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How Do You Avoid the 5 Big Mistakes Customer Service Teams Make?
Customers expect and demand a positive customer experience and organizations that provide it are creating a powerful differentiator between themselves and their competition. However, customer support representatives are often overburdened and do not have the appropriate practices and technology in place for optimal performance. Read this white paper to discover.
:: The 5 big mistakes customer service teams make
:: Surefire ways to avoid these mistakes
:: Lessons from organizations that adhere to best practices in service delivery to provide a superior experience each and every time they interact with their customers
NICE to Acquire eglue for $29 Million
NICE Systems, a provider of solutions that enable enterprises to extract Insight from Interactions, announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire eglue, a provider of real-time decisioning and guidance solutions. Under the terms of the agreement, NICE will be acquiring the company for a total cash consideration of approximately $29 million. The combination of eglue's real-time decisioning and guidance capabilities and the NICE SmartCenter suite of intent-based business solutions will enable contact centers to harness Customer Dynamics, turning insights from cross-channel customer interactions into business impact in real time.
EDS settles lawsuit over botched CRM project for $460M
EDS has agreed to pay a staggering $460 million to settle a long-standing lawsuit brought against it by U.K.-based British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC over a botched Customer Relationship Management project. That payment came after a British court in January ruled that EDS, now owned by Hewlett-Packard Co., had misrepresented facts about its CRM implementation abilities and about how long it would take to complete the job when pitching for the CRM project back in 2000. The size of the EDS settlement amount is more than four times the amount of the original $109 million CRM development contract that EDS signed with Sky Broadcasting in late 2000. Under the contract, EDS was supposed to have helped Sky implement a CRM system to support the broadcaster's call centers.
UTOPY Unveils Two New Solutions that Maximize Customer Satisfaction and Retention Rates
UTOPY, Inc., a provider of Customer Intelligence and Performance Optimization solutions, announced two new solutions that leverage the insights from Speech Analytics to increase customer satisfaction and retention rates. Built atop UTOPY SpeechMiner, UTOPY Customer Satisfaction predicts customer satisfaction levels, uncovers the root cause of customer dissatisfaction and prescribes resolutions; while UTOPY Customer Retention identifies speech metrics that correlates with customer churn behavior and predicts potential at-risk customers for proactive retention efforts.
IBM Expands Collaboration Software Support to Include iPad
IBM announced an expansion of IBM Lotus messaging and collaboration software with the delivery of secure enterprise mail for the Apple iPad. IBM Lotus Notes Traveler is no charge software that can be downloaded by Lotus Notes customers providing two-way, over-the-air synchronization of enterprise e-mail, calendar and contact between Lotus Domino servers and mobile devices, including the iPad. This means that Lotus Notes based information will automatically synchronize and be up to date on the device. Lotus Notes Traveler also allows iPad users to enjoy the security of per message mail encryption.
Learn How to Win the Service Trifecta: Happy Customers, Lower Cost and Improved Visibility
Many service organizations are required to quickly 'triage' a customer's issue, request or question and either resolve it on first contact or escalate it blindly to back-office resources. By focusing on what's important to your customer, such as speed and accuracy, you can drive operational efficiencies and increase customer satisfaction. This SupportIndustry.com webinar presents the business case for creating a customer-centric service delivery model. Attend this webinar to:
- Learn how you can optimize and automate your service delivery
capabilities, best practices and business processes. - Realize the benefits for a dynamic workload distribution intelligently routing any issue or request to the most qualified, available resource.
- Learn how with greater visibility you can now balance daily workload, resource allocation and SLA performance relative to established targets.
"Uneasy" CIOs reconsider outsourcing; bring IT security in-house
A global survey by the independent technology analyst firm Ovum has found that organizations are contemplating reducing the outsourcing of security and other IT management applications.
Of more than 500 CIOs surveyed by Ovum, only 7% said they were considering outsourcing IT security over the next two years, down from 18% currently.
Rhonda Ascierto, senior analyst at Ovum, described the planned reduction in IT security outsourcing as one of the most striking trends revealed by the survey.
She said: "The main reason for this shift away from IT security outsourcing is most likely a lack of confidence. Organizations are now more subject to compliance considerations in the form of both formal external and internal policy-driven requirements, particularly in the wake of the US banking controversies and other financial scandals.
