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New Whitepaper: Better customer care at a lower cost
Offering the highest level of support to your most valuable and at-risk customers can be a company's greatest differentiator -- especially in today's economy.
Discover how to provide your customers the kind of care that keeps them loyal by:
- Identifying customer-care scenarios that typically result in calls and emails, but can be easily handled using live chat
- Using intelligent business rules to send chat invitations to those who encounter such scenarios before they select a more costly contact option or leave your site
- Matching supply and demand to maximize the number of engagements per hour, giving customers faster response
NTRglobal Announces Breakthrough Remote Support Solution for IT Support Professionals, NTRsupport Pro
NTRglobal announced a category-breaking remote support solution for IT support professionals, NTRsupport Pro. An innovative IT support solution purpose built for support professionals seeking powerful remote control designed for a small IT support operation. NTRsupport Pro is portable for easy access from any computer so an IT support professional can work from anywhere to deliver secure instant remote support. The NTRsupport Pro executable is a small, self-contained widget that is easily downloaded from the internet or can be downloaded and accessed via USB storage
device.
Basildon District Council selects FrontRange HEAT to enhance service desk and tackle ITIL
FrontRange Solutions, a developer of business software for mid-sized and distributed enterprises, announced Basildon District Council has purchased 18 licenses of its HEAT 9 helpdesk solution, along with HEAT Self Service, to increase service desk efficiencies, meet service level targets and start working towards the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). Basildon District Council selected FrontRange's HEAT 9 as the only solution that met its business requirements. It provides the Council with the functionality to manage the service desk within the ITIL framework and the value, support and maintenance offered by FrontRange was superior to alternative solutions.
eGain-WorldManuals Partnership Advances Customer Support for Mobile Devices
eGain Communications, a provider of on-site and on-demand multichannel customer service and knowledge management software, announced a partnership with WorldManuals, specialists in delivering mobile device support. The two companies are combining eGain's knowledge management technologies with WorldManuals' device support content to deliver support solutions for European service providers. The integrated solution will allow mobile operators and service providers to offer customers and agents comprehensive, simple and flexible access to all relevant and available content.
Nexidia Announces Release of Enterprise Speech Intelligence (ESI) 8.0
Nexidia, a provider of audio search and speech analytics solutions, announced the release of Nexidia Enterprise Speech Intelligence (ESI) 8.0, the next generation of its highly-acclaimed contact center analytics software. ESI 8.0 integrates traditional contact center data with speech analytics, providing users with a more complete view of FCR performance. By using the transactional data sources to identify repeat callers, Nexidia speech analytics is applied to gain rapid insight into the drivers behind those specific customer calls.
Featured Webinar: First Contact Resolution - The Metric That Matters!
Thursday, July 30 at 10 AM PDT/ 1 PM EDT
In this live webinar, narrated with industry insight and analysis, Peter McGarahan, President of McGarahan and Associates, and Jeff Moloughney, Senior Product Marketing Manager, GoldMine Division, will share proven techniques and specific examples of how you can improve First Contact Resolution in your organization. Attendees will be able to benchmark their own organization against best practice levels and see how others in the industry are performing.
**Bonus: Attendees will also receive a free white paper entitled "First Contact Resolution - The Metric That Matters!".
Contact Center Workforce Optimization Grew by 14 Percent to $2.7 Billion in 2008, Outperforming Most IT Sectors
DMG Consulting LLC, a provider of contact center and real-time analytics market research and consulting services, has published the 2009 Quality Management/Liability Recording (WFO) Market Share Report.
The Quality Management/Liability Recording (Workforce Optimization) market grew by 14 percent, from $2,389.1 million in 2007 to $2,724.3 million in 2008. The contact center segment contributed 4.3 percent, growing from $1,019.3 million to $1,062.8 million. While this growth rate is more modest than in prior years, the WFO market is outperforming many other IT software markets. DMG Consulting attributes this growth to increased spending on security, risk and liability avoidance, and cost reduction.
Contact centers use recording to capture agent/customer call and screen activities for liability, verification, quality assurance, and to feed into analytics applications. Enterprise use of recording is growing; the traditional uses are for contact centers, trading floors, first responders and air traffic control. In recent years, recording has expanded to address video surveillance solutions (video-based recording and analytics) to protect buildings and infrastructure and branch/back-office communications and activities. Enterprise use of recording will broaden as companies discover more ways to use it to minimize their exposure to risk and reduce operating expenses.
