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Outbound Call CenterTMCnet Online CommunityOutbound Call Center Article ArchiveKessler Foundation Awards Grant to NTI for Americans with Disabilities to Work from HomeNTI is a nonprofit organization that provides job opportunities for Americans with disabilities that require home-based work. This is for Americans with disabilities that live anywhere in the U.S. in work-at-home jobs such as customer service agent jobs in virtual contact centers. It will use the grant in a two-year pilot program. 2/15/2012 FCC to Get Tough on Automated Outbound 'Robo-Calls' While many companies have had success with automated outbound calling - so-called "robo-calls," many others would appear to be doing little but annoying their customers and prospective customers. Used properly, automated outbound calling can remind customers of appointments, distribute important information and enable consumers to accomplish simple self-service transactions. 2/15/2012 Behavioral Analytics Help Drive Improved Predictive Routing in the Call Center Experienced and successful call center organizations know that a good call center - one that is a net benefit to the organization is serves - starts with routing. When the right calls reach the right department or agent at the right time, it's an excellent first step in providing an exceptional customer experience. To that end, many companies have chosen to use the technology called predictive routing to make sure calls arrive in the right place. To boost the effectiveness of predictive routing, some companies have begun associating behavioral analytics with call routing. 2/15/2012 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week in Review This week, there was an abundance of news in the Outbound Call Center space. Fishbowl Enterprise, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution company for SMBs recently announced the launch of Pipeline Contact Manager, a Web-based CRM product that will enable small business to integrate its Fishbowl Inventory software with the new CRM tool. 2/11/2012 Fishbowl Launches Web-Based Pipeline Contact Manager Fishbowl Enterprise is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for SMBs. The company recently announced the launch of Pipeline Contact Manager, a web-based CRM product that will enable small business to integrate its Fishbowl Inventory software with the new CRM tool. 2/10/2012 Arketi Supports Knowlagent's Public Relations Efforts High-tech business-to-business PR and digital marketing firm Arketi Group will support Knowlagent's public relations, digital and traditional marketing efforts. 2/10/2012 DOW Networks Ready to Meet Demands of Next Generation VoIP Call Center Telecom Company DOW Networks is expanding its services to support growing demand of its contact center clients around the world. The company will soon be designing and building a new data center to provide increased disaster recovery and redundancy for its call center services and international toll free numbers clients. 2/9/2012 Secure Trust Bank to Use Callcredit for Acquisition and Verification Support Secure Trust Bank has chosen Callcredit Information Group to give them customized client acquisition and verification services to aid its growth. The bank has decided to utilize the services of Callcredit's Bristol-based contact center to handle an outbound telesales campaign meant for potential customers. The FSA-accredited contact center will have the responsibility of achieving sales in a fixed timescale. 2/8/2012 Northbound's ALTA Suite - A Perfect Blueprint for Topline Revenue? Northbound DGS, an agency that aims to power the revenue engines of B2B enterprises, has launched the new ALTA suite of integrated revenue generation solutions. 2/8/2012 Global Connect Launches Even More New Features for Their Signature GC1 Peak Dialer Global Connect has long been working to establish itself as one of the best cloud-based hosted dialing and communications companies in the world. The company's flag bearer of a program is the GC1 Peak Dialer. This particular program has been undergoing some definite tweaks in order to better serve its customers over the last few days. Just days after releasing an extensive list of new features for the GC1 Peak dialer, Global Connect has further tweaked its standard bearer. 2/6/2012 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week in Review We've seen so much exciting news from all industries coming out of ITEXPO East this week, but now it's time to settle down and recap what happened in the outbound call center space. 2/4/2012 'Granny Call Center' Reminds Canadians to Turn Down the Thermostat and 'Put on a Sweater' "Be a dear and put a sweater on." That's the message of grandmas everywhere, but the Canadian arm of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Loblaw, a large food retailer, hope to turn it into a national holiday and an annual effort to lower thermostat temps for at least one day. Or, as their publicity for the day says, "turn on a sweater." 2/3/2012 4G Device Owners More Likely to Contact Customer Service than Traditional Phone Users While 4G technologies are hailed for their ability to deliver an efficient network and awesome 100 Mbit/s speed, customers who use 4G-enabled devices are reported to face more network/device related issues than those using less advanced technologies like 2G and 3G. 2/3/2012 Mobile E-Commerce Sites Show Major Holiday Spike in U.S. and Western Europe The mobile shopping audience in the United States increased 42 percent over the holidays. In Western Europe, mobile shopping increased 36 percent in Spain, 35 percent in the U.K. and 34 percent in France during the same time period. 2/3/2012 Desk.com: Making Customer Service Suck Less Salesforce.com has launched a new product called Desk.com which will guarantee better customer service for its clients. 2/3/2012 To Make E-Mail Marketing Work, Know What Customers Want At first read, these desires sound almost like the perks of a good marriage. According to Gray, customers are taking more control over their relationships with marketers and are forcing marketers to engage them in ways that work. And what works for Cupid, it seems, may work for marketers as well. 2/2/2012 Banks Can Prevent Customer Churn by Personalizing Interactions with SMS and Analytics Business analytics company SAS, together with Professor Hugh Wilson of the Cranfield School of Management, recently completed a customer insight report that examined the issue from the perspective of banks, who today have more marketing communications channels open to customers than ever before, but are still, in many cases, failing to step customer churn and failing to capitalize on the large amount of data that they hold, according to bobsguide.com, a London-based financial IT solutions Web site. As it's pretty easy for consumers to change banks - one of the hallmarks of an industry prone to customer churn - banks need to find a better way. 2/2/2012 Indosoft Unveils Web Portal for Q-Suite Q-Suite is the company's flagship contact center ACD and Dialer software which is available for private label technology solutions. Indosoft licenses its ACD for Asterisk with .NET and Socket library to organizations using Asterisk in their product line. 2/1/2012 C3 Opened Thousands of Call Center Jobs in US Last Year C3/CustomerContactChannels has announced that the company added 2,000 new jobs to the US economy last year. 1/31/2012 Visionary Software Releases CRM Rules! - the JavaScript Generator Visionary Software Consulting has just released an easy to use tool - CRM Rules! that allows consistent, quick, efficient, and bug-free JScript code across all CRM forms in an organization, satisfying the bottom line of programming - good, fast and cheap. 1/31/2012 Zwarenstein Named CFO of Five9 Five9, a company that provides cloud-based call center software, has appointed Barry Zwarenstein as its Chief Financial Officer. Zwarenstein previously served as CFO for multiple companies including, most recently, Smart Modular Technologies. 1/31/2012 CBM Services Improves Estimating and Job Costing with Soffront's Integrated CRM Solution Soffront Software Inc. recently announced that its integrated CRM solution has been selected by CBM Services, a provider of commercial flooring restoration and maintenance, for helping it improve its estimating and job costing processes. 1/31/2012 Patent for Immediate Response Technology Issued to InsideSales.com A patent for immediate response technology has been issued by the United States Patent Office to InsideSales.com. Patent number US 8,078,605 B2 has been awarded to InsideSales.com for the groundbreaking research in lead response optimization conducted by Dr. James Oldroyd and Dave Elkington. 1/31/2012 Collaboration with Touchstone CRM Announced by CWR Mobility Advanced mobile CRM solutions based on CWR Mobility's award-winning software will be now offered to Touchstone CRM's customers. Touchstone CRM will now be a Registered Partner of the CWR Mobility Partner Program as part of the collaboration announced by the two companies. 1/31/2012 Salesforce.com and Dun & Bradstreet Form Alliance to Deliver B2B information Many businesses struggle with poor information management. If they do not get the right information from the right source in a timely fashion, they may end up with a loss of clients and sales. Accurate, to-the- point business information could help a particular company to analyze market size, develop a brand strategy and visualize a competitor's performance. B2B information plays a critical role in the operational and strategic decision-making of the company. 1/31/2012 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week in Review Looking back at outbound call center news this past week, TMC reported that Patron Technology, a company offering customer relationship management (CRM), ticketing and e-mail marketing technology, announced that 2011 was a successful year for the company, with more than 250 clients for PatronManager CRM, the all-in-one cloud-based system that integrates box-office functionality, fundraising, e-mail marketing and staff collaboration. 1/28/2012 Microsoft Releases Case Study for First Tech Direct's Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Implementation First Tech Direct, a provider of Microsoft Dynamics business solutions, announced the release of a case study on its recent Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online implementation for Saab North America, a Scandinavian car manufacturer. 1/27/2012 IDE for Oracle's CRM Desktop Released by InvisibleCRM InvisibleCRM recently announced the release of InvisibleStudio toolset for Oracle's CRM Desktop support. Products based on the InvisibleCRM's OutlookBridge platform can be now customized by business analysts and developers with InvisibleStudio, which is an Integrated Development Environment. 1/27/2012 Patron Technology Expands with More Than 250 PatronManager CRM Clients Patron Technology, a company offering customer relationship management (CRM), ticketing and e-mail marketing technology, has announced that 2011 was a successful year for the company with more than 250 clients for PatronManager CRM, the all-in-one cloud-based system that integrates box-office functionality, fundraising, e-mail marketing and staff collaboration. 1/27/2012 IMS Health Acquires an India-Based Company PharmARC, an India-based company specializing in commercial analytics and services for the life sciences industry, has been acquired IMS Health. 1/24/2012 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week in Review Never a dull moment with outbound call centers, as this past week TMC reported that recently, WhitePages unveiled the 10 most aggressive Call Spammers of 2011. Call spam is defined as unsolicited calls or texts to mobile phones from telemarketers, debt collectors and scammers and the list was compiled after an analysis of over 45 million unsolicited calls or texts to its Caller ID customers. 1/21/2012 CR Software Implements Titanium for Processing Orange County Superior Court Collections The Orange County Superior Court (OCSC) which serves one of the largest counties in the United States has started using Titanium Open Receivables Management (ORE) for processing their accounts. The Titanium software was successfully implemented by CR Software, the world's leading collections and receivables management software supplier. After reviewing several software platforms to simplify their collection process, OCSC selected Titanium as their primary collections system. 1/20/2012 Intelliverse Rolls Out Cloud Communications for Contact Centers A cloud-based platform allows contact center agents to operate in any office in any part of the world and reduces capital expenditures as well as IT and maintenance costs. 1/20/2012 Epicor Retail SaaS Solution Selected To Be Part of Love Culture's Expansion Plans Epicor Software Corporation is an international organizations dealing in business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution as well as retail and services organizations. The company recently announced that Love Culture had selected Epicor Retail Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. 1/20/2012 Enghouse Intros New CallRex Workforce Management Software Enghouse Interactive, a company offering CallRex suite of IP call recording and contact center optimization solutions, has introduced the latest CallRex Workforce Management solution, which is aimed to meet the needs of small- to medium-sized businesses. 1/20/2012 Anne Bowman Joins Voxeo as Chief Customer Officer Voxeo, a communications provider, has just appointed Anne Bowman to the newly created position of chief customer officer, where she will report directly to Jonathan Taylor, CEO of Voxeo. 1/19/2012 WhitePages Publishes List of 10 Most Aggressive 'Call Spammers' of 2011 Recently, WhitePages unveiled the 10 most aggressive Call Spammers of 2011. Call spam is defined as unsolicited calls or texts to mobile phones from telemarketers, debt collectors and scammers and the list was compiled after an analysis of over 45 million unsolicited calls or texts to its Caller ID customers. 1/16/2012 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week in Review Taking a look at TMCs recent coverage of the outbound call center space, Anil Sharma reported that Frost & Sullivan recognized ALI Solutions for its integrated outbound contact center tool. 1/14/2012 Five9 Answers Common Questions About Hosted Contact Center Technology Five9, a popular vendor of hosted call center tools and products, recently presented a good overview of the company's technology using a Q&A format to reflect some of the most common questions companies have when considering a switch to such technology: 1/13/2012 Frost & Sullivan Recognizes ALI Solutions for Integrated Outbound Contact Center Solution Frost & Sullivan has recognized ALI Solutions for its integrated outbound contact center solution. 1/11/2012 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week in Review Looking at the first week of outbound call center news for 2012, TMC's Ed Silverstein reported that while Mitt Romney may have narrowly won the Iowa caucus for the Republican race for president, he and his fellow candidates sure have annoyed some local residents given all of the robo-calls they received in recent weeks. 1/7/2012 CRIF Gets Credit Rating Agency Registration CRIF, a provider of credit management and lending solutions, announced it has obtained Credit Rating Agency (CRA) registration from CONSOB and ESMA (the European Authority supervising securities and markets). 1/5/2012 Star2Billing Offers Open Source Voice Broadcasting Platform While most companies understand the value of quality inbound customer service - a customer or client calling in for information, queries and guidance, many customer-facing organizations often treat outbound customer contact as an afterthought. One outbound technology - voice broadcasting - has proved to be an effective tool in today's multimedia world. 1/5/2012 Iowa Residents Are Downright Angry with Flood of Robo-Calls Flowing from GOP Presidential Campaigns Mitt Romney may have narrowly won the Iowa caucus for the Republican race for president, but he and his fellow candidates sure have annoyed some local residents given all of the robo-calls they received in recent weeks. 1/4/2012 PowerNet's Call Center Solutions Includes Inbound SIP DIDs Inbound SIP DIDs have been added by PowerNet Global to their call center solutions suite. The company's outbound calling solution, NetDialer, will be complemented by Inbound SIP DIDs. 12/30/2011 Call Genie Inks Agreement to Acquire Assets of VoodooVox Call Genie Inc. has entered into a Definitive Agreement to acquire the assets of VoodooVox, Inc., a US-based data analytics and mobile advertising network. 