Contact Center Pipeline - Building powerful and engaging customer experiences through the contact center requires several important ingredients—just-in-time and in-context analytics, artificial intelligence for self-service and after-contact work, seamless omnichannel options for customers, and fair, accurate scheduling. But one of the most critical components are the contact center agents themselves. Representatives live on the front lines and they are the personification of your brand—helping customers solve problems and identifying upsell opportunities.
Inc. - If you're reading this and you're a marketer, you might immediately think "how can I incentivize customers to advocate to their family members?" The answer is not discounts or freebies. It's a lot simpler. It has something to do with the customer experience.
Turning Customers into Advocates
According to a CX Transformation Benchmark Study by NICE inContact, eight out of 10 consumers will switch companies due to poor customer service and 70 percent are willing to pay more for a product or service that has a good customer service reputation.
NICE inContact, for one, is looking to use AI to give its contact centers a virtual upgrade. The call center software solutions provider is working with cloud communications software and solution provider IMImobile to integrate omnichannel chat capabilities into NICE inContact’s CXone cloud customer experience platform.
How will these influences impact businesses in 2018?
Workforce Optimization - If any organization required a boost in efficiency, it’s the United States government... Today, NICE inContact announced that it is the first cloud contact center provider to garner sponsorship for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP).
ICMI - Living in the customer experience space, we’ve all heard the customer churn statistics – depending on industry, it can cost roughly 25 times more to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer.But what if I told you that the same – or even worse! – could be said for your employee churn?
CMO.com - Just as corporate leaders will have to reorient themselves around the customer, so, too, should members of the marketing team... At inContact, CMO Randy Littleson creates cross-functional teams for digital experience projects that include marketing, sales, and customer service members.
Forbes - One sure way to alienate a customer is to miss expectations. What customers experience on the front line, be it in-store or through a contact center, must be consistently above average to bring them back. And, one of the best ways to understand customer expectations is to take advantage of feedback and data.
No Jitter - November brought the close of NICE's deal to acquire cloud contact center provider inContact... NICE is lucky enough to benefit from the ongoing leadership and expertise of inContact CEO Paul Jarman.
ICMI - Showing appreciation for your customer service associates during one short period of the year – and nothing more – won’t move the needle on morale, performance or loyalty... What is your company doing to ensure this isn’t the only time of year that appreciation is expressed?
ICMI - The “Tower of Babel” is an interesting metaphor for what can be a challenge for many a contact center nowadays...
Contact Center Pipeline - How, through hiring, training and culture, can the contact center create great agent experiences? It all starts with a focus on creating quality customer experiences...
Huffington Post - Innovating means disrupting -- challenging the status quo even for very successful products.
TMCnet.com - TMCnet spoke at the Las Vegas event with Jennifer Waite, product marketing manager at inContact, which sells a complete cloud-based workforce optimization suite for contact centers of all sizes...
ICMI - Did you know that there’s a fair chance you can tell someone’s age by the way they ring a door bell? Sounds weird? Not at all! Research indicates that whilst most adults over 20 will use their index finger to ring a doorbell, the majority of people under 20 will actually use their thumb. Why?
Contact Center Pipeline - What are the top challenges that contact centers face when transitioning to an omnichannel strategy? The following are key insights from industry solutions providers.
Forbes - Proactive customer service is a win-win for both customers and companies – it’s what millennials want and it has a positive effect on brand perception.
ICMI - Adding social media to your contact center’s multichannel mix may or may not be the right move. Here are five things to consider when considering social media.
TMCnet.com - In the expanding world of cloud computing, it’s understandable the leaders would know each other. It’s a small world so far, and they’re all growing together... It’s no wonder inContact was chosen, as the company continuously innovates in the cloud and is the only provider to offer core contact center infrastructure, workforce optimization and an enterprise-class telecom network for the most complete customer journey management.
No Jitter - One of the oft-touted benefits of cloud-based applications is regular software updates, including new features. On that note, two of the best-known names in cloud-only contact center -- Five9 and inContact -- this week announced new releases of their solutions. With the announcements coming within 24 hours of one another, it is natural to compare and contrast the two.
DestinationCRM - The release offers a multichannel agent interface for Salesforce, new outbound campaign management, automated actions in WFO, new reporting options, and additional APIs for a growing developer ecosystem.