"One of the more interesting things in 2008 is that the growth of the QM/recording (WFO) market was largely organic. We didn't have any large-scale acquisitions or anything that really shook up the market. What we did have are vendors who continue to provide high-value applications that help end users solve the problems that plague them -- security, risk, liability, quality and cost reduction," said Donna Fluss, president of DMG Consulting. "Also interesting is that the market hit the tipping point for IP-based solutions, as these sales accounted for 61.4 percent of the market. This is a significant change from 2007 when the mix was close to 50/50."
DMG does not expect 2009 to be a great year for sales of WFO solutions because many banks and investment firms are still trying to recover from the impact of the recession and, as a result, are making only essential investments. Despite the trying times, DMG expects the WFO market to grow by 2 percent to 4 percent.
More...
IT Hardware Spending Continues to Grow in Emerging Markets
IT hardware spending growth rates among large organizations in emerging markets will surpass those of mature markets in 2009, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc. Despite the economic downturn, 84 percent of these organizations did not cancel any IT projects since October 2008. Furthermore, IT hardware spending in emerging markets is expected to increase for servers, storage, virtualization, cloud computing and green IT.
The survey results showed 66 percent of respondents said there would be no change, or an increase in IT budgets in 2009. Thirty-five percent of respondents said they would increase investments in virtualization, 32 percent said there would be increased investments into green IT, and 7 percent would invest more in cloud computing.
Gartner has identified several reasons why large enterprises in emerging markets are showing this level of confidence. First, in many of these economies, these organizations have IT plans in place that include equipment renewal and a clear picture of their total cost of ownership. Secondly, these organizations, which represent anywhere from 8 percent to 12 percent of the business pyramid in many of these countries, have larger financial resources and rely less on lending to cover their IT operations than in midsize and small enterprises. Third, these large entities have a clear picture of their role internationally as many are involved in exports and therefore need to have the best technology tools to compete on a worldwide basis.
Inroads by virtualization in the server space are becoming more visible in emerging markets as virtualization is now viewed as a critical component in the cost-saving strategy of large organizations. Although emerging markets are at the initial curve of adoption in green IT, Gartner said that its adoption will become mandatory due to increasing legislation because of the specific needs and energy challenges facing many emerging countries.
Cloud computing is a new IT delivery model in emerging markets, and while it is gaining momentum, the survey revealed that about 50 percent of organizations in emerging markets have not heard of cloud computing or have heard the term but don't know what it means. However, in markets like Brazil, 28 percent of channels are already delivering software as a service.
The survey also found that enterprises are focusing their investments on data management with storage and server and audio/video/Web conferencing as the top priorities. Voice over IP also reached a prominent position with respondents as landline and cell communications continue to be generally expensive in emerging markets while Internet connectivity and broadband expansion keep dropping in price and increasing in efficiency.
More...
IT Professionals In Emerging Asia Region Are The Most Optimistic About 2009 IT Budget Growth In New Survey
IT professionals in the Emerging Asian countries of China, India, and Vietnam are the most optimistic about IT budgets this year, with 19 percent of respondents expecting to increase their tech spending in 2009, followed by Latin American IT professionals at 12 percent, according to a new survey by Forrester Research, Inc. The survey of more than 1,400 IT executives and technology decision-makers located in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa is Forrester's inaugural study of businesses' technology adoption plans and priorities across all of these regions.
IT budget plans differ significantly across industries in Emerging Asia, with the largest increases being in the public sector (34 percent) and utilities and telecoms (24 percent) and the smallest increase in the manufacturing sector (9 percent).
Other key highlights of the survey include:
-- Asia Pacific and MEA/Russia are the current bright spots for SaaS. Of the firms surveyed, 18 percent in Asia Pacific and 14 percent in the Middle East/Africa/Russia have implemented or are implementing software-as-a-service (SaaS) projects. Interest in considering or piloting SaaS projects is highest in the Emerging Asia region.
-- Cloud computing activity is low globally. While Latin America has the highest percentage of firms (14 percent) that have already implemented cloud computing or pay-per-use hosting of virtual servers, 40 percent of firms in the region are not interested, and an additional 23 percent of firms are not familiar with the technology or don't know if they are interested. Other regions reported similar results; Asia Pacific took the top spot, with 52 percent of firms not interested.
