In my benchmark research into next-generation customer engagement three-quarters (77%) of participating companies said it is necessary to improve the way they engage with customers. The main drivers for doing that are to improve the customer experience (74%) and improve customer service (70%). However, neither is an easy task because companies now have to support more channels of communication, and more customer interactions are handled by multiple business units within the organization. The...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
I am not comfortable with the term “gamification” used in the context of business applications. It sounds as if employees are officially allowed to play games while working and thus take their attention away from the task at hand, which in a contact center is serving customers. So I was skeptical when Uptivity recently wanted to brief me about gamification capabilities it recently announced for its suite of workforce optimization products. I was doubtful that gamification will help companies in...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
In 2013 we continued to see change in the contact center, customer service and customer experience markets: Consumers’ communication habits continued to evolve, more business units outside the traditional contact center became involved in handling interactions, software vendors continued to come up with new technologies, and cloud computing, mobility, big data, collaboration, social media and analytics all had a big impact on the ways users access and consume software. Many of these trends...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Location Intelligence,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Verint recently announced a definitive agreement to acquire KANA Software. Its goal, in the words of the press release, is to “transform the way organizations engage with their customers.” Customer engagement and customer experience management have become the topics of many conversations in my research area, so I wanted to understand the substance behind this move.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Workforce Force Optimization
I have written lately about how digital customers change customer engagement. It’s no surprise that at the heart of this change, as well as many others that impact business, is the Internet. Along with smart mobile devices, the Internet has changed the ways consumers engage with each other and businesses. In buying products and services, digital customers prefer to research them on the Internet, then buy online or at a store. They expect all activities to happen fast, perhaps in real time....
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM
If you stop to compare communication preferences of the past to those of today, you can’t fail to notice some major changes, especially in younger generations. Talking on the phone – fixed or mobile – is in decline, as many people now prefer text messaging, chat and social media. We rely on the Internet to search for websites, run mobile apps and use social media. We watch less TV in real time, preferring to watch what we want, when we want to watch it and to skip advertisements. The same...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
I recently wrote how the recent U.K.-based Call Centre Expo showed that companies have shifted priorities for deployment systems from on-premises infrastructures to cloud-based systems and that as a consequence vendors had shifted focus from workforce optimization to cloud-based multichannel interaction management. Confirming this trend, as salesforce.com Dreamforce event at least 10 such vendors will be showing their products. A few of them I saw at Call Centre Expo: Genesys, Interactive...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Today companies handle an increasing number of customer interactions and they do this through a greater number and variety of communication channels, and by using more employees that are dispersed throughout the organization. Managing the pool of agents in a contact center has always proved a complex task and this is made more complex as interactions are now handled by most lines of business (marketing, sales, customer service, finance, HR, home workers and mobile workers). To do this many...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Infor is a vendor I haven’t covered much in the past, but after attending the recent Infor on the Road day in the U.K. that is about to change. I viewed Infor as basically a CRM vendor, and I don’t believe such systems have much impact on customer engagement and the customer experience. Indeed if you view Infor website’s product page, it features several product categories focused on internal processes: CRM, Asset Management, Financial Management, Resource Planning, Human Capital Management and...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Financial Performance,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
I recently attended an IBM event about its new social business products and services. I was skeptical at first: I have seen another vendor’s “social enterprise” come and go, and although companies need to address customer use of social media, I don’t think “social” is the path businesses should take; it is more to do with collaboration. However, I quickly learned that IBM sees things rather differently. Its starting point is the need for companies to make their workforces smarter – something I...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Financial Performance,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Two years ago I wrote about communications in the cloud taking over the annual U.K. contact center event Call Centre Expo. Now that dominance is almost complete. At one point at this year’s event I was standing at the center of the show floor and without taking a step I spotted 11 vendors all offering some form of communications in the cloud. This term includes all the systems that manage the various communication channels companies now support for managing customer interactions: telephone,...
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Topics:
Big Data,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Verint has been a major player in the workforce optimization and voice of the customer (VoC) feedback markets for several years. As I noted in a previous analysis, its major challenges stem from the fact that its product portfolio has come about largely through a series of acquisitions, which has led to integration and user interface issues. Verint has been steadily addressing these by taking an information-driven approach and adding extensive analytics capabilities to the overall portfolio....
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Text Analytics
Nexidia is best known as a vendor of speech analytics. It was one of the first in this market, and a key differentiator is that its product uses phonetics to identify words and phrases embedded in recordings of phone calls. This capability has the advantage over standard word and phrase spotting because users don’t have to create a dictionary of words they want to spot. Thus the software can analyze calls and identify their content without users having to predetermine what it should look for....
