 FEATURE WEBCAST (more) |
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"Transforming Your Enterprise with A Real-Time Contact Center"
Donna Fluss, Principal, DMG Consulting
From her soon to be released book ("The Real-Time Contact Center), Ms. Fluss shares her thoughts on how new systems, tools and best practices can transform your contact center from a closed operating environment into an essential corporate player. Learn how hot trends like IP, offshore outsourcing, performance management and real-time analytics will make the next five years the most exciting in contact center history.
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TOP NEWS OF THE WEEK (more)
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UniPress unveiled FootPrints 7.0, a version of its service desk product line and services. Widely used by more than 2,000 organizations, FootPrints offers a 100% web-based platform to automate help desk and customer support operations, as well as other business-critical processes.
Courion announced Enterprise Provisioning Suite 7.20 with enhancements to provide greater flexibility, increased visualization and faster implementation. By leveraging 7.20's new administrative interface, administrators can add workflow development capability to enable non-technical users to better visualize the workflows created in Courion's solutions.
RightNow introduced RightNow SmartGuide, a CRM solution that enhances the quality, speed and consistency of customer service by guiding customers and/or service agents to answers via an interface using "decision-tree" logic. This adaptively structured interface enables customers to pinpoint answers by responding to a series of diagnostic questions that guide them to a conclusion of their self-service session.
Motive announced Profile 3.0, the latest version of the company's application configuration management solution, allows enterprises to more easily and reliably control complex, interconnected software underlying business services that generate revenue and sustain competitive advantage.
SPSS unveiled an enhanced version of its flagship statistical software package, SPSS 14.0, to further extend the reach and power of predictive analytics. SPSS 14.0 will facilitate and accelerate this process with full data management and enhanced reporting capabilities, data validation, forecasting, extended programming and expanded structural equation modeling options.
StayinFront announced its latest portable handheld sales automation products, StayinFront Mobile, version 9.2 and StayinFront Companion, version 9.2. Both applications operate on Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices running on Microsoft Windows Mobile* 5.0 and are designed to deliver handheld CRM functionality in a fast and easy-to-use application with proven enterprise scalability.
Aliant announced that more online self-service options are available to customers via their web site - www.aliant.net. Customers will save time by using Aliant.net, day or night, to get answers to non-technical and technical questions in real-time, through online self-service, thanks to a partnership with eGain.
Acetta announced the availability of a new guide designed to help companies of all sizes and stages effectively select the best CRM software solution to meet their unique business needs. Available online for FREE at www.acetta.com/selection, the guide, titled CRM Software Selection - How to Make the Right Choice, delivers expert advice on the most common mistakes organizations make during the CRM technology selection process.
Oddcast announced the availability of a customizable Artificial Intelligence Management Center (AIMC) for SitePal customers. SitePal talking characters give small businesses the ability to increase Web sales and customer conversion rates by bringing Web content to life through conversational agents.
A new book entitled "The Ultimate Customer Support Executive" delivers guidance and career advice for those who want to excel in the support field. Written by Phil Verghis, the book provides insights and ideas for top corporate executives, who usually focus on high-level strategic decisions and rarely interact directly with customers.
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8/19/05 - Are Hunters an Indicator of Customer Churn
One reader shared her experience that hunters and farmers can tell you quite a bit about how well the company is doing. In general, start-ups need hunters because there is no installed base to farm.
However, the reader goes on to say, "If there is significant customer churn, there will always be a high need for hunters to replace them. But when the customer base is solid and happy, farmers take a more prominent role. A company will always need both after the startup period, it is just a matter of emphasis."
I believe there is more to it than that but since I'm such a big advocate of customer retention, I couldn't help see the logic and wisdom of the correlation. Does a farmer focused organization value customers, or at least customer retention, more than a hunter focused organization. What do you think?