ICMI - As we know, customers want it all: infinite choice, immediate access, personalized service. And, they expect your contact center to deliver it at every step... Here are three key findings from our recently conducted customer journey research and how they affect the contact center.
DestinationCRM - Conventional wisdom says that the need for contact center agents is diminishing with the adoption of automation and self-service channels.
Contact Center Pipeline - Surveys should be easily executable, measurable and actionable -- and it all begins with the planning.
Connections Magazine - In today’s hyper-modern and seemingly automated world, self-service is not enough. Customers want and expect personalized service and interaction with live customer service agents.
CMO.com - As marketing leaders, we’re aware that every step in the customer journey counts. However, with all of its nuanced complexity, your customer journey model might be missing a vital element...
eWeek - RingCentral announced the launch of its Contact Center platform, which is powered by inContact, a provider of cloud contact center software. The solution is integrated with RingCentral Office and gives contact center agents the ability to engage customers through multiple channels, including voice, email, chat and SMS.
DestinationCRM - The cloud communications provider will now offer real-time queuing and dashboarding for the contact center.
No Jitter - RingCentral taps inContact as contact center partner, enables seamless on-net calling from one cloud to the other.
Contact Center Pipeline - Excellence in customer service is one of the, if not the most important competitive differentiator today... Legendary customer service, however, is a competitive advantage that is not that easily copied.
BrightTalk - Consumers want it all: infinite choice, immediate access, personalized service. And they expect you to be available and deliver at every step in an effortless multi-channel, multi-event customer journey. Mariann McDonagh, CMO of inContact, will share hot-off-the-presses research about consumer expectations during the peak shopping season.
No Jitter - The decade we are half-way through was to bring multichannel interactions seamlessly into the now contact center. Along the way, however, that relatively straight-forward plan was side-tracked by the explosion of e-commerce and smartphones and by the generation raised in the midst of the blast, Millennials.
ICMI - The key as a teacher or trainer is to recognize the existence of these learning styles and to adapt. Being cognitive of the engagement or disengagement of your class will let you know if you style of teaching is reaching your group. If not, you have to adapt and switch up the style to positively reach your class. Changing teaching styles throughout a course or training period is where one will see the most return on their teaching investment. As much as it is the students’ responsibility to learn, it is equally the instructor’s responsibility to teach.
ICMI - Contact centers come in all shapes and sizes. In the battle of the contact center, we will identify the workforce management challenges small contact centers face that make them unique along with suggested solutions that allow them to differentiate, compete, and win along with the larger, more enterprise organizations.
YouTube - Jennifer Waite of contact center service provider inContact sits down with Ken Kraetzer of CBSI Services to discuss how the usage of systems can improve customer service.
ICMI - For established organizations ranging from start-up to small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) in need of a solution to promote a customer-centric environment, we spotlight inContact’s Discover WFO suite.
Contact Professional - Like every major league football team that has its own playbook, filled with options depending on the situation on the field, different contact centers have different operating procedures depending on particular outbound campaigns. And, just as NFL rules of engagement make proper execution a necessity, so do complex FTC and FCC regulations – including TSR, DNC and TCPA – make proper contact center execution critical.
Salesforce.com - A customer of Salesforce since 2006, Workfront, a provider of enterprise work management solutions, uses more than forty AppExchange apps to run their business, including inContact Agent for Salesforce, a complete cloud contact center solution. Dan Bergstrom, Director of Demand Conversion at Workfront, recently joined App Talks to share how his team leverages Salesforce and inContact to improve effectiveness and overall happiness of his team.
ICMI - Contact Centers are complex. Most companies operate many of their functions and applications independently. For example, one team may be handling quality assurance, another handling training, and another team scheduling employees. All while, supervisors manage coaching with their staff, managers are running reports and IT teams managing telecom, contact routing, and IVR messaging.
XCHANGE CIO Community - Too many companies live in fear of that viral tweet about their customer service that has gone awry. The realization that customer service is paramount for survival, much less success, is the wind beneath the wings of cloud solutions providers such as inContact.
Wall Street Daily - What I like most about inContact is that its growth is organic, and you don’t see that very often... This company could be headed notably higher in the coming weeks.
XCHANGE CIO Community - Cloud security is extremely important: A provider could have the greatest cloud products ever developed, but they are worthless and useless if the platform is not secure. inContact, is a member of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), because we recognize the importance and value of what CSA is doing in developing and promoting best practices in cloud security...
