Metrix announced the introduction and delivery of the newest version of its Metrix 4e software suite. Leveraging 25 years of service industry and service software development expertise, Metrix is launching Metrix 4.6, a web-based service management solution that incorporates the full eProductService lifecycle.

eGain announced that customers, partners and industry thought leaders will participate at the company's upcoming North America Customer Summit, being held at the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 12th and 13th, 2005.

Courion announced that it has been awarded a Gold Medal for Provisioning in Bloor Research's 2005 report for Identity Management. The new evaluation provides an objective assessment of companies providing identity management technologies.

ServicePower's Field Service Solutions (FSS) Division announced that it has entered into an agreement with Bertazzoni S.p.A. to provide a warranty service solution for Bertazzoni cooking products. ServicePower will provide contractor recruiting, network management, call center operations, electronic dispatch, claims processing, payment distribution, and analytics for Bertazzoni appliance products sold in the United States and Canada.

RightNow announced Higher One has successfully increased both the efficiency and quality of its customer service operations while using RightNow Service. As a result, the company has been able to double the size of its business and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction, yet it has only needed to increase its customer service agent headcount during this period by 40 percent.

ASC will announce the latest version of its quality monitoring system, INSPIRATIONpro 7.0, at Call Centre Expo, to be held in Birmingham, England, on September 28-29.

SupportSoft in association with Light Reading will share insights on how service providers can smooth the way for successful triple-play service delivery via new service verification solutions during an online presentation, Wednesday, September 7, 2005.

Nortel announced the successful deployment of its next generation, SIP-enabled DMS-10 platform, bringing residential VoIP to the rural North American market. This solution is designed to expand revenue opportunities for rural service providers by enabling them to offer services enabled by Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) such as VoIP through a simple, low-cost expansion of the DMS-10.

In order to help wholesale banks realize greater revenue, productivity and compliance, Pegasystems unveiled plans to develop new services oriented business applications (SOBAs) at the SIBOS tradeshow in Denmark. These business solutions will bring together Pegasystems' SmartBPM product with IBM Business Consulting Services, WebSphere middleware and IBM's Information FrameWork business models for banking, to provide fast 'starter-templates' that banks can use to drive top-line growth and bottom-line savings in wholesale bank account opening.

Siebel Systems announced that Partner Communications Company has selected Siebel Communications and Siebel Business Analytics to deliver innovative 3G services and provide customer service to its 2.4 million subscribers -- equivalent to approximately 32 percent of the cellular market in Israel. Partner, operating the orange network in Israel, is modifying sales and customer-facing procedures as part of its ongoing activities to gain market share, increase efficiency across the company, and improve customer satisfaction.

  "OUR TAKE" (more)

9/7/05 - IVRs - Don't Force It Sometimes, I wonder if what I write is just so absolutely obvious that if I listened closely enough I could hear a collective "duh" as tens of thousands of readers read this column. As today's title suggests, my message is simple - don't create "IVR jail" by making it difficult for callers to opt out.   All of us have been callers in our personal life and all of us have a story recanting the frustration of getting a person on the phone that can help us. "IVR hell" is simply that pervasive! But if avoiding frustration that flair the nostrils of our customers is so obvious, why does the IVR as a obstacle remain standard operating procedure for so many organizations?   What do you think has to change for an organization to stop shooting itself in the foot by creating IVR processes that become customer dissatisfaction generators? Am I tilting at windmills? Are there best practices that will make the IVR more effective for customer satisfaction?   Gary Lemke, Publisher (Share your thoughts)