October 10, 2008 | Author: Andy Green Green Contact Center The EPA tells us that data centers and corporate data servers in the US ate up 60 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2006. That works out to a jaw-dropping $4.5 billion annually. Contact centers contribute their share of IT infrastructure through dedicated application servers, routers, and telecom gear. While the electric bill is part of the cost of running a contact center, a deeper understanding of where your dollars are being spent can reduce energy inefficiencies and improve the environment. More >> Permalink | Comment Now >>
September 26, 2008 | Author: Andy Green Interactive Mobile Video Travelogue On Tuesday, T-Mobile and Google went public with the first ever open-source mobile phone. The G1 may not have the tech bling of the Apple iPhone (no multi-touch yet), but its openness should accelerate an e-store's worth of incredible apps. Can great consumer-friendly interactive video software be too far behind? Futuristic mobile IVVR technology is already in consumers' hands, but you'll need your passport stamped to see this technology in action. More >> Permalink | Comments (2)
September 24, 2008 | Author: Gordon Loader Customer Experience in the Age of Engagement Chatting to a few colleagues over coffee, we all agreed that the next competitive battleground for customers’ hearts and minds is going to be around customer experience.
Because of the internet and advances in product development processes, companies have become less able to differentiate themselves over the long term with unique products and access to specialised supply chains. More >> Permalink | Comment Now >>
September 15, 2008 | Author: Andy Green Universal Contact Center Software The shiny new Chrome browser has been deservedly praised for its sleek design and its Web 2.0-ness. Technology watchers have pointed out that Google’s Chrome brings browsers ever closer to becoming a universal platform on which web-based applications will rule and computing is done in the cloud. Network or cloud computing is also an ideal environment for virtual contact centers and remote agent workers.
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September 04, 2008 | Author: Andy Green Best of the Web Relax. The economy is doing better than expected and technology spending seems to be holding its own. Sounds like a good time for a quick rundown of three interesting web sites.
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September 03, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor Labor Day and a New Call Center Paradigm Since 1882, Americans have set aside a day near the end of summer to recognize the workers of the country. Interestingly enough, for those offering 24 x 7 x 365 service via contact centers, no such day off exists. Once you open your doors for business under an "always available" banner, no option exists to provide a day of rest for the contact center resources. More >> Permalink | Comment Now >>
August 29, 2008 | Author: Vickie McGovern Differentiation Is Calling Forrester Research recently reported that the firms it surveyed increasingly view the customer experience as vitally important to their overall strategy, and that “91% of respondents feel that customer experience will be either critical or very important in 2008.” More >> Permalink | Comment Now >>
August 28, 2008 | Author: Andy Green Why Doesn’t Every Contact Center Do This? Speech recognition makes everything better. Add speech-based input to vanilla calendaring, to-do lists and note taking, and you have a great office productivity tool. Turn this into a service available on cell phones, and you have the makings of an exciting start-up or two. Several of these services can transcribe voicemails and on-the-go voice memos that are then emailed. Great idea. Here’s one that’s even better: transcribing and emailing agent conversations back to the customer.
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August 20, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor Life Imitates Art in 3G Having written about customer experience, social networking, and the Ultimate Question, I realized that I became a Net Promoter a few weeks ago after purchasing a 3G iPhone. Not that Apple needs any help after selling one million devices the first weekend it came out. More >> Permalink | Comments (3)
August 19, 2008 | Author: Andy Green The Pop-Tart Factor It’s well known that Walmart keeps a massive amount of data on customer purchases. Walmart is also a leader in analyzing that data. Before Hurricane Ivan hit in 2004, intuition might have suggested that Walmart’s Florida stores should stock up on generators and bottled water. But the IT gurus crunched the numbers and discovered that…Pop-Tarts were most likely to sell out. Some of the same techniques used by Walmart have bottom-line benefits for customer-agent interactions. More >> Permalink | Comments (2)
August 01, 2008 | Author: Andy Green Voice, Web, Mobile Entering data with most cell phone keypads is a quick path to finger cramping—iPhone and Blackberry users excluded. Speech recognition and search engine technology should therefore be the right ingredients for a potent application in the mobile world. One neat app I recently spotted sends a condensed Web page response to a voice query, eliminating long-winded IVR menus. It’s a glimpse into what’s ahead for contact center interactions. More >> Permalink | Comment Now >>
You know this because kids use it all the time to chat with their friends and you hear the techies at the office go on endlessly about it.
You also know it’s cool because your parents think it’s all really very nice but aren’t especially sure what they’d do with it. So it must be cool.
Unlike consumers, where being “cool” is often king, companies will only adopt new technology when it is able to demonstrate real tangible business value. So, for them, it has to be “useful” too.
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July 17, 2008 | Author: Andy Green Back to Cost Displacement Basics Easiest cost-saving measure to justify: replacing a manual process with a computerized system. Next easiest: upgrading software and hardware to increase scalability and performance. While it’s generally understood (with one notable objection!) that IT investments boost productivity, you won’t need complicated ROI models to justify remote agent software for your contact center.
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