-- Latin America is a hotbed of activity around unified communications. Overall, 88 percent of Latin American firms responded that they have an existing implementation or interest in unified communications.
-- Product localization preferences are mixed. The strongest preferences for IT products in local languages are in Latin America (52 percent) and Emerging Asia (39 percent). However, respondents were split in Emerging Asia, with a high percentage (41 percentage) also reporting a strong preference for products in English.
More...
Beyond Customer Satisfaction: What Really Makes Your Customers Loyal?
What leaders really want from customer satisfaction surveys (or customer focus groups, or any customer feedback collection methods) are answers to those "big" questions. What levers can their organization pull to retain their most profitable accounts and turn customers into raving fans?
Full Article...
The Call Center's Main Purpose Is to Retain Customers
If you ask call center professionals what their call center's main purpose is -- as SQM Group did in its First-Call Resolution Survey -- you get answers such as: to service customers, to resolve their calls, to operate in an effective and efficient manner, to service and sell to customers, to create customer loyalty to the organization, to help bring in new customers to the organization, etc. These are all good goals; however, we believe that the call center's main purpose is to maximize and protect the organization's greatest asset -- its customers. In other words, it's the call center's responsibility to retain customers so that they don't defect to the competition as a result of a poor call center experience.
Full Article...
Managing the Web 2.0 life cycle
As more and more information is communicated through informal channels such as blogs and wikis, the importance of incorporating those electronic documents into a formal life cycle strategy also increases. An area of particular vulnerability is the issue of knowledge retention as the baby boomer generation moves into retirement. Capturing, disseminating and preserving such knowledge should be a top priority, but much of it is currently shared not through formal reports but rather through newly emerging social media such as blogs and wikis. Most organizations do not have a strategic plan for capturing such knowledge or maintaining it as records.
Full Article...
How To: Use Twitter for Customer Service
Customer service can evoke some serious misgivings or negative emotions. Although customer support is designed to help the consumer, the pain of waiting for a phone representative and the impersonal emails can cause more damage than good for a brand. This is not how customer service has to be. With the connectivity made possible by social media, companies have found a new way to engage their customers, solve their problems, and build goodwill for their brands: Twitter. Understanding how Twitter can transform customer relations for the better can be substantial for reducing costs and improving brand image.
Full Article...
Meet the Laptop You'll Use in 2015
A lot has changed in the 20 years since the first laptop computers appeared, including gigahertz processors, color screens, optical drives and wireless data. However, one thing that has stubbornly stayed the same is the conventional clamshell format with its hinged display lid that opens to reveal a mechanical keyboard. That's about to change. The rules of notebook design and the components that go inside are being rewritten to make the road a better place to work and play.
Full Article...
Why Business IT Shouldn't Shrug Off Chrome OS
In the two weeks since Google announced its Chrome OS, it has been hailed as a Windows killer and written off as dead on arrival--quite a range of outcomes for software that isn't even finished. Whether Google can unseat Windows on consumer netbooks doesn't really matter if you're in business IT. Beyond the excitement over Google's announcement is a more critical question, one that CIOs have been wrestling with for some time: Just how dramatically will Web-centric computing change how software and applications get delivered to end users?
Full Article...
101 Activities for Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service
by Performance Research Associates
Today's customers want service that is faster, better, cheaper. But how can organizations ensure that they are prepared to meet that challenge? The perfect addition to best-selling author Ron Zemke's "Knock Your Socks Off Service" book series, "101 Activities for Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service" provides readers with practical tools to help meet their customers' needs. This set of powerful exercises teaches customer service managers and employees valuable ways to help their organizations provide world-class service and helps them create an action plan for improvement. This title is written in the same accessible and humorous style that made this series a classic. Divided into 20-30 minute activities, this invaluable guide will help all readers improve their service and wow their customers.
2009 Service & Support Metrics Survey: The Results
Supportindustry.com conducts an annual survey designed to explore the state of enterprise service and support -- technology adoption rates and deployment plans, financial challenges, workforce issues, performance metrics and other industry trends. This year's survey highlights support organizations' continued adoption of better-integrated and responsive technologies, efforts to improve processes, and growing recognition of the strategic role of service delivery in corporate growth. At the same time, however, these organizations continue to battle the ongoing challenges that have come to characterize the service function. Key metrics to benchmark your support operation were also captured and discussed.
Get your copy of the results today!
2009 Service and Support Technology Showcase Now Available
SupportIndustry.com has released the 2009 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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