TMCnet Contact Center Solutions Week in Review

Industry growth and improving the customer experience took center stage in the news for the Contact Center Solutions Community this past week. But before getting to the latest developments, you might wish to start your reading with an insightful piece about by TMCnet Contributor Robbie Pleasant, regarding a new white paper from Knowlagent and DMGabout mediating the constant struggles between IT departments and the contact center over sharing data, and how organizations can address this struggle and rather focus on a unified goal: providing customers with the best experience possible. 

I also want to point out a special guest item by Shaheen Haque, Territory Manager, Middle East & Turkey at Interactive Intelligence, Developing Sound Strategy: Understanding Risks Before Moving to the Cloud contact center offerings.

With all of the talk about if, when and how to move to the cloud, the advise here is extremely valuable.

News

As noted, improving the customer experience continues to be a major thrust of the industry, and there was news on lots of fronts:

• Callcap was selected by Hawker Beechcraft Corporation to enhance its aftermarket customer service.  
• Moxie Software Inc., a specialist in customer-centric enterprise social software, rolled out its new social chat application for customer sales and service that leverages Facebook's API. 
• Casengo, an all-in-one customer support software solution that seamlessly blends the best of e-mail and live chat, officially launched.  
• A new suite of utility- based managed communication services has been launched by Kcom, aimed at providing organizations with the opportunity to develop a clear roadmap to transform its customer contact and business collaboration capabilities. 
• Cloud telephony provider, Infratel, inked a new partnership agreement with Cirrus Tech Ltd. to offer MightyCall Receptionist to small business subscribers in Canada and the U.S. 
• Crittercism, in association with UserVoice, will offer an all-inclusive customer communication platform especially for mobile app developers to enable them to improve multi-channel interactions.
• The world's largest distributor of digital and physical books and entertainment products, Baker & Taylor, announced the launch of its new mobile platform, which will allow consumers to buy and download digital audiobooks on their Apple and Android devices.  

The good news in the industry in terms of growth illustrates the global impact of next-generation contact centers, and was punctuated with new of significant customer wins.

• MDLsolutions partnered with Pimsware to construct a brand-new state-of-the-art call center.
• Community host Interactive Intelligence is enhancing the operations of Wheaton World Wide Moving | Bekins Van Lines to its flagship Customer Interaction Center (CIC) platform, providing the option of moving everything into the cloud.
• One of Japan's largest call center services providers, Transcosmos, announced the opening of its next call center facility at the city of Sapporo in Hokkaido Prefecture brining it total to 24 such facilities.  
• A well-known eClinical solutions provider and a subsidiary of PAREXEL International Corporation, Perceptive Informatics (News - Alert), announced it has opened a Customer Care office in Shanghai.
• TXU Energy, a retail electricity provider, is now experiencing significant cost savings and operational benefits at its contact centers after adapting Acme Packet's Net-Net Enterprise SIP-based Session Director solution.  

In other industry news, it’s nice to hear about customers who are getting it right. In fact, Nuance (News - Alert) Communications, Inc. has awarded Customer Service Innovation Leadership Awards to Barclays Bank PLC, FedEx and Turkcell (News - Alert) Global Bilgi. These organizations were recognized for their proficiency in consumer service improvements inside their contact centers.

Weekend reading  

As always, I close with the suggestion that you enjoy all the resources the community has to offer. It is constantly being updated with new videos, whitepapers and podcasts on a variety of subjects. In fact, if you’re a Microsoft (News - Alert) Lync customer, download the featured whitepaper from the community on integrating Lync with Interactive Intelligence’s CIC. 

I also would like to continue to recommend 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! 

And, please don’t’ forget to review our affiliated channels — Accounts Receivable Management, Business Process Automation, CaaS, Cloud-based Contact Centers and Insurance Technology, for more granular coverage of things specific to your needs.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.