hosted call center

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

 

 Standard Podcast [24:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

iRobot on outsourcing the call center

iRobot Corp., maker of the Roomba vacuum and explosives disarming robots, has moved it call center to an outsourced operation. Maryellen Abreu, director of global technical support with iRobot and Josh Ward, call center supervisor with The Jay Group discuss best practices for working with an outsourcer and running a support operation.

In this 13-minute podcast, Abreu and Ward discuss:

• Why iRobot outsourced the call center
• The metrics they use in the call center and how they hold their outsourcer accountable
• Why they’re using on-demand software
• Integrating voice recognition with service
• Communication between iRobot and the outsources

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

For more information on managing a call center:

Measure the costs and benefits of call center centralization vs. decentralization

Keep up with the latest call center developments with our Call Center Manager Learning Guide

Take a call center outsourcing quiz

Oracle’s Ed Abbo on hosted call centers, CRM innovation

Ed Abbo, Oracle’s vice president of CRM products, discusses in this podcast what’s to come in Siebel 8.0 and integrating Siebel with Oracle’s other CRM applications.

Abbo also shares his thoughts on the emergence of hosted call centers and where innovation will come from in the CRM market.

 

 Standard Podcast [29:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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.

 

 Standard Podcast [13:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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.

 

 Standard Podcast [17:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download