ICMI - Workforce management or workforce magic? That is the question…
Contact Center Pipeline - A growing number of companies are using gamification in the contact center to motivate agents to improve their performance and skills on their own. “We’re finding that these types of performance measurement tools allow agents to take control of their achievements,” says Christina Cowell, product marketing manager, Workforce Optimization at inContact. “Frontline agents become more accountable and proactive to enhance performance and meet and achieve expectations without supervisors needing to watch over them or remind them constantly about goals and performance.”
ICMI - Today, managers have greater challenges then years past with retaining employees and keeping them engaged. Many organizations are looking towards effective incenting to assist with other retention initiatives. What consists of an effective incenting program?
ICMI - Since the moment I began my recruiting career it was engrained in me to always “Work Closest to the Dollar”. For those who are not familiar with this phrase it simply means focus on the things that matter the most. In the industry of recruiting and talent acquisition this can mean many things, but for me it means only two. Focus on the efforts that reduce the vacancy costs and align with your forecasted budget.
ICMI - If people are the greatest asset of companies, then why do some of us take short cuts when it comes to hiring? Hiring can be time intensive; however I consider it an investment into my business.
Deseret News — Software firm inContact Inc. has announced plans for a campus with more than 350,000 square feet of office space in Sandy.
CRMXchange - Just as no two snowflakes are alike, no two contact centers have identical staffing needs. Forecasting contact center workloads and intelligently scheduling agents to effectively handle the traffic can be an even more daunting task than predicting the weather. But by gaining a better understanding of the basics of creating schedules, using the right mathematical tools to determine forecasting needs and integrating insight of company procedures and priorities, the process can be far more manageable.
ICMI - As is customary this time of the year, we look forward into the next year and beyond. And we might ask: where are our agents heading?
ICMI - Knowing there is gold in the hills is one thing, but extracting it is another. In the early stages of the 1800s gold rush miners used shovels, pick axes and brute strength. As mining evolved, miners implemented the use of water to simply wash away the earth. Water made extracting the gold a much simpler and less back-breaking process. Similarly, analyzing voice interactions is not a new process, but cloud-powered Speech Analytics has made the process easier and more efficient.
Destination CRM - Having contact center systems and software positioned in the cloud "is the way to go if you're going to allow people to work at home," adds Jennifer Waite, product marketing manager at inContact. "The cloud gives you the ability to have technology with you wherever you are. You don't have to set anything up. [The system] just needs to know where to route the work."
ICMI - Halloween is coming up quickly and many contact centers are preparing for how they will celebrate with their staff. Many will allow their agents to dress up and some will even have contests for the best costume, most original theme for a team and most creative way that their cubicle was decorated. This is a great way to involve your staff in a fun activity, unless they are a remote agent… How do we involve the remote agents in these kinds of in-house activities, contests and fun?
ICMI - Most everyone in the Contact Center and CRM space seems to agree: this is the age of the customer. Excellence in Customer Service is a competitive differentiator, and offering better customer service than “the other guy” can make or break your business.
Customer Experience Report - Managing a contact center is tough any day. But the rapid strides in technology over the last few years, and its widespread adoption by consumers have introduced new challenges for contact centers. In an attempt to keep pace, and of course reduce costs, many contact centers are turning towards cloud based operations.
1to1 Media - While most organizations pursue proactive problem resolution in an effort to cut contact center costs, such initiatives also create opportunities to strengthen customer satisfaction and reinforce loyal relationships.
ICMI - It’s hard to imagine, but the days of reading from a printed script and keeping track of all calls with a pen and a paper where not so long ago. When call center agents were monitored by a physical person manually hard wired into their line. These types of inefficiencies have been experienced by nearly every call center, but luckily we have come a long way in a short amount of time.
1to1 Media - 1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman catches up with Jennifer Waite, Product Marketing Manager at inContact at Call Center Week in Las Vegas to discuss key trends in outbound communications, including new approaches to proactive customer communications.
1to1 Media - While 1.21 gigawatts may be extreme, companies must power their VOC strategies with the innovative tools and technologies necessary to drive real-time speech analytics and fuel first call resolution.Though voice conversations and customer service calls may seem like things of the past, speech technology and data analytics continue to usher such interactions quickly into the future—no flux capacitor necessary.
Contact Professional - What if a quarterback had to pass the ball without seeing the play develop? He can’t see his receivers or his running backs. He’s flying blind; he’s playing catch up. In this game of inches, he gets sacked.