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Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
ResponseTek is a well-established player in the marketing and customer feedback markets. It has four products that cover market research, customer feedback, knowledge management and media monitoring, that enable companies to capture comments made on public sites, typically social media-based. Its customer feedback products support creation, collection and analysis of feedback through multiple channels, as I have noted, including mobile devices. ResponseTek has now taken its support for mobile...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Text Analytics
Read More
Topics:
Big Data,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Enkata, as I wrote not long ago is continuing to expand the range and capabilities of its products for optimizing employee actions while maintaining a firm foothold in analytics for the contact center and agents. Its latest release, Action Center, maintains this position with a focus on improving employee performance.
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Enkata,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Our benchmark research on the contact center in the cloud shows that today organizations have to support more channels of interaction with their customers in order to provide superior customer service. This places pressure on companies to find systems that provide integrated management of communications channels at affordable prices, are easily managed and accessible with the skills their employees have, and above all meet the needs of the business.
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Topics:
Salesforce.com,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Corvisa Cloud
The market for customer analytics continues to grow as organizations realize the current competencies and technology are not aligned to the priority of providing the best possible customer experience through supporting business processes. At the same time those organizations that have invested and continue to improve in this area are taking advantage of why I call a new generation of customer analytics. As I research into technology to support customer analytics, I had a chance to assess the...
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Topics:
Social Media,
alteryx,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
The last time I was briefed by Confirmit it had just acquired CustomerSat and, in addition to undergoing a number of internal developments, was transitioning from supporting market research, customer and employee feedback to focusing more on voice of the customer (VOC). One of its key differentiators has been its ability to combine market research, customer and employee feedback to close the loop and produce VOC reports and analysis that include all three perspectives. Confirmit added the...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM,
Text Analytics,
Confirmit
NICE Systems is well known in the contact center market for its suite of workforce optimization products. However, over the past several months it has gradually been expanding out of the pure-play contact center market into back-office and mobile applications, as well as the broader market of customer interaction handling. My research on the contact center in the cloud shows that customer interaction processes are getting more complex as customers demand faster, more personalized responses,...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
NICE Systems,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Earlier this year I wrote that Verint Systems, which makes workforce optimization and analytics products for customer engagement, has changed its focus from individual product capabilities to packaged business solutions that include specifically configured versions of its products. The first of those was real-time personalized guidance; it uses several of the company’s Impact 360 workforce optimization products to guide agents in real time as they handle customer interactions. I wrote at the...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Verint,
Workforce Force Optimization
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
IBM,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
IBM Watson,
Text Analytics
I recently attended SAS’s European analyst event, where I went to focus on new developments around customer intelligence, an application of big data that SAS includes in its high-performance analytics and visual analytics. SAS offers an amazing number and range of products that is hard to keep track of, so I was glad to get a sense that now it is focusing more on business solutions built with data visualization and discovery, big data, data management, cloud computing, marketing analytics...
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Topics:
SAS,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
IBM,
Call Center,
Cognitive Computing,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
IBM Watson,
Text Analytics
Much is being written about the impact of social media on customer service, although my research into the agent desktop shows it hasn’t reached the fever pitch that many commentators would have us believe. It is true that the number of consumers using social media and as a consequence the volume of posts are astronomical. But I wonder how many of these posts actually have to do with customer service and how organizations filter out the relevant ones to help them decide on customer service...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Social Media Analytics,
SoCoCare
At its recent user conference, Interactions 2013, Interactive Intelligence (Nasdqaq: ININ) showcased its extensive product portfolio and its ambitious plans to improve the products both technically and functionally. I have written more than once about the complexities of building a contact center, which is getting even more complex as companies begin to support more channels of interaction as inbound ones are distributed around the organization including sales (59%), marketing (46%) and CRM...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Interactive Intelligence,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
When it comes to today’s customers, companies have to be smart if they are going to anticipate and meet new customer expectations. These days IBM talks about doing most things in “smart” ways. Recently I was briefed on IBM’s Smart Customer Analytics, but it took me quite a while to find information about it on the company’s not-so-smart website. Surprisingly since business analytics is so important to IBM current and ongoing investments and is the top ranked technology innovation priority in 39...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
IBM,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
I recently attended NICE Systems’ annual user conference, this year called Interactions 2013. In discussions of its different products and latest releases and testimonials from selected clients, I was surprised by how the messages were packaged. NICE has a long history of acquiring companies, and it has let many of them continue to operate as autonomous lines of business. Often there was minimal integration with other NICE products, a variety of user interfaces, no common software...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
NICE Systems,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