12/29/2011 Growth in Call Center on Demand Forces Five9 to Expand The call center on demand space is experiencing a rise in demand - literally. According to a Mercury News report, call center on demand provider, Five9, is set to nearly double its size in the East Bay and will move hundreds of workers to San Ramon's Bishop Ranch business park. 12/28/2011 Quammen Health Care Consultants Signs Outsourcing Agreement with Faith Regional Health Services Quammen Health Care Consultants, a healthcare information system and business consultancy, announced its a five-year outsourcing agreement with Faith Regional Health Services, the 227-bed Norfolk, Neb.-based regional referral center. The managed IT services deal will assist Quammen in governing all aspects of information technology, from strategic vision to vendor relations to day-to-day operations at Faith Regional Health Services that wants to transform the services. 12/19/2011 Phone.com's Virtual Office 300 Exceeds Quality Service Expectations Quality customer service is one of the most important tasks for any small business, but it can also be one of the most challenging topics when it comes to training employees. A new review of virtual office provider, Phone.com's Call Recording and Group Text Messaging features explore automated messages management can set and send to ensure all communications with customers meets with high quality standards. 12/16/2011 Topguest Joins MileagePlus Loyalty Program Topguest has joined United Continental Holdings' award winning MileagePlus loyalty program. 12/16/2011 New Global Channel Partner Program from Voxeo Positions Its Partner to Capitalize on $7.6 Billion Contact Center Technology Market Voxeo, a provider of solutions for unlocking communications, has announced the Voxeo Connect, its new global channel partner program, which will enable its partners to capitalize on the rapidly expanding market for contact center technologies. The company's reseller and system integrator partners will be able to take expand into the contact center technology market which is slated to cross $7.6 billion in 2012. 12/16/2011 Merkle Grabs Silver Award at NCDM Database Excellence Awards Ceremony Merkle, a customer relationship marketing firm that designs, executes and evaluates Integrated Customer Marketing programs for its clients, has announced that it has been honored with the Silver award at the 2011 NCDM Database Excellence Awards Luncheon & Ceremony, within the business-to-business marketing category. The company was selected for this award on the basis of the excellent level of services it offered to Schneider Electric, a well known company working in the energy management sector. 12/16/2011 Intelligent Office Brings Next-Gen Virtual Offices to Miami Intelligent Office has brought the next generation of virtual offices to Miami. 12/16/2011 Five9 Supports the Call Center on Demand with Workforce Management Solution With a clear focus on delivering the best service for your customer base, the call center on demand is an important option to consider. Powerful providers in this space offer a full range of solutions designed to meet the dynamic needs of the industry, while also focusing on flexibility to meet new demands on the fly. 12/15/2011 Contact Center Software Provider eGain Unveils eGain 10 for Cisco Unified Contact Center Express 8.5 eGain, a provider of cloud and on-site customer interaction and contact center software, announced the general availability of eGain 10 for Cisco Unified Contact Center Express (Unified CCX) 8.5. 12/15/2011 Turkcell Technology Providing Campaign Management Solution to Kuwait's Premier Telecommunication Provider, Zain Zain, a leading telecommunications operator across the Middle East, reportedly has selected Turkcell Technology's Campaign Management System. 12/14/2011 expressor software Partners with Melissa Data Corp expressor software, a leading provider of simplified data integration software, recently signed a partnership agreement with Melissa Data Corp, a leading provider of contact data quality and address management solutions. 12/14/2011 ServiceSource Channel Sales Cloud Helps More Than 19,000 Channel Partner Subscribers ServiceSource has announced that the company's Channel Sales Cloud application has been deployed on behalf of over 30 percent of ServiceSource customers to over 19,000 channel subscribers. 12/13/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review It's that time again: time for another wrap-up of the week's happenings in outbound call center technologies and services. 12/10/2011 High-Speed Internet Service from Frontier in Northwest Indiana High-Speed Internet from Frontier Communications is now accessible by consumers and businesses in newly launched markets in northwest Indiana. Apart from email and quick download of movies, consumers and businesses will be able to share photos or video with friends and family with this high-speed Internet. They will also be able to create their own Internet content. 12/9/2011 MobileBits and Pringo, Inc Complete Merger MobileBits Holdings Corp is a global technology company that delivers quick and easy mobile content. The company recently announced that it has completed its merger with Pringo, Inc. With this merger, MobileBits has now expanded its core capabilities and will now feature a single, end-to-end digital platform to expand its mobile and web solutions. 12/9/2011 Black Duck Launches Export 6.0 Black Duck Software, a leader in open source software knowledge, adoption and governance, recently released Export 6.0, an expansion to the Black Duck Suite enables the enterprise-scale use and management of open source software in software development. 12/9/2011 Public Mobile Deploys PacketLogic Solution from Procera Networks Procera Networks, Inc., a provider of Intelligent Policy Enforcement (IPE) solutions for improving performance of networks, announced that Public Mobile, a provider of unlimited wireless services for customers in Ontario and Quebec, has deployed its PacketLogic solution to help it keep down prices and improve its customer offerings. 12/9/2011 White Drive Products Selects CDS SaaS Configurator and CAD Downloads Looking to present and aid online configuration of products and CAD model downloads, Catalog Data Solutions (CDS) White Drive Products have implemented CDS Configurator and CDS ModelServer. 12/9/2011 2011 Contact Centre Technology Research Report Recognizes Strong Positioning of Presence Technology Dialler As per the information available in the 2011 Contact Centre Technology Research Report that was released by BPeSA and Contact Industry Hub, Presence Technology Dialler is one of the leading technologies in its category especially in the South African contact center market. The maximum number of call centers that were part of this survey showed that the Presence Dialler along with Presence Voice Outbound was being made use of to conduct outbound campaigns. This was by going over the other providers and available in-house solutions. 12/9/2011 Trisys Releases Tapit NOVA Trisys Corp. has said that it is giving businesses more control over their telephone expenses with the release of Tapit NOVA. 12/8/2011 Now Available: A Business Guide Book to Monetize Investments The festive season always ushers in an air of expectation and holiday shoppers are constantly on the lookout for deals that help them "Get more for less." In keeping with this spirit, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff has launched an e-book, "LIKE MY STUFF," that promises to be of interest to business owners. 12/8/2011 SuccessFactors Acquires Jobs2web To seek new markets and opportunities to expand business, Success Factors, a company specializing in business execution cloud-based software, has completed a definitive agreement to acquire Jobs2web, a recruiting marketing platform, delivering the first-ever Recruiting Execution Platform. 12/8/2011 Cellit Introduces Results of Year Long Study of QSR Mobile Marketing Programs Cellit, a provider of mobile customer relationship management solutions that enable retailers, restaurants and enterprises to enhance their customer engagement through mobile based technologies, has announced the results of its yearlong study of around 9,000 mobile marketing campaigns that were conducted on behalf of 125 Quick Service Restaurant clients throughout the year 2011. 12/8/2011 Network Services Selects Esker Document Process Automation Solutions Esker, a company specializing in document process automation solutions, announced that it has been picked by Network Services to automate outbound mailing and faxing of purchase orders, invoices and accounts receivable statements. 12/8/2011 Aspect Updates Unified IP CRM Connector to Include Latest Oracle Siebel and SAP CRM Aspect, a provider of customer contact and Microsoft platform solutions, announced updated validations of AMC Technology's Aspect Unified IP 7 CRM Connector to include the latest releases of Oracle Siebel and SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM). 12/8/2011 Proposed Legislation Would Discourage Call Center Offshoring If a bill introduced yesterday by U.S. Reps. Tim Bishop (D, NY-1) and Dave McKinley (R, WV-1) is passed, domestic companies that locate their call centers overseas would lose the ability to get federal grants and loans, would be kept on list at the U.S. Department of Labor, and would have to be able transfer callers to onshore call center representatives upon customer request. 12/8/2011 Adfortel Unveils VoiceAds Offering real time targeting and more reach, Adfortel introduces a new feature to its Mobile Marketing service: VoiceAds. 12/7/2011 Azorus's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solution to Be Deployed by the University of Westminster Azorus Inc., a provider of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions for higher education institutions, has announced that the University of Westminster has selected its CRM solution to help in the creation of improved processes for attracting and retaining its future student population. 12/6/2011 PDX and mscripts Expand Mobile Capabilities Allowing existing PDX Classic and Enterprise Pharmacy System (EPS) customers to easily add mobile to their customer-facing offerings, PDX has entered into a partnership with mscripts. 12/6/2011 Jabil Acquires Telmar Network Technology Jabil Circuit, Inc, an electronic product solutions company, has recently completed its acquisition of Telmar Network Technology, Inc., a global provider of complex reverse logistics, repair services, technical support, and spare parts management solutions for communication network service providers, enterprise and original equipment manufacturers worldwide. 12/6/2011 ContactPoint Launches Public Beta Version of LogMyCalls.Com ContactPoint LLC has recently introduced a public beta version of LogMyCalls.com for companies seeking optimized performance management in their sales and marketing efforts. 12/5/2011 Resource Blog Site Launched by Sound Telecom A resource blog site has been created by Sound Telecom. A multi-dimensional forum has been created by pooling in the expertise of the company's management staff. The forum will not only make favorable branding impressions but also teach the art of professionally handling inbound and outbound phone traffic. With its experience of twenty five years, the company also makes suggestions to avoid pitfalls commonly encountered with incoming and outgoing company telephone traffic. 12/5/2011 Sytel Urges UK Companies to End Bad Outbound Dialing Practices Calling the UK companies involved in telemarketing and outbound dialing to stop breaking the law or face an increasing consumer backlash, Sytel Limited has issued a challenge to these companies. 11/28/2011 Juniper Publishes its Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability Report Juniper Networks announced the publication of its Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability Report. 11/22/2011 Kenexa Leverages LinkedIn to Help Candidates and Hiring Companies Save Time and Money Kenexa is a leading global provider of business solutions for human resources. The company recently announced details of its partnership with LinkedIn. The company's integrations with LinkedIn will now assist candidates throughout the job application process and will also help recruiters speed up their work and be more productive in processing these candidates. Future product releases from Kenexa, will see the incorporation of these new tools. 11/22/2011 OneCommand Arranges for Santa to Call Kids on Behalf of Cincinnati Bell for the Sixth Time To make the job of Santa, who has to cater to the needs of such huge number of kids, a bit easier using advanced technologies, OneCommand, a provider of integrated and automated, personalized communications solutions, has partnered with Cincinnati Bell. Under the partnership, OneCommand will provide Cincinanati Bell with an enhanced technology that will help the company in bringing Santa's message of holiday joy to thousands of children in the tri-state area. For the sixth year in a row, both these companies are coming together to hold this year's program, which will remain open between November 21, 2011 and December 24, 2011. 11/21/2011 Sabio Opens Singapore Service Hub to Support its Asia Pacific Operations In an effort to strengthen its presence in the key markets of Asia Pacific, Sabio, the specialist contact center and unified communications systems integrator, has recently launched a new service hub in Singapore. 11/18/2011 DoctorSites Offers Online Marketing Solutions for Doctors DoctorSites has announced a partnership with Medical Billers and Coders. 11/15/2011 Infofree Updates its Business Database In order to improve efficiency, quality and customer satisfaction, and to exceed sales, infofree, a provider of Unlimited Sales Leads, Mailing Lists, Business Credit Reports and Email Lists for $39.95 per month, has updated their business database to include a variety of options which allow customers to segment and refine their list, altering it to their specific needs. 11/14/2011 Infofree Updates its Business Database In order to improve efficiency, quality and customer satisfaction, and to exceed sales, infofree, a provider of Unlimited Sales Leads, Mailing Lists, Business Credit Reports and Email Lists for $39.95 per month, has updated their business database to include a variety of options which allow customers to segment and refine their list, altering it to their specific needs. 11/14/2011 UAE Airline Opens All-Woman Call Center While the outside world may think of the gleaming cities in the United Arab Emirates as distinctly modern - with all that adjective brings with it, including gender equality - it's still unusual to find Emirati women working outside the home. The reason is that patriarchal ideas that women should not mix with men they are neither married nor related to persist, leading to low employment in places like Dubai or Abu Dhabi...even college educated women. 11/14/2011 Increasing Number of Clients Conduct Searches for Affordable Marketing Solutions, Reports Internet Marketing Company Internet Marketing Company, provider of effective and cost-effective SEO services, has announced that an increasing number of clients are keying in the keyword "Internet Search Engine Marketing," which indicates a surge in the number of people keen on taking advantage of affordable marketing solutions to increase their website traffic and business revenue. 11/14/2011 Pinsonault Associates Launches New Deployment for Their Managed Care E-learning Training Modules Pinsonault Associates is all set to provide a new way of deploying their Managed Care e-learning training modules. All a sales rep needs to do now is begin his training with an iPad. This can be done before the commencement of a sales call. With the help of a smartphone he can then create an executive summary for reference when he gets to a medical practitioner's office and finally complete his training on his personal computer at home. 11/14/2011 Inova Solutions Introduces Incentive Program To help the enterprise users track, analyze, record and manage calls, Inova Solutions has formally introduced its customer incentive program. 11/14/2011 Dealership Call Center Debuts Online Reputation Pro, a Management Suite of Tools Managing customer expectations and tracking experiences is essential to fostering long-term brand relationships, especially for large purchases like automobiles and homes. The power of the socially connected customer cannot be ignored, as more product research takes place outside the showroom than on the inside especially concerning automobiles. 