Is this what your agents face when it comes to outbound calls? If your contact center batches records for outbound campaigns that last days or weeks, those customer records can quickly become out-of-date. Maybe the customer called in after the agent’s first failed attempt, perhaps they made that missed payment. But your agent doesn’t know. He’s playing catch up. He’s about to get sacked.
ICMI - As contact centers continue to evolve, quality management processes will need to keep up. So, why not go back to basics?! Today we review key areas where quality management needs to evolve for multi-channel to keep you ahead of the game.to continually update processes and compendiums as you make changes!
CMSWire - When we look to a company for answers, what do we want?
We want a seamless experience and answers tailored to our needs, no matter how we reach out. Whether we visit a store, check a website, send an email, call customer service or all of the above, we want the source or person on the other end to understand our relevant history and quickly provide answers. We want omnichannel service, and so do our customers.
Forefront Magazine - When it was time to bring her far-flung team together a few months ago, Mariann McDonagh eschewed some typical corporate outings in favor of a cooking school session where people worked to prepare an elaborate Thai meal and eventually gather together to enjoy the fruits - and vegetables - of their labor.
ICMI - Every contact center has a training process. Normally there is a process for new employees, otherwise known as onboarding, and also one for continuing education. Creating dynamic training curriculum to keep agents engaged and delivering it efficiently is difficult. But, the question you should ask yourself is how are the topics for the curriculum chosen, and how do I know I am successful? How does training interoperate within your business?
Contact Professional - Does this scene from your local schoolyard remind you of anything at your very own contact center?
You see two kids on a playground. There’s a little shoving, a little shouting. The teacher intervenes, forcing them to cooperate. Supervision is required but the kids still don’t play well together. Eventually they have to be separated.
Forrester - Kate Leggett, Principal Analyst serving Application Development and Delivery Professionals, examines several of the available options - including from the cloud - to best manage the growing CRM and WFO challenges for today's contact centers.
ICMI - Mining for the hidden gems in each customer interaction, small as though they may seem, can lead to a wealth of knowledge.
ICMI - Kristyn Emenecker, Vice President of WFO Solutions Group for inContact, provides solutions for contact center management to be revenue contributors and key strategic members of their corporate enterprise leadership team by becoming a Workforce-Intelligent Contact Center (TM).
1to1 Media - The acquisition of Uptivity by inContact provides more cloud solutions to companies looking to differentiate themselves through improved customer service and creating a better customer experience.
Ventana Research - Industry analyst Richard Snow gives his perspective on the inContact's roadmap for WFO in the cloud based on his recent interview with Kristyn Emenecker, inContact VP of WFO Solutions. Good links to related to Ventana Research Next-Generation Benchmarks.
Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) - Interview with Henri St. Andre, inContact Director of Trust, about inContact's long term commitment to Trust in the Cloud.
CMS Wire - The $22-billion call center market — dominated by legacy solutions from Avaya, Cisco Systems and Genesys — is ripe for disruption and cloud contact center solutions are positioned to strike.
CMO.com - Several Chief Marketing Officers, including Mariann McDonagh of inContact, provide valuable advice using the power of 20/20 hindsight.
Nemertes Research - Small and mid-sized contact centers now have more cloud options as providers move to integrate workforce optimization products and features into their solutions.
CMS Wire - This pie is sliced in many ways. This week, cloud-based contact center solutions and optimization provider inContact spent $48 million to ensure its clients have the right tools to optimize data and provide a solid customer experience.
CRM Magazine - "Folks are specifically interested in contact center infrastructure with ready WFO solutions," Mariann McDonagh says, "especially those in the midsize market, which has traditionally been and underserved market for WFO."
No Jitter - The holy grail of a fully-integrated cloud contact center suite continues to drive acquisition activity.
Smart Customer Service - Forward-thinking contact center executives and quality assurance managers know that their organizations have room for improvement, even transformation. Intuitively, they know that they're wasting precious time and money on failed customer calls. And they know they're leaving money on the table from sales not made. But without objective, meaningful, and specific facts, what can they do? What can you do? Consider the power of speech analytics in the cloud.
1to1 Media - By embracing the conversational nature of social media, companies can generate dialogue, moving beyond the basic batch-and-blast techniques of yesteryear as they work to strengthen customer relationships and boost loyalty.
