Basic Featured of Unified Desktop

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Tuesday, August 23, 2011   |   [1] Leave a Comment »

Features commonly provided by unified desktop solutions are as follows:

Single login/logout - Once the agent logs into the application they have unified access to multiple applications. There is no need to log in and out to access data bases or other applications.

Pre-populated screen pops - Unified desktops rely on the CRM as well as other sources, such as IVR entries and data gleaned from enterprise data bases to fully populate screens before the agent takes the call. All unified desktops pop...

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Unified Desktop

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Wednesday, August 3, 2011   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

These devices are variously called, "smart desktops," "intelligent desktops," "universal desktops," and "unified desktops."  However, all these products seek to condense required call processing information onto a single desktop application and organize the sequencing of screens to coincide with workflow. For ease of communication we will use the term "unified desktops."Demand for these products is still in the formative stages but growing rapidly.

Behind the interest is the same fundamental...

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Additional Highlights from Call Center Week 2011

Posted By Larry Matte   |   Wednesday, June 29, 2011   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

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...

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Call Center Week – June 2011

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Tuesday, June 28, 2011   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

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...

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Consumer Channel Preference Survey

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Thursday, May 19, 2011   |   [0] Leave a Comment »
NICE Systemsrecently conducted a Consumer Channel Preference Survey on the communications channels preferred by consumers when contacting business and service providers. The survey reveals that the role of the contact center is evolving to "Tier 2" status, that is - for taking care of escalated service requests that were not addressed by other channels such as the web or Interactive Voice Response (IVR). This change in consumer behavior reflects the importance and strategic role that the contact...continue reading this post »

First Contact Resolution Done Right

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Tuesday, May 3, 2011   |   [0] Leave a Comment »
First call resolution, and the closely related call resolution rate, are the most important operational metrics for call center managers because they address productivity, quality and customer satisfaction in one number.

To realize the benefits of these essential key performance indicators (KPIs), leaders need an objective, accurate and automated mechanism for capturing and calculating one or both of these measurements. Organizations that employ FCR to firmly establish a corporate mindset...continue reading this post »

First Contact Resolution and the Call Center

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Monday, March 21, 2011   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

First Contact Resolution, the ability to identify, solve and close the customer’s issue(s) during the first customer/enterprise contact,  may be the foremost KPI in evaluating a contact center/customer care organization’s overall operating performance from a business perspective.

Despite the knowledge that a high level of FCR in the contact center correlates closely with general levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, low levels of FCR in customer care settings remain a significant industry...

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Earn Financial Incentives and Improve Customer Service with Speech Analytics

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Tuesday, February 1, 2011   |   [0] Leave a Comment »
Customer satisfaction has moved to the forefront of contact center goals.  Today, it pays to deliver exceptional, measurable customer service.  In addition to saving money by retaining customers, new programs offer financial incentives for superior service.  A noted example includes the Quality Bonus Payment for Medicare Health Plans.  But with such defined parameters for the contact center, how do you ensure your agents and business processes will make the grade?

Speech analytics is one...continue reading this post »

Creating a Customer-Centric, Multichannel Contact Center

Posted By Brian Spraetz   |   Friday, December 24, 2010   |   [0] Leave a Comment »
The days of ‘telephone-only’ customer service are long gone. Our customers now expect to contact us through email, chat and the web, including social media. Managing service across all these disparate communication channels can be a challenge. Businesses that do this well have a distinct and potent competitive advantage. Their customers are more satisfied, less apt to take their money elsewhere and inclined to increase the business they conduct.
 
One key to improving customer satisfaction,...
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Why Do You Need The Voice Of the Customer

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Tuesday, September 21, 2010   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

Accurate, timely feedback—whether from customers, employees, or partners—relies on talking to your audience in the right way.  Your contact center is the front line of your business. Positive experiences drive increased advocacy, reduced customer churn and improved agent engagement.

Customer satisfaction in your contact center is not an end in itself. Your customer experience program must deliver tangible benefits and real value that go beyond the contact center and enable you build a more...

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CRM Evolution and Speechtek 2010

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Tuesday, August 10, 2010   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

The joint Speechtek/CRM Evolution conference offered attendees ideas, strategies, and technologies to help streamline business processes, improve customer satisfaction levels, and increase profitability.  Below is a review of just a few of the organizations we met with at the conference.

West Interactive has been very busy this year with the acquisition of Holly Connects, a voice platform, and TuVox, an IVR hosting and managed services company.  The acquisitions round out West’s ability to...continue reading this post »

10 Secrets to Boosting First Call Resolution

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Friday, July 16, 2010   |   [1] Leave a Comment »

One of the major points of contention surrounding FCR is what the acronym stands for: is it first contact resolution or first call resolution? Some would say that first contact resolution is the proper metric, and while tracking all contacts is most reflective of the true customer experience, it is often expensive and sometimes impossible to develop meaningful metrics that encompass all touch points.

