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Contact Center Solutions Week in Review

August 09, 2014

To say that the news in the Contact Center Solutions Community covered a broad spectrum of community interests and activities might be a gross under-statement. Topics included such things as compliance, security, speech recognition implementations, scripting and a host of other really interesting developments. 


Since Interactive Intelligence was in the news a couple of time this week I will start with their news. Early in the week the company reported their Q2 earnings.  While reporting a small quarterly loss, as I pointed out in my posting on their earnings, quarterly fluctuations in earnings are no longer an accurate gauge of company health. In fact, as all software companies move toward a heavier reliance on recurring revenues looking at their backlog for XaaS services, innovations and particularly their investments in things like data centers and channel development are critical in making an evaluation. On these fronts, with a healthy balance sheet, (and mind you, I am not a financial analyst so please do not take this as advice) Interactive Intelligence as the headline on the posting says they have their eye on the long-term prize and is executing against that vision.

In the other item of note, the much unappreciated area of automated scripting got some well-deserved attention with the announcement that Interactive Intelligence’s contact center solutions CIC software suite has been integrated with the new version of the CallScripter App.  

There were some nice customer implementations that were newsworthy this week. They included:

  • Major UK retailer Selfridges selected Synthesio to help the company enhance their customers’ experiences.
  • APAC Customer Services, Inc., a company that offers customer care outsourced services and solutions, recently announced its plan to strengthen the workforce in its Utica, NY service center. 
  • SHL Telemedicine revealed that subscribers to its service realized the benefits of being more actively involved in their treatments and were at a low risk of hospital readmission when they suffered acute myocardial infraction (AMI). 
  • Research firm Ovum publishes a case study featuring ACMG's use of Nexidia Interaction Analytics on inbound calls to better understand customer behavior.
  • ResponseTek, a company that provides enterprise Customer Experience Management (CEM) software solutions, announced that its Listening Platform has been selected by Zain Group, a telecommunications operator across the Middle East and Africa, to power its multi-channel, multi-country customer experience program
  • China Mobile Jiangsu Branch selected Nuance's speech and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technology as to enhance the experience of callers who need service support from the company. 

In an item closely associated with breaking geo-political news, we featured a story on how Israel’s Home Front Command (HFC) call center is a bastion of safety and information for Israeli residents as the country continues to come under rocket fire from Hamas.

New capabilities coming to market have always caught our attention. This past week for example, IntegrityNet introduced Level 1 PCI-DSS Compliance Software for Contact Centers called IntegrityPCI, which helps companies' credit card voice transactions and recordings to comply with PCI-DSS.  Plus, IBM made news on the employee engagement front with the unveiling of new cloud-based solutions and a Talent and Change consulting practice. And, Looksery, a company that provides face tracking and modification technologies for real-time video messaging, has made its unique technology available for call centers. This software takes the call center communication to the next step by providing the much needed personal visual interfaces to the entire call process.

The other industry news was an eclectic mix of advice, industry trends and a reaction to that angry Comcast customer call that went viral and set the blogosphere into frenzy a few weeks ago.  

Regarding advice, Domo CEO Steve Wellen noted that while contact centers can generate a lot of data, it is useless unless they are willing to measure the right data and act on it. And, the critical subject of phone fraud prevention was the subject of Pindrop Security’s special presentation at this week’s Black Hat USA event. 

It might surprise you to know that U.S.-based contact center jobs are increasing, including those with business process outsourcers setting up shop or increasing their capabilities in the U.S. as demand increases and the economics look attractive.

 It has been a couple weeks since Ryan Block tried to cancel his long-standing contract with Comcast. It has also been a couple weeks since Block's recording of that call went viral (over 5 million listeners and counting, and which you can listen to by going here and downloading the file). As a result, all manner of businesses, news sites, individual bloggers, and social media participants began speculating why the Comcast customer service representative would act in a hostile manner toward someone who simply wanted to cancel his account.  TMC decided to discuss all of this with Monica Girolami, head of Marketing North America of NewVoiceMedia, and she had some interesting insights to share. 

Weekend Reading

Feeling like you need to get caught up on Contact Center Solutions news?  If the answer is yes and you have time this weekend, the community home page is the fastest and best way to get up to speed. Newly redesigned, it is your gateway to constantly updated eBooks, whitepapers, videos, demos, etc.  In fact, I continue to recommend the white paper, Contact Center Metrics that Matter

Plus, by all means visit our affiliated channels — Accounts Receivable Management, Business Process Automation, CaaS, Cloud-based Contact Centers and Insurance Technology —which contain news and insights on specific areas  of interest. 

Finally, if you were unable to join us for the popular webinar, “Business Process Automation Best Practices For Improving Customer Complaint Resolution,” not to worry.  Click on the link and view the archived version of the event. 





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