Outbound Call Center Featured Article

TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review

By Linda Dobel
TMCnet Contributor

Who doesn’t want affirmation that their efforts are on the right track – certainly the former mayor of New York Ed Koch did – he asked his constituents “How ’m I doing?” so often that he wrote a book with the same title. But perhaps even better than a book, is being told by outside sources that your work is pretty good, and some key players in the outbound call center market let TMCnet editors know this week that the work they produce has been recognized with honors. 

For one, Mini Swamy, a contributing editor for TMCnet, shared that Verizon Wireless (News - Alert), a 3G and 4G LTE network provider, received accolades from J.D. Power and Associates for excellence in customer care. Her report said that it was ranked highest among the major national wireless phone service providers in the J.D. Power and Associates' 2011 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study - Volume 2. that was released recently. Verizon Wireless received a score of 770 in Customer Care, a figure that, according to the announcement, was well above the industry average.

Verizon was not alone in the outbound call center recognition category this week. TMCnet Contributing Editor Carolyn J. Dawson told readers that Alterian,  a leader in customer engagement technology and solutions, has been recognized by Gartner (News - Alert) Inc., one of the leading information technology research and advisory companies, in its second Magic Quadrant for Social CRM. By including social monitoring in its existing array of marketing applications together with campaign management and content management/publishing, Alterian is taking a social marketing approach to social CRM. Clients can, according to the company, leverage social insights to manipulate their Multi-Channel Campaign Management strategies in terms of content and targeting when scheduling campaigns through integration, as well as fine tuning and measurement during or after the execution.

Of course, awards and accolades often are associated with winning in some facet of a competition. For the outbound call center team members at UK’s Payday Express that means being honored as the winning team in what the company heralds as a “friendly clash” where staff from the instant approval payday loans company’s Contact Center was pitted against members of its Collections team, TMCnet’s Madhubanti Rudra reported. She said that the Contact Center team “laughed to the victory stand with a sweeping 12-7 score” and that Jamie Clifton and David Herron were named “men of the match.” According to operations Manager Sarah Carroll, the events like these help to develop a sense of unity and comradeship among the staff members. This in turn enhanced teamwork and help the company better serve its customers.

While winning awards and competitions is inspiring and can provide a competitive edge, perhaps the ultimate affirmation of a company’s  excellence is having its product or service purchased and deployed by another company. That is the case for Newgen Software. Madhubanti Rudra, again reporting for TMCnet, said Dubai Bank, a leading Sharia’a compliant bank in the Middle East, has implemented Newgen’s Omni Output Management System (02MS)  to enhance cross channel communications between the bank and its customers by streamlining and standardizing the entire process of statement creation and publishing of variable data for distribution. As a complete Output Management System, the Newgen solution has been designed to generate electronic statements at par with their physical equivalent.  Rudra quoted Diwakar Nigam, managing director of Newgen Software as saying, “With this implementation, Newgen has further consolidated its position in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) banking space.”

Finally this week, already the recipient of scores of prestigious awards including one from Frost & Sullivan as well as having a strong foothold in the marketplace as a leading provider of customer contact and Microsoft (News - Alert) platform solutions, Aspect has announced the closing of its acquisition of the Corsidian (News - Alert) businesses in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Puerto Rico, according to a report from TMCnet Contributor Anshu Shrivastava.  Her report states that Jim Foy, president and chief executive officer at Aspect, commented, “Through a combination of Aspect’s expanded footprint from the Corsidian acquisition, our strong LATAM channel partner presence, and increasing traction of Aspect solutions for customer contact, the company is well poised for substantial growth in this burgeoning market.”  In addition, company officials said that the acquisition enables greater responsiveness to customers in this growing market segment.

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