11/11/2011 VADS Berhad Implements Ameyo for Call Center Operations Ameyo is being used by VADS Berhad as the technology for its contact center processes. Apart from creating new business, the outbound call center was established as a parallel revenue-generation unit. VADS has been able to implement a structured customer contact strategy with the award-winning call center software, Ameyo. Efficiency to the agent's call-handling capabilities is provided by Ameyo's easy-to-user interfaces. Real-time performance monitoring and voice logging have also been enabled by Ameyo. VADS Berhad is a subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia. 11/11/2011 QCSS' Job Creation Efforts Recognized by FCC The Chicago-based call center and telemarketing firm, QCSS Inc. is one of the companies focused on creating more jobs for Americans through their participation in the jobs4america Coalition. The firm has recently been recognized by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for its job creating efforts. 11/9/2011 Olympus Uses Sales-i Sales to Boost Sales To improve sales effectiveness, productivity, and cycle times, Olympus Imported Auto Parts, has chosen the sales-i sales and customer intelligence system to increase sales visibility. 11/8/2011 Future Simple's Base - The Free CRM and Sales Tracking Application To help small businesses to manage their sales and customer relationships while keeping their cost low, Future Simple is releasing a powerful free version of their highly acclaimed Simple CRM and Sales Tracking application: Base. 11/8/2011 Infor Announces Acquisition of New Product Lines from Single Source Systems Infor, a provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, has acquired new product lines from Single Source Systems, Inc., an Infor solution partner and leader in service management solutions. 11/8/2011 Whaleback Announces Launch of CrystalBlue Contact Center Solution for SMEs Whaleback Systems is one of the leading providers of managed business services. They recently announced their CrystalBlue Contact Center Solution for small-to-medium enterprises (SME). This cloud-based solution has been designed especially for SMEs to help them manage and operate an independent contact center. 11/8/2011 Lawmakers Consider Telemarketing Bill, Robo-Calling to Mobile Phones Federal lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow companies to make robo-calls to cell phones, generating debate over mobile devices, consumer rights and business concerns. 11/7/2011 Report on EMEA Contact Center Market Released The sales of agent performance optimization or APO tools in the contact center market have been exerted a significant restraining effect. This is due to the recent economic downturn in Europe, Middle East and Africa or EMEA. Quality monitoring or QM, call recording and workforce management or WFM software have experienced a decrease in sales. With projections for future growth, the market is now slowly recovering. 11/7/2011 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week in Review Covering the outbound call center space this week, TMC's Madubanti Rudra wrote that Message Pad, the outsourced contact center services division of The Message Pad Ltd, recently announced a re-branding initiative. 11/5/2011 Glance Helps Reed Construction Data Reduce Sales Cycles Glance Networks, a provider of the best instant screen-sharing tool for sales and support professionals, has helped customer Reed Construction Data reduce sales cycles and time-to-revenue by 60 percent. Glance has done a case study and the results were revealed in the same. 11/4/2011 iBuildApp Launches Mobile Coupons iBuildApp has announced the launch of Mobile Coupons enabling businesses to tap the mobile marketing trend by offering mobile coupons to their customers. 11/4/2011 Availity Educates Health Care Business People Availity will provide continuing education to health care business people through its newly released professional development product. 11/3/2011 Message Pad Receives New Brand Identity, Mplcontact Message Pad, the outsourced contact center services division of The Message Pad Ltd, recently announced a re-branding initiative. The Message Pad Ltd was founded in 1994 as a telephone answering service and over the years, the company has acquired expertise in the field of contact center services and solutions. Message Pad Limited delivered its outsourced contact centre services through its Message Pad division. In an effort to carve out a new identity as a different type of contact solutions provider, Message Pad is rebranding as mplcontact 11/1/2011 Rogue Debt Collection Companies Get Clamped Down On by FTC Debt collection companies that persist in putting a black mark on their entire industry have drawn the attention of an entity far more powerful than the consumers upon whom they have preyed-the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). 11/1/2011 U.S. Airways to Bring 400 Contact Center Jobs Back to the U.S. In case you needed a little good news today (and who doesn't?), here's a story of some jobs coming back to U.S. shores rather than heading offshore for parts unknown. 11/1/2011 KXEN's InfiniteInsight Improves Marketing Campaign Take-Up Rate for PT XL Axiata KXEN, provider of predictive analytics for enterprise customers, announced that its InfiniteInsight solution offering has effectively doubled marketing-campaign take-up rate for PT XL Axiata Tbk, an Indonesian based telecommunications services operator, which currently serves more than 40 million subscribers. XL delivers customers with a suite of services which include data communication and broadband Internet services, mobile communication as well as 3G services via GSM 900/DCS 1800, and IMT-2000/3G networks. 10/31/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review Outbound call center is a hopping place to be, here are some of the headlines from the week: 10/29/2011 IBM Business Analytics Improves Customer Retention at XO Communications IBM announced that XO Communications, a provider of advanced broadband communications services and solutions, has leveraged IBM Business Analytics software to reduce customer churn rates. 10/28/2011 EXTENSION Enables Cisco Healthcare Customers to Take Advantage of Its Clinical Alerting Solutions EXTENSION, a provider of solutions for facilitating instant communication between patients and clinicians, announced that all Cisco healthcare customers can take advantage of its clinical alerting solutions which have been integrated into Cisco's UC platform. 10/28/2011 Sword Ciboodle Announces New SAS Powered Intelligent Contact Center Sword Ciboodle, provider of customer engagement solutions for a global clientele, has announced a new Intelligent Contact Center that is powered by SAS, provider of business analytics software and services. The Intelligent Contact Center has been designed with the robust customer engagement capabilities available from Sword Ciboodle. The Contact Center utilizes customer data in an efficient manner which makes it possible for the company's clients to enhance their customer experience offering while simultaneously taking advantage of new avenues for revenue. 10/28/2011 Presence Technology's Contact Centre Suite Version 9.0 Released Version 9.0 of its contact centre suite has been launched by Presence Technology. With a primary focus on high availability, significant improvements have been included in this version. Redundancy, scalability and optimization of the number of licenses available to each customer have also been the focus of the new version. 10/28/2011 On Center Software Customer Service Now Available 24 Hours On Center Software, a construction industry software provider, has just enhanced its customer service platform to run 24 hours every business day. 10/28/2011 Customer Service Fix May be Too Late for Vodafone Customers will no longer tolerate poor products and poor service. Companies are learning the hard way that when customers don't get what they want, they complain loudly and/or take their business elsewhere. 10/27/2011 New York City's New 911 Contact Center is Mired in Delay and Overspending New York City's planned cutting-edge 911 emergency contact center appears to be drowning...in red tape, bloat, inefficiency and frustration, and not even a phone call to NASA for assistance has been able to help. 10/27/2011 English-Only Mandate for Australian Telco Sales Staff Call center agents whose accents reveal that English is not the first language they learned to speak can be a detriment to some businesses if those accents are so strong that customers are unclear about what they are purchasing from the business or need customer service and are less-than-happy with the experience. 10/26/2011 Call Center Workforce Management Provider InVision Software to Present at German Conference Going to be in Germany the first week in November? If so, be sure to check out InVision Software, a provider of cloud-based workforce management (WFM) solutions who will be presenting at a German industry event called "Erfolgreiches Callcenter," all about how call centers can better optimize workforce management with assistance from the injixo WFM solution. 10/25/2011 Quality of Management: Companiesandmarkets.com Analyzes North American Hosted Contact Center Markets Companiesandmarkets.com announced the release of its new study on the state of the North American hosted contact center market. The study focused on markets like hosted IVR, hosted ACD, hosted chat, hosted outbound customer contact, and hosted agent performance optimization (APO) applications. According to the Companiesandmarkets.com, the North American hosted contact center market has evolved for the most part over the last decade from stand-alone contact center systems/applications, delivered as hosted services. 10/25/2011 Convergys Opens Bilingual Call Center, Demonstrates Commitment to Quality of Management One company that certainly believes in quality of management is Convergys Corporation, as the business process outsourcing company recently unveiled its headquarters and contact center in Bogota - a call center in which all call center employees are 100 percent bilingual. 10/24/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review Lots happening in the outbound call center space this past week, let's get you caught up. 10/22/2011 Bacula Systems Enhances its Backup and Restore Solution Bacula Systems has added fast and complete disaster recovery capability to its Bacula Enterprise Edition 4.0. 10/21/2011 Auto Parts Retirees Benefit from Auto VEBA Trust Subsidized healthcare benefits will now be accessible to thousands of retirees of auto part manufacturers. A Voluntary Employee Benefit Association or VEBA known as the Auto Retiree VEBA Trust will be created as per direction received from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. 10/21/2011 Enrollment Rx Secures New Clients Enrollment Rx has announced that t he company has added various new higher education institutions to its customer list. 10/21/2011 IVR Training Course Offer Call Centers a Path to Success Interactive voice response systems are ubiquitous in the call center space. Even if you're only using one to greet customer or help direct their calls, IVRs save you time and money while simultaneously increasing the information that your agents have at their disposal. Well, they would in a perfect world at least; let's not forget the other side of the coin: those horror stories you here about disconnected calls, menus that go in circles, or unresponsive commands. 10/21/2011 Office Ally's Rapid Growth Visible in its Future Plans Office Ally, a True Health Information Network offering healthcare providers a full suite of revenue-cycle management services, currently located in Vancouver, Washington, is all set to acquire a new address. In addition to relocating its corporate office to San Antonio, Texas, it also plans to open a new state-of-the-Art customer call center and training facility. 10/20/2011 Chatter Box Call Center Forays Into New Markets Chatter Box Call Center is providing specialized services for businesses that want to engage in information technology. 10/20/2011 J.D. Power and Associates Recognizes Aetna for 3rd Straight Year Aetna, one of the nation's leading diversified health care benefits companies, recently announced in a press release that J.D. Power and Associates, a global marketing information services company, has recognized Aetna for providing "An Outstanding Customer Service Experience" through its concierge customer service model. This is the third year in a row that Aetna has been recognized by J.D. Power and Associates. 10/19/2011 Field Agent iPhone App Helps People Earn While They Shop Field Agent Canada announced a new iPhone app which will allow users to earn while they shop. Users are only required to leverage their expertise in certain situations. 10/19/2011 C3 Expands Operations with New Contact Center in Bulgaria C3/CustomerContactChannels (C3), a global provider of customer management solutions, is all set to expand operations with a new contact facility in Sofia, Bulgaria. 10/19/2011 The Debt Collection Industry's Rotten Spots While most debt collectors are legitimate businesses following legal tactics, every bunch of apples has a few bad ones. Unfortunately, the bad apples in the debt collection basket seem to make a lot of calls. Complaints over illegal, abusive and threatening behavior from debt collectors tops the list of consumer complaints to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). (Over 140,000 in 2010 alone!) 10/19/2011 Debt Collectors, Consumer Advocates Look for Common Ground With the economy still tanking, debt collectors are certainly not complaining that they don't have enough work. Indeed, just the opposite is true. What they are complaining about is laws that they feel hinder their ability to perform their work. 10/17/2011 Act-On Software Picks PowerDialer for Salesforce 4.0 Act-On Software, a company specializing in marketing automation and based on ease of rollout, feature set, support standards, industry has recently picked PowerDialer for Salesforce 4.0 to improve its sales results. 10/17/2011 India Losing its Status as Call Center Capital of the World Should screenwriters ever decide to do a remake of the movie "Slumdog Millionaire", they may want to consider moving the setting from India to the Philippines or Malaysia. When that film debuted in the U.S. in 2008, India was known as the most popular area for off-shore outsourcing of U.S. call center work. But that's changing. 10/17/2011 Cloud Based Call Centers Just as Safe as Brick and Mortar Operations When you ask people what their major barrier to virtual software adoption is, many of them will say "control". The psychology of not being able to "see" the product you're paying for cannot be understated. But even when virtual software has been proven as effective as appliance based products, people still maintain some level of reservation leading up to a switch over. This is perfectly illustrated by call center managers who are reticent to use at home agents because they cannot physically monitor them. But even though you can't see you're agents, do you really have to be worry about the information they have access to? 10/17/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review Plenty of news in the outbound call center space this week, let's get you caught up on some of the headlines. 10/15/2011 Atelka Signs Partnership Agreement with SATMAP Atelka, a Canadian corporation created by skilled entrepreneurs from both the IT and the call center space, announced a strategic partnership with SATMAP, a world leader in call center industry technology. 10/14/2011 Alpine Access to Offer Targeted Selling Capabilities to Business Customers Alpine Access, a provider of virtual contact center solutions and services, announced that it is going to offer targeted selling capabilities to a Fortune 100 financial services client's select group of business customers. The company's At-Home Workforce is supposed to increase the client's revenue with personalized selling. 10/13/2011 Yesso BPO Selects Ameyo Yesso BPO, a provider of contact center software and enterprise communications applications, has selected Ameyo Communication Suite for managing critical outbound process. 10/12/2011 Effective Health Systems Launches New Application in BaseLine Platform Effective Health Systems, provider of web-based applications, recently released a new application in the BaseLine Platform as a Service (PaaS) to enhance communication between the technologies of claims organizations and third party partners. With the new BaseLine application, a company can easily increase the effectiveness of the professional staff and deliver effective healthcare services in a timely fashion. 10/12/2011 PlusOne Wants to Hire 100 New Sales Agents in Salt Lake City Call Center Amid growing concerns about further job cuts across industries, there's a ray of hope thanks to the substantial rise in call center hiring in the country over the past few months. 