call center software

Is now the time for contact center spending?

Donna Fluss is bullish on the future of contact center analytics applications.

I spoke with the president of DMG Consulting last week about her recent report, which identifies two new markets in contact center technology — customer experience analytics (CEA) and desktop analytics (DA). Fluss predicts the number of CEA implementations to approach 1,000 by the end of 2011. She expects the number of DA seats to exceed 1.5 million during the same period, that’s growth of 100% in 2009, 50% in 2010 and another 50% in 2011.

Now one might question the relevance of a consulting firm defining a market segment and then predicting Continued »

RightNow’s Greg Gianforte on SaaS CRM

This isn’t the first downturn Greg Gianforte has seen. Gianforte, who founded RightNow Technologies in 1997, emerged from the last bust with a public company and in this podcast shares some of his thoughts on the current economy, what it means for RightNow and its customers.

Bozeman, Mont.-based RightNow, which offers Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM and has its roots in eService software, may be better positioned for a downturn than other software companies.

Gianforte has also been on the road visiting customers since January and shares what they’ve been telling him and how their priorities have changed in recent months.

In this 16-minute podcast listeners will hear:

• The motivation for Gianforte’s visits and how he’s found the time to conduct them

• What he’s learned from RightNow customers

• What prospective customers are interested in during the downturn

• Details on RightNow’s latest release

• What unified communications means for the contact center

 

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For more on SaaS CRM and contact center software:

See a demo of RightNow software

Learn why organizations are paying greater attention to their SaaS CRM SLAs

Loomis switches from Salesforce.com to Oracle CRM On Demand

Transforming an organization’s customer service operations is never an easy task, particularly for one as old as Loomis AB, which got its start picking up and guarding money from banks via stagecoach. Yet, as the Houston-based vendor told us, it can be done.

Wayne Sadin, CIO of Loomis, joined the company to help make the transition, which included swapping out Salesforce.com for Oracle CRM On Demand, adding Oracle’s Contact Center Anywhere and tying it all back into the Oracle E-Business Suite.

In this 20-minute podcast, appropriate for both business and IT professionals, Sadin explains:

• How he overcame his skepticism about software as a service

• How Loomis makes accountability to customers a priority throughout the organization

• Loomis’s method of distributing customer information through its Oracle system

• More about the organization’s data governance model

• The migration path from Salesforce.com to Oracle CRM On Demand

• What Sadin would have done differently

 

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Esteban Kolsky on email customer service

Think the days of email as a useful customer service channel are over? Esteban Kolsky, vice president and practice leader at Kana Software and a former analyst with Gartner, says he’s seen customer service via email make a comeback.

Companies are finding that, for some service requests, email is both cheaper and more effective than phone support. Drawing on his research as an analyst and experiences since joining Kana, Kolsky offers best practices and market insight.

In this 15-minute podcast, listeners will learn:

• How — and why — email is re-emerging as an effective channel for customer service.

• How companies are leveraging automated email service.

• What metrics to use when measuring email service initiatives.

• How the 80/20 rule applies to email service.

 

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Expert predictions for CRM in 2008

Three industry observers share their predictions for the CRM market in the coming year.

Rob Bois, analyst with Boston-based AMR discusses SAP’s latest release, the outlook for CRM suites and spending in the year ahead.

He’s joined by Elana Anderson, independent analyst with NxtERA Marketing, who shares her thoughts on marketing technology in 2008, including behavioral targeting, getting past the hype of Web 2.0, mobile marketing and the role of the CMO.

John Ragsdale, research vice president with the Service and Support Professionals Association, also joins the conversation. John gives his predictions for Web self-service and its effects on customer service, leveraging user communities, wikis and the job outlook for customer service.

Program guide:

• (00:01) Rob Bois
• (20:14) Elana Anderson
• (32:29) John Ragsdale

 

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John Ragsdale on self-service

John Ragsdale is the vice president of research with the Service & Support Professionals Association, a longtime industry analyst and call center manager.

In this podcast he discusses the future of customer self-service technology, its evolution from a tactical to a strategic imperative and how vendors in the self-service market are innovating. He also shares his take on highly customized “microsites” that allow companies to create personalized pages for customer e-service and the growing importance of “click-to-call” customer service technology.

 

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Richard Feinberg on call center technology and outsourcing

Our Voices of CRM podcast series continues with this conversation with Richard Feinberg, director of the Center for Customer Driven Quality at Purdue University. Feinberg shares his thoughts on call center technology, including speech technology, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), how companies are now paying for some of the mistakes of call center offshore outsourcing and the best way to measure customer satisfaction.

Feinberg, a PhD, is also a consumer psychologist and professor in the Department of Consumer Sciences and Retailing at Purdue. He teaches courses in consumer behavior, retailing, “e”-retailing, CRM and leadership.

 

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