"Some may find it difficult to obtain a measurable security metric from an outsourced provider because security is often reported only after negative security occurrences. If security is not breached then there is nothing to report.
Additionally, contractual clauses from outsourcers often do not give the quantitative assurance that organizations need or desire. This may be viewed as a problem with IT outsourcing in general, rather than IT security specifically, since any failings impact the whole business while the contract is limited to the aspects of the IT operation that are outsourced.
Ovum believes this may have contributed to growing unease about the security of outsourced IT in general, with IT security outsourcing simply being the first part of the spectrum to feel this change of mood.
Nearly Two-Thirds of IT Infrastructure Expected to be Outsourced by 2020
An annual study commissioned by Savvis, Inc., a provider of cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises, predicts the number of companies that outsource their IT infrastructure will increase globally from 17 percent today to 64 percent in 2020.
In April, independent research firm Vanson Bourne surveyed more than 600 IT and business decision makers from mid to large enterprises and public sector organizations based in the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore.
Sixty-one percent of respondents believe managing IT in-house provides no competitive advantage and has to stop.
In looking at 2010, organizations cited cost savings (58 percent) and growing revenue (54 percent) as their top strategic priorities. The biggest issue facing organizations is having to doing more with less budget (54 percent).
When asked what factors prevent their organizations from outsourcing all elements of their IT infrastructure, survey respondents cited company culture (43 percent) and sunk costs where IT assets are already paid for and owned (37 percent).
Customer Service as a Growth Engine
Executives are paying more attention to customer service in an effort to increase sales and gain market share in the economic recovery. Just over a quarter of the 1,405 companies surveyed by Accenture late last year said customer service would be the first area they'd increase funding for as the economy recovers. Some companies have begun that practice this year. Businesses are changing their approach, too, dedicating more of their efforts to the customer segments considered most lucrative. It's an outgrowth of the recession, when companies scrutinized customer-service spending to see which business practices delivered the biggest returns.
Full Article...
Finding the Contact Center's Service/Profitability Sweet Spot
The sweet spot in customer delivery can be a moving target, often moving faster in times of economic uncertainty. Contact center executives need to constantly review service levels and the information they are gathering from customers to make sure they are appropriately aligned.
Full Article...
Workforce Optimization: 3 Tips to Doing More With Less
With the right tools, achieving more contact center efficiency can place a company on a stronger road to recovery as business picks up. Applications such as workforce management, performance dashboards and speech analytics can help an enterprise save time and money while simultaneously solidifying and growing customer loyalty. Here are three tips to help contact centers do more with less for the betterment of the company and its customers.
Full Article...
Customer Service Goes Mobile
Traditional customer interaction channels are often reactive in nature. Whether customers have an inquiry or require service, customers must initiate contact. Organizations that adopt a proactive service approach via the mobile channel can reach out to customers in real time, before they call or email the company.
Full Article...
Why CIOs Are Last Among Equals
Chief information officers are more important than ever to the success of their companies, given the crucial role information technology has come to play in every aspect of business. But in most companies, the CIO still isn't viewed as a peer by other senior executives, who tend to see CIOs as specialists lacking the full set of broad management skills. Very few CIOs have become CEOs, especially outside the high-tech industry. What's holding CIOs back?
Full Article...
Nice Teams Finish Last: The Secret to Unleashing Your Team's Maximum Potential
by Brian Cole Miller
Don't rock the boat. Don't make waves. Don't offend anyone. There's a palpable feeling that clouds many team meetings and keeps them from being productive: over-politeness. And while the conflict that naturally exists in most organizations hasn't gone away, it manifests itself in passive aggression, mediocrity, and a molasses-like inability to get anything done. "Nice Teams Finish Last" provides the antidote to this all too common tendency, giving managers, team leaders and members, and facilitators the practical exercises and assessment tools they need to battle 'the nice trap' and start getting results! The book helps readers encourage skills such as constructive criticism, honest communication, and the kind of conflict that drives innovation and quality.
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SupportIndustry.com has released the 2010 version of our Service & Support Technology Showcase. This in-depth buyer's guide features the latest tools and technologies in the support services industry that enable support operations to deliver superior customer service. To view the listings,click here...
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