When I last wrote about Attensity I classified it as a “pure play” text analytics vendor, but the latest release of its product has lead me to revise my opinion. Its product Respond uses natural language-based analysis to derive insights from any form of text-based data and among other results can produce analyses of customer sentiment, hot issues, trends and key metrics. The product supports what Attensity calls LARA – listen, analyze, relate, act – which is a form of closed-loop performance...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Kana,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
At the beginning of the year I wrote analyst perspective outlining why I think Salesforce.com is a vendor to watch during 2013. I followed this up with a post noting that Salesforce has shifted its headline messaging from becoming the “collaborative company” to becoming the “customer company” – a message that resonates better with me. During a recent analyst event, the theme of becoming a customer company remained the main message, but this time the emphasis moved to marketing, as the...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
The last time I reviewed ClickFox it was primarily focused on capturing how callers transverse IVR menus. It produced visual maps of what options callers used and thus how they navigate what can be quite complex menus, allowing users to identify the most common paths and thereby optimize these to meet common customer requirements and business needs. Since that time the market has changed considerably, and ClickFox’s current products now support companies as they try to identify how customers...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Clickfox,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications
Like all analysts, I have a series of classifications to help group together vendors with similar capabilities. My challenge is to create categories that align with most users’ expectations so I don’t confuse readers when I define which category a vendor falls into. My “big five” are WFO or agent performance management (quality monitoring, workforce management, training and coaching, remuneration, and agent-related analytics); contact center infrastructure, including cloud-based systems...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Interactive Intelligence,
Unified Communications
I began my involvement with contact centers – actually they were called call centers in those days -more than 20 years ago. I quickly learned that almost everyone involved in running a contact center is obsessed with metrics: queue times, average call handling times, agent utilization, average length of after-call work – the list seemed to be endless. Since joining Ventana Research I have carried out numerous benchmark studies into customer and contact center performance, and found things...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
IBM recently announced its new Customer Experience Lab. During a briefing I learned that the lab is a response to what IBM discovered by interviewing more than a thousand CMOs, who are concerned about the explosion of data companies collect about their customers. This explosion is being driven by changing customer communication preferences and the way customers now interact with organizations, which I recently highlighted in my post about the 2.0 world. My research into the contact center in...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
IBM,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Organizations have been talking about how to effectively analyze customer data for more than three decades. This has evolved into a desire for a “360-degree view of the customer” - a comprehensive picture drawn from all available data. As yet, not many organizations have achieved it. Our recent research into customer relationship maturity shows that fewer than one-third (31%) of organizations produce a single set of reports and analysis that the whole organization uses to support...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
I recently wrote that Salesforce.com was a vendor to watch during 2013, and during a recent briefing I heard more messages that support this view. First there was confirmation about financials. Even though the company is only 14 years old and the overall economy is not exactly booming, revenues for 2012 were up 35 percent to $3.05 billion, with Europe matching this with a 37 percent year-on-year growth. This not only shows the company is here to stay, but that the cloud is now well and truly...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Clarabridge is a well-known text analytics vendor that markets its products under the banner of customer experience management. As I wrote last year, its products allow organizations to take a closed-loop approach by capturing all forms of text data, analyzing it, categorizing it, understanding root causes of customer issues and raising alerts so that action including collaboration can be taken based on these insights. Such a process is supportive of customer experience management, but for me...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Clarabridge,
Mobile Apps,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications
Like me, you have no doubt spotted the propensity for software vendors and consultants to call anything new “2.0”; for example, we have ERP 2.0 and CRM 2.0. Just recently during a joint Aspect and Microsoft presentation, the companies went one step further and introduced the concept of the 2.0 customer meeting the 2.0 company. My first reaction was one of horror, but as I thought about it, it became clear that customers have changed and so companies need to change to keep up – welcome to the...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
I recently attended the Unified Communication Expo exhibition and conference in London to find out how much communications has been changing. As I entered the exhibition center the first thing I noticed was the huge variety of vendors on show, everything from major brands in the telecommunications industry (Aspect, AT&T, BT, Cisco, Mitel, Nokia and Siemens Enterprise Communications) to some major brands perhaps not so associated with telecommunications (Dell, Citrix, Google and Microsoft), to...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
The first positive signs for the “the new Genesys” emerged just 100 days after its sale by Alcatel was completed last year, and those positive signs have continued. The company has not only maintained strong development of its core products but has also made an aggressive move into the contact center mid-market, the contact center in the cloud market, and the multichannel communications management market. It strengthens its position now with the announcement of its acquisition of Angel.com.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Genesys,
Mobile Apps,
Self-service,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Transera is an established contact center in the cloud vendor with in-depth interaction routing capabilities. During a recent briefing I learned that it has now supplemented these capabilities by launching a new product that it calls Adaptive Customer Engagement. Although it’s not entirely obvious from the name, the product uses big data analytics to analyze past customer interactions, profile customers, then use these insights to optimize current and future customer-facing activities such as...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Transera
OnviSource is best known for its OnviCenter Product Suite, which includes what is commonly referred to as workforce optimization (recording, quality, monitoring, workforce management, analytics) plus a telephony platform that includes a soft, IP-based PBX, IVR and call routing. It is available on-premises or through the company’s cloud-based option, OnviCloud. Recently OnviSource added a further option, OnviLink, and announced enhancements to OnviTel, its telephony platform.
