CUSTOMER — OCTOBER 2013

CX Hot Trends Symposium to Provide Insight into the Customer Experience

To be competitive, organizations today must provide the products, services and support that customers have come to expect - and quickly, as most of us have grown accustomed to immediate gratification in today's always-connected world. Speaking of connectivity, customers want to connect with businesses based on their own personal preferences.Read More >>>

How to Unlock the Potential of Your IVR
That's a major problem for businesses in this new age of the customer. Bad experiences are frequently aired on social media, potentially damaging your brand, and adversely impacting your organization's ability to acquire and retain customers.

Leveraging the Richness of the Web for Lead Generation
Conventional knowledge these days is that people and organizations want to be offered products and services that speak to their individual needs, and that companies can no longer throw things over the wall and expect positive results. Instead, they need to design and target products and services with customer needs in mind. This is no small feat; however, new web-based lead generation and addendum engines are now helping organizations better understand existing and target customers so they can offer them the right solutions at the right time.

Big Data, or Right Data?
The telecom industry faces a unique challenge when it comes to implementing big data. In a market where 40 percent of customers are willing to change providers for the sake of better service, improving the customer experience is a top priority.

Kaon Brings 3D Interactivity to Product Demonstrations
Kaon Interactive does that by providing interactive applications that deliver a 3-D experience, explains CEO Gavin Finn. This kind of solution is particularly effective for companies that offer complex products in highly competitive marketplaces, Finn says.

Something to Talk About: Yappem Rewards Customer Feedback, Helps Businesses Move in the Right Direction
The little Sheboygan, Wisc.-based company is doing that by offering a social platform that rewards users who share their input about select brands with friends and family. The rewards come in the form of virtual coins that people can exchange to get actual gift cards, products, or special deals from a variety of retailers. The more valuable a post is deemed, the more virtual coins the contributor receives.

Why Personalization is the Key to Customer Loyalty
Mixed data like this suggests a loyalty disconnect. Members are joining, but they're not engaging with the level of enthusiasm and dedication loyalty marketers are looking for. Whether the problem is rewards that are irrelevant or too much trouble to redeem, for marketers, customer dissatisfaction and program apathy remain very real concerns. Thus, personalization is key when it comes to combating customer disengagement and driving richer customer loyalty. As different as customers are, one uniting factor is the desire to feel like the brands and products they use and love are tailored specifically for them.

How to Motivate Contact Center Agents and Improve Customer Satisfaction in the Process
Motivating contact center agents is not about a one-time effort or a specific technology. As with any kind of employee, nurturing and motivating an agent is an ongoing process that starts with identifying and hiring the best candidate, providing that individual with the right tools and training to do the job, and keeping things interesting for him or her over time by offering incentives and rewards for good behavior and positive results.

How to Motivate Contact Center Agents, and Keep Them Engaged for the Long Haul
In today's contact center, keeping call center agents engaged and motivated is more important than ever before. As the contact center is becoming a more strategic part of the overall customer experience, it is increasingly being seen as a revenue driver rather than a cost center. Critical data is exchanged during each customer interaction within a contact center, which can unlock incredible value when it's tied to an overarching CRM effort. Contact center agents facilitate these interactions as they man the front lines of customer contact and have slowly become the face of todays' brands. Agents need to be properly invested in to help them deliver a unique experience. But what do agents really need?

IBC Relays Its Value to Customers, Prospects via Mobile Engagement Platform
Recognizing mobility and personalization are two important trends in communications and customer care, Independence Blue Cross recently embraced them in an effort to engage its customers and attract news ones. And Brian Lobely, vice president of marketing at the health care insurance company, says its timing couldn't be better. That's because individuals can purchase health care reform-eligible products under Obamacare starting Oct. 1.

Why Call Centers Put the Bottom Line On Hold
Despite its role as a pivotal customer touch point, experiences with corporate call centers have a bad rap, even among the most valuable customers. While callers generally get what they need, the process frequently leaves them frustrated, sometimes to the point of damaging customer relationships and subtracting from a company's bottom line.

The Art of End-to-End Customer Experience Management
No two customers are alike, which is why communication providers must reconsider the traditional one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to tariffs, offers and QoS. The one-size-fits-all strategy had its purpose in building the mobile mass market, but today, customers expect personalization. When they don't get that, it's easier than ever for them to churn, thanks to number portability, the availability of over-the-top services, prepaid MVNOs and the industry-wide trend away from contracts.

Technology Support: The Moment of Truth that Drives Customer Experience
Take a quick peek inside today's homes and you'll likely see a web of gadgets - from medical monitoring devices to security systems, home automation systems to entertainment consoles, and computers to mobile devices - all reliant on connections to the Internet and each other.

Top Tips for Managing the Contact Center Strategy
In the contact center in particular, terabytes of operational data are usually available at any given time. When this information is analyzed effectively, it can help contact center management maintain consistent and appropriate service delivery across the seasonal peaks and valleys of contact volumes. Consider for instance that centers have used scheduling algorithms for years to manage the short term, "day of" service delivery. Now, however, new algorithms enable the forecasting, evaluation, and optimization of contact center strategies across seasons and years.

TMC, CUSTOMER Name Social Business Award Winners
The TMC Social Business Award honors vendors that have demonstrated innovation, unique capabilities, and significant contributions toward enabling and improving social channel interactions.