Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

This week's review of top contact center related-headlines includes a look a unified communications, furniture, bizarre stories, and 2008 trends in the contact center.

 

Call centers are on a constant search to improve their agent's productivity and training. But beyond the tools used to enhance training for agents, is the need for properly furnished call center training rooms that provide agents with a comfortable environment that promotes interactions and productivity.

 

"Consider a learning environment where instructors have the option of placing monitoring on the work surface or below it. Training rooms that are conducive to high productivity allow for maximum eye contact and encourage interaction between the instructor and the students and the students with each other." Read more HERE.

Unified communications has now also made its way into the contact center thanks to Aspect who announced this week, Aspect Unified IP with Unified Communications.

"Aspect's unified communications solutions bridge the divide between the contact center and the rest of the organization in a way that allows every person in an organization to become an integral part of the contact center in a manner that maximizes efficiency, customer service and sales levels." Read more HERE.

Speaking of improved customer service in the call center, a new study from Maritz Research has found that good customer service in the call center leads to successful cross-selling.

 

"Cross-selling products to satisfied customers can be a lucrative strategy for companies in many different industries. In the banking vertical, however, this strategy could be employed more often. That’s the conclusion reached by Maritz Research, which surveyed credit card and bank customers about their experiences with call centers." Read more HERE.

 

Another report out this week has revealed new trends in the 2008 contact center market that indicate it will be a tough year financially but that contact center technology provides call centers with the ability to get the most out of their employees and customer data.

 

"Hosted contact centers are expected to reach prime time, while mid-market applications will flourish. Market data also suggests that workforce optimization will mushroom as enterprises turn chaos into predictability. As call and contact centers strive to dominate their respective industries, partnership and channel strategies will be shaken up in an effort to initiative internal change." Read more HERE.

 

This week, hosted contact center solutions provider Five9 announced $12 million in financing and an enhanced focus on outsourced contact center needs.

 

The completion of $12 million in equity funding is a bid to further accelerate its sales, marketing and product development initiatives.

"We are enthusiastic about putting this round of funding to work and pleased that the market continues to benefit from our high-impact call center solutions. Every day our sales and service teams deploy customer-focused solutions that deliver cost savings, increased productivity, and streamlined operations to sectors such as retail, mortgage and loan, travel and transportation, and call center outsourcers. This additional funding will enable us to continue to accelerate our sales growth," said Mike Burkland, CEO of Five9.

Five9 also announced they became a corporate member of the American Teleservices Association (ATA).

 

By joining the ATA, Five9 gains another window into customer needs for quality and effectiveness.

 

And, if you're a call center agent who is all too familiar with the behavior of customers on the phone, Interactive Intelligence has launched a contest called "Outrageous Interactions" to highlight wacky, preposterous, unreasonable interactions.

 

The contest is open to contact center agents and contact center managers worldwide. Read more HERE.

 

 

That’s all for this week, but be sure to check back with ContactCenterSolutions throughout the week for all the latest in contact center-related news as it happens! Until next week…..