Gary Lemke, Publisher
(Share your thoughts)
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 Research Notes (more)
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Microsoft Enters the Contact Center Market - One of the biggest challenges in creating a Contact Center has been the diversity of components needed to build a center.(Ventana Research)
|  | | Witness Completes Acquisition of Blue Pumpkin - Witness Systems finalized their takeover of Blue Pumpkin Software. This event is part of a consolidation and expansion trend withing the Contact Center marketplace which enables focused vendors to increase the footprint of their solutions.(Ventana Research)
| | | Performance Management in Contact Centers - There are many factors which have been holding back the maturity level of Performanace Management in Contact Centers; lack of focus, lack of understanding, lack of supporting technilogies, etc.(Ventana Research)
| | | Market Share Growth Through Location and Business Intelligence - Addressing a strategic priority such as revenue growth through new customer acquisition and market expansion can be part of any organization's Performance Management offerings. To achieve this in an efficient and effective mnnner requires a combination of innovations, process, and information technology.(Ventana Research)
| | | Operational Business Intelligence - The Ventana Research study on BI for Operational Performance indicated widespread use of business intellignece for operational use across the organization including finance. Research found that deployments varied in size from very small to over 10,000 users.(Ventana Research)
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 White Papers (more)
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Empowered & Engaged Employees: A Critical Requirement for Customer Loyalty - In the competitive and dynamic world of selling and supporting high-technology software, superior customer service is a critical differentiator. When many software products are sold in impersonal warehouses, telephone technical support or sales groups are important touch points, frequently serving as a customer's only contact with software vendors. Therefore, the response a customer receives over the phone leaves an indelible impression-positive or negative-of an organization. (Witness)
| | | Montgomery Research White Paper - Defying the Limits: CRM: The Key to Superior Business Performance - In a daily ritual known to thousands of service professionals, in a wide range of industries, corporations lock themselves into a time warp by using traditional solutions - all in the hope of providing superior customer service - and while facing a tidal wave of requests. The lack of solutions that provide access and visibility into customer all interactions and integrate pre- and post-sales customer interactions - Web self-service, email, chat, telephony integration and knowledge management - for cross channel support services makes achieving superior customer service, loyalty, and retention virtually impossible.(Talisma)
| | | Application Management: Optimizing Your Contact Center Technology Investment - In the aftermath of heavy technology spending, contact center managers are no longer looking to expand their portfolio of technology investments but rather explore methods for exploiting those in which they have already invested.(DataMonitor)
| | | Hammering the Siebel Communications Server - To a Call Center agent, "Siebel" really means a desktop and everything that supports it (application servers, databases), a phone and everything that supports it (switches, routing, IVRs and telephony infrastructure), and the link between the two worlds - Computer-Telephony Interface, or CTI. CTI is not manufactured by Siebel but the perceived health of your "Siebel" application is intimately related to the health of the CTI integration.(Empirix)
| | | CRM Integration Across Marketing, Sales and Service - Many companies fail to appreciate the importance of developing specific, well-defined, and integrated business processes focused on the customer. This paper covers eleven key customer-focused processes and success factors associated with implementing process change.(Siebel)
| | | A Shift Toward the Virtual Contact Center Model - The age of the virtual agent, or home-based agent, is upon us. By some accounts, there are currently approximately 100,000 virtual contact center agents in the U.S., a movement that represents a growing global trend. In a recent report, four percent of the call centers surveyed in Britain cited that they are currently using virtual agents, with an additional 42 percent reporting that they expect to implement home-based agents in the near future. Find out more about the issues driving this initiative, the shift toward virtual contact center models, and the benefits it's affording organizations and a previously untapped labor pool - as well as how to optimize your traditional and at-home workforce. (Witness)
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Educating and Recruiting New Customers: The Pay-For-Placement Public Relations Model from a CRM Perspective - The CRM model is a two-way street. You are gathering critical information about your market audience, and you are providing valuable sales-generating information about your organization to that audience. It is within this critical area of communications that the public relations practice delivers value.(PayPerClip)