10/11/2011 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week in Review There's always something happening in the field of outbound call center, here's some of the top news for the week: 10/8/2011 StratusLIVE Announces General Availability of 2011 Version of StratusLIVE, creators of the StratusLIVE for Fundraisers, one of the leading Microsoft Dynamics CRM-based Constituent Engagement and Fundraising Suites recently announced its general availability for the 2011 version. CRM/xRM platform from Microsoft: Dynamics CRM 2011 is what is powering up this 2011 version. 10/7/2011 Concerro to Showcase Its ShiftPredict Tool at the ANCC National Magnet Conference Concerro, a healthcare Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company, announced that its new ShiftPredict schedule modeling tool will be demonstrated at the ANCC National Magnet Conference, October 4-6, 2011 at Concerro booth #401 at the Baltimore Convention Center. 10/6/2011 Npower Wins Plaudits for Excellence in Call Center Functioning Npower, which is one of Britain's largest energy suppliers across the United Kingdom, has been recognized as 'best in sector' class for utilities and also for excellent services rendered in the contact center. 10/6/2011 1-800 We Answer Call Center Ranked 1995 on Inc. 500|5000 List 1-800 We Answer Call Center, a call center service provider, announced that Inc. magazine has ranked the company at No. 1995 on its fifth annual Inc. 500|5000, a listing of the nation's fastest growing private companies. 10/5/2011 Call Center in Colorado Growing at Such a Rapid Pace that it Needs to Hire New Employees Fort Collins-based call center Center Partners, have revealed plans to hire a large amount of workers for its Colorado centers. The company, which in charge of handling inbound calls for orders, customer service and help support would like to have the 275 full-time workers hired by December. 10/4/2011 Customer Satisfaction Levels in U.S. Soar, Convergys Customer Scorecard Reveals Have you noticed something about the customer service reps you've encountered lately? Weren't they a bit nicer, a tad more helpful, more knowledgeable, self-confident? If you've made these observations, it's not because your imagination is working overtime. 10/3/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review Outbound call center is one of those industries where there's always something interesting happening, and this past week was no exception. So let's review the top news stories: 10/1/2011 RS Components' Services Recognized with Contact Center Award RS Components, a premier high service distributor of electronics and maintenance products, has been recognized for its service in the contact center industry by receiving the "China Best Customer Contact Centre Industry Promising Star of the Year" award at the "2011 China Best Customer Contact Centre and CRM Awards." "Winning the award is a strong testament of RS Components' commitment to local customers to provide world-class service and support," said Clement Zhang, country manager for RS Components, China. 9/30/2011 TargetX Integrates Facebook and Twitter into its CRM System Social media networks are continuing to visibly alter the ways in which we communicate, listen and promote. TargetX, a student recruiting firm, is making use of this popularity and is integrating Facebook and Twitter into its customer relationship management system. This integration, which is expected to reduce hassle for admissions offices, has been made possible by the enhancements made to TargetX's Student Recruitment Manager (SRM). 9/30/2011 Datamatics Global Services Announces a Center of Excellence at Puducherry Datamatics Global Services (DGSL), provider of Information Technology (IT) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) and Consulting services, has announced that it will be establishing a Center of Excellence center next month at Puducherry. This is the 5th delivery center in the country to be set up by Datamatics Global. The company which is a partner to several Fortune 500 Companies has already successfully established 2 delivery centers in Bangalore and Chennai. The new Center of Excellence at Puducherry, which is being set up for the delivery of the company's Online, Publishing, and Retail Solutions (OPRS), will be designed with a seating capacity of 700 people 9/30/2011 Xactly Announces Its Participation in the Oracle CRM Pavilion at Oracle OpenWorld San Francisco 2011 One among Oracle's independent software vendor partners (ISVs) and system integrators (SIs), Xactly will illustrate to users of Oracle CRM On Demand the various benefits and capabilities of Xactly Incent which can help in enhancing sales. 9/30/2011 MAXIMUS Call Center Certified as Center of Excellence "Certified Center of Excellence" recognition has been awarded to MAXIMUS' Georgia Childcare and Parent Services or CAPS call center. BenchmarkPortal, in collaboration with the Center for Customer-Driven Quality (CCDQ), has conferred this recognition on MAXIMUS. This is MAXIMUS' seventh call center to be certified as a Center of Excellence. An announcement in this regard has been made by the top global provider of government services, MAXIMUS. 9/30/2011 M5 Networks' New Version of Contact Center Offering Launched Provider of business phone systems M5 Networks has launched M5 Callfinity Contact Center, saying that it provides digital call-center functionality for business clients and eliminates the need for an on-premise solution. 9/30/2011 Intuitive Business Intelligence Opens New Office to Serve the Americas Intuitive Business Intelligence, the authors of business intelligence (BI) dashboard solution, Intuitive Dashboards, announced that it opened office in the U.S. 9/30/2011 Attunity Unveils New Data Replication Platform Attunity, a provider of real-time data integration software, announced the launch of Attunity Replicate, data replication software. 9/30/2011 Pinpoint Media to Be Acquired by iSIGN Media Pinpoint Media Group Inc will be acquired by iSIGN Media Solutions Inc. According to an announcement made by iSIGN, the company has signed a purchase and sale agreement for the same. A new contract with Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. is also being finalized by iSIGN. The contract is expected to be finalized within 45 days. 9/29/2011 From ITEXPO WEST 2011: Contact Centers of America ITEXPO is the event where service providers learn how to profitably roll out services their subscribers need. This year's ITEXPO West was a huge success and, on top of bringing together sellers, resellers and manufacturers, TMCnet's Erik Linask had a moment to sit down with Joe Jacoboni, president and CEO of Contact Centers of America, an organization that recognizes the correlation of offshoring and impact on customer dissatisfaction. Formed specifically to bring jobs back to the United States, CCA utilizes next-generation technology platforms to provide innovative services to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. 9/29/2011 3CLogic Report Highlights Top 5 CRM Mistakes That Sales Organizations Commit 3CLogic, one of the leading companies in cloud-based contact centers, has released a report entitled "The Five Most Dangerous CRM Mistakes That Sales Organizations Make." 9/28/2011 Rostrvm Sponsors 6th Annual North West Contact Centre Awards Rostrvm Solutions , which is celebrating 25 years of successful business in the contact center industry, is sponsoring the 6th Annual North West Contact Centre Awards. The purpose of the award is to recognize and acknowledge excellence in a customer-oriented industry. 9/28/2011 Ameritas Ranked Fourth in BenchmarkPortal's Top 100 Contest BenchmarkPortal, well known for its call center certification, hosts the largest call center performance metrics database in the world. It recognized Ameritas Group's contribution to the contact center industry and ranked it fourth in the BenchmarkPortal Top 100 contest. 9/28/2011 IBM Expands Call Center Operations with 175 New Jobs in Delaware IBM Corporation revealed this week that it has added 175 jobs to its call center operations located in Daleville, Delaware in order for call agents to handle incoming calls from multiple clients. IBM initially opened its Daleville call center in 2008, at a former outlet mall along Interstate 69. 9/27/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review This past week, reporting on the outbound call center space, TMC's Tracey Schelmetic wrote that Cincinnati-based outsourced call center services provider Convergys announced its intent to expand its operations in the Philippines. 9/24/2011 8x8 Expands Contact Center Software Offering with Contactual Purchase Contactual may soon be known by a new name. The hosted contact center software provider has been acquired by 8x8 Inc., a provider of innovative cloud communications and computing solutions. 9/23/2011 Convergys Announces Expansion in the Philippines Cincinnati-based outsourced call center services provider Convergys has announced its intent to expand its operations in the Philippines. The company, which has 70,000 employees in 68 facilities worldwide including one in Cebu, Philippines, says it plans to continue and broaden its relationship with that country, said Convergys president and CEO Jeffrey Fox said during a courtesy call with Philippine President Benigno Aquino III. 9/21/2011 TCN's 'Preview Dialing' Functionality Gives Agents More Control The need for an effective automated dialing technique that gives agents control over the call process becomes more imperative in the changing call center scenario. Realizing this, TCN Inc., announced the release of its Preview Dialing functionality that enables agents to prioritize which contacts are to be made. 9/20/2011 OnStar Opens yet Another Call Center in Xiamen OnStar, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors, opened its sixth global call center and the second in the city of Xiamen, an indication of the rapid growth of the telematics market in China. 9/19/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review The outbound call center industry is huge right now, and there was a lot of news this past week. Here are some of the top headlines. 9/17/2011 Portal Claims Changes Call Center Address Look-up Software to Postcode Anywhere By moving its call center address look-up software to Postcode Anywhere, Portal Claims, a Kent-based financial claims company announced that it has effectively managed to cut business costs. The company carried out careful evaluations of the Postcode Anywhere service and found that it was not only easy to switch to, but the service is much faster. 9/16/2011 Global Connect Introduces GC1 Peak Dialer The cloud-based services are becoming popular due to their flexibility, fast deployment time and cost-effective model. Global Connect, a provider of cloud-based hosted dialing and communication services, has launched GC1 Peak Dialer, a hosted cloud-based dialer platform designed to help collections clients reach contacts quickly, easily, and cost effectively. 9/16/2011 Onstream and Council of Real Estate Brokerage Managers Sign MarketPlace365 Services Agreement Onstream Media Corporation, an online service provider of live and on-demand corporate audio and Web communications, virtual event technology, and social media marketing announced that The Council of Real Estate Brokerage Managers (CRB) has signed a MarketPlace365 services agreement to develop a virtual tradeshow and interactive social community for the real estate industry. 9/16/2011 Druva's inSync Cloud offers Enterprise- wide Automated Client Deployment To offer Instant Global Provisioning, Global Administration, Enterprise-Scale Security, Druva, a company in enterprise endpoint backup and retrieval, has made enhancements to inSync Cloud. It is fully-automated enterprise-grade laptop backup solution provides secure, lightning-fast backups to a virtual private cloud powered by Amazon Web Services. 9/16/2011 Triplefin's Innovations Mobile to Provide Pharmaceutical and Consumer Packaged Goods Sectors Vertically Integrated Marketing Support Services Triplefin, provider of integrated business process outsourcing solutions for pharmaceutical and consumer products industries, has announced the introduction of Innovations Mobile, provider of iOS and Android Consulting services and latest addition to Triplefin's family of companies providing vertically integrated marketing support services for pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods businesses. 9/16/2011 Red Box to Provide Call Center Recording at Wales & West Utilities Voice recording solutions company Red Box Recorders has been chosen to provide a call recording system at Wales & West Utilities' main call center in Coedkernew, Newport in Wales. The solution will replace an existing legacy system and integrate seamlessly with the utility's existing Alcatel telephony platform. 9/16/2011 Survey: Customers Value Personal and Societal Benefits of Smart Grid Technologies Market Strategies International, a market research consultancy with expertise in the energy industry, recently released a survey which showed that personal and societal benefits of smart grid technologies are equally important to customers' consideration, support and acceptance. 9/16/2011 Donegal Focuses on Increasing Inbound Call Capacity, Improving Customer Service by Setting Up Call Center Operations in Dublin Established in 2008, Donegal Importers was created to support small businesses in Ireland expand their base of operations across the United States. As businesses expanded, the inbound call volume has substantially grown. In order to address the issue of increase in inbound call volume and to improve the quality of customer service provided, Donegal has announced the opening of a Call Center in Dublin, Ireland. 9/16/2011 Healthcare IT Provider Anthelio Unveils Physician-Staffed Clinical Help Desk Anthelio, a provider of healthcare information technology services and business process solutions for hospitals and other healthcare providers, has launched IT-ology, a help desk staffed by physicians and other clinicians. Leveraging the 24/7 IT-ology, physicians will have an expert resource who understands the clinical implications of the doctor's technical concern. 9/15/2011 Call Center Jobs for PetCareRX Bring New Opportunities to Americus, GA While job creation has been the hottest topic in Washington D.C. for the last week since President Barack Obama announced his Jobs Plan to Congress and the nation in a televised address, the town of Americus, Georgia, has already experienced what it feels like to learn that its citizens will have the opportunity to find new employment in the call center sector. 9/15/2011 Bill Aims to Improve Filipino BPO Working Conditions Call center agents who work in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector of the contact center industry in the Philippines may soon be legally entitled to certain working conditions that are seen by some as improvements to their quality of life. 9/15/2011 GC1 Peak Dialer Released by Global Connect GC1 Peak Dialer has been launched by Global Connect. Collections clients can quickly, easily and cost effectively reach contacts with this hosted cloud-based dialer platform. Clients are able to increase agent productivity with the new advances in Global Connect's hosted dialer functionality. At the same time, clients are able to keep the operating costs low. An announcement in this regard has been made by the top provider of cloud-based hosted dialing and communication services. 9/15/2011 Global Connect Delivers Dialing Intelligence to its Customers Global Connect is putting powerful dialing intelligence into the hands of its customers with the launch of the first fully integrated score-based dialing solution from the cloud. The company has partnered with Global LiquidEdge Solutions, a provider of collection scores and workflow optimization solutions. 9/13/2011 Study Shows Contact Centers are Solid Contributors to Ireland's Economy Contact centers are proving to be a bright spot in the otherwise dismal economy in Ireland. It appears, as well, that the contact center star will continue to shine even brighter for that country in the coming years. 9/12/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review This week, the news about Outbound Call Centers revolves around software packages, marketing campaigns and brand new ways to reach out to customers both new and old. 9/10/2011 ACS Expands and Adds Hundreds of Jobs Call center service provider Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) is gearing up to hire 200 employees in Lewiston to carry out the jobs related to its new contracts. 9/9/2011 Infusionsoft Unveils new Features in Campaign Builder Making it simple for small businesses to plan, create, launch and measure automated marketing campaigns that convert leads, get repeat sales and save time, Infusionsoft has unveiled new features and enhancements to its all-in-one sales and marketing automation software, the Campaign Builder. 