CUSTOMER — MARCH 2013

The Social Media Divide

Contact Centers Need to Stake their Claim on the Social Frontier

Yours, Mine and Ours

Leveraging the Social Graph for Target Marketing

So You Can Access Your Organization's Social Media Data - Now What?

New Demands for Service Excellence Push Companies to Rethink Support
Something radical is happening. As entrepreneur Marc Andreessen says, software is eating the world. From Netflix and Hulu to home security and heating systems, from smog tests to doctor's blood tests, the globe is being invaded by an entirely wired and programmed flow of easily accessible data and online decision-making tools. As software bites off greater chunks of work and home, there's a corresponding hunger for tech support. Proliferating programs and cloud-connected devices cry out for the helping hand of IT help desks and customer contact centers. Employees and customers expect and depend on companies to make their software, programs and apps work and keep working

TMC Announces MVP Quality Award Winners
CUSTOMER magazine and TMC proudly present the MVP Quality Awards. Though the technology they have at their disposal continues to evolve, these outsourcers represent the best of their community, leveraging the latest trends to set new standards for service excellence, customer care and support, without leaving behind their proven dedication to excellence in human interaction.

Utilizing Intelligent Call Routing for High-Interest Level Consumers
Direct response callers are different from most call-in consumers. They have a high level of interest in the product based on what they've seen, read or heard - certainly enough to compel them to pick up the phone. But, unlike traditional phone product orders, a direct response sale is not a given. While some people may arrive in your call center ready to buy, most require additional information and some sales finesse before they decide to seal the deal.

Fonolo Helps Credit Union's Mobile App Offer Enhanced Call Center Experience
Mobile apps have become must-have components for companies in the financial space. Most large and mid-size banks already have very full-featured mobile apps. But, sadly, many of them drop the ball when it comes to connecting with a live agent. Their Contact Us page does nothing more than display a phone number. This forces a customer who needs to speak to an agent to start over. What if that customer was about to apply for a loan? Chances are, he'll put his phone back in his pocket and that revenue opportunity is gone. That risk can be remedied by having a smarter connection to the call center.

Mapping the Customer Journey: Are Marketers Taking the Wrong Approach?
In the last couple of years, mapping the customer journey has become a priority for many marketers. With marketing automation technologies, new communication channels and social media, customer interactions have multiplied tenfold. Unfortunately, as many marketers attempt to map the customer's journey from beginning to end, the process has become everything but linear.

Use Outbound to Start Conversations With Your Customers
According to research sources, outbound customer service implementations are growing by leaps and bounds. From outbound calls for prescription refills to flight update notifications via text to Twitter and Facebook outage updates, outbound can be a valuable tool no matter what your industry. And outbound doesn't just help companies avoid costs, it can help them grow revenue. In the case of pharmacies, customers usually wait several days before refilling prescriptions. But calling customers one to two days before the expected renewal helps pharmacies recapture lost revenues.

Bringing the Alfresco Brand to the World
As companies go global, they are faced with new content challenges. How should a brand interact with foreign audiences who are using their services, or want to, but don't speak English? Companies have tried to address the challenge by using technology that can help manage their global presence as they expand into foreign markets.

Measuring Mobile Customer Experience Satisfaction: ABC Case Study Offers a View into How it Can Be Done
Delivering a high-quality customer experience is more important than ever. With the rise of the Internet and now with a surge in mobile users, it's easier and less costly than ever for customers to switch brands. In the past, consumers needed to travel to purchase alternatives - creating inconvenience loyalty, but now they can change brands with a few mouse clicks or finger taps.

How to Manage the Risks to Your Business and Customers After Hackers Attack
Damages caused by hacking attacks are not only technical headaches, but they can also cause tension between the company and its customers. This tension can be especially acute in cases where the hacked company offers a hosted service to its customers, and that service's functions are at risk. Hackers understand how damaging their threats can be and the importance that firms will place on meeting customer needs above nearly all other concerns. Despite the risks, companies can employ several best practices to become a less inviting target to hackers and to minimize the damages after a threat.

CGS Focuses on Customer Solutions, Growth
CGS President and CEO Phil Friedman came to the U.S. from the former Soviet Union by way of Italy in 1976. Along the way he experienced a wonderful thing called pizza, and he cooked up an idea to bring the food to the American public. What he didn't know was that pizza already had arrived on U.S. shores years earlier.

Serving Up Solutions: Real-Time Information Enables Guidance for Agent Improvement and More
But regardless of who is handling a customer interaction when a customer expresses the desire to drop your service or product, you want ensure that representative has all the tools they need to make the best attempt at keeping the customer from jumping ship.

'Help Desk' Services For Mobile UC Customer Support
Consumers really want to do things by themselves as much as possible. This was reflected in a recent market study by Frost & Sullivan analysts, showing that "65 percent of consumers are now demanding self-service options around the clock." That should not be a big surprise, because who really wants to wait to talk to someone first before looking at information or performing a business transaction. It also drove consumers to buy their own home PCs to access web portals and exploit e-mail communications with people and online self-service applications.

InfoSys Addresses New Customer Services Challenges with AssistEdge
Outsourcing and consulting giant Infosys recently took the wraps off a new solution called AssistEdge, which aims to improve the overall customer experience by addressing contact center agent productivity and integrating service-related activities across all channels.

AudioCodes Puts Together One Voice for Lync
The AudioCodes One Voice for Lync puts all of the company's voice-based UC hardware, as well as professional services and support, under one umbrella, explains Alan Percy, director of market development.