Search

       "Week in Review"    October 8 - October 13, 2006

  "OUR TAKE" (more)

  10/13/06 - Past Columns
This week I've highlighted some of the topics covered in this column during the last year. I'll wrap up the weeks with a few of the 'biggies.'
 
My goal is not to use this column to talk positively or negatively about individual vendors. However, sometimes focusing on a particular vendor helps make a point. So I've grouped the vendor thoughts for you. Another popular topic among many readers is customer retention strategies.
 
In the last year, the grand daddy topic has to be contact center benchmarking. Benchmarking as a topic received the most reader comments. Who knew? Lastly, we created a miscellaneous folder to keep those columns that don't fit any particular thread. Enjoy!
 
Gary Lemke, Publisher
(Share your thoughts)
 

  TOP NEWS OF THE WEEK (more)

Centergistic Solutions announced the availability of Communications Cost Management as an added module to its AgentView Enterprise 4.0 performance analytics. The Communications Cost Management (CCM) module will enable managers to add dimension to their analytics by adding metrics that reflect outbound, ACD/non ACD call usage and costs by group and by individual agent.

Salesforce.com announced Apex, the new multi-tenant programming language and platform. Apex will empower customers, partners and developers with the same language and platform that have allowed salesforce.com to build its on-demand service. Apex code and applications will run on salesforce.com's service, freeing businesses from the burden of buying and deploying complex software infrastructure.

ATG announced it has completed its acquisition of eStara, a privately held company based in Reston, Virginia. ATG announced a definitive agreement on September 19, 2006 to acquire eStara in a stock and cash merger transaction. ATG acquired eStara for consideration consisting of approximately 15.3 million shares of common stock and $2.0 million in cash.

ClickSoftware Technologies has introduced a portfolio of Consulting Services to augment its popular ServiceOptimization Suite of software solutions.

Oracle announced plans to enhance its Oracle Fusion Middleware offerings through the acquisition of Sunopsis, a leading provider of heterogeneous data integration products. Sunopsis offers best-of-breed products for data integration through its high performance "Extract Load Transform" (ELT) architecture and its support for a broad range of data sources and target systems. Financial details were not disclosed.

CDC Software announced that it has acquired MVI Technology, a provider of Real-Time Performance Management (RPM) solutions and services specialized for the unique requirements of the food and beverage, pharmaceuticals and chemicals industries. The acquisition is structured with a 3-year earn-out for the MVI management team which will remain with CDC Software.

Syntora has been acquired by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Voice Print International. The acquisition will enable Voice Print to further enhance its Activ! Performance Suite of contact center solutions.

Interactive Intelligence released an upgraded version of its contact center automation software designed to further push customer service throughout the enterprise.

Hourly wages for highly-skilled technology professionals continued to climb in the third quarter of 2006, when compared to the same period in 2005, according to the latest Yoh Index of Technology Wages, the quarterly compensation index Fortune 500 companies use to determine salary scales.

Spanlink Communications introduced Spanlink Mobile Supervisor Workstation, a portable, hand-held tool that allows contact center supervisors to monitor, manage schedules, and collaborate with agents, regardless of location.

 
  Research Notes (more)

(Feature) Forrester Ranks Comergent As Leader in Order Hubs report - According to Forrester's latest Wave report on order management vendors, Comergent is ranked as a leader.(Comergent)
Extracting Information from Call Data - BI techniques improve insights from call recordings (Ventana Research)
Customer- and Process-Focused Performance Management - Root-cause analysis and process improvement can help reduce costs (Ventana Research)
Customer-Centric Organization Remains a Dream - Companies need to rethink their customer relationship strategies(Ventana Research)
Evaluating Maturing in Contact Centers: A Performance Management Research Study - Ventana Research undertook this research study to evaluate the maturity of contact centers worldwide, assessed by region, industry and size. We determined maturity by communications channels and services supported, how performance is measured and what technologies are deployed. In the analysis, we applied the Ventana Research Maturity Model, placing centers at one of four levels for increasing maturty: Tactical, Advanced, Strategic and Innovative.(Ventana Research)

  WEBCASTS (more)

 · Listen Now!  Understanding the Voice of the Customer - (RealMarket Live!)
 · October 17 The Financial Formula for Building Customer Relationships - (Nortel)
 · October 17 Service Desk Information on Your Handheld & Desktop - (Numara Software)
 · October 18 Keep Your Customers and Keep Them Profitable - (Austin Logistics)
 · October 18 The Customer Lifecycle From Your Customer's Perspective - (ResponseTek Networks)
 · October 19 Three Myths of Service Desk Software - (Numara Software)
 · October 20 Practical Examples of Using Six Sigma in the Contact Center - (etalk)
 · October 20 Practical Examples of Using Six Sigma in the Contact Center - (etalk)
 · October 24 Point-of-View Series 5: Marketing and Sales Alignment - (SPI)
 · October 24 DMC Health Access Center Transformation of a Contact Center - (Siemens)
 · October 24 Automated IT Inventory & Software Compliance - (Numara Software)
 · October 26 Widening th Pipe to Your Support Center - (Numara Software)
 · November 28 The Demise of the Lone Wolf Sales Star - (SPI)
 · December 05 Point-of-View Series 6: The Media IS the message - (SPI)
 · July 27 Make Every Customer Interaction a Great One - (UniPress)
 · On-Demand Building a Marketing-Ready Enterprise: Accelrate Profitability and Customer Retention - (1to1)
 · On-Demand Integrating CRM and eBusiness to Increase Profits - (Comergent)
 

 GET YOUR OWN COPY OF CRMAdvocate

Read Less. Know More. Still reading a forwarded copy?
CRMAdvocate is everything you need to know about CRM because we do the hard work for you consolidating over 40 sources of CRM knowledge into one, easy to read format. - Click here for your free newsletter subscription.

