Customer Service

Analytics applications are deployed in a number of functions and departments within the enterprise, and for a number of requirements in service operations. It is as critical to sales optimization in the marketing department, for example, as it is to performance optimization in the contact center. As a result, analytics often performs in a cross-functional capacity, typically without the benefit of coordination among users.

In the contact center, “cross-functional” may be narrowly defined as...

According to the comScore 2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review, social networking sites accounted for 12% of all time spent online in 2010, and the average American spent more than 14 hours watching online videos in December, a 12% increase over the previous year.

As social media continues to gain popularity in our culture.  Many call center agents are comfortable with social learning in their personal lives and, as a result, more and more companies are adopting social and informal learning platforms...

 One of the key priorities for a customer care organization is the engagement and retention of customers. To strengthen rapport with customers at scale, some companies are turning to interactive outbound interactive voice response (IVR) solutions. However, poorly executed outreach can alienate customers rather than ingratiate them, so it is important to select a platform that delivers your ideal customer experience.

Customer service is increasingly viewed as a strategic element of a product’s...

Since the emergence of multi-channel self-service, there is a growing disconnect between the typical strategy employed in telephone self-service design and what many customers actually need. A new Nuance report details the results of a commissioned survey which attempts to uncover customer channel preferences for an array of banking tasks, including recommendations for optimizing the IVR to both accommodate those preferences and minimize the frustrations associated with today’s multi-channel...

A new white paper from IntelliResponse 6 Tell-Tale Signs That Your Organization – And Your Customers – Are Ready For Next Generation Web Self-Service discusses if web self-service is right for your company.

According to Forrester Research, 72% of U.S. online consumers prefer to use a company’s Web site to get answers to their questions rather than contact companies via telephonen or email.

Telltale Sign #1:
The primary customer service features on your web site are FAQ and help pages and/or a site...

Customer Experience has become the mantra of senior management looking to enhance revenue and margins. This is a huge opportunity for whichever department can create a unified picture of the current CE and then help management to decide how to manage and improve it. Innovative, data driven departments as diverse as customer service, quality, consumer affairs or marketing services could capitalize on this opportunity to dramatically raise both their visibility and status within the organization.

Cu...

The following are some more information on the vendors who attended the IQPC event.  

Analytics

For companies frustrated with isolated or disparate data sources, 360'CRM's latest advances in its InSight data analytics tool provides new levels of actionable information for the Call Center or Channel Management practitioner.  InSight not only automatically draws call center performance data in to a common, universally comparable dashboard and report analytics library, it also integrates internal...

The staff of CRMXchange was present at the IQPC Las Vegas Call Center Week. IQPC did a commendable job with the content and speakers in the event. The exhibit hours were long, running close to 11 hours on day one, but the vendors were pleased with the amount of interest that people showed in their products and services. 

We traveled the exhibit hall. Below are some vendor highlights.

Analytics

Contact Solutions – The Continuous Improvement Practice (CI) is based on a unique methodology and supported...

Sharing updates with call center agents during downtime is an ideal way to improve your staff’s knowledge and skills. This can be done at minimal cost and without disrupting the flow of operations – which is what happens when agents are pulled from the phones to attend a training/coaching class. The contact center has to be able to send out training/coaching or other information as soon as a slow period is identified, as these lulls generally do not last long.

This means that you will need a...

Your customers are coming to you via an variety of   channels.  As a result, every employee is now customer facing — either directly or indirectly — and distinctions between the front
office and back office are blurring.  With many more channels coming to the multi channel contact center, and a much more dispersed workforce, organizations today are forced to manage a dizzying array of customer service systems, customer touch points and customer-related tasks.

The question is, how do you make sure...

Even in the best-managed and busiest contact centers, where workforce management solutions are used to optimize agent schedules, there will always be unexpected downtime without calls. Using this idle time productively will improve agent satisfaction and service quality while reducing agent-related costs. Delivering real-time, targeted training, coaching and communications during slow periods can alter your contact center’s dynamics – boosting productivity, quality and customer perception. A new...

In a recently released Empirix sponsored web survey from Opus Research, companies were asked “ When thinking of collaboration or social media platforms to communicate with customers, which of the following do you use?”

Facebook Fan Sites

The second half of 2010 has witnessed a flurry of activity around Facebook. Its 500 million registered users have become a magnet for “social marketing” initiatives. Businesses of all sizes found it easy to raise visibility and build stronger communications...