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
OnviSource,
Workforce Force Optimization
NewVoiceMedia recently announced it has raised $20 million of investment funds to aid its expansion overseas, including offices in North America. The company was founded in the UK in 2000 and originally offered telephony and call management in the cloud. It now has a close partnership with Salesforce.com, which has allowed it to expand into a multichannel contact center in the cloud. During the last 12 years it has achieved considerable success, both financially and in acquiring prestigious...
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Topics:
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Mobile Apps,
NewVoicemedia,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
Recently Verint announced a new development in its workforce optimization suite Impact 360 Workforce Optimization that it calls Personalized Guidance. It aims to improve the customer experience by prompting anyone handling customer interactions with what they should do next. The principle is simple and logical: Analyze all the data you can so you understand the customer and context of the interaction, identify best next action, and prompt the person handling the interaction with this action so...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Verint,
Workforce Force Optimization
The majority of companies think it is important to collect customer feedback, according to my recent research into customer feedback management, and they put that feedback to an average of five uses, the top five of which are to improve customer service (75%), to develop customer experience and interaction processes (54%), to identify agent training needs (54%), to improve products (50%) and to create a customer service strategy (49%).
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
My research into the customer service agent desktop shows that most centers expect a lot of their contact center agents: more than half (59%) handle between two and five different services (such as general queries, complaints and sales) and 14 percent handle seven or more. Nearly half (49%) are expected to handle between six and 15 calls per hour, and as well as calls, the majority (75%) are expected to handle other forms of interactions, with most handling between one and five per hour. To...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
At the beginning of 2012 Ventana Research predicted that six major technologies would have an impact on the provision and supply of IT systems, and that these would bring about innovation in the way organizations support their business. Each of the six – business and social collaboration, mobile, analytics, cloud computing, social media and big data – has affected how organizations engage with their customers, but I don’t believe the full impact has yet been fully realized. Indeed, in some...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Despite the recession, 2012 was a busy year in the contact center, customer service and customer experience markets. Ventana Research completed four benchmark research studies into customer relationship maturity, contact center in the cloud, customer feedback management and agent desktop. Overall these show that organizations are slowly maturing in the processes, people, information and technology they use to support customer-facing activities. However, they also show many of the old issues...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
In early 2012 I wrote a blog post about how Verint was overcoming some of its product integration issues by using an information-driven approach that allows users to drill down from key performance metrics into underlying application data. The latest version of its Impact 360 Workforce Optimization suite extends this approach and supports a flow of data between applications and workflows that enables cross-application processes. The suite of products includes interaction recording, workforce...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Verint,
Workforce Force Optimization
In today’s competitive markets, many organizations recognize that customer service represents an opportunity to differentiate themselves from their competition. However, our research into the agent desktop shows that providing excellent customer service is a real challenge in many areas, starting with managing the channels of communication required to offer customers a choice in how they interact with the company. My research into customer and contact centers shows that over the last 18 months,...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Performance,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
Customers have always been important to companies, but what are the best metrics to measure the success of customer-related activities, and how well companies meet customer expectations?
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
It’s hard to believe that Salesforce.com was launched only 14 years ago. It has since grown into a multi-billion-dollar company that has changed the way companies source software. Back in the early days its two primary messages were “the end of on-premises software” and “a new era of CRM in the cloud.” Today the first message seems to have softened somewhat, with its own website talking about products and applications, and of course many companies still use traditional on-premise applications....
