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10/3/06 - If Field Service Ran Like a Call Center
One reader wrote a somewhat humorous, but pointed, example of why field service is different from a call center. Consider this:
"Think of a giant call center with 1500 agents but each agent can only handle a narrow slice of the calls (geographic limitations). Each 'call' can take 1-4 hours and it is not reasonable to work on multiple calls in parallel - you need to finish before you go to the next one. Now, you need to tell each caller how long they will wait for someone to start working their call."
That would be one of the most complex call centers and that's what we're dealing with in a field environment. The combination of variable travel times, unknown scope of service times, and the inability to help multiple clients in parallel add a level of complexity that gives businesses fits. Do you agree?
Gary Lemke, Publisher
(Share your thoughts)
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TODAY'S NEWS (more)
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Witness announced that it has acquired Demos Solutions Consulting Group Ltd. and Exametric, Inc., the two leaders in supplying enterprise productivity and resource planning solutions to the financial services industry. The aggregate purchase price for both transactions is $29 million in cash plus a potential earn-out of up to $18 million based on the growth of the business over the next few years.
Oracle announced the general availability of Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management 9, which features enhancements to core financial accounting, asset lifecycle management and enterprise service automation applications.
Jacada has announced that it has signed a distributor agreement with Datapoint Customer Solutions Ltd, the leading UK expert in call center operations. Under the agreement, Datapoint Customer Solutions Ltd will sell, service and support Jacada WorkSpace and Jacada Fusion customer service solutions to the contact center market in the UK.
FTS, a provider of Billing and CRM solutions for Communications Service Providers (CSPs), has announced the creation of a new sector of telecom OSS/BSS - the Business Control Layer. Business Control Layer technology has implications upon service providers' ability to increase revenue and improve customer service.
A new Yoh study of HR managers finds that 81 percent of companies have remote work policies, and 67 percent believe it's likely that telecommuting will increase over the next two years.
Business Objects announced it has closed the acquisition of privately-held Armstrong Laing Limited (ALG Software). The acquisition was an all-cash transaction of approximately 30 million GBP (approximately $56 million USD) for all outstanding shares of ALG Software by Business Objects (U.K.) Limited.
GoldMine has received a 2006 TMC Labs Innovation Award presented by Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC.) In bestowing the honor, Tom Keating, Chief Technology Officer of TMC and Executive Technology Editor of TMC Labs, wrote: "GoldMine IP Voice Suite is a unique customer interaction solution that combines IP telephony and CRM into a single, comprehensive solution."
Activa Solutions, a voice, data, quality and performance management solutions specialist, has integrated its call recording system with Rostrvm Solutions' automated dialler. The links between the two systems provide options in marking recordings with data that consequently delivers recording retrieval.
BellSouth announced that it has entered into an agreement with Avaya to resell Avaya IP telephony solutions to businesses. Customers can now work with BellSouth as a single point of contact to address telephony, messaging and contact center requirements using Avaya's broad portfolio of IP-based solutions.
ViryaNet Limited announced that Open Spatial of Australia will OEM and resell the ViryaNet Field Operations Case Utility System (FOCUS) product to its customers and prospects across the Asia Pacific region.
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| CRMAdvocate Stock Index |
| CRMSI | 52.04 |  | -0.27% |
| Dow Jones | 11,722.13 |  | 0.01% |
| Nasdaq | 2,242.00 | | -0.88% |
| S&P 500 | 1,333.57 | | -0.32% |
| Top Gainers |
| Amdocs | 40.39 | | 1.05 |
| salesforce.com | 36.6 | | 0.81 |
| eLoyalty | 18.52 | | 0.24 |
| Top Losers |
| Witness | 15.93 | | -1.60 |
| SPSS | 24.23 | | -0.73 |
| Sykes | 19.76 | | -0.73 |
| Complete Stock Index |
| As of close 10/02/06 | |
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| (Feature)
Just Say "Know" - The boss may assume that outsourcing is the answer to everything. But CIOs can't afford to assume anything. They have to know.(CIO)
|  | | Call Centre Queues are Getting Longer - New research shows callers can wait for up to 30 minutes at busy periods(CRMToday)
| | | Make marketing measurement count: Easier said than done - A very large company formed a task force to identify the value gained from the obscene amounts of money it spent on customer information, marketing analytics and reporting. No marketing representative was on the task force, even though marketing knew about the initiative and was consulted during deliberations. The person running the task force? An IT executive.(CRM Magazine)
| | | Directors Urged to Roll Up Sleeves for UK Customer Service - Senior directors of FTSE 100 companies could soon be manning phones, reception desks and tills to raise the profile of customer service. Paul Cooper, communications director of the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) is lobbying senior directors at each company and challenging them to go back-to-the-floor in a front-line customer service role.(CRM2day)
| | | RightNow Technologies Upgrades CRM Suite - On the analytics front, RightNow 8 bolstered its capabilities with Report Design Center, a tool that lets users assemble tables, charts and fields to create reports and assemble customized analytics dashboards. With historical trending, users can compare current and projected information with historical performance data, such as lead conversion rates and customer satisfaction rankings.(CRMDaily)
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"OUR TAKE"
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