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RadioShack Admits To Dumping Customer Records
The Texas Attorney General has charged RadioShack Corp. with violating identity protection laws for dumping thousands of customer records in a garbage bin behind a Texas store. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott hit the retailer on April 2nd with two charges. One of the charges carries a penalty of up to $50,000 for each violation and one has a penalty of up to $500 for each abandoned record. Abbott contends RadioShack's actions exposed its customers to identity theft since the records contained names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and credit card information. The AG's office is investigating whether the tossed information has been used in identity theft crimes.
[Source: Informationweek]
Bill Would Require Call Center Workers to Disclose Their Location
Call center employees would be required to disclose their physical location when U.S. consumers call them if a bill sponsored by Congressman Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania passes. The legislation, called the Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act, or H.R. 1776, would require call center employees to disclose their physical location when making calls to or receiving calls from consumers. It would alert consumers that their calls have been redirected overseas and will focus attention on the degree to which U.S. jobs, especially customer call center work, have been shifted overseas.
[Source: Government Technology News]
Rainmaker Announces Public Offering of Common Stock
Rainmaker Systems Inc., a provider of sales and marketing solutions combining hosted application software and execution services, has announced that it has filed a preliminary prospectus supplement for a proposed public offering of its common stock. The proposed offering is expected to include a total of 4,165,690 shares, including 3,500,000 newly-issued primary shares to be offered by the Company and 665,690 shares to be offered by the selling stockholders named in the preliminary prospectus supplement. In addition, the Company expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 624,853 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.
Five9 Introduces Two New On-Demand Call Center Solutions
Five9 Inc., a provider of on-demand call center solutions, has introduced two call center packages designed for small businesses. These packages are aimed at providing small businesses with an affordable way to significantly boost both their sales and customer service levels. The Five9 Call Center Suite-Small Business Edition and Five9 Inbound Call Center-Small Business Edition are out-of-the-box solutions that provide comprehensive inbound and/or outbound call center functionality designed specifically for small teams that spend a majority of time on the phone as part of their daily activities. The packages include four concurrent seat licenses, twelve phone lines, supervisor and administrator applications, as well as additional customer support and training features at no extra cost.
SER Launches Latest Version of CPS Enterprise Edition
SER Solutions Inc., a provider of call management and speech analytics solutions, has announced the general availability of CPS Enterprise Edition 3.0, the latest version of its next-generation outbound call management solution. CPS E² offers integrated inbound, call recording, and speech analytics; and powerful call management options that enable contact centers to further optimize their productivity, improve customer interactions, unify outbound and inbound campaigns, and monitor overall business performance.
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Services Industry
Summit - Strategies for eService & Knowledge Management
 Join
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| Enterprise Apps Market Reaches New Consolidation Milestone
The enterprise applications market experienced continuous consolidation as merger and acquisition activities reached a new milestone of 550 deals with an aggregated value of at least $74 billion between 2004 and 2006, according to a new study published by IDC. The consolidation ushered in a new set of mega-ERP vendors as well as vertical-industry powerhouses, redrawing the competitive landscape by transforming relatively unknown entities into permanent fixtures with billions of dollars in recurring revenues as well as hundreds of thousands of customers.
Key results presented in IDC's study include:
- Deal volumes and valuations are likely to increase over the next three years as enterprise applications vendors and investors are waiting to capture the perfect window of opportunity to either dominate a particular market segment or cash out to yield outsized returns.
- The number of merger and acquisition transactions in North America has been holding steady since 2004, suggesting that there will still be plenty of deal opportunities in the world's largest applications market given its fragmented nature and abundance of private equity capital, as well as a growing desire among the established players to leapfrog competition through strategic acquisitions.
- As deal activities continue unabated in Asia/Pacific, Europe, and Latin America, the future makeup of the enterprise applications vendors will be dominated by truly global players capable of addressing the needs of their customers in multiple geographies and the consequences for the procrastinators -- or those that choose to sit on the sidelines -- could render many of them without any chance to recover lost ground.
More...
Contact Centers Link Customer Segmentation with Future Success
A survey of contact centers around the globe shows increased usage of customer segmentation techniques -- the division of a customer base into groups based on criteria that are relevant to the business. According to the ninth annual Global Contact Center Benchmarking Report, a survey conducted by Dimension Data, more contact centers have adopted broader organizational segmentation strategies than in the past to improve interactions with customers.