ICMI - Contact Center Workforce Managers are the data “artists” within the company. This is a very important and challenging position. It’s about understanding and knowing when you’ll be the busiest, making sure people are adhering to what is planned and then quickly anticipating and adjusting throughout the day. With all these moving parts, below are ten workforce strategies to optimize your workforce.
CRM Xchange - WFO helps reduce complexity because it ties together human performance and behavior to operational data—providing information to manage people for better results.
Direct Marketing News - “Generally speaking, the majority of companies have not mastered multichannel marketing. Not because they don't want to improve, but because technology is still an obstacle,” says Madelyn Gengelbach, VP of strategic marketing at contact center provider inContact.
CRM Buyer - No one else in the market provides this many new features in each release.
ICMI - Regardless of the type of business, you are always looking for ways to drive performance. It’s like trying to find the shiny object to keep everyone’s attention, while behind the scenes making a positive impact on your business. How do you engage your workforce?
CMO.com - To become “chief growth officers,” CMOs and their teams need to work alongside sales. We need to build and continually pursue a trusted relationship. Here are five ways to align interests and build trust.
Wired, Innovation Insights - Innovation can be a powerful precursor to profitable growth by enhancing the customer experience. As such, the “I” in CIO has evolved from Infrastructure to Information to Innovation. While the CEO’s job is to enhance innovation, the CIO’s job is to be the innovator -- to take innovation and run with it.
Customer Magazine - Employing work-at-home agents can help companies build more successful customer care and outreach programs by enabling them to call on a larger workforce, pair callers with certain affinities with like-minded agents, and lower their costs in the process.
DestinationCRM - inContact is setting an aggressive pace for innovation in the contact center industry. With this release, we are strengthening our cloud platform and suite of products to address the advanced interactions that customers expect today.
Contact Professional - It’s time to expect more from SMS, and contact center agents need the tools required to deliver great customer experiences across this emerging channel. So here are three tips for delivering great SMS customer experiences.
No Jitter - CIOs are looking for THE best solutions--often regardless of premise or cloud. This means that cloud contact center providers that want to set themselves apart from the increasing number of competitors are seeking to push the envelope--providing not just table stakes but innovation. Innovation is clearly inContact's core message with the announcement today.
ICMI - Workforce management (WFM) tools are a great start, but it’s really just the beginning. Workforce optimization (WFO) is comprised of many processes and tools that are used for assessment and improvement of the agent and organization. With a full suite, you get powerful tools to help understand and act on four key levers: Presence, Proficiency, Performance, and Perception.
CRM Magazine - Customers no longer need to purchase expensive hardware or hire specialized staff to manage their speech analytics engine, because it's all there in the cloud.
ICMI - Getting a text is exciting. We all love receiving SMS messages from the people closest to us - whether it’s a family member, friend, or co-worker. They reach us wherever we are, and we pause our day to share a quick laugh and respond. The easy back and forth makes texting a very personal form of communication, and this intimacy is the reason that generic SMS marketing blasts tend to annoy customers and erode brand loyalty.
CMSWire - Cloud technology and social CRM can operationalize social customer care so that companies realign their systems and operations around customer preferences. Brands that listen and respond through social media are not only providing another channel for customers to reach them, but providing a level of customer service that drives customer loyalty — which is always at a premium.
CMO - "Satisfying unrecognized needs is especially critical for CMOs operating in emerging markets. We must have a strategic approach from the get-go. We’re not chasing what’s already there; we’re looking for the next big growth area to create." Mariann McDonagh, inContact CMO and Paul Jarman, inContact CEO, talk about what CEOs really want from their CMO.
CRM Magazine - "Customers don't care what channels you support—they only care that you are in the ones they are in. People start with inContact because they realize how important it is to provide customer support across all channels," Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, says.
CRM Magazine - Hot off a number of sizable customer wins and key partnerships, this is a company on the move. "inContact is one of the ones to watch in 2014," McGee-Smith says. "Solid product improvement, coupled with strong reseller agreements with [companies such as] Verizon and Unify, have been key to its growth."
ICMI - Good marketers never lose sight of what customers want, and in today’s online age, they want responsive, informed social service. The only way to deliver that is through the contact center.
CRMXchange - Consumers want to feel as if companies know them, and are able to proactively anticipate their needs. This is why contact centers must be tightly integrated with sales, marketing, and CRM activities that enable a holistic view of customer experience.
