TMCnet Contact Center Solutions Week in Review

It’s safe to say the Contact Center Solutions Community has started the year with a flourish. Not only is there plenty of news regarding general business activities and industry growth, but this week also saw a lot of valuable advice on several fronts.

In what is likely a harbinger of things to come both for the company and the sector, community host Interactive Intelligence created some positive stir with the release of its preliminary financial results for the past quarter and for FY 2012. The big news here is how the market is increasingly looking the cloud for transforming contact centers. Indeed, this was confirmed with the news that T-Mobile Austria (News - Alert) selected Interactive Intelligence for Its European Routing Platform Customer Service Initiative.

Interactive Intelligence also revealed that major moving company Wheaton Bekins is using the CIC platform to improve customer service across the U.S. Channel partner Adapt Telephony is upgrading First Bank's contact centers using CIC as well.

Before getting to the business news, you might wish to take a careful read of all of the useful advice being offered which included:

• TMCnet Contributor Susan Campbell had an interesting piece on why optimizing contact center agent utilization and managing workflows needs to be a priority in 2013.
• I wrote a piece based on a recent webinar about why a holistic approach to contact center transformation is so important.  
• Find out why particularly given tough economic times Peggy Carlaw of Business2Community is warning that this is not the time to be cutting back on contact center funding.
• The use of “big data” by financial services firms, with insights from Verdande Technology, is an article that highlights how not just this sector, but all verticals need to be thinking about sharing data across the enterprise, particularly information captured in contact centers, to gain a competitive advantage. 
• In fact, picking up on the same idea, TMCnet Contributor Mae Kowalke looked at the finding of a new study by NewVantage Partners, which found that that big data is actually about variety, not volume and having the right people to understand it is crucial.
• Knowing when to put contact center employees on a disengagement 'Watch List' is a subject of importance to contact center administrators.

Signs of growth were indicated by the following items:

• GEICO plans to hire at least 300 more associates for its Tucson, Ariz., office over the next couple of weeks.
•  Infinity Sales Group stated that it will start recruiting highly qualified candidates in Boca Raton on January 8-9, including at least 200 telesales agents.

On the business side of things there was also a lot to report:

• The Linport Translation Packaging Standard received MultiLing's support.
• Also on the translations front, Lionbridge Technologies (News - Alert) Inc., a provider of translation solutions, extended its contract with LivePerson (News - Alert), a provider of real-time intelligent engagement solutions.
• Isracard has implemented Personetics Digital Banker, a predictive virtual assistant offering especially for the banking industry.
• MUG Enterprise's Interceptor solution is now rated "Avaya Compliant." The Interceptor application helps businesses stay compliant with Federal laws concerning outbound-calling contact centers by identifying whether a number is a landline, cell phone or VoIP.

There were a few other items of interest. First in the placement by Gartner (News - Alert) of Aegis Limited, a global outsourcing and technology services company, in the 2012 Magic Quadrant for Customer Management Contact Center BPO. Of particular note was also the fact that here in the U.S., the Virginia communities of York, Poquoson and Williamsburg call centers will start accepting SMS messages to 911 dispatch centers.  

Last but not least, and proof that not everything is good news, in an ironic twist, the call center outsourcing company that maintains and operates Australia's consumer "do-not-call" list is itself being fined by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for making unauthorized calls to numbers listed on the do not call registry.

Weekend reading suggestions  

If you want to catch up on additional industry developments this weekend, the community resources are rich in content and are constantly being updated with new videos, whitepapers on a variety of subjects.  For instance, catch up on the recent webinar, Best Practices for Evaluating a New Contact Center Solution: Leading Analysts Share Their Insight and Research, as well as the webinar, The Call Center is Dead, Long Live the Contact Center!Accounts Receivable Management, Business Process Automation, CaaS, Cloud-based Contact Centers and Insurance Technology.

if you were not able to join them.   Plus, please don’t’ forget to review our affiliated channels —

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