The percentage of organizations worldwide delivering personalized and segmented service has jumped to 42.8% from 28.3% last year. With the contact center being a key point of contact for many customers, it should have easy access to customer information owned by other parts of the organization. In many cases, this flow of information has become relatively unobstructed, with information about customers and their spending patterns integrated into various business divisions.
According to the report, 34.4% of contact centers use the same segmentation as their broader organization, up 10% over last year’s results. These contact centers are using customer segmentation to raise service levels to new heights, tie in customer loyalty and secure greater spend within their market.
Top lessons learned from the segmentation trend are:
- Just 36.0% of organizations have a single view of the customer across voice, email, chat and Interactive Voice Response (IVR). Yet over 50.8% of contact centers have a single view when it is across products and services; 48.2% across customer data and 46.0% across customer transaction history. As companies realize the true value of retaining existing customers, there has been a distinct move away from separate segmentation strategies, with figures dropping to 26%.
- Everyone in the organization should support the customer. Contact center goals should be in synch with broader organizational goals and be applied across multiple channels to create “good customer karma” especially in hotly competitive global markets. Incredibly,
- 30% of contact centers believe developing a single view does not apply to them.
- Over 74.3% of contact centers want to reduce the cost of serving customers without adversely affecting service quality. In 2006, more than 80.5% say that increased competitiveness and price sensitivity is making this goal even more important than ever.
- Mature markets, like telecommunications and financial services, need greater segmentation of product and services to keep customers happy. Segmentation is key so companies can more effectively target groups with appropriate marketing messages in order to balance customer objectives with cost-to-serve metrics.
More...
Relationships with Customers are Dysfunctional, Say Execs
A majority of companies fail to deliver differentiated value to customers and therefore fail to maintain their loyalty, according to a new survey from Strativity Group. Additionally, companies routinely fail to analyze and manage their customer relationships according to specific financial criteria, leading to the ineffective execution of customer strategies.
Although respondents declare that customer strategies are more important than they were three years ago, the majority acknowledges that their employees do not have the tools or authority to resolve customer issues -- a major indicator of customer commitment.
Survey highlights:
- 60% of senior executives claim they do not deserve their customers' loyalty.
- 51% of respondents claim that their company does not deliver unique and beneficial products or services.
- 56% agree that their executives' products or services are worth the price they charge.
- 34% affirm that they have the tools and authority to serve their customers.
- 75% do not know the cost of a acquiring a new customer.
According to the study, 70% of companies indicate that customer strategies are more important than they were years ago. Yet, basic execution parameters -- such as frequently visiting customers (34%), providing the necessary tools and authority to employees (34%), and strongly linking compensation with service quality (29%) -- is lacking.
Overall, the study indicates a widespread ignorance regarding the economics of customer relationships. Around 81% did not know the cost of a customer complaint, while 50% of respondents did not know their organization's annual retention rates. The failure to manage customer relationships on the basis of clear and pertinent financial metrics explains why companies' strategic intentions often fail to translate into sustainable customer-centric actions. Organizations do not invest the appropriate resources and funds to establish long-term relationships because they are unable to justify them financially.
The general trend is one of diminishing corporate investment in employees -- ultimately leading to the curtailment of the employee's ability to properly execute customer strategies.
- 29% of the respondents indicated that their compensation plan emphasizes quality of service and not just productivity.
- 34% of respondents claim that their employees have the tools and authority to solve customer problems.
- 30% of respondents agreed that their company invest in people more than in technology.
More...
Spending on BI/Performance Management Will Reach $23.8B in 2007
AMR Research has released a report that found North American companies will spend $23.8B in 2007 on business intelligence (BI) and performance management (PM). The report, which buckets spending into software, hardware, labor (internal and external), and integration services for BI and PM, notes that spending is expected to increase by nearly 9% this year.
AMR Research defines business intelligence and performance management (BI/PM) as a set of tools, applications, and processes that helps companies control and manage business and operational performance. It combines strategic goal-setting and alignment with planning, forecasting, modeling capabilities, analytics, and tactical reporting.
The report looked at five main categories of performance management and business intelligence. Expected spending in 2007:
- Business Intelligence ($6.6B): Tools that help gather information and provide analysis capabilities.