9/9/2011 Intuit Unveils Salesforce for QuickBooks Enabling small businesses to easily manage their customer relationships and close more deals, Intuit Inc. has introduced Salesforce for QuickBooks, the company has announced. 9/9/2011 Ventana Research Debuts Service Assurance 2.0 Vitria Technology, a provider of solutions for operational intelligence, asserted that Richard Snow, Vice President & Research Director of Ventana Research will be presenting its webinar that is stated to discuss how operational intelligence can optimize customer experience, bring down customer churn and maximize revenue. 9/9/2011 Callidus Software Wins Contract from Leading Global Software Vendor for Its Monaco SPM Suit The leading sales performance management solutions provider, Callidus Software Inc announced the signing of a new deal with a global technology provider. According to the agreement that was signed in the third quarter of 2011, Callidus will provide a global technology company with its Monaco On Demand SPM suite, which has been designed to deliver a SaaS solution to help companies maximize their sales effectiveness 9/9/2011 Ace Marketing Completes Additional 50 Mall Rollout of its Location-Based Mobile Marketing Network Ace Marketing & Promotions, Inc has started to offer it Location-Based Mobile Marketing Network under initial expansion to an additional 50 malls in the third quarter of 2011, bringing the total to 67 malls across the US. The company has also tested phase on the 50 new malls and has begun generating revenue over the network. Mobiquity Networks (a wholly owned subsidiary of Ace) is a leading provider of location-based mobile marketing solutions. 9/9/2011 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week in Review This past week, covering the outbound call center space, TMC's Calvin Azuri wrote personal injury solicitors at JMW in Manchester have said that Compensation Claims Companies, which make unsolicited calls to both private residence numbers and to mobile numbers inquiring and urging recipients to file for accident compensation claims might well be in violation of laws which govern the claims industry. The solicitors have urged recipients to report all such calls to the Ministry of Justice. 9/6/2011 Matrix Solutions Selected by Allbritton Communications CRM and Sales Analytics According to media sales management software provider Matrix Solutions, TV station operator Allbritton Communications Company has chosen Matrix for its Web-based CRM and sales analytics software. The software helps media companies improve the effectiveness of their sales organizations. 8/31/2011 My Social Income to Launch Direct Marketing Services in India My Social Income (MSI), a provider of communication services, announced its plans to enter the growing Indian market with a launch of its unique direct marketing program, products and services. 8/31/2011 Cold Calling by Compensation Claims Companies Could Be in Violation of the Law Personal injury solicitors at JMW in Manchester have said that Compensation Claims Companies, which make unsolicited calls to both private residence numbers and to mobile numbers inquiring and urging recipients to file for accident compensation claims might well be in violation of laws which govern the claims industry. The solicitors have urged recipients to report all such calls to the Ministry of Justice. 8/31/2011 AT&T Currying Favor with Regulators by Promising U.S. Call Center Jobs The longer this recession that the country has been mired in for going on three years now drags out, the more pressure we're starting to see on the so-called "Outsourcing Kings" to bring jobs back to U.S. shores. GE, once a proud outsourcer, has begun publicly committing that it would bring some jobs back to the U.S. 8/31/2011 Wondersoft Deploys Drishti's Ameyo Contact Center Software In an effort to get better service delivery and efficient technical support operations, Chennai-based software applications vendor Wondersoft Pte Ltd. has adopted Ameyo, the call center software from Drishti. 8/30/2011 MyAssist Offers Live Agent Services to Victims of Natural Disaster Moving along almost 1,100 miles of U.S. coastline, Hurricane Irene left its terrible impact as devastation ranged from North Carolina to Vermont. Millions had to be evacuated and MyAssist provided a unique live-agent personal assistance and telematics service to empower, protect and offer assistance to those who were affected by the hurricane. 8/30/2011 Contact Solutions Unfazed by Earthquake -- Operations Intact Contact Solutions' Northern Virginia data center apparently remained unaffected by the strong earthquake which hit the nation's capital on August 23, 2011, for it claims that not a single customer call was affected. 8/29/2011 Five9 Equips 2-1-1 California with Cost Effective Telephony Solution A nonprofit network dedicated to public service, 2-1-1 California claims that it can now successfully deliver information and referral services across the state in many different and difficult situations because it has selected Five9 as its virtual call center platform. 8/29/2011 TMCnet.com's Outbound Call Center Week in Review This past week, reporting on the outbound call center space, TMC's Mimi Swamy noted that in a bid to create jobs and keep them onshore, CSG (Culture Service Growth), which offers outsourcing tools, announced that it had agreed to provide call center outsourcing support to two more Fortune 500 companies. 8/27/2011 JetBlue's Fatal Customer Service Flaw If you fly a lot, it's probable that you have your favorite airlines...as well as airlines you avoid at all costs. Your preferences are based on experience: this airline has a better on-time rate, that airline offers first-class upgrades, yet another lets you use frequent flier points more liberally. 8/26/2011 Florida Agency Orders Utility Company to Change Customer Script Utility companies are seldom known for their stellar customer service - being a natural monopoly with little to no competition has a way of making a company rather complacent with its customers - but one company took annoying their customers to such lengths a state agency Utility companies are seldom known for their stellar customer service - being a natural monopoly with little to no competition has a way of making a company rather complacent with its customers - but one company took annoying their customers to such lengths a state agency had to step in and reprimand it. Up until recently, customers calling Florida Light & Power were told, at the end of their call, to "hold for a confirmation number." 8/26/2011 Federal Agencies to Improve Customer Services by October 24, 2011 Federal agencies have been directed to improve customer service and productivity by October 24, 2011, according to a recent report by CFI Group. 8/26/2011 Level 3 Communications Enhances Business Intelligence with Informatica Cloud Informatica Corporation, an independent provider of data integration software, claimed that the Informatica Cloud is helping fiber-based communications services provider Level 3 to attain a complete view of its on-premise and cloud-based data - a move that will supposedly enhance the business intelligence of Level 3. 8/26/2011 Novus Health Opens Contact Center in Montreal Novus Health, which delivers innovative online and telephone support solutions for today's changing health care environment in Canada, has opened another contact center in Montreal, Quebec. Robin Ingle, CEO, made an announcement to this effect. 8/26/2011 US Largest Source of Offshore Work for APAC The US is the largest source of offshore work for APAC, according to a new report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. 8/26/2011 vConnect Selects Drishti's Ameyo Call Center Software vConnect has selected the Drishti's award-winning communication suite, Ameyo as their customer interactions management tool. An announcement in this regard has been made by Drishti Soft Solutions. vConnect is the first phone-based directory services in Nigeria. 8/25/2011 IXACT Contact Integrates E-mail Marketing and Reporting Features to Real Estate CRM IXACT Contact, a Web-based real estate customer relationship management (CRM) system company, announced that it has seamlessly integrated its powerful e-mail marketing and reporting functionality into its real estate CRM. 8/25/2011 Gila Group Unveils SmartDialz Service for Credit Unions Gila Group, a company offering outsourced collections, payment processing and call center services to financial institutions nationwide, has recently launched SmartDialz service offering focused on targeted dialing campaigns. 8/24/2011 MBSB Selects SAS Rapid Predictive Modeler SAS has announced that its SAS Rapid Predictive Modeler has been selected by Malaysia Building Society Berhad (MBSB) to get insights about customers. 8/23/2011 CSG Inks Agreement with Fortune 500 Companies to Keep Jobs Onshore In a bid to create jobs and keep them onshore, CSG (Culture Service Growth), which offers affordable, world-class outsourcing solutions, announced that it had agreed to provide call center outsourcing support to two more Fortune 500 companies. 8/22/2011 TMCnet's Outbound Call Center Week In Review Always a lot happening with outbound call centers, so let's get to the important news of the past week: 8/20/2011 Govig Using Tracer Solution for Maximizing Management and Performance of Its Call Center OAISYS, a developer of call recording and contact center management solution, claimed that executive recruiter and placement firm Govig & Associates is leveraging the Tracer contact center management solution to maximize the management and performance of its call center. 8/19/2011 German Operator Goes Live with Convergys Solution Telekom Deutschland's wireline subscribers have gone live on a state-of-the-art Convergys Smart Revenue Solution. 8/19/2011 Contact Center Software for Asterisk Drives Multi-Site Expansion for EECS Indosoft Inc., developers of Q-Suite, a Call Center ACD Software for Asterisk, has succesfully configured a distributed contact center operation for East-European Communication Services (EECS). 8/19/2011 J.D. Power and Associates Recognizes T-Mobile USA for Its Excellence in Customer Sales Satisfaction T-Mobile USA, a national provider of wireless voice, messaging, and data services capable of reaching over 293 million Americans where they live, work, and play, claimed that for the fifth consecutive time it has received top honors from J.D. Power and Associates in recognition of its excellence in customer sales satisfaction. 8/19/2011 VoltDelta Exec Talks 'Tractor-Trailer' Call Handling Capabilities, IVR at SpeechTEK When it comes to handling exceptionally high call volumes for carriers, call center solutions leader VoltDelta offers solutions equipped with unmatched scalability and reliability 8/19/2011 Contactual's Five Essential Questions for Evaluating Call Center Technology Thanks to you, Contactual, for your quick and solid list of the five questions we need to be asking when we're evaluating call center technology: 8/19/2011 Five9's Training Sessions Key to Call Center On Demand Literacy Because the service they offer is sold on a subscription basis, effectively training agents is a major area of focus for on demand call center providers. Companies owe it to their customers to not only continue to improve the capabilities of their products, but also to help customer comprehend them. For Five9 ensuring that customers have continued support is not simply a matter of a few training videos or online classes, it also includes an extensive program that rewards completion with administrative certification. 8/18/2011 PCCW Teleservices Get 'Best China Call Center'Award by China Federation of IT Promotion The 9th Annual China Call Center Industry Forum and Best Chinese Customer Contact Center was held at Lijiang, Yunnan Province, PRC and PCCW Teleservices is continuously recognized for industry best practices, customer service, and innovation. 8/18/2011 Customer Care Initiatives Crucial in Today's Economy: ITEXPO Exhibitor The economic downturn has forced most companies to reduce their operating expenses and refocus their priorities. For many, this transition involves spending more time and resources protecting their current client base, rather than investing in marketing initiatives to entice new customers. 8/18/2011 Latest Results of Prime Performance Investment Call Center Satisfaction Survey Revealed The latest Prime Performance 2011 Investment Call Center Satisfaction Survey results have been announced. According to the survey report, T. Rowe Price lead in client satisfaction while Vanguard topped in loyalty. 8/18/2011 Epic Marketplace Partners with RingRevenue to Launch Phone-Based Marketing Campaigns Epic Marketplace, an integrated multichannel digital marketing solutions provider via social media, mobile, display, and video channels, announced a partnership with RingRevenue, which specializes in call performance marketing solutions. 8/18/2011 Transverse Enters Partnership Agreement with Pervasive Transverse, an innovator in online billing and Dynamic Revenue Management, recently announced in a press release that it is partnering with Pervasive Software, a global data innovation leader, to eliminate the integration headaches so common for businesses evolving their apps and data services in SaaS and cloud environments. 8/17/2011 Aspect Offers Social Media into the Contact Center To enable organization to utilize social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, web forums and blogs to expand business, Aspect, a provider of customer contact and Microsoft platform solutions, today announced the availability of Aspect Social Media Channel Integration. It will help businesses to turn social media engagements into productive customer dialogues that create a positive experience and deliver significant business value. 8/16/2011 Boost Mobile Ranked Highest for Customer Service and Purchase Experience by J.D. Power and Associates Boost Mobile, a provider of no-contract wireless services, announced that J.D. Power and Associates has offered the company the highest rank in Customer Service Performance and Purchase Experience among Non-Contract Wireless Providers. 8/16/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review During a week that was fraught with stock market volatility and what seems to be a never-ending dour jobless outlook, it was refreshing to get the mid-week report TMCnet's Contributing Editor Tracey Schelmetic that "TMOne, which calls itself the 'most nimble BPO Firm in America,' has announced it has chosen Spearfish, South Dakota as a location for a new 500-seat inbound and outbound call center to serve its clients." 8/13/2011 SugarCRM Appoints Tony Hughes to Lead Asia Pacific region SugarCRM, the world's fastest-growing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) company, recently stated in a press release that it has appointed Tony Hughes as managing director of SugarCRM Australia Pty. Ltd. A proven leader in the technology and software industries in Australia, Tony will help SugarCRM build upon its tremendous success in the Asia Pacific region. Second quarter billings rose by 41 percent over the first quarter of 2011 and by 30 percent over the same quarter in 2010. 8/12/2011 Five9 Offers Complete Outbound Call Center Package Looking for an upgrade for your outbound call center? Might want to give the Five9 Outbound Call Center a look-over, as it's a complete service consisting of outbound campaign management functionality with predictive, power, progressive or preview dialing. 8/11/2011 American Bible Society Enhances Fundraising Efforts and Multichannel Communications with Blackbaud's CRM Blackbaud, Inc., a provider of software and services designed specifically for nonprofit organizations, announced that the American Bible Society (ABS) will leverage its Blackbaud CRM to expand its mission by boosting its fundraising efforts and enhancing its supporter's experience. 8/11/2011 Miratel Solutions Introduces Workplace Diversity Policy to Further Consolidate its Corporate Social Responsibility Policies Miratel Solutions, an inbound and outbound call center, eBusiness and letter shop mail house, has effectively strengthened its Corporate Social Responsibility values with the introduction of a formal Workplace Diversity Policy. 8/11/2011 TMOne To Open Inbound and Outbound Call Center in Spearfish, South Dakota TMOne, which calls itself the "most nimble BPO Firm in America," has announced that it has chosen Spearfish, South Dakota as a location for a new 500-seat inbound and outbound call center to serve its clients. 8/10/2011 TMOne to Open Inbound and Outbound Call Center in Spearfish, Iowa TMOne, which calls itself the "most nimble BPO Firm in America," has announced that it has chosen Spearfish, Iowa as a location for a new 500-seat inbound and outbound call center to serve its clients. 