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Topics:
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
Many organizations collect customer feedback, but my recent research into customer feedback management shows that most have yet to take advantage of modern techniques. The research shows that companies on average use approximately four methods. The most popular remain email and online surveys, listening to call recordings and outbound phone calls. Newer techniques such as reviewing social media posts, social media forums, mobile apps and mobile text-based conversations remain the domain of...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Recently I read that each person has an average of 1.8 devices connected to the Internet, and this number is likely to grow as people continue to buy smartphones and tablets. In parallel, the number of apps available in the various app stores is growing exponentially, with the iPhone store alone having more than 700,000 active apps. The big question for me is how much of this is about business and how much is purely social. Recently Genesys, Interactive Intelligence, Jacada, mplsystems and NICE...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
NICE Systems,
Social CRM,
for example Genesys,
Interactive Intelligence Jacada,
Mobile Apps,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM
Recently I completed a benchmark research project into the adoption of a contact center in the cloud, which I defined as the combination of contact center-related communications, applications and analytics in the cloud. Furthermore I defined communications in the cloud as the systems to manage interactions, inbound and outbound, through different communication channels: telephony, email, post, web-based chat, mobile chat, web-based messages, video, mobile apps and social media. The research...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
Much is written these days about how consumers have changed their buying and communication habits, and how more are turning to social media to search for product and service information, complain, exchange news and opinions, and, well, to be social. This has led to predictions such as the demise of the contact center, marketing becoming the prime leader of customer experience, and social media becoming the dominant channel for customer service.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM
Over the last few weeks SAP has run several events for both customers and the analyst community to herald the launch of SAP 360 Customer in an attempt to regain ground in the CRM market and convince everyone that it has sorted out its cloud, mobile and collaboration strategy. One of the main user events was Sapphire NOW in Madrid earlier this month. From reports that I have seen, it seems that customers at that conference were far from convinced – and if customers are not convinced then...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
SAP,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
CRM
The parent company of mplSystems, Message Pad Ltd., was founded in the U.K. in 1994 and provides the infrastructure to support contact center operations. mplSystems’ main product family is intelligentContact (iContact), which is available either on premises or in the cloud. It is an interesting mix of products that covers call, email, chat, SMS, social media management and routing from a universal queue, a new social media product that routes social media posts to agents and provides the...
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Topics:
Microsoft,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
I have challenged some of the hype about the social enterprise because I feel “social” gives the wrong impression. For most people, social media is predominately about being social. While everyone likes to feel that going to work is partly about being social, when it comes down to it running a business is about winning customers, selling them your products or services, and providing customer service when needed. In today’s competitive markets, none of these is an easy task.
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
Read More
Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Callminer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Vocalcom is one of the up-and-coming names in the contact center market. Founded in 1995, it is headquartered in France but has a worldwide presence, with 4,500 customers and more than half a million users of its services. It may not be as well-known as other companies in the same space because many of the customers are in southern Europe, and a high percentage are outsourcers who use its services to provide contact center services based on its platform. It offers what I call multichannel...
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Topics:
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vocalcom
Salesforce.com launched more than 12 years ago as the founding CRM vendor in the cloud. Today it has grown to be the kitchen-sink vendor in the cloud. It seems every month it announces some new cloud service, and its services now cover almost the entire enterprise: sales, marketing, service, HR, finance and a list of supporting services that make it hard to determine just what the company now has to offer. Two things remain clear, however: Salesforce.com has established cloud computing as a...