- Dashboards and scorecards ($5.5B): Tools and/or applications that enable businesses to track key performance indicators and view how an organization is performing.
- Analytics infrastructure ($4.3B): Infrastructure to store, organize, and prepare the system of record for enterprise reporting and analysis.
- Planning, budgeting, and forecasting ($4.1B): Applications that provide a business with a high degree of flexibility to model and align resources, activities, and finances to meet strategic objectives.
- Analytics applications ($3.4B): Applications that accurately gather, unify, coordinate, and analyze content-specific information.
Though the overall spending plans are strong, 18% of companies report that a lack of resources to work on BI/PM is the primary challenge impacting expansion within their businesses. Even so, organizations report they plan to spend less on external services this year, offsetting scarce consulting resources with significantly higher internal headcount spending.
More...
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| What Should Your Web Site Measure?
Monitoring Web site stats can be like picking up clues in a mystery. One clue may tip you off to part of the solution, but it’s likely that you’ll need to test your hypothesis to prove your case. In the end though, measuring the right metrics -- metrics that are in line with your business objectives -- can be key to increasing sales and customer satisfaction.
Full Article...
Best Practices: The Good, Bad, Clueless
There are some consumer products call centers that definitely have it right. Their results are that they get repeat customers, larger sales and they build a loyalty base that generates a solid revenue stream from their call center efforts. However, there are others that fall short of their hype and advertising. We should spotlight the good, the bad and the clueless.
Full Article...
Transforming the Customer Experience
Contact center agents are often an organization's first line of contact with customers, so these employees must be empowered to provide a rich, predictable, and compelling customer experience that maximizes the potential of every contact. Yet too often they operate in a fast-paced environment in which they're inundated with calls, emails, and live chat sessions. They must navigate a maze of systems -- as many as 20 -- to find relevant information for each call. Too often, the tools they're given are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Full Article...
The Smaller the Center, the Bigger the Problems
Call centers are challenging operations. In many cases, the smaller the center, the more these challenges are exacerbated. The good news is that lately, there has been more attention focused on this market segment, along with the development of new software tools targeted specifically at small call centers. This attention is encouraging, but the leaders of many small call centers are still challenged with the basics that technology can't fix. This article discusses best practices and recommendations to help the managers of small centers move their environments forward.
Full Article...
Finally, Relationships Are Blooming with CRM
Despite the name, CRM systems aren’t usually purchased for building long-term relationships with customers. In fact, while CRM and customer service technology apparently share a common focus on the customer, at many companies the CRM system and the customer service infrastructure are not integrated and, therefore, are unable to work together to grow long-term customer relationships. The gap between these two critical customer information systems squanders dozens of cross-sell and up-sell opportunities every day, not to mention innumerable chances to build deeper ties with customers. But, advances in CRM systems and tighter integration of the CRM system with the customer service infrastructure are making it easier to avoid these problems.
Full Article...
Building a Customer-Centric Data Warehouse
To date, a retailer’s customers have had far more information about them (the retailer) than the reverse. The organizations that strive to understand their customers are likely to be more responsive to customer demand, spend marketing and promotion dollars more wisely, leverage their multiple sales channels more effectively and ultimately drive more loyal behavior from their customers. The consensus among analysts, vendors and retailers themselves is that virtually all retailers have a desire to do a better job analyzing customer behavior. Constructing a customer-centric data warehouse for this purpose can be broken down into subject areas -- analytics and data sources.
Full Article...
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|  Call Center Management on Fast Forward: Succeeding in Today's Dynamic Customer Contact Environment
by Brad Cleveland
"Call Center Management on Fast Forward" covers every aspect of call center management -- service level management, forecasting, scheduling, resource calculations, metrics, quality, budgeting, reporting, strategy and key enabling technologies -- in a format that is well-organized and easy to understand. The updated and expanded edition contains important new information, including: Trends in customer expectations; Best practices in performance reports and objectives; How to create an effective customer access strategy appropriate for today's environment; How to manage multichannel contacts with quality; New technologies and how they re changing customer contact services; Improving the call center’s strategic impact; and ROI.
For
more information, or to order your copy...
You can find
more industry sepcific books at our web site:
http://www.crmindustry.com/
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The CRM Solution Center provides you unlimited access to white papers, case studies, detailed product information and more. Registration is quick and easy -- in 30 seconds or less, you will be on your way to accessing this valuable resource
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