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ContactCenterSolutions Contact Center Week in Review

January 25, 2008

Welcome to another edition of the ContactCenterSolutions Contact Center Week in Review. This week was full of award wins, Executive appointments and other happy call center-related announcements.
 
Outsourced call center services provider, Convergys, announced this week the appointment of call center veteran William T. Higginbotham to the position of COO, Accounts Receivable Management.

 
In this role, Higginbotham will be responsible for the continued revenue growth and profitability of Convergys' Accounts Receivable Management business. He will report to Clint Streit, president of Customer Management at Convergys.
 
Also this week, the call center jobs market in Boise, Idaho got a boost with the completion of a new facility scheduled to be open by February.
 
The call center, run by WDSGlobal, will house 1,000 call center agents to help WDSGlobal increase its ability to provide specialized wireless support services.
 
Steve Nasca, general manager for WDSGlobal’s Americas division, said Boise—with its base of skilled workers—is a natural fit for the new facility and the company said it has plans to build partnerships with the Latino community there to attract bi-lingual Spanish/English speakers who can serve the international market.
 
UK Tire Retailer Blackcircles.com also announced this week the opening of a new call center to enhance customer service and keep up with demand for Internet customers.
 
Managing Director of Blackcircles.com, Mike Welch, said in a statement that one of the themes the company picked up from customers is that information on the Web does not “talk back.” Research also indicates that people feel there is a general lack of access to expert advice within the tire industry. By offering an expert call center operation, Blackcircles.com believes it can win more business by making the experience of purchasing tires online far more interactive.
 
Also, lots of awards were given out to well deserving companies in the call center space this week including call center technology provider TouchStar, who announced they received two more call center technology product of the year awards.  The awards, given by Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine and INTERENT TELEPHONY magazine both awarded TouchStar for its outstanding quality and innovation in call center technology.

Rick Morris, COO of TouchStar, was quoted as saying, "These awards are a direct reflection of the interest we have in our clients' success as well as our strength as a company. In the last 18 months we increased our investment in product development and our clients have benefited from that investment. We are looking forward to announcing several new solutions in 2008 to make our clients' even more successful."
 
Also this week, the CVS Caremark call center, which handles nearly 50 million telephone, e-mail and fax inquiries from customers every year, was recognized by J.D. Power and Associates for customer excellence.
 
This is the second time the company has been acknowledged for call center customer satisfaction excellence.

J.D. Power and Associates also recognized TriWest for its call center customer excellence specifically for TriWest Healthcare Alliance’s call centers supporting the TRICARE West Region.


"The J.D. Power and Associates certification recognizes our operational excellence and that our call center and its staff provide outstanding service for our millions of customers and more than 129,000 health care practitioners in our provider network," said TriWest President and CEO David J. McIntyre Jr., in a statement. “We achieved this level of service with the support of the TRICARE Regional Office-West."

Angel.com's virtual call center solution has been implemented by Lyric Inc. and the company announced this week they have effectively consolidated customer service operations for e-mail marketing, Web analytics, Web content management and PPC campaign management into one company-wide system

 
The integrated customer service interface automatically routes callers to the appropriate Lyris expert, according to both product family and area of expertise. As a result, it is fast and easy for Lyris customers to connect with the right service representative and get the support they need.

Avaya launched new contact center solutions this week in a bid to improve customer experiences. The new solutions include SIP to help streamline operations and provide benefit to agents and customers.
 
Qwest also announced this week that they enhanced their contact center solutions portfolio with the addition of "Qwest Notify," a new offering featuring both template and custom applications to offer a speed-to-market solution as well as applications that integrate with existing databases.
 
ContactCenterSolutions's Patrick Barnard highlighted the Predictive Dialer and its benefits for the call center in an article this week titled, "The Predictive Dialer: The 'Unsung Hero' of the Call Center Software Ecosystem."
 
"It often seems that the predictive dialer is the “unsung hero” of all the pieces of equipment that make up the contact center hardware ecosystem. The dialer just sits back there, in the server room, doing its thing, and no one ever seems to really pay much attention to it -- that is until it comes time to load it up with a new set of numbers for another outbound campaign." CLICK HERE to read the full article.

Also this week, the article, "Call Center Furniture: Supervisor Design Set Ups that Work" focused on supervisors and the need to design the call center with supervisor workstations that allow them to best assist and manage agents in the call center.
 
 
Here are some new Contact Center Research articles you won't want to miss:
 
 
 
 
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…..
 
 
Stefania Viscusi is an established writer and avid reader. To see more of her articles, please visit Stefania Viscusi’s columnist page.



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