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Topics:
Sales,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Mobile Apps,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
CRM,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications
Call Centre & Customer Management Expo has been running for several years now. The event provides an opportunity for contact center and customer service managers in Europe to catch up with all the latest and greatest going on in the market. At this year’s event earlier this week, as usual, I found the normal mix of presentations, vendor exhibition stands and other side events. The vendor show included a mix of core contact center vendors (interaction management, CRM, WFO, customer experience...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
Confirmit is one of the leading vendors of market research services. It has a full range of products that support every step of the market research cycle. Its software lets users create surveys that can be delivered through multiple channels, perform panel management (managing teams of people that contribute to research programs), collect the data from completed surveys, and use a suite of reporting and analysis tools to gain in-depth insights from the data collected. The company has been...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Confirmit
Enghouse Systems Ltd. is not one of the best-known brands in the contact center market, but if it keeps acquiring vendors at the rate it has been doing then it might soon be. It was founded in Canada in 1984, and from what I can see it is grown largely by acquisition to revenues of more than $120 million. It has morphed into Enghouse Interactive, which now represents nearly 90 percent of its parent company’s business. A quick look at its website shows that over its lifetime it has acquired six...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Voice of the Customer,
Enghouse interactive,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Voice Print International recently announced it has selected Hewlett-Packard’s Autonomy to deliver speech and multi-channel analytics. This news means VPI joins a small group of vendors that can provide a view of customer interactions across multiple communication channels, which is of growing importance to companies. My research into the contact center in the cloud shows that companies now support an average of four to five channels of interaction with customers. Without a multi-channel view...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
VPI,
Management,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
Many people these days talk about voice of the customer (VOC) programs and how they can improve business performance. The foundation of any VOC program is collecting customer feedback, analyzing it and using the insights to improve customer-focused processes, training and the use of technology. Changes usually focus on customer service, but increasingly companies are focusing on the customer experience – how companies engage with customers to resolve issues, provide information, close sales and...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Our recent benchmark research into the adoption of cloud-based systems to support contact center operations shows that around 10 percent of companies have adopted what is commonly termed communications in the cloud – that is, systems in the cloud to manage delivery of telephone calls to the right location, be it an internal extension number within an organization, a branch office number, a contact center extension or someone’s home or cell phone number. Given that telecommunication service...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
NewVoicemedia,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Our recent benchmark research on the contact center in the cloud shows companies are under more pressure than ever to upgrade their contact centers. The large majority of companies (73%) think it is very important to improve the way they handle customer interactions, and only a small percentage are fully satisfied with their current applications (19%) or their communications (14%). Upgrading presents a significant challenge, however, because simple call centers that handle only phone calls have...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
After this summer’s SAS European analyst event, I wrote that I came away less than convinced SAS was truly committed to the cloud, based largely on the fact that most other vendors are blowing their cloud trumpets much louder than SAS. It seemed developments in and around customer intelligence and its other products were higher priority to the company than its cloud strategy. However, after a recent update, I was left with no doubt that the cloud is important to SAS and that the company has a...
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Topics:
SAS,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
The product page for Interactive Intelligence highlights what the company is best known for – IP-based business communications. This image is further strengthened by its flagship Customer Interaction Center platform, which offers organizations a fully featured multimedia contact center in the cloud. This offering includes multimedia communications in the cloud along with many of the capabilities that Ventana Research terms agent performance management. However, the company also offers a third...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Interactive Intelligence,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
I’ve challenged a lot of the hype about the social enterprise, because I feel “social” gives the wrong impression. For most people, social media is predominately about socializing. While everyone likes to feel that going to work is partly about interacting with friends, when it comes down to it running a business is about winning customers, selling them your products and services, and providing customer service when needed. In today’s competitive markets, none of these are easy tasks. As I look...
Read More
Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Operational Intelligence,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
Since it was founded in 1999, salesforce.com has been driving other vendors and end-user organizations to rethink how they supply and purchase software. The company has grown from being a supplier of CRM in the cloud to a vendor with diverse offerings that include a development platform, an app exchange, platforms that support marketing, sales and customer service, knowledge management, desktop technology, collaboration, website development, social media support and analytics. Along the way it...
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Topics:
Salesforce.com,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
LiveOps,
NewVoicemedia,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Cisco,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Interactive Intelligence,
Text Analytics,
Vocalcom
A look at Enghouse Interactive’s Products page shows it is not the easiest of companies to understand. Listed are six products – companies actually – that make up the parent: Arc Solutions, CosmoCom, Datapulse, Synellect, TelRex and Trio. As yet this list doesn’t include the latest acquisition, Zeacom. All the businesses in some way connect to multichannel communications and the contact center, with products that range, respectively, from communication management systems for Cisco, a...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Enghouse interactive,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Force Optimization
VPI, a well established vendor in the workforce optimization (WFO) space, was recently rated as a Hot vendor in the Ventana Research Agent Performance Management 2012 Value Index, which extends the traditional definition of WFO to include multichannel interaction capture, agent-related analytics, and agent compensation management. VPI’s Hot rating is a tribute to the functionality and architecture of its suite, even though it doesn’t include a WFM product (instead, workforce management is...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
VPI,
Knowlagent,
Nexxphase,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Pipkins,
Workforce Force Optimization
Knowlagent has carved out a unique position in the agent performance management market. Everyone involved in running a contact center knows how difficult it is to manage agent time so that agents are available within service level agreement specifications to answer inbound customer calls, have sufficient time to carry out other essential tasks such as breaks, training, coaching and making outbound calls, but not burn themselves out. Our research into agent performance management shows that many...