8/10/2011 Volt Consulting Group Announces Release Of Its VAST Business Intelligence Offering Volt Consulting Group, provider of consulting & process mapping, workforce design & delivery, workflow automation, and managed solutions has announced the release of its new VAST business intelligence offering. The company which is recognized as a leader in the human capital business intelligence market currently provides one of the most robust human capital data warehouses. 8/9/2011 Broadview Wins People's Choice Stevie Award for OfficeSuite ACD Broadview Networks, a network-based business communications provider, has its Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) and Recording solution OfficeSuite ACD to thank for winning a People's Choice Stevie Award in the Favorite New Telecom Product or Service category. 8/8/2011 American Teleservices Association Appoints Phil Grudzinski as New CEO The National Board of Directors for the American Teleservices Association ("ATA") is pleased to announce that Phil Grudzinski has been named chief executive officer, effective immediately. 8/8/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review When a company makes a good thing even better, it gets our attention. This week not one but two outbound call center solutions providers got the attention of TMCnet editors who broke the news to readers. 8/6/2011 Customer Interaction Solutions Presents 2011 IP Contact Center Technology Pioneer Award to Zultys Zultys, a provider of unified communications solutions, asserted that its contact center solutions have won the 2011 IP Contact Center Technology Pioneer Award from Customer Interactions Solutions (CIS) magazine, the voice of the call/contact center, CRM and teleservices industries. 8/5/2011 inContact to Supply Cloud Contact Routing WFM Solutions to a Major Hospitality Company inContact, a provider of on-demand call center software and call center agent optimization tools, claimed that one of the nation's major hospitality companies has chosen to deploy its cloud contact routing Workforce Management (WFM) solutions. 8/5/2011 AuraPortal Intros New Modules into its BPM Suite All organizations need to establish creation flows and approval processes for any content that has to be published. AuraPortal claims that the introduction of new modules into its BPM suite, capable of integrating with existing applications, will automate the entire process. 8/5/2011 HTC Wildfire S Gets CompanionLink's CRM Sync Support As a developer of data synchronization solutions for mobile phones as well as CRM software and services, CompanionLink Software, a developer of data synchronization solutions for mobile phones and CRM software and services, has helped mobilize information across devices, computers, applications, and web-based services through its solutions. 8/5/2011 Giant Paintball Chooses Soffront's Integrated CRM Giant Paintball, the corporate hub of the world's largest chain of Paintball Parks in Southern California, has selected Soffront's integrated CRM to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their sales operation. 8/5/2011 Wipro BPO Selected as TalkTalk's Strategic Partner TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC, UK's premier provider of value for money fixed line broadband and voice telephony services to consumers and business users, has chosen Wipro BPO as one of its strategic partners for its outsourced contact centre operations. 8/5/2011 Sage North America Expands Endorsed Development Partner Program with TimeLinx's New CRM-based Project Management Solution TimeLinx Software announced that Sage North America has selected its professional services and project management solution to expand Sage North America's Endorsed Development Partner Program to the Sage SalesLogix CRM solution. Sage's reseller channel across North, South and Central America and the Philippines will now distribute TimeLinx. 8/5/2011 Contactology to Simplify E-Newsletter Creation, Distribution, Tracking for Users Enabling the repurposing and publication of online content to email newsletters in minutes rather than hours, Contactology, a Software-as-a-Service email marketing and online survey technologies provider, has extended its publisher-focused solution to Vangardistas, the developer of Metro Publisher, a Software-as-a-Service Content Management System (CMS). 8/5/2011 Attensity Releases Updated Attensity's Respond Application Attensity, a provider of text analytics solutions for Customer Experience Management (CEM), just released the latest version of its Attensity's Respond application. Designed for the next-generation multi-channel contact center, Attensity Respond plays a significant role in optimizing business processes in the contact center environment, according to company officials. 8/4/2011 Enventis Enhances Total Care Support and Monitoring Service for Networks and UC Enventis, a provider of integrated voice, data and network communication solutions in the Midwest, claimed that it has enhanced its Total Care support and monitoring service for network and unified communications. 8/4/2011 Constant Contact MarketPlace Gains Popularity among Small Organizations Constant Contact announced that its MarketPlace, a huge collection of mobile apps and social integrations, has been accessed by over 100,000 small organizations since its launch a year ago. It also offers assistance from marketing experts to help small businesses and nonprofits maximize their marketing efforts. 8/4/2011 HardMetrics to Offer its Business Intelligence Solutions to C3/CustomerContactChannels C3/Customer Contact Channels, a leader in the contact center industry, has selected HardMetrics' Performance Manager (HPM), a business intelligence solution, to monitor and analyze operational activity, efficiencies and business trends. The company will deploy the solution to its corporate management and operations at each of C3's contact centers, and to the agent desktop level for all of C3's employees globally. 8/3/2011 Selfinity BPO Selects Drishti's Ameyo Call Center Software to Power Outbound Calls Drishti, a provider of contact center software and enterprise communications solutions, announced that Selfinity BPO, a global sales and marketing company, has selected its Ameyo call center software platform. 8/2/2011 Dealing with Debt Collectors When You Don't Owe Anything The Federal Trade Commission received more than 140,000 complaints about third-party and in-house debt collectors in 2010. The industry's propensity for immoral and sometimes illegal collection tactics led the federal government to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new agency charged with the task of stemming debt collection abuse. 8/2/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review 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. 7/30/2011 Telligent Recognized by Garter Inc. as Visionary In 2011 Magic Quadrant For Social CRM Telligent recently announced that it has been recognized by Gartner Inc. as a Visionary in "Magic Quadrant for Social CRM." 7/29/2011 Convergys Hiring 225 Agents in Cincinnati Metro Area Outsourced call center services provider Convergys Corporation announced this morning that it has begun hiring in the Cincinnati metro area. The company, which is headquartered in Cincinnati, is seeking to fill 225 agent positions at its state-of-the-art contact center in Erlanger, Kentucky. The new jobs are for customer service/sales or technical support agents who will provide service to Convergys clients in a variety of industries. 7/29/2011 Verizon Ranked High For Excellence in Customer Care Verizon Wireless, which claims to be the provider of the nation's largest and most reliable 3G network and the fastest, most advanced 4G LTE network in the world, received accolades from J.D. Power and Associates for excellence in customer care. 7/29/2011 Alterian Recognized for Social CRM in Leading Industry Analyst Firm's Magic Quadrant Alterian, the leader in customer engagement technology and solutions, announced that it has been recognized by Gartner Inc., the leading information technology research and advisory company in its second Magic Quadrant for Social CRM. 7/29/2011 Payday Express Holding Friendly Matches as Part of its Team Building Initiative UK's leading payday advance loans specialists Payday Express has adopted a unique approach to promote healthy competition among its employees. It all begun with a football match that took place earlier this month. Encouraged by the success of this interdepartmental event, the employees at Payday Express are planning to make such sporting events a regular feature. 7/28/2011 Aspect Completes Acquisition of Corsidian Businesses in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico Aspect, a provider of customer contact and Microsoft platform solutions, has announced the closing of its acquisition of the Corsidian businesses in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Puerto Rico. 7/26/2011 Newgen Software Implements Solution at Dubai Bank Newgen Software, the market leader in Business Process Management (BPM) and Enterprise Content management (ECM), recently announced the successful implementation of its advanced e-statement solution in one of the Middle-East's largest banks. 7/26/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review At a time when we have grown accustomed to hearing about cut backs, it was refreshing this week to learn of a number of expansion activities in the outbound call center space. We learned in a report from TMCnet Contributing Editor Rajani Baburajan that ContactPoint, a provider of sales and customer service optimitics, is expanding its reach through membership in the American Rental Association (ARA). 7/23/2011 Neural Technologies Joins TRMA Neural Technologies, a provider of risk management and business intelligence software solutions, has joined the Telecommunications Risk Management Association (TRMA). 7/22/2011 Gale Brings Automation in Cloud, Sees Opportunity in Call Center and UC Environments That's why Gale Technologies provides automation software for quality assurance, lab and production environments. The company's software automates configuration of compute, network, storage and virtualization environments. 7/22/2011 Silverpop Inks Deal with Varicent Software for Varicent Business Edition Varicent Software Incorporated, a provider of incentive compensation and sales performance management (SPM) solutions, revealed its Varicent Business Edition has been deployed by Silverpop, a provider of email marketing and marketing automation platform to go live to automate its compensation plan design and delivery. 7/22/2011 Constant Contact Opens New Office in New York City to Help Small Businesses and Non-Profits Constant Contact Inc. announced that it has opened its fifth office in New York City. The new office will be located in The Bendheim Building in Tribeca. Recently the company acquired the New York-based Bantam Live social CRM technology platform 7/22/2011 Mobile Messenger Recognized with ATSI Call Center Award of Distinction for Outstanding Service Mobile Messenger, provider of mobile solutions, announced that it has been recognized with the prestigious 2011 ATSI Call Center Award of Distinction by the Association of TeleServices International (ATSI). The Call Center Award of Distinction is used to measure the skills of professional call center agents across the North America and the U.K. ATSI congratulated the staff of Mobile Messenger for their dedication and for providing quality service to their customers. 7/21/2011 ContactPoint Joins American Rental Association to Target the Industry for Sales Training ContactPoint, a provider of sales and customer service optimitics, announced its membership in the American Rental Association (ARA). 7/21/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review Not yielding to the lure of summertime sloth, major players in the outbound call center market were busy this week alerting TMCnet editors of major announcements. Topping the list of ambitious announcements, Avaya (News - Alert), a provider of business communications and collaboration solutions and services, revealed it is bringing several new outbound call center-related products to market 7/16/2011 AOS Selects AltiGen's Mobility and Contact Center Solutions to Integrate with Microsoft Lync AltiGen Communications, a provider of integrated Microsoft-based Unified Communications solutions, announced that Alexander Open Systems (AOS) will offer AltiGen Communication's mobility and contact center solutions for Microsoft Lync Server 2010. 7/15/2011 Five9 Remote Call Center App: Improve Your Customers' Experience Hey, how do staff remote agents for your call center, anywhere in the world sound? 7/15/2011 Global Alert Network brings First-Ever Hands-Free Audio Alert Application Global Alert Network (GAN), a national mobile platform that provides safe, automatic, hands-free audio alerts to a user's mobile phone, has come up with its first-ever hands-free audio alert application that will enable Boston residents access the latest local traffic and weather updates without ever touching their mobile phones. 7/14/2011 Global Alert Network bring First-Ever Hands-Free Audio Alert Application Global Alert Network (GAN), a national mobile platform that provides safe, automatic, hands-free audio alerts to a user's mobile phone, has come up with its first-ever hands-free audio alert application that will enable Boston residents access the latest local traffic and weather updates without ever touching their mobile phones. 7/14/2011 Avaya Announces New Contact Center Products Avaya, a provider of business communications and collaboration solutions and services, announced new contact center products. 7/13/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review The digital age of technology products and online services will double the demand for BPO agents over the next decade, according to research conducted by Caleris, a business process outsourcing (BPO) provider. 7/4/2011 APAC Announces New Contact Center in Montevideo, Uruguay APAC Customer Services, a provider of global outsourced services and solutions, has opened a new contact center in Montevideo, Uruguay. It is located in Aguada Park, an international center for global services situated in the free zone area of Montevideo. APAC will occupy three floors of the building with initial capacity for 630 customer service associate workstations. 6/30/2011 Stamps.com Wins Gold Medal for Innovation in Customer Service from ATA Stamps.com, a provider of online postage and shipping software, announced that it has won the Gold Medal for Best Innovation in Customer Service at the Call Center Olympics presented by the American Teleservices Association (ATA) West Coast Chapter. The Call Center Olympics is an annual ATA West Coast Chapter event that allows call centers from the western U.S. region to compete for gold, silver and bronze medals. 6/30/2011 Caleris: Demand for Technical BPO Agents Rises The digital age of technology products and online services will double the demand for BPO agents over the next decade, according to research conducted by Caleris, a business process outsourcing (BPO) provider. 6/30/2011 uNotifi SaaS Marketing Services Provider for Automotive Industry Launched Houston entrepreneur Fred van der Neut, the founder of iDriveonline, announced the launch of uNotifi, a national provider of customer-centric inbound marketing programs for automotive dealers, service centers and aftermarket retail operations. Van der Neut has 30 years of direct marketing experience in the automotive industry. 6/30/2011 Snowbound Software and NetXposure Enter into Technology Partnership Snowbound Software, a market provider of document viewing and conversion solutions has entered into a technology partnership with NetXposure, providers of Digital Asset management solutions. 6/24/2011 Value Place Teams-Up with ContactPoint to Improve Customer Service and Increase Sales Sales and customer service company ContactPoint recently announced an addition to its hospitality sector client portfolio. In a press release, the company announced that the nationwide extended stay hotel chain Value Place has hired ContactPoint to record and score customer phone calls. 6/24/2011 SalesNexus Allows Instant Automatic Upload of ACT! Databases SalesNexus announced that users of its online CRM and Email Marketing solution can now upload ACT! Databases to the Web instantly and automatically. The SalesNexus online CRM helps sales teams to generate more leads close more sales and retain customers for a longer period. 6/24/2011 Telrex Unveils Latest CallRex 4.1 Telrex, a member of the Enghouse group of companies, and a provider of IP call recording and contact center optimization software, unveiled version 4.1 of CallRex Call Recording software. 6/23/2011 Convergys Hiring Staff for Contact Center in Clarksville, Tennessee Convergys Corporation, a global leader in relationship management, recently announced the requirement of 300 on-site employees and 75 work-at-home employees for its contact center in Clarksville, Tennessee. 