| | | Why Active Advocacy Rules In A Divisible Customer, Word-of-Mouth World - Trying to determine who the greatest athletes have been over a span of the last 100 years is an exercise best left to the sports pundits (and people with nothing more important to occupy their time). Differences in training, diet, equipment, and facilities make such comparisons almost impossible. Similarly, over the past twenty-five years, so much has changed about the way marketers communicate with, and sell and market to, their customers that comparing eras, media, message content, and levels of effectiveness are pretty much academic.()
| | | Knowledge-Centered Support Best Practices May Drive KM Software Adoption in Customer Service - Customer service and support have provided some of the clearest and simplest value propositions for Knowledge Management. Resolution of service incidents is a process that leverages the knowledge of the agents who provide the service, and the successful adoption of knowledge sharing has a direct impact on performance metrics already maintained by customer support organizations.()
| | | Anatomy of a Successful CRM Implementation - With CRM gaining in popularity once again, heeding a few crucial steps should lead to a successful deployment (this time around), writes CIO Update guest columnist Bill Donlan of Adjoined.(CIO Magazine)
| | | CRM Wake-Up Call - How to transform your call center from a budget drain into a source of competitive advantage. (CIO Magazine)
| | | Can Strategy Save CRM? - Well-conceived strategies for Customer Relationship Management solutions may not be so mysterious, elusive, or expensive after all. (ITToolbox)
| | | Ignore Dissatisfaction At Your Own Risk - Customer unhappiness will show up in all sorts of dismaying ways. (Call Center Magazine)
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 Case Studies (more)
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Stellar Call Centres Improves Operational Effeciency - With Verint' ULTRA suite of Contact Center Actionable Intelligence Solutions, Stellar Call Centers increased the effectiveness of its quality management program, improved operational efficiency and enhanced the value of its offerings. This has translated into better service for customers and a sharper competitive advantage.(Verint Systems)
| | | Barrie Hydro Adds Energy to its Help Desk with LiveTime - The implementation of LiveTime Help Desk has allowed Barrie Hydro to benefit from built-in reporting.(LiveTime)
| | | Bank of America with IEX - Customer satisfaction scores have exceeded the bank associates goals as a result of using adherence scores as an incentive for identifying behavior that exceed team goals.(IEX Corporation, a Tekelec Company)
| | | Witness Helps 4 Wheel Parts - By deploying eQuality ContactStore for IP within its Cisco converged voice and data environment, 4 Wheel Parts has been able to achieve the following results * Increased agent monitoring efficiency by 30 percent * Increased sales and order volume by eight percent * Enhanced training and development program.(Witness Systems)
| | | MessageOne Improves Salesforce.com with InsideScoop - Sales users are no longer spending time to copy and paste date into Salesforce.com. Instead, they get all the research they need for companies and contacts right at their fingertips.(InsideScoop, Salesforce.com)
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September 19-21, 2005: Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE) - The Global Gathering Place for the Contact Center Industry! A MUST ATTEND for all call center executives and professionals.
| | | September 7, 2005: MPM Forum Series - The CMO Council's worldwide MPM Forum Series brings together top marketing executives in a unique, open exchange of views and opinions on how to introduce Marketing Performance Measurement disciplines, processes and solutions to enterprise organizations.
| | | September 18-20, 2005: Contact Center Technology Summit Information - A NEW Conference Designed for IT & Telecom Professionals Supporting Contact Centers co-locating with the Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE).
| | | September 19-21, 2005: Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE) - The Global Gathering Place for the Contact Center Industry! A MUST ATTEND for all call center executives and professionals.
| | | Sept 26-29, 2005: Loyalty World - Inspiring loyalty is more than building a rewards programme. It's about providing customers with a truly unique and interactive experience that will develop an emotional connection with your brand.
| | Oct 26-28, 2005: Help Desk Professionals - This event is dedicated to the advancement of the Technical Support Professional. The program will feature the industry's top speakers who will share with you current trends, templates and hands-on experiences.
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| CRMAdvocate Stock Index |
| CRMSI | 38.96 |  | -1.03% |
| Dow Jones | 10,554.93 |  | 0.04% |
| Nasdaq | 2,136.08 | | -0.42% |
| S&P 500 | 1,219.02 | | -0.10% |
| Top Gainers |
| Tekelec | 20.23 | | 0.66 |
| eLoyalty | 6.1 | | 0.55 |
| SPSS | 21.41 | | 0.27 |
| Top Losers |
| salesforce.com | 20.32 | | -1.88 |
| SAP | 42.06 | | -0.43 |
| Vignette | 15.12 | | -0.39 |
| Complete Stock Index |
| As of close 08/18/05 | |
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