Contact Professional - There’s intelligence to be gathered from every customer call, but it’s a lot of information to sift through, and actually getting to the most important insights can be costly and time-consuming. Speech analytics is a game-changer.
1to1 Media - While most professionals are fixated on Big Data and the insight such intelligence offers, many neglect the meaning behind day-to-day interactions and the type of impact this granular information has on the organization's approach to customer experience.
ICMI - Mariann McDonagh, inContact CMO, notes on the need for a more personalized customer experience. “As a customer, one personalized proactive experience can completely transform your perception. It transforms the relationship between a brand and the consumer.”
Enterprise Apps Today - Mobile CRM, which has been gaining momentum for quite some time, is a trend that will only get hotter in 2014, experts predict.
CMO: Marketing is exceedingly more than that pretty bow. And it’s up to us, as CMOs, to exploit marketing’s true power.
Forbes: In trading on Wednesday, shares of inContact, Inc. (NASD: SAAS) crossed above their 200 day moving average of $7.94, changing hands as high as $7.98 per share.
Reuters, Canada: When InContact Inc, a provider of internet-based call center services, wanted to gauge the success of its video marketing campaign, it turned to Canadian video analytics startup Vidyard.
Telecom Ramblings: For most consumers, the ‘voice’ of a brand is the customer service associate that they interact with either in the store or through the company’s contact center operations, typically accessed either by calling a toll-free number or virtually through a website’s chat function.
CMO: CMO.com spends a great deal of time keeping on top of what's ahead for marketers. But who better to answer this question for the new year than those leading marketers, themselves?
Contact Centre Helper, The UK's Most Popular Contact Centre Magazine: Cloud enables UK organisations to deliver customer service in ways that would not be possible using on-premise solutions without significant organisational upheaval and financial cost.
Speech Technology News: inContact, a provider of cloud contact center software and contact center optimization tools, has added speech analytics capabilities from Verint Systems to its platform.
1to1 Media: Though the year may be coming to an end, brands and businesses are just beginning to implement new customer experience strategies as they work to differentiate their sales, service, social, and marketing offerings.
1to1 Media: Technology has become an unavoidable component in helping to deliver quality customer service, yet companies still must maintain a humanistic approach in order to preserve the personalized experiences that cultivate satisfaction and loyalty.
Forbes: A new front is opening in the tablet wars: the battle for the office worker.
ICMI: “There is a huge misconception in the multichannel world that the personal connection is no longer necessary,” says Mariann McDonagh, CMO for inContact. “WRONG! Just because you give a customer every channel they want, doesn’t mean that they also don’t want to talk to a real person now and again.”
1to1 Media: Last week, I had the good fortune to moderate a panel discussion on creating memorable customer experiences at inContact's annual user conference, ICUC 2013.
1to1 Media: Though cloud-based technology has been part of the enterprise for nearly a decade, today’s tools offer simple solutions that allow organizations to bridge internal gaps, gather consumer insight, and boost the omnichannel experience.
IAOP: Nick Carr's controversial essay "IT Doesn't Matter" claimed that IT - just as railroads and electricity - will ultimately become a commodity accessible to all.
CRMBuyer: A pacing engine algorithm included in the new software is designed to maximize agent efficiency and minimize abandoned calls.
No Jitter: A new release, based on patented technology, is like "progressive and predictive dialing had a baby."
CMSWire: Customer engagement centers, contact centers, call centers. Whatever your organization calls them, there are requirements for a successful one.
1to1 Media: Over the years there have been quite a few technologies that have emerged that have offered the double threat of strengthening the customer experience while improving operational efficiency.
Forbes: Earlier this week I wrote Customers Want Companies To Be Proactive When It Comes to Customer Service on the back of a chat I recently had with Mariann McDonaugh, the Chief Marketing Officer, of inContact.
BizReport: Brand new research reveals the majority of customers are happy for companies to contact them by telephone and many will answer calls from unfamiliar numbers, but the same research reveals the extent to which the dreaded predictive dialer pause causes amenable consumers to hang up and feel unvalued.
1to1 Media: For today's consumer, automated and unsolicited phone calls have evolved into an expected nuisance.
ICMI: Treat every call as a one-time opportunity for you to demonstrate that you understand the needs of your customer. If you don't measure up, they'll take their business elsewhere.
