Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

Contact Center Solutions Week in Review

May 24, 2014

This clearly was a week where the Contact Center Solutions Community could give itself a group hug.  While there was something of interest for almost everyone in terms of new capabilities and customer wins, there was more than the usual amount of industry insight and recognition.


Let’s start in fact with the recognition. It is impressive. For example, our community host Interactive Intelligence grabbed top honors from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce on their “Best Place to Work” list.  This follows on their recent recognition as research firm Frost & Sullivan’s North American Contact Center Systems Company of the Year.  Interactive Intelligence also this week revealed that its Communications as a Service (CaaS) business has experience explosive growth the past we years and momentum for cloud-based customer interactions continues to growth. And, company CFO Stephen Head will be explaining it all at the forthcoming Raymond James Internet/Software Crossover Conference that will be webcast if you are not attending.

In other recognition, Atento Mexico won the 2013 Mexican Frost & Sullivan Market Leadership Award.  Alliance Data Retail Services Customer Care Centers earned their ninth consecutive Center of Excellence honors from BenchmarkPortal.  And, Vivint, a home automation services provider in North America, was recognized with the Confirmit ACE (Achievement in Customer Excellence) award. 

As to those insights on opportunities there was news on several fronts that really emphasizes the diversity of community interests. These included:

  • Bilingual contact center services company DATAMARK is out with two white papers on who to address the opportunities of what it says in the $1.2 trillion market for Spanish-speaking people in the U.S.
  • The Philippines is looking to assure that its Business Process Automation (BPA) outsourcing business remains vital to the U.S. healthcare industry as compliance.

There was also news on how the contact center business continues to expand and offer employment in various places around the world. Examples include:

  • Starwood Hotels & Resorts has inaugurated a new customer care facility in Wichita, Kan.
  • BPA outsources Ibex Global is expanding its contact center operations in Bend, Ore.
  • Sitel is hiring another 200 employees at their Augusta, Ga. contact center.  

In regards to hiring, finding not just agents but supervisory talent is a hot industry topic, and contact center executive recruiting specialists, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Telexec Solutions has come up with a nice way to protect anonymity for companies seeking executives and executives looking for new positions. 

In terms of new capabilities and customer wins. This week saw the following:

  • CallForwarding.com introduced a series of virtual contact center packages that are powered by AVOXI’s  Smart Queue.
  • Kyruus, a provider of Patient Access & Referral Management Solutions, announced that its ProviderMatch platform has been selected by Swedish Medical Center to power its Patient Access Contact Center.
  • One of the world's largest laboratory supply and distribution companies recently entered into a new multi-year, multi-million dollar partnership with a TeleTech company, eLoyalty. 
  • The innovative call-back solution from Fonolo has been implemented by Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a provider of child-care, early education and other services to support the needs of families in balancing their home and work schedules.

Finally, in our Comings and Goings section, it was noted that Delta Dental Insurance Company has announced Bob Menhart as the new vice president of contact center operations. Delta Dental Insurance Company is part of Delta Dental Plans Association, a network of companies that provides dental coverage to 60 million people in the U.S.

Weekend Reading

If after the above you are looking for even more industry news and insights, our newly re-designed home page is your pathway to constantly updated content which includes:  new eBooks, whitepapers, videos, demos, etc.  And, check out our affiliated channels — Accounts Receivable Management, Business Process Automation, CaaS, Cloud-based Contact Centers and Insurance Technology — for news and insights on specific areas of interest.  And, if you missed it, given the topicality of compliance, the recent The Pitfalls of TCPA and Its Impact on Your Business: Up-Selling, Telemarketing & Collections webinar is worth a watch and listen.  





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