Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

Contact Center Solutions Week in Review

June 21, 2014

The Contact Center Solutions Community was all business this week in terms of things of note, in that our usual items on industry recognition and even on advice gave way to deals, wins, etc. 

A good place to start is with an upcoming webinar being run by community host Interactive Intelligence “Business Process Automation Best Practices for Improving Customer Complaint Resolution,” to be held Tuesday, June 24 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time (EDT). Key to providing great customer experiences is having the right approach to BPA and this webinar will be a terrific opportunity to get all of your questions answered about best practices for handling customer complaints.


Now to those deals and enhancements. It was a varied lot. Items include:

  • NexxPhase partnering with Eventus Solutions Group to enhance customer experiences for optimized results.
  • And speaking of BPA Health Alliance Medical Plans, a health insurer and third-party administrator, has upgraded its contact center business applications and processes to support its endeavors in launching new products and to expand into new markets. 
  • Video has become an increasingly important part of the omni-channel mix which is why the announcement that Altivon has integrated its VidyoWorks platform, which provides HD multi-party video conferencing, with Interactive Intelligence’s the Customer Interaction Center (CIC) is of note. Customers will now be able to access features such as ACD-routed video chat, multi-participant video chats, desktop sharing, and integration with the agent's desktop. 
  • Transera has a new solution to improve contact center productivity by making it easier to match the right agent with the right skills in real-time with customers with specific issues.   
  • Using a well-defined framework for the implementation of Customer Experience Management can help companies intelligently listen to customer needs and requirements. In response to such needs, SandSIV, a Swiss based expert in the field of Customer Experience Management (CXM), has updated its CXM Framework to keep pace with their customer's needs. 

As usual we like to highlight examples of indications of just how robust the growth continues to be in the community. The first example is contained in a report from Synergy Research Group that hybrid cloud deployments are a major factor in for UCaaS growth. According to the New Q1 data hybrid cloud has scaled up to 14 percent of total UCaaS subscribers as of the end of the first quarter of 2014.

The second example is Omaha, Nebraska-based Sitel, a global customer care provider, has announced it will soon fill 200 new positions to support an expanding global satellite TV client. The company currently has 58,000 employees helping clients with CRM contact center services and has support operations in domestic, near shore and offshore centers in 23 countries.  

There were also some interesting odds and ends that caught our attention this week. They were:

  • The abolition of premium rate numbers in the U.K. will lead to more customers directly contacting business, which is something to be welcomed, says Dave Ogden, Account Executive at Aspect Software. 
  • Vodafone Qatar-which has won more than 20 customer service awards over the past four years received eight awards at the Insights' "Middle East Call Centre 2014" (MECC) conference and exhibition recently held in Dubai.   

I have saved what may be the most interesting for last. In our comings and goings section, it was noted that HEC Montréal, one of Canada’s leading business schools with over a hundred years of experience, has launched a new Chair in Service Marketing and Customer Experience to be instructed by Associate Professor Yany Grégoire. This is a different type of recognition than the usual we report on, and the reason it is significant is that it is a reflection by business schools of the importance companies are placing on improving the customer experience, and the need to train the next generation of leaders who know how to use technology and marketing correctly is already at a critical juncture since talent is in very short supply.

Weekend Reading

If you have a desire to catch up on industry insights and news this weekend, our recently re-designed home page is there to get you to what you need quickly.  The community is constantly updated with fresh 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 area of interest.  And, one last reminder about that June 24 webinar, “Business Process Automation Best Practices For Improving Customer Complaint Resolution.” While it will be archived, by all means take advantage of this chance to ask the experts about your specific challenges.   





Home