Staying ahead of the pack - Contact Management

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eaderboard Taylor Reach Group purveys call centre assessment tool Call centre consultancy The Taylor Reach Group (Taylor Reach), Toronto, has partnered with Customer Service Audit (CSA) to purvey in North America the call centre self assessment tool Snapshotz. It is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tool. Taylor Reach Chairman and CEO Colin Taylor and CSA Managing Director Deepak Silvaratnam recently disclosed Taylor Reach as a certified partner for the CSA call centre self assessment product Snapshotz Online. “Snapshotz is the only SaaS-based call centre audit and tool in the world”, says Silvaratnam. Launched in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2003 and offered as a SaaS tool since 2007, Snapshotz has grown from a few local clients to a global organization with thousands of satisfied customers. CSA has recently also expanded its service offerings with benchmarked data and services. “I am quite impressed with the Snapshotz tool”, says Taylor. “It does many of the activities that a flesh and blood consultant would do on site, but does so at a fraction of the cost”. Under the agreement Taylor Reach is the certified partner for Snapshotz serving the U.S. and Canada. “Snapshotz will assist Taylor Reach 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 Taylor Reach Chairman and CEO Colin Taylor says Snapshotz does many of the activities that a consultant would do on site, but at a fraction of the cost. in serving our clients and helping them to deliver a superior customer experience to their customers,” says Taylor. Snapshotz uses a holistic approach to review the workings of a customer service area, covering eight main sections, 29 sub sections and 550 plus variables. Targeted at customer service functions of any size, Snapshotz is aimed at businesses looking to identify areas to reduce costs, improve productivity, identify risks or gain a snapshot of where the service area sits at a particular period of time. 1.0 Corporate Objectives / Business Process 2.0 Customer Relationship Management 3.0 Health & Safety and Staff Wellbeing 4.0 Contact Centre Structure 5.0 Recruitment / Career Development / Remuneration 6.0 Training 7.0 Internal Communications 8.0 Operational Metrics The Snapshotz image here shows the relative comparison of the call centre’s score across the eight sections addressed in the audit. The higher the score the closer to best practices the centre is achieving in its operations. 7.0 8.0 CSA Managing Director Deepak Silvaratnam maintains Snapshotz is the only SaaS-based call centre audit tool in the world. Snapshotz is well suited for planning purposes, and acts as comparison tool for reviews of the service function and teams within the customer service function, or even for comparison of geographic locations. Billed as the uniqueness of Snapshotz is that it enables a full review of the service area at an affordable price. To mark the inception of the CSA partnership, Taylor Reach is holding a draw with the winner receiving free usage of Snapshotz. The contest is open until May 30, 2011. Only call centres located in Canada or the U.S. are eligible. The winner receives a single user license that must be employed within 30 days. The draw will be held May 31, 2011 in Toronto. The winner will be notified by email and telephone. Prize value is $4,520. With three offices in North America and one in Australia, Taylor Reach is a major call centre consulting and customer service consulting firm. This award winning company founded in 2003 by Colin Taylor today boasts a stable of Fortune 500 and SME companies. The consulting staff at Taylor Reach each possess more than 20 years of call/contact centre, customer service and customer satisfaction experience. For more information, visit www.thetaylorreachgroup.com or phone Colin Taylor at 877-979- 8692 ext 200. Calabrio closes 2010 with record growth Provider of workforce optimization software for the call centre, Calabrio, Minneapolis, MN, closed 2010 with a record 40 percent growth in sales through its enterprise channel partner network. Nearly half of its deployments in 2010 displaced an incumbent vendor. Calabrio also received indications from leading industry analytics that it leads the market in superior customer service and value. The company received the top mark for “Pricing” satisfaction and the second highest mark for “Innovation & Responsiveness to Enhancement Requests” in the DMG Consulting 2009-2010 Quality Management/ Liability Recording (WFO) Product and Market Report, and was positioned as one of five vendors in the 2010 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Centre Workforce Optimization report. “We are thrilled with the momentum experienced in 2010, particularly in our enterprise-focused business,” says Tom Goodmanson, president and CEO of Calabrio. “More and more customers are realizing that there is another choice for their workforce optimization needs. The advantages of operating a softwareonly solution and strong customer support are certainly key factors propelling our growth.” Tom Goodmanson, president and CEO of Calabrio, says the advantages of operating a software-only solution and strong customer support are key factors propelling the company’s growth. 8 contact management.ca March / April 2011
eaderboard Study cites Gen X as true social networking champs A report commissioned by Citrix Online, a division of Citrix Systems, has revealed that Gen X workers—and not those in the younger Gen Y generation—make up the majority of those who use social networking for business, followed closely by Boomers aged 55 and older. In a release, the company noted according to the data, Gen Y’s use of collaborative technology also lagged others. The survey, conducted by Forrester Consulting, provides a snapshot of how the global workforce communicates as work becomes more distributed and usage of collaboration technologies increases. It reveals a highly-dispersed workforce still favouring meetings, but increasingly using tools such as social networking and video chat to communicate and collaborate. The study asked information workers of all ages in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Australia about their business communication habits. Gen Y does not have the monopoly on technology use and social tools during the work day. Meanwhile, the older generation is getting with the program. Gen Y is least likely to share information via text message (26 