CUSTOMER — September 2014

The Customer Experience Makeover: Contact Center Style Contest And the Winner Is...

Everybody loves a Cinderella story - and the journey involved to get from basic to beautiful. That's why makeover shows have become a television staple. Recognizing the universal appeal of this kind of thing, Interactive Intelligence recently staged the Customer Experience Makeover: Contact Center Style contest.....Read More >>>

Neustar Delivers with Information, Analytics
Neustar is probably best known for its work as a telecom number portability administrator. At its core, however, Neustar is a trusted provider of authoritative data - offering a wide array of information and analytics solutions that enable CIOs and marketing staff to leverage both internal and external data to better understand their customers, make business decisions based on more accurate and complete information, and drive new revenues and savings in the process.

Foundations for Delivering Self-Service Profitability and Customer Satisfaction
CUSTOMER Magazine recently spoke with Mark Miller, senior director of contact center solutions at J.D. Power, a leading market research company. We asked Mark to offer guidance to executives who are challenged to deliver both high customer satisfaction and high containment rates.

How the Customer Experience Can Impact Your Business and What You Can Do for Best Results
With remote call monitoring technology, call center managers are able to keep tabs on their customer service reps - to spot stellar and subpar behavior - whether they work down the hall or across the country. Such technology helps managers create customized reports that include clear metrics for both agent performance and script effectiveness so that any necessary adjustments can be made.

Are IP Phones Doomed?
The trusty old telephone on your desk is getting a lot of attention lately. The various blog and on-line magazines have seen plenty of discussion and debate on the future of IP phones. Some have declared them "doomed to the evolutionary dustbin" - an easy declaration to make, but highly unlikely. Heck, there are still fax machines in many offices!

Essential Steps for Providing a Great Cross-Channel Customer Experience
Customer communication preferences have changed significantly in recent years, leaving businesses with the challenge of managing an array of new service channels. Usage of web chat, SMS, social media, e-mail, mobile services, and web self-service have risen dramatically. In fact, according to a recent global survey conducted by Dimension Data, the majority of millennial consumers prefer web chat to the phone for service interactions, and generations Y and X are not far behind.

Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing means different things to different people and organizations, but what we can all agree on is that wirelessly connected devices have become central to our lives and to many of our shopping habits, and businesses are taking notice by introducing mobile apps, establishing mobile marketing strategies, and implementing omni-channel efforts that include mobile in the mix.

Loyalty, Lore, and Truisms
The many truisms of customer loyalty lore are mostly a set of myths created to deceive the gullible and exploit the innocent. Let us explore them and then talk about best practices for customer satisfaction and customer loyalty research.

Country Club Prep Thinks Social Networking is Simply Top Drawer
Being connected and social networking have always been important for the preppy set, but now Country Club Prep is taking that to a whole new next level with its marketing efforts on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.

B2B Companies: Stop Wasting Your Money
While consumers are getting the majority of the attention, business customers have become just as demanding of the companies they deal with, and that will drive major changes in corporate selling and service over the next two years, according to a new survey of business-to-business executives by Accenture.

ContactBabel Details Recent Contact Center HR & Operational Trends and Forecasts
Customer contact industry analyst firm ContactBabel recently published the "U.S. Contact Center HR & Operational Benchmarking Report (2014)," its annual report studying the quantified performance and human resources aspects of U.S. contact center operations. It is based on a detailed survey of hundreds of U.S. contact centers. Here some of the s key findings from the research.

CUSTOMER Announces 2014 TMC Labs Innovation Award Winners
Each year TMC Labs analyzes a plethora of applicants looking for the most unique and innovative products. Some of the standouts this year include a few that focus on enterprise search such as HP Autonomy and RightAnswers as well as Cicero with its "record everything tool," Discovery. Votacall won with its Viper VoIP quality monitoring tool and Calabrio continues to innovate with its ONE platform.