 

  

Five9

 
  White Papers (more)

(Feature) Marketing Automation: The New Automation Frontier - Marketing, it's show time. Finance was automated in the 1960s, HR in the 1970s, manufacturing in the 1980s, and sales and customer service in the 1990s. This is the decade for marketing automation.(MarketingCentral)
Defining CEM - Wen Joe Wheeler and Shaun Smith wrote "Managing the Customer Experience - turning customers into advocates" in 2001, they did not realize that it would help to stimulate a worldwirde interest in CEM that is growing all the time. For example, a 2005 Forrester survey found that 83% of executives considered customer experience to be more important than in the previous year. This year the figure is even higher. The question is why has CEM become such an issue for organizations.(GCCRM)
Contact Center Manager KPI Survival Guide - Contact center managers are confronted with volumes of data and dozens of reports generated by automated and manual systems and processes. They may have a surfeit of metrics, but lack the fundamental information needed to manage their operating environment. Too often contact centers have no way of systematically measuring and communicating how well internal and coprorate objectives are being met and identifying where change is required.(DMG Consulting)

 
  Articles (more)

(Feature) Saluting the Squawkers - Complaints Often Key to Improving Sales, Retention and Loyalty(Expressions of Excellence)
Stunningly Awful Remote Demos - The Top Ten List of Inflicting Pain at a Distance - You are watching someone else's demonstration, via WebEx, and you are getting bored. Someone comes into your office - you mute the speakerphone and chat with your colleague for a few minutes. She leaves and you return back to the demo, still in progress, and un-mute the phone...(The Second Derivative)
1-800 Contacts: Fine-tuning a Sales Strategy - Call center agents change their selling tactics based on customer satisfaction trends(ComputerWorld)
How To Make "The Ask" - Effectively Recruiting Your Team(Expressions of Excellence)
A "Bias to Action" Results In Stellar Service - What do Olympians and Hall of Fame athletes all have in common? "Peak performers and high achievers have a bias to action." So says Bill Cole, MS, MA, known as America's Mental Game Coach.(Expressions of Excellence)

 
  Case Studies (more)

(Feature) AFLAC Increases Efficiency With etalk - AFLAC purchased e-talk Recorder and etalk Advisor. The integrated system enables call center supervisors to set up automatic recording times based on a specialist's schedule, something that was impossible with the old completely manual system.(etalk)

 
  Events (more)

(Feature) October 22-24, 2006: Contact Center Summit Fall 2006 - The Contact Center Summit Fall 2006 is a unique event created specifically for senior contact center, call center and customer service executives across all major industry sectors. Over three days and two nights, the Summit provides several opportunities for you to interact with senior officers from Global 2000 corporations across North America.
October 17 - 19, 2006: Services Industry Summit - Successful Strategies for Service Innovation - Las Vegas, October 17 - 19, Paris Hotel. Learn how world-class organizations are improving their service operations. Presenting organizations include EMC, FileNet, Rockwell Automation, Sage Software, Sony Electronics, and others. Optional pre-conference workshops will also be held. Visit www.servicestrategies.com or call 858.674.4864.
October 17 - 18, 2006: Professional CRM Certificate Program - Get CRM Certified(tm). Attend a fall seminar to receive a Certification in Applied CRM Strategy, based on Paul Greenberg's the best-selling book "CRM at the Speed of Light" and endorsed by Rutgers University Center for CRM Research, CRMGuru.com, the National CRM Association and GCCRM. 20% discount until September 30th.
October 22-24, 2006: Contact Center Summit Fall 2006 - The Contact Center Summit Fall 2006 is a unique event created specifically for senior contact center, call center and customer service executives across all major industry sectors. Over three days and two nights, the Summit provides several opportunities for you to interact with senior officers from Global 2000 corporations across North America.
October 23-24th, 2006: East Coast - MarketingSherpa Business-to-Business Demand Generation Summit - MarketingSherpa's B-to-B Demand Generation Summits 2006 - Network with 500 B-to-B marketers & discover their best demand generation tactics.
October 23rd-25th, 2006: ICCM Canada Conference & Exposition - The ICCM Canada Conference & Exposition has become the annual event for business leaders to network and share insights to make their organizations more effective, and for contact centre professionals to discuss the latest issues with people who share the same concerns, interests and ambitions. You will have the opportunity to ask questions, listen to new ideas, seek out-of-the-box solutions, and become part of a network community that will last long after you return to the office.
 

  

ICCM Canada
CRMAdvocate Stock Index
CRMSI55.58  1.49%
Dow Jones11,927.93  -0.01%
Nasdaq2,352.65  1.12%
S&P 5001,363.35  0.36%
Top Gainers
Witness17.43  1.11 
salesforce.com41  1.10 
SAP51.62  0.92 
Top Losers
Verint31.66  -0.16 
Epicor13.72  -0.12 
Amdocs39.8804  -0.10 
Complete Stock Index
As of close 10/12/06
You are currently subscribed as $subst('Recip.EmailAddr').
To unsubscribe send a blank email to %%email.unsub%%.