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Topics:
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Voice of the Customer,
Knowlagent,
Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Workforce Force Optimization
This month Kana announced it had acquired contact center provider Ciboodle. This comes a few years after Ciboodle was acquired by Sword, a marriage that apparently didn’t work out because Sword, a predominantly services company, didn’t make the necessary investment in the Ciboodle products to keep them competitive. Kana, looking to expand its portfolio beyond service experience management, spotted that Ciboodle, with its customer experience management portfolio, provided a good, complimentary...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Kana,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
My research into customer experience management shows that companies are increasingly aware that the customer experience has a profound impact on business success. In almost equal numbers, participants said it determines the loyalty of customers (21%), the propensity of customers to recommend the company to others (21%), the amount of additional purchases they make (19%) and their general level of satisfaction (19%). Furthermore, companies also realize that good experiences save money, because...
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Vendor(s),
Workforce Force Optimization
Our benchmark research into agent performance management shows that the majority of companies are not very mature in their use of people, processes, information and technology in handling customer interactions. Companies are most mature is their use of information, but even in this area they are hampered by their failure to use the latest technologies available to support their efforts.
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
NICE Systems,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
VPI,
Call Copy,
Enkata,
Envision,
Genesys,
KnopahSoft,
LiveOps,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
coaching,
Compensation,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
OnviSource,
Training,
Verint,
Workforce Force Optimization
Callminer is best known as a vendor of speech analytics software. Along with its own suite, its products also are embedded in those of several other vendors to provide speech analysis. During a recent briefing, I learned that the company has not only expanded into text and social analytics but also that its latest release includes more features and a friendlier user interface, two requirements that my research shows are essential in persuading companies to more widely adopt analytics for...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Callminer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics
Pitney Bowes (PB) opened its annual technology summit (Twitter: #TechSummit12) with a review of its organizational assets and its rich history of engineering hardware and systems for physical and now digital delivery of communications. The multibillion-dollar technology giant is transforming itself to address the digital needs of business for interaction with consumers. It also is working to transform how business communications and interactions work across all channels. Handling new media...
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Communications,
Pitney Bowes,
Portrait Software,
Volly,
Operational Performance,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Financial Performance
I hear a lot of talk about the impact of social media on customer service and the contact center. My research into customer relationship maturity shows much of this is only talk. The research shows that while many companies have rushed to create a Twitter handle and a Facebook page and put video on YouTube, most are struggling to integrate social media into their customer service or more broadly their customer engagement strategy and processes.
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Social Dynamx
After the SAS analyst event last year, I wrote that it is hard to keep track of everything SAS has to offer because it had so many products and developments in the pipeline. Back from this year’s event, I can report that 2011 was successful, its revenue and worldwide presence are up, and SAS continues to expand its channels to market. On top of everything I saw last year even more products and developments are in the pipeline, but the theme and focus remain the same: enabling business analytics.
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Management,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Vendor(s)
Ventana Research was the first analyst firm to cover operational intelligence, and a while back I wrote how the products of Vitria support proactive customer service by using event data to anticipate likely impacts of operation issues on customer service. Our research into the use of analytics shows that while more mature companies have begun to adopt OI, they are mainly early adopters. In an effort to speed up adoption, Vitria has developed what it calls operational intelligence apps and it...
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Vitria,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Information Applications,
Operational Intelligence,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Jacada pioneered what I call a smart agent desktop when in 1990 it created the tools that allow companies to develop a desktop application that follows the process of handling a call, hides applications behind a simple-to-use interface and automates access and updating of systems. This smart agent desktop enables agents to answer calls more efficiently and effectively and to focus on the customer. The product includes tools that allow developers to map the process of handling different call...
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Jacada,
Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics
Our benchmark research into the contact center in the cloud shows that almost all companies now support multiple communication channels to engage with customers. Most of them also involve multiple business units in handling inbound and outbound interactions. More companies now support at-home agents, and contact centers are becoming more distributed. These scenarios are a good fit for cloud-based systems, and the research finds that the top three ways organizations said they can meet these...
