CUSTOMER — July/August 2014

Rise of the Machines in the Contact Center

The Discovery Channel surveyed its viewers on the most annoying technology ever invented, and they picked interactive voice response. The key driver for the invention of IVR was labor savings. The method was to push labor and effort onto the customer by collecting information from the customer while contact center agents were busy handling live support interactions. This, along with computer telephony integration, had a profound effect on labor requirements in the vast majority of contact centers in the early '90s....Read More >>>

FEATURES

Strategic Solution Series

It Starts with Reliable Quality Interaction Recording
Interaction recording is the first step in the process to evaluate and improve customer service, increase quality, optimize a workforce, or ensure regulation compliance. However, in most cases it is the least discussed product when contact centers are considering WFO Solutions.

Edit Series

People Power: How Connecting Customers with Quality Reps Can Create a Rewarding Experience
Always-connected customers want - no, demand - that the companies with which they do business deliver solutions quickly and efficiently. One bad, or even mediocre, experience can mean lost business. So organizations are quickly waking up to the fact that customer service matters.

Ask the Experts

Let's Get Social: Best Practices in Utility Outage Communications
Utility outages are inevitable. They happen, and utility customers for the most part are understanding when an outage occurs. Yet it's how a utility company communicates with impacted customers that can determine whether those customers perceive the experience as relatively positive - or negative.

TARGET

The Post Plug-in Era is Now
The experience has been repeated by users the world over for so long that it is second nature: browse to a website, only to be greeted by a notification to download the latest version of a plug-in, click to install, and eventually, without any hiccups, get to the desired content. It is a cumbersome, problematic process, and as new innovations continue to enter the market, the concept of the plug-in may soon be headed to the scrap heap of technology - and not a moment too soon
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ENGAGE

Omnichannel is More Than a Buzzword
Omnichannel has become the buzzword de jour in retail circles lately, and for good reason - e-commerce pure plays are now trying to do it too. Consumers are always shopping and looking for a way to trade product ideas, compare price, and ultimately make the purchase via whatever medium works best for them, regardless of where they are.

Deliver

RFID and Retail: The New Power Couple
For years, the promise of radio frequency identification, or RFID, was just that - a promise. But with the costs associated with tags falling, and the real need for better inventory visibility and control increasing, there is real strength in RFID as a technology and as a business. A strong case in point is retail.

Flipping the B2C Employee Value Chain with CRM
There are countless vendors, analysts, and pundits talking up the concept that we are in the age of the customer. In a lot of ways this is true, but the same technology and social trends that have enabled the customer age are in essence really about individual empowerment.

How The General Found More Time to Coach Agents
With the increasingly competitive auto insurance landscape, providers that offer the lowest rates and deliver quality customer service will prevail. Frontline agents need to be ready for any type of interaction - and need to be able to proactively keep customers from leaving for the next best offer. A great way to ensure agents are always updated on the latest promotions, policies, and product offerings is with individualized coaching and training.

Roundup

Customer Analysis Solutions
A roundup of the top Customer Analytics solutions.