6/23/2011 TeamSupport.com Announces Integration with Batchbook TeamSupport.com, a trend-setting provider of SaaS-based customer service and help desk tools, has announced integration with Batchbook, a powerful social CRM system from BatchBlue Software. 6/23/2011 Company Finds Contact Center Software Useful in Move to In-House Call Center The addition of a new call center is always good news for the local economy. This is especially true when that call center is streamlining outsourced services back into local environments to boost the labor force and advance the delivery of contact center software. 6/23/2011 Call Center Solutions from RightNow Empower Toshiba Performance Flexibility and efficiency are two elements that are important in any call center and Toshiba, a high technology provider, has determined that priority must be placed on such criteria. To demonstrate this importance, the company recently replaced an inflexible and expensive legacy contact center agent desktop solution with RightNow. 6/23/2011 PeopleAnswers Announces Software Licensing Agreement with The Cheesecake Factory Inc. In an organization, hiring most qualified candidates while saving significant time for managers is a key factor for Human Resource (HR) personnel. In an effort to improve quality of hires and take the guesswork out of consistent talent selection, The Cheesecake Factory has deployed PeopleAnswers' HR solution for pre-employment selection. 6/22/2011 LiveOps Appoints Marty Beard as New President and CEO LiveOps, a provider of cloud-based contact center solutions, announced the appointment of Marty Beard as President and Chief Executive Officer effective July 18, 2011. 6/22/2011 Well Known Non-Profit Membership Organization Selects Alpine Access to Deliver Service through Home-Based Agents The pioneer of the virtual contact center model, Alpine Access, has been selected by one of the nation's largest membership organizations for people over 50 to provide nationwide support to thousands of its members. Under the contract, the company's home-based employees will provide assistance to both new and existing members of the organization. 6/22/2011 Ascom Debuts Ascom Home Care Services for the Independent Living Segment Ascom Wireless Solutions announced the introduction of Ascom Home Care Services for the Independent Living Segment. These services will be suitable for the needs of the elderly who want to live independently within their own homes. This is made possible by Ascom, a supplier of on-site wireless communications. 6/21/2011 Altitude Software, Umanis Deliver Hosted Contact Center Solutions in France Altitude Software, a global provider of hosted call center solutions, announced a partnership with Umanis, a management and information technology consulting services provider, to deliver the Altitude uCI Hosted Multimedia Contact Center Solution in France. 6/21/2011 Comcast Continues Investment in Connecticut Economy and Workforce Comcast Corporation, one of the nation's premier providers of entertainment, information and communications products and services, is hiring 100 full-time customer service representatives for the company's state-of-the-art call center in Enfield. 6/21/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review Welcome to the weekend, and another edition of the Outbound Call Center Week in Review, where we sum up the week's news in the newest in outbound technology. 6/18/2011 FE VELCOM Selects Teradata Relationship Manager Looking to create individualized marketing offers to prospects and customers, FE VELCOM, the Belarus mobile telecommunications operator has selected Teradata Relationship Manager (TRM). 6/17/2011 Keynote Systems Integrates PagerDuty's Phone Alert Tools in MyKeynote Portal Keynote Systems, a provider of Internet and mobile cloud monitoring solutions, has formed a partnership with PagerDuty to take advantage of PagerDuty's advanced phone alerting tools for users of the MyKeynote portal. Building on the power and flexibility of Keynote's Smart Alerts, the Keynote-PagerDuty integration allows Keynote e-mail alerts to be sent via phone or SMS directly to operations team members and support staff wherever they may be, company officials said. 6/15/2011 Cloud-based Call Center Company Five9 Awarded for CRM Excellence Cloud-based call center software company Five9 has been named by Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) as a recipient of a Customer Interaction Solutions magazine 2011 CRM Excellence Award for its Five9 Virtual Call Center. Customer Interaction Solutions has been the premier publication in the CRM, contact center and teleservices industries since 1982. 6/15/2011 TriWest Earns J.D. Power and Associates Contact Center Certification TriWest Healthcare Alliance has announced that its contact centers have been recognized by J.D. Power and Associates for providing outstanding customer service experience for the fourth consecutive year. 6/15/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center in Review The outbound call center space was infused with a new product this week. TMCnet Contributor Calvin Azuri learned that Bomgar, a provider of secure, appliance-based remote support solutions, has unveiled Bomgar Analytics. He reported that it has been developed as a brand new dashboard and reporting solution which is designed to make it easy for IT organizations to easily view and analyze the valuable IT support data captured by their Bomgar remote support solution. The article said the Bomgar Analytics solution features dashboard views and customizable reports, and provides a unique view into the details of an organization's remote support sessions. 6/12/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center in Review The outbound call center space was infused with a new product this week. TMCnet Contributor Calvin Azuri learned that Bomgar (News - Alert), a provider of secure, appliance-based remote support solutions, has unveiled Bomgar Analytics. He that it has been developed as a brand new dashboard and reporting solution which is designed to make it easy for IT organizations to easily view and analyze the valuable IT support data captured by their Bomgar remote support solution. The article said the Bomgar Analytics solution features dashboard views and customizable reports, and provides a unique view into the details of an organization's remote support sessions. 6/11/2011 Zendesk Joins Industry Leaders to Launch NetworkedHelpDesk.org Initiative At Atlassian Summit in San Francisco, Zendesk announced NetworkedHelpDesk.org, an initiative to create seamless communication among multiple partners and suppliers to deliver an unprecedented customer experience. Zendesk, the leading provider of proven, cloud-based help desk software, has been joined by various industry leaders in the initiative that provides a uniform way to connect disparate systems for seamless collaboration through an open API, thus making it easier for companies to perform tasks such as project management, customer relationship management, or customer support. 6/10/2011 European Utility and African Bank Win Altitude Awards European energy company EDP and to BCI, the second largest financial institution in Mozambique has received the Innovation Awards, ex-aequo from Altitude Software, a independent global contact center solutions vendor. 6/10/2011 Drishti's Ameyo Awarded as the 'Best Contact Center Technology Platform' Drishti-Soft has announced that the company has won a joint-award for their technology deployment at Department of Transport (DoT), Abu Dhabi, along with their VAR (Value Added Reseller) - City Services. Drishti-Soft is an innovator of Contact Center Software and Enterprise Communications Applications. 6/10/2011 360-Degree Customer View Delivered through Zendesk's Partnership with SugarCRM Zendesk and SugarCRM's alliance was announced recently. Zendesk, a leading help-desk software provider on cloud technology, integrated its service with one of the fastest growing CRM or customer relationship management companies in the world, SugarCRM. The Zendesk and SugarCRM service allows customers to flawlessly support agents' access to the SugarCRM customer information from the Zendesk help desk software, with the reverse also being possible. 6/10/2011 Bomgar Launches Bomgar Analytics, a Dashboard and Reporting Solution for IT Service Desks Bomgar, a provider of secure, appliance-based remote support solutions, has unveiled Bomgar Analytics, which has been developed as a brand new dashboard and reporting solution which makes it easy for IT organizations to easily view and analyze the valuable IT support data captured by their Bomgar remote support solution. The Bomgar Analytics solution features dashboard views and customizable reports, and provides a unique view into the details of an organization's remote support sessions. This makes it easy for IT service desks to help in the optimization of their operations and performance. 6/10/2011 Miratel Solutions Completes Phase One of Business Expansion Plans Toronto based Miratel Solutions, an inbound and outbound call center, eBusiness and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services, announced the completion of its phase one of business expansion plans. 6/8/2011 Convergys Looking for 100 Employees in Orem, Utah Area Convergys Corporation, a global provider of relationship management, has announced open positions for 100 full- and part-time positions at its contact center in Orem, Utah. 6/8/2011 TMCnet Outbound Call Center Week in Review This week in the world of outbound call center technologies and services, TMCnet's Anil Sharma wrote about Digerati Technologies, Inc., a provider of cloud communication services, and its introduction of a cloud-based predictive dialer solution specifically designed to meet the needs of businesses with call center or telesales departments. Officials with Digerati said that its Only in The Cloud solution automatically initiates an outbound call, distinguishes between a live person answer and an answering machine or voice mail system, then transfers "live" calls to a call center agent. 6/4/2011 Robert N. Pinkerton Joins Alpine Access as Chief Financial Officer Alpine Access, the premier provider of virtual contact center solutions and services, has appointed Robert N. Pinkerton as the new chief financial officer. 6/3/2011 Digerati Expands Product Suite with Predictive Dialer Solution Digerati Technologies, Inc., a global provider of cloud communication services, has introduced a cloud-based predictive dialer solution, which has been designed to meet the needs of businesses with call center or telesales departments. 6/2/2011 Outbound Call Center Week in Review Here's something you might want to pay attention to, especially if you have trouble paying your debts: TMC Special Guest Jeff Stalnaker, CEO of First Orion, wrote that since landline usage is dropping by over 10 percent per year as more and more individuals are moving to the exclusive use of their mobile phones as their primary means of communication, your email signature, your business cards, your orders and other places you use your contact information can potentially fall into the hands of a telemarketer or other data providers, which will lead to potential telemarketing calls. 5/31/2011 How Telemarketers and Debt Collectors Obtain Your Mobile Phone Number A Look at the Tactics Used by Theses Organizations and Tips on How to Avoid Annoying Sales Calls 5/26/2011 Spain's Telefonica to Raise Capital with Call Center Division IPO Spanish broadband and telecommunications provider Telefonica SA (TEF) is reportedly looking to raise money. The Madrid-based company, which is Europe's second largest phone company and a provider in both Europe and Latin America, hopes to raise 745 million euros ($1.1 billion) by making an initial public offering of its call center division, called Atento Inversiones y Teleservicios SAU. 5/26/2011 Alterian Included in the Gartner Magic Quadrant Analysis Gartner Inc., the world's premier information technology research and advisory company has recognized Alterian, the major player in customer engagement technology and solutions, in its Magic Quadrant for CRM Multichannel Campaign Management. 5/25/2011 Everbridge Prepares Communities for Hurricane Season Incident notification systems provider Everbridge said Monday that numerous clients are proactively testing their notification service and preparing for the upcoming hurricane season with Everbridge's SmartGIS application. 5/25/2011 Avaya on Contact Center Interaction, Routing Trends There has been a shift in the control of business relationships from the companies to the customers. Fickle only-as-good-as-the-last-product/service/price performance loyalty, parsimony with downturn-limited incomes, the ability to check out and compare offerings via the Web and social media, enabled by broadband and wireless has placed the buyers in charge. This change has impacted customers' interactions with firms. TMCnet recently interviewed Jorge R. Blanco, vice president, marketing, Contact Center Solutions for Avaya to find out how. 5/24/2011 Value Matrix for CRM Released by Nucleus Research Nucleus Research, a global provider of investigative, case-based technology research and advisory services that offer real-world insight into maximizing technology value recently released the 1H2011 Technology Value Matrix for CRM. 5/20/2011 DIRECTV #1 on American Customer Satisfaction Index DIRECTV, a pay TV provider, has once managed to retain its hold on the number one spot in the American Customer Satisfaction Index for the eleventh year. The company beat other competitors such as DISH Network and AT&T U-Verse, both of whom have witnessed declines of four points in the ACSI this year. 5/20/2011 DIRECTV Ranked Number 1 on American Customer Satisfaction Index DIRECTV, a pay-for-TV provider, has once again managed to retain its hold on the number 1 spot in the American Customer Satisfaction Index for the eleventh year. The company beat other competitors such as DISH Network and AT&T U-Verse, both of whom have witnessed declines of four points in the ACSI this year. 5/20/2011 CompanionLink Announces Direct Synchronization of Zoho CRM CompanionLink Software has announced direct synchronization of Zoho CRM contacts, calendar, and tasks with Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and BlackBerry devices. 5/20/2011 Efficiency of Customer Care Differentiates Telecommunications Providers: J.D. Power and Associates Gaps in network performance issues are reducing among major telecom service providers. In the wake the narrowing gap, the efficiency of account teams and customer service representatives has emerged as a key differentiator in customer satisfaction, according to J.D. Power and Associates. 5/20/2011 SalesFocus Solutions Expands Its Presence in India SalesFocus Solutions has announced the opening of a new office in India which will increase its presence in the country. The office is situated at Hyderabad, capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh and will expand SalesFocus Solutions' research, development and sales capabilities. 5/20/2011 Call Center Software Week in Review for the Week of May 20th Given the pace with which call center software evolves, it's important for those in the industry to keep abreast of trends emerging throughout the week. This week we saw partnerships and unveilings that tell us about the future of the call or contact center and show it increasingly moving to the cloud. 5/20/2011 Noble Systems Updates Browser Access Tool For Mobile Contact Center Management While contact centers of old were physical places, today's contact center is more of a concept than a location. Workers may be located anywhere...in satellite offices or even their own homes. Extra support may be provided by back-office workers in another location, and some subject matter experts or managers may need to be able to jack into the contact center from the road. As a result, contact centers today cannot succeed with a robust way to manage contact center operations remotely. 5/20/2011 New Mexico Job Market Gets a Boost As Sitel Announces 120 Positions for Its Albuquerque Call Center In an effort to improve its customer services, the leading provider of outsourced customer care services, Sitel is actively expanding its customer care call center in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the initiative is going to be a job spinner for the local market. 5/20/2011 ASCI Reports Positive Swing in Customer Satisfaction, Drop for Information Services Primarily due to gains in the utilities and health care sectors, which offset a drop for the information sector, customer satisfaction as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)saw a positive spike this quarter. For the first quarter of 2011, the Index has risen from 0.4% to 75.6 on the ACSI's 0-100 scale. 