Adrian Swinscoe: Last week, I had the pleasure of chatting to Mariann McDonagh, the Chief Marketing Officer, of inContact about the results of their July 2013 customer service survey. What I found interesting about this survey was that they were examining how customers react when contacted 'proactively' by companies.
Wired, Innovation Insights: Companies like to say that all customers are treated equally, but is this really the case? Perhaps the more appropriate question is whether they should be seen as equal.
Wired, Innovation Insights: Companies of all sizes are struggling to keep up with rapid changes in consumer expectations.
CMO: Today, we chief marketing officers have the choice to grow ourselves, our teams, and our businesses. There's a window of opportunity for CMOs to step up and out beyond our so-called limitations and our own comfort zones.
CIO: When Ray Valentine first started managing technology for major call center providers 20 years ago, you had do everything yourself. "I came up through the old, big, Avaya premise-based heavy iron solutions," Valentine says.
Wired, Innovation Insights: "The Cloud" has been the term du jour for the past 12-24 months. Software business people who've been using "it" as a techology delivery model for a while feel redeemed that the rest of the word finally sees its virtues...
Wired, Innovation Insights: It's common wisdom that a trio of dimensions make up the context of business problems today: people, process, and product or technology. I have a slightly different take...
Wired, Innovation Insights: Have you ever wondered why meetings with so many people around the table frequently leave you with a feeling that little was accomplished?
CMO.com: Each time a customer communicates with your contact center, it’s safe to say they expect to be heard. Unfortunately, many marketers simply overlook this critical source of customer feedback.
Wired, Innovation Insights: What's in store for contact centers?
Connections Magazine: What you need to know about PCI compliance and protecting customer data in the cloud contact center.
Wired, Innovation Insights: Implement mobile strategies that reflect the growing trends expectations of consumers.
eMarketing and Commerce: Bridging the gap between marketing and contact center with voice-of-the-customer.
Business2Community: Service and experience critical to loyalty.
CMO.com: Don’t look now, but that brand loyalty we worked so hard for could easily slip away.
eM+C: Offering a variety of communication channels in addition to a 1-800 number isn't a nice to have, it's a must.
Wired, Innovation Insights: Cloud technology is built for innovation to help companies respond to customer service demands.
CIO Insight: Technology has empowered customers with more information than ever—for better and worse.
Government Technology: United Way Worldwide partnered with InContact to support 5 contact centers providing 211 customer service assistance for tax filers.
Forbes: inContact listed as one of America's most trusted companies.
Information Management:Contact center software provider inContact Inc. announced that its recently launched cloud universal queue will be expanded with the availability of social customer care channels from partner SoCoCare.
Government Technology: inContact customer United Way Worldwide, in partnership with the National Disability Institute and Goodwill, is behind MyFreeTaxes.com, which provides free assistance for low-income Americans in filing state and federal tax returns.
MediaPost: More than half of U.S. adults said they would consider switching to another brand or company for service if they were offered more channels to connect with the brand.
BizReport: Brand loyalty is being trumped by customized customer service experiences, according to a new consumer survey by inContact and Harris Interactive.
CMSWire: Consumers want what they want when they want it, and if your company can’t meet their needs when they’re ready to pay for it, brand loyalty isn't going to sway them.
1to1 Media In Action Series: Discover effective ways to develop customer-centric self-service strategies along with tips for avoiding potential minefields.
Network World: inContact Cloud Contact Center Software is highlighted.
Call Center Times: Mariann McDonagh, CMO, discusses new additions to 13.1 product release.
TMCnet: Over the years, cloud contact center software has quickly grown to deliver benefits of traditional premise applications combined with a much more flexible and scalable model...
inContact Senior Product Marketing Manager Madelyn Gengelbach analogized the improvements to installing a new high-tech kitchen and then tweaking the appliances to further enhance the results.
The newest release offers customer service managers the chance to view customer messages in one unified stream, regardless of the channel used.
The company expands multichannel offering with Universal Queue, new agent interface, true inbound and outbound blending, and an API-driven cloud ecosystem.
Cloud contact center software provider inContact has launched a new version of its product that provides contact center agents with expanded capabilities, including a universal queue and an API-driven partner ecosystem.
Call-center operations move about to save money — but there is a price to be paid.
Mariann McDonagh, CMO, inContact talks about the "silent customer" and how to proactively address customers' needs.
Our CMO, Mariann McDonagh, discusses how the Millennial generation impacts the contact center.
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