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Echopass,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Information Applications,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications
When the Salesforce.com marketing machine rolls into town, you have to sit up and listen, and that’s what 14,000 attendees did at the latest Cloudforce event in London. The company took over a vast portion of the ExCel London Exhibition Centre to accommodate the keynote speech, lots of side events and meeting rooms and an expo floor where attendees could see demonstrations of every product and service, including many from partners showing what they have to offer.
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Topics:
Sales Performance,
Salesforce.com,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
LiveOps,
NewVoicemedia,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Information Applications,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Text Analytics,
Vocalcom
I have written several times that the market dynamics around customer relationships are changing faster now than at any previous time in my experience. Smartphones and tablets are changing the way consumers communicate, social media has opened up a channel of communications over which companies have little control, and finding new customers has become harder, so companies are placing more emphasis on retaining existing customers and increasing the amount of business they do with each. One...
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Topics:
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Transcom
A recent research project involving 7,000 consumers carried out by the Harvard Business Review concluded that to retain customers and get them to buy more products, organizations must make it simple for people to engage with them, provide information they trust and allow them to weigh their options before they buy. The research found that consumers are bombarded with information and choices, and as a result they tend to go down the easiest route, which often leads them to take a blinkered view:...
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Management
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Information Applications,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Interactive Intelligence,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Management
I attended NICE Systems’ annual Interactions (Twitter #Interaction2012) conference in Nashville to get the latest from this growing global software business that focuses on customer-centric applications. If you have not heard of NICE you might not be primarily involved in managing and interacting with customers, the area in which NICE has been growing organically and by acquiring technology providers that complement its existing portfolio. As we discussed in recent analyses, and NICE acquired...
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
NICE Systems,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Interactive Intelligence,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Management
I recently attended the second in the series of customer engagement days organized by the Directors Club (GB & NI). The format of the event was the same as the first day that I wrote about and included three keynote presentations and three roundtable sessions where attendees discussed how organizations should engage with customers. As for the first event I chaired the roundtable on perfecting multichannel customer engagement in the contact center and gave a keynote on how social media is...
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Social Media,
Supply Chain Performance,
Sustainability,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Data Management,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
NICE Systems,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Genesys,
InContact,
IT Performance,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Financial Performance,
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC),
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Interactive Intelligence,
Text Analytics,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Management,
Noble Systems,
Verint
Marketing claims about a company’s innovation have become so common as to be almost meaningless, and this is true in the software business. That’s a shame because it obscures cases in which a vendor really is innovative. For example, at a recent partner and analyst event hosted by Interactive Intelligence (ININ), its CMO told me that ININ has stopped using the phrase “deliberately innovative” because claiming to be innovative isn’t helpful in getting across its messages.
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Topics:
Microsoft,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Mobility,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Workforce Performance,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Interactive Intelligence,
Unified Communications,
Workforce Management
Verint is one of the major players in the contact center market, with two suites of products that support contact centers and voice of the customer analysis. The company’s website shows that these suites have been put together from a combination of in-house developments and acquisitions (Blue Pumpkin, Witness Systems, Mercom, Iontas, GMT and Vovici are among them). Although this strategy has allowed Verint to create comprehensive suites of products in both areas, it also created issues with...
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Workforce Management,
Verint
Last December NICE Systems announced a definitive agreement to acquire Merced Systems. I have been covering both companies for several years, and initially it wasn’t obvious to me why the acquisition made sense. My colleague Mark Smith wrote about the deal and expressed concerns about how the acquisition would impact both sets of customers and both organizations. Now it turns out that the Merced acquisition will have a much bigger effect on NICE than expected.
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Customer Feedback Management,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Call Center,
Contact Center,
Contact Center Analytics,
CRM,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics,
Workforce Management
SAS is one of the largest and best-known independent vendors of BI and analytics. The company’s website shows 16 product lines, and product variations to match almost every business analytics requirement in any industry. One of its core products lines is Customer Intelligence, which I wrote about last year. Customer Intelligence consists of four main components: strategy and planning, information and analytics, orchestration and interaction, and customer experience – among all these interesting...
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Topics:
Predictive Analytics,
Sales Performance,
SAS,
Social Media,
Customer Analytics,
Customer Experience,
Social CRM,
Speech Analytics,
Voice of the Customer,
Customer Intelligence,
Operational Performance,
Analytics,
Business Analytics,
Business Collaboration,
Business Intelligence,
Business Mobility,
Business Performance,
Cloud Computing,
Customer & Contact Center,
Customer Service,
Information Applications,
Information Management,
Location Intelligence,
Operational Intelligence,
Contact Center Analytics,
Desktop Analytics,
Text Analytics