percent, compared to 47 percent of those aged 55 plus), and least likely to use video conferencing, video chat and Web conferencing tools. Gen Y uses social networking the least frequently (40 percent of Gen Y workers who use social media for business do so daily, compared to 50 percent of those aged 55 plus). Older Boomers (55 plus) have increased their Social net tools—64% Video chat—56% Document sharing sites—55% Web conferencing—52% Study shows that people are increasingly turning to technology to help them collaborate with colleagues and customers. business use of social media 79 percent in the past year. The younger you are, the less you value meetings and the less you pay attention. Gen Y is least likely to think meetings are efficient. Only 29 percent of Gen Y workers think meetings used to decide on a course of action are very efficient compared to 45 percent of Older Boomers. Gen Y is least likely to pay attention in meetings and barely half (51 percent) believe it’s very important to do so in meetings to decide a course of action. Americans have more meetings and pay more attention – 90 percent meet in person to communicate and build relationships, more than any other nationality. Of those, 51 percent meet daily, compared to a mere 31 percent of French. Seventy five percent of Americans believe it’s very important to pay attention in meetings to decide on of action, compared to 50 percent of the French. The in-person meeting is alive and well, but not necessarily effective. Eighty four percent of all respondents have in-person meetings, but meetings often don’t achieve their goals. Only 45 percent are very satisfied that planning meetings achieve the task in hand, and only 30 percent believe such meetings to be very efficient. Across all categories of meetings for designated tasks (e.g. review of documents, plan projects or initiatives, decision on a course of action), less than half of respondents believe those meetings are very efficient. In an era of multitasking, what is still considered rude in a meeting? Eighty three percent believe that side conversations are unacceptable during a meeting, and 77 percent frown on those doing other work on a computer or smartphone. We still like to look each other in the eye. Germans like to see each other during meetings (75 percent), while Americans find it less important (55 percent). Seventy nine percent of those aged 55 and over think it’s important, compared to 65 percent of Gen Y. Why? To read body language, say 78 percent. Usage among users of collaborative technologies is rising fast. Sixty four percent of those who use social networking tools in business use them more than last year. Video chat, team document-sharing sites and Web conferencing also experienced significant increases in usage, with 56 percent, 55 percent and 52 percent respectively. “We know from our own experience that the workforce is more dispersed and mobile than ever, and that people are increasingly turning to technology to help them collaborate with colleagues and customers many miles away,” says Bernardo de Albergaria, vice- president and general manager, global marketing and ecommerce at Citrix Online. Interwork distributes Aastra phones optimized for Microsoft Lync Interwork Technologies, a value added distributor for new and emerging technologies, is collaborating with Aastra Telecom, Concord, ON, a company at the forefront of the enterprise communication market, to distribute Aastra IP phones optimized for Microsoft Lync. Already known for its innovative design, reliability and usability, Aastra has jointly developed with Microsoft a new line of telephones that seamlessly integrate with Microsoft Lync Server 2010. The Aastra 6721ip and 6725ip phones are said to deliver exceptional quality and value while tightly integrating with Microsoft Lync, making them powerful unified communications (UC) devices. These phones can operate independently from a PC so can be easily and widely deployed. The Aastra 6725ip offers the additional benefits of PC connection via USB cable for a tight integration with Microsoft Lync Server 2010: click-to-dial is enriched with presence status ensuring a more efficient call management and team collaboration. “We are very excited to announce our launch of Aastra’s new line of Lync certified phones,” says Richard Earle, CEO, Interwork Technologies. “We expect that Microsoft’s Lync UC initiative will have a big impact on how people communicate and Aastra 6721ip and 6725ip phones will quickly become a standard of excellence for Lync users.” The Aastra 6721ip and 6725ip phones were designed to provide a superior user experience and facilitate the adoption of UC including: • an intuitive interface clearly displayed on a full colour 3.5” LCD screen; • easy access to the most essential calling features through navigation keys; and • wideband audio enhancing call clarity “The launch of the 6721ip and 6725ip continues Aastra’s strategy of providing great choice, high quality and value to the enterprise communications market,” says Bruce Cook, Aastra’s vice-president of sales for Canada. “We’re delighted to work with Interwork Technologies to deliver intelligent and compelling UC solutions that meet the demanding needs of today’s workers to communicate in a variety of ways.” Aastra develops and delivers innovative communications products and applications for businesses. Its operations are global with more than 50 million installed lines around the world and a direct and indirect presence in more than 100 countries. Aastra offers one of the most complete portfolios of UC solutions individually tailored to satisfy its customers’ requirements. These range from feature-rich call managers for small and medium businesses and highly scalable ones for large enterprises, integrated mobility, call centre solutions to a wide selection of terminals. March / April 2011 contact management.ca 9
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Page 7: Showtime [Lavalife] and Ben Newton,
Page 11 and 12: eaderboard Salesforce.com purchases
Page 13 and 14: Staffing Matters route, make sure y
Page 15 and 16: Unified Communications model. These
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Page 19 and 20: “When properly implemented, Exper
Page 21 and 22: First Call Resolution Amy Frenzel,
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Page 25 and 26: eaderboard Agent Productivity Tools
Page 27 and 28: People Etelesolv expands sales team
Page 29 and 30: Association news The International
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