” of the relationship and what role emotion plays in customer decision making. “For example,” they write, “what was it that interested them in the first place, and what drives them to remain interested and engaged? This information can be uncovered by asking attitudinal questions in the feedback process.”

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

Fonality Targets Call Centers with Advanced Call Center Features

In his VoIP & Gadgets Blog, TMC CTO Tom Keating writes:

Visit Tom’s blog at
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/