Implementing sound practices coupled with an appropriate technology solution makes it possible to...

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10 Secrets to Boosting First Call Resolution

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Thursday, June 3, 2010   |   [0] Leave a Comment »
In a challenging economic environment, holding on to existing customers is as important as attracting new ones. While it’s recognized that First Call Resolution (FCR) is a top driver of customer satisfac¬tion, actual usage of this metric is surprisingly low, according to the folks at CallCopy.

A new eBook from CallCopy explores the reasons why contact centers should implement FCR as an essential key performance indicator (KPI), discusses some of the challenges associated with definition...continue reading this post »

How Vonage is Increasing Customer Satisfaction by Hiring Better

Posted By Jeff Furst   |   Wednesday, May 19, 2010   |   [1] Leave a Comment »
Frost & Sullivan recently hosted an eBroadcast titled “The First Step Toward Improving the Customer Experience: Recruiting and Hiring the Right Agents”.

In Part I, we summarized ideas from Keith Dawson, Frost’s Principal Analyst for Information and Technologies, and his concept of a “blind spot” that many contact center managers have when it comes to understanding the importance of automating their hiring process and its relationship to overall customer satisfaction.

In Part II, Mike Trotter, VP...continue reading this post »

Improving Agent Performance Critical to Customer Experience: Sprint’s Example

Posted By Lee Anne Wimberly   |   Thursday, March 11, 2010   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

For eighcustomer satisfactiont straight quarters Sprint has improved its overall customer experience. The improvement in Sprint's customer satisfaction scores, according to third-party studies, is a result of introducing its best-ever handset lineup with Android phones HTC Hero and Samsung Moment, simplifying cell phone plans with Any Mobile, AnytimeSM and Everything Data, and offering 4G service in 27 markets.

 

 

All of these new products, plans and services create a complex and ever-changing customer...

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Personality Mapping in the Call Center - The Next Evolution in Customer Experience Management

Posted By David Barnes   |   Tuesday, January 26, 2010   |   [2] Leave a Comment »

Why do customers buy from you?  In call center environments, purchase behavior is driven by the degree to which agents build empathy and rapport with a caller.  This bonding occurs as a direct result of the personality match between caller and agent.

The days of call center scheduling, of simply assigning callers to agents on a first-in-first-out basis are over.  Technology now exists that can take an agent, look at all of the available callers, and determine which caller an agent has the best...continue reading this post »

Unified Agent Desktop

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Tuesday, January 19, 2010   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

Unified Agent Desktop

 

A unified desktop seeks to condense required call processing information onto a single desktop application and organize the sequencing of screens to coincide with workflow. Demand is growing for these products primarily due to the importance of first contact resolution (FCR).

 

Prior to the use of unified agent desktops,  improving FCR often came at the expense of increased handing time, as agents needed to search through myriad data sources and/or consult with others...

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Achieving First Call Resolution: The Presence-Enhanced Multimedia Contact Center

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Monday, January 11, 2010   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

Many are familiar with the idea of presence at the level of what we call “device presence.” Examples of device presence include the busy lamp field on a telephone or online status for Instant Messaging. Essentially these tools show a user’s availability and perhaps their readiness for communication. But device presence only monitors the user’s presence from the standpoint of a specific device without providing status information about the user, particularly if they have stepped away from the...

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To Tweet or Not To Tweet: That’s NOT the Question Customer Experience and Social Media

Posted By Lior Arussy   |   Tuesday, January 5, 2010   |   [0] Leave a Comment »
Here we are again. A new technology is taking over and the world as we know it is coming to an end. The advent of this latest and greatest technology allows individuals to broadcast short messages of up to 140 characters anytime, anywhere. With this newfound ability, some pundits are proclaiming that customer relationships as we know them are over. I should confess that I’m a bit tired of such proclamations and punditry particularly when it is all too apparent that people are simply glorifying a...continue reading this post »

2011 Contact Center Buying Criteria

Posted By Sheri Greenhaus   |   Monday, January 4, 2010   |   [0] Leave a Comment »

According to Udi Ziv, President, Enterprise Product Group, NICE Systems, user buying criteria (what users are looking for) changed over the past few years?  If so, how?

Over the last few years we have seen a shift in buying priorities due to three key drivers:

• Data center consolidation – in a recent Ventana Research study, participants expressed that economy of scale opportunities for larger multi-site operations are being considered as they are migrating to VoIP, increasing home-based agents...

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