5/20/2011 Verba Technologies Expands Central European Operations Responding to the burgeoning demand for its high-performance call recording and contact center quality assurance solutions, Verba Technologies has expanded its central European operations by opening an office in Budapest, Hungary. Officials with Verba Technologies said that with an expanded team, the company's engineers and sales professionals can conveniently assist regional Verba staff, partners and customers in various time zones across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 5/19/2011 SoundBite Recognized as Company of the Year by Frost & Sullivan SoundBite Communications, a provider of cloud-based, multi-channel, proactive customer communications solutions, has been recognized with the 2011 North American Frost & Sullivan Company of the Year Award. 5/19/2011 Host Analytics Improves its SaaS-Based CPM Suite with More Than 30 New Features Host Analytics, a provider of SaaS-based corporate performance management (CPM) solutions, announced that it has upgraded its Host Analytics Corporate Performance Management Suite with more than 30 new features in Q1 2011. 5/18/2011 Trends in the Call Center Market: At-Home Agents, Cloud Applications and Social Media If the phrase call center agent conjures up images of college students or recent grads slogging away on a contact center floor filled with gray cubicles, think again. At least for Working Solutions, a provider of outsourced customer service support and sales, that is not an accurate description of the workforce. 5/16/2011 TeleWare Meets New FSA Call Recording Rules with New Solution TeleWare has unveiled the first "clientless" mobile call recording solution for financial services organizations. This launch has been made so that these organizations can easily meet the new FSA call recording rules governing conversations on the mobile phone. 5/13/2011 New Call Center, Staff Enabling Arlington National Cemetery to Better Serve Public Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) receives in the range of 5,000 calls a month - ranging from basic information to scheduling funerals. Last year, staff answered all of those calls, presenting a huge strain on the system. Teaming with the Army's IT Agency, the Consolidated Customer Support Center (CCSC) answers about 65 percent of those calls, providing the first level of support to the public. 5/13/2011 Personality Mapping - A Way To Use Call Center Agents' Personalities to your Advantage A recent webinar titled "Transformational Call Center Results Through Personality Mapping" discussed the benefits and features of a new trend in new call center technology, Personality Mapping. This is the ability to drive Agent/Customer pairings based on more than their demographic and psychographic attributes, resulting in dramatically improved results," according to webinar officials. 5/13/2011 Video: Site Selection Group Benefits the Call Center Industry The call center industry is nothing if not dynamic and one company specializing in multi-market evaluations of communities around the world with a keen focus on call centers is Site Selection Group. 5/13/2011 Call Center on Demand Software is an Easy Choice for Startups For start ups, reducing the cost of operating a call center is priority number one and at this point there's really only one way to achieve it. Opting for a hosted solution over premise- based alternatives, grants newer companies the flexibility to spend as the need arises, and because the software is being carried on a remote server, it can completely remove it maintenance charges. 5/12/2011 Optimal Call Center Operations Rely on Proper Training Customer service is heavily focused on within all aspects of call center operations, as performance consistently staying at a high level remains a key initiative. Agents and supervisors alike must be able to perform according to established criteria or risk being replaced. When the focus of the call center changes especially, there is an increased need for training and coaching to ensure the success of agents and supervisors, in order to contribute to the productivity goals established by the center. 5/12/2011 Expedia Hotels App Helps to Expedite Bookings at Hotels Expedia.com is the world's leading online travel site, helping millions of travelers easily plan and book travel. In keeping with its commitment to provide the latest technology, Expedia launched a hotel booking app and also released a set of upgrades for its mobile Web customers. 5/12/2011 Verizon Helps Ticketmaster to Improve Call Center Operations through a Higher Level of Customer Care Once a new show opens, Ticketmaster needs to be able to answer all of the exorbitant amounts of customer calls, while still delivering a high level of customer service. This is where Verizon comes in -helping to improve overall call center operations. 5/12/2011 CommerceTel Facilitates Voting for Miss Universe Organization CommerceTel, which provides proprietary mobile marketing technologies and solutions, says that the Miss Universe Organization will now leverage online, social, and mobile audiences to influence the outcome of the event. 5/12/2011 BenchmarkPortal Recognizes Midwest Real Estate Data for its Excellent Customer Service Midwest Real Estate Data's Technical Help Desk has been recognized as one of 2010's Top 100 Call Centers in the small center category by BenchmarkPortal. 5/12/2011 Teleperformance Upgrades Its Columbus, Ohio Facilities Teleperformance, a provider of outsourced CRM and contact center services, announced the completion of its newly remodeled and expanded site in Columbus, Ohio. Teleperformance spent around $1.5 million to remodel this facility to make it an exceptional place to work. 5/11/2011 New Emergency Alert Broadcasts to be Available on Cellphones Federal officials announced this week that soon some cellphone users in New York and Washington will be able to receive alerts by text message in the event of a national or regional emergency, according to a story in the New York Times. 5/11/2011 TXU Energy's Abilene Call Center Receives Its First Expansion in Three Months TXU Energy, the leading provider of electricity and related services to Texas' 2 million customers, announced that its three month old Abilene call center has exceeded all of the company's ramp-up expectations. 5/11/2011 SpeechCycle Launches New Technology that Helps Increase the Adoption of Phone Self-Service SpeechCycle, a provider of customer interaction management solutions, announced it is deploying a technology that adapts to callers' behavior for the automated and continuous optimization of the user experience. 5/11/2011 Parks Associates Organizes a Session at CONNECTIONS: The Digital Living Conference and Showcase Parks Associates, a market research and consulting firm focused on residential product and service segments, recently noted that global smartphone sales surged more than 70% in 2010. Such high sale figure, according to Parks Associates, is making app stores, social networking platforms, and cloud-based innovations force mobile operators to reexamine their business models and ensure improved connectivity and content access. 5/11/2011 Demand for Virtual Business Processes Leads to Alpine Access Expansion It is always uplifting to learn of business growth and the creation of new jobs, especially when the drone of the opposite news is so prevalent in so many sectors. In Denver, Colo., that high is not coming solely from the altitude today but from news emanating from the contact center sector. Alpine Access, which provides virtual contact center solutions and services, announced today that it is opening a new Technology & Operational Excellence Lab that it says will complement its downtown Denver headquarters by providing a location dedicated to driving innovation, improving operational efficiencies and supporting its extensive technology infrastructure. The new facility will also create 50 new jobs 5/9/2011 Mobile Mentor Teams with CosmoCom to Implement New Contact Center Suite CosmoCom, a company that empowers enterprises and service providers to build private and public cloud contact center solutions, announced that mobile support provider Mobile Mentor has employed the CosmoCall Universe virtual contact center suite to help support its rapid growth as a leading provider of mobile phone customer support and mentoring. 5/6/2011 TCN Boasts Innovative New Website Can you hear that? There is a definite buzz over at Utah-based TCN these days following the company's unveiling of its innovative new website, www.tcnp3.com. 5/6/2011 Vocalcom Committed to Bringing Dialer to Entire Call Center Market Call center technology leader Vocalcom has not only seen unprecedented success of a growing repertoire of 650,000 agents, but its innovative dialing product has been overhauled to bring enhanced dialing features to call centers across North America. 5/6/2011 Accola Release Latest Version of ContactManager for US Legal Firms Accola, an IT solutions provider to the legal industry, recently launched the latest version of its flagship CRM product-ContactManager. The new version has been exclusively designed for the US legal professionals, the company said in the release. 5/6/2011 Social CRM for Large Enterprises Released by ListenLogic ListenLogic understands that large enterprises now want to listen and respond to social media in real-time. To address this need, the company recently announced the general availability of its Enterprise Social CRM solutions. The Enterprise Social CRM which is currently serving a number of Global 1000 brands leverages ListenLogic's proprietary Integrated Social Intelligence Platform to assist large organizations to smoothly scale their customer service engagement and marketing outreach operations. 5/6/2011 New Cooperative Agreement Announced Lime Light CRM and Profinity LLC Profinity LLC and Lime Light CRM recently formed an alliance to provide value-added services to Internet retail, eCommerce and direct response marketers. This new partnership between Profinity and Lime Light CRM will provide value to marketers by creating new incremental revenue streams. They will also get extra benefits which will include identifying and stopping fraudulent orders while reducing chargebacks. 5/6/2011 Magic Software Forms Alliance With BigMachines Magic Software Enterprises Ltd., a global provider of cloud and on-premise application platform solutions and business and process integration solutions, and BigMachines, a major player in product configuration, pricing and quoting, proposal generation, and B2B ecommerce, have formed an alliance focused on integration services for the BigMachines Selling Platform. 5/6/2011 AT&T Could Gain from T-Mobile Customer Loyalty: Vocal Laboratories The acquisition of T-Mobile will bring AT&T more loyal customers, according to Vocal Laboratories' study on phone-based customer service quality. 5/6/2011 Leads360 Names Nick Hedges as its President and Chief Executive Officer Leads360, the industry leader in sales lead management software, has named Nick Hedges as its new President & Chief Executive Officer. As a part of CEO's responsibilities, Hedges will focus on expansion of Leads360's product and customer footprint in order to maintain and further accelerate growth. 5/5/2011 LiveOps Looks to Maximize Direct Response With LiveWeb LiveOps, a provider of solutions aimed at solving technology and workforce needs for businesses, unveiled a new service, LiveWeb, at Response Expo 2011. LiveWeb provides pay-for-performance online marketing opportunities for the direct response (DR) industry. 5/5/2011 Outsourcing Institute Expands Management Team with Contact Center Solutions Expertise The Outsourcing Institute, the world's largest and most trafficked neutral professional association dedicated solely to outsourcing, announced the expansion of its management team with the hiring of Jeff Russell as Managing Director of its Contact Center Marketplace. Russell will oversee The Outsourcing Institute's newly formed solutions designed specifically for the contact center industry. 5/4/2011 TalentSoft Acquires 10 new Large Accounts in the Cloud in First Quarter 2011 TalentSoft, a major player in SaaS-based Integrated Talent Management, has cemented its strong international growth with the acquisition of 10 new clients in the first quarter of 2011. 5/3/2011 TalentSoft Acquires New Large Accounts in the Cloud in Q1 TalentSoft, a major player in SaaS-based Integrated Talent Management, has cemented its strong international growth with the acquisition of 10 new clients in the first quarter of 2011. 5/3/2011 Talk2Rep to Provide Outbound Teleservices to Electronic Company An International Electronics Manufacturer has contracted Talk2Rep to provide customer services and Tier 1 desk support. 5/3/2011 Will 'Crazy Tuesday' Live Up to its Reputation? If Black Friday, the shopping day after Thanksgiving is meant to be a profitable day for retailers, then Crazy Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day is supposed to do the same for the self storage industry. This year Crazy Tuesday falls on May 31. 5/3/2011 DYXnet Launches Online Housekeeping Service for China's Thriving Online Retail Sector In response to dramatic growth of online retail industry in China, DYXnet, Greater China's leading ICT service provider, recently launched eShopKeeper online housekeeping service. As a part of the company's Contact Centre Outsourcing services portfolio, eShopKeeper will provide online retailers with quality customer services, both before and after sale, artwork support and many more. 5/2/2011 Callidus Software Launches Sales Coaching Solution for iPad and Android Phones The Sales Performance Management (SPM) Company Callidus Software Inc recently announced the launch of a next-generation coaching application for mobile devices. Called MySalesCoach, the application is based on Callidus ForceLogix SalesForce Optimizer and will be available on the iPad and Android platforms in the second quarter of 2011. 5/2/2011 AnswerFirst to Volunteer Tampa May Classic 5K Run in support of the Child Abuse Council AnswerFirst Communications, a provider of international telephone answering service and customer service solutions, announced its volunteer participation for Tampa May Classic 5K Run in support of the Child Abuse Council. 5/2/2011 Talk-2-Me SaaS Solution to be Launched at Canada 3.0 Canada 3.0 is a joint effort of the Canadian Digital Media Network and the University of Waterloo Stratford Campus. True Voice Technologies is all set to launch its new Talk-2-Me SaaS solution at Canada 3.0 in Stratford Ontario May 2-4, 2011. 4/29/2011 Customer Satisfaction or Profitability--- Foresee Results Offers an Answer Michigan based international customer satisfaction firm ForeSee Results recently published its latest research that sparked off a new debate---should priority be given on customer satisfaction or on the profitability of the organization? 4/29/2011 Sydney-based Mobile Mentor Deploys CosmoCom Contact Center Platform CosmoCom, which empowers enterprises and service providers to build private and public cloud contact center solutions announced Sydney-based Mobile Mentor, a provider of mobile phone customer support and mentoring, deployed the CosmoCall Universe virtual contact center suite to support their rapid growth. 4/29/2011 Illinois City Scaling Back Grant Money for Contact Center Falling Short of Hiring Goal It's not an uncommon scenario: a new contact center promises a city x number of jobs, and the city, in turn, promises grants to the contact center company based on those jobs. So what happens when the contact center hires only a portion of the employees it originally promised? A Rockford, Illinois-based contact center company called FMS is about to find out. 4/29/2011 Comcast To Open New Minnesota Contact Center Cable giant Comcast Corporation is bucking the current economic trend and hiring new employees. The Philadelphia-based company plans to open a new call center in Minnetonka, Minnesota this summer to handle customer inquiries from western states. The new call center will result in the hiring of about 450 new workers, reports Twin Cities Business. 4/29/2011 Hartford Financial Offers FleetAhead Risk Management Program to Commercial Fleet Customers The Hartford Financial Services Group announced it will offer its FleetAhead risk management program to commercial fleet customers with loss sensitive insurance programs. 4/29/2011 ECOtality to use ABB's Sales Distribution Channels According to a recent agreement signed with ABB, ECOtality, Inc. will use ABB's sales distribution channels to offer ECOtality's Blink electric vehicle (EV) charging stations to ABB's network of North American commercial and utility customers. ABB and ECOtality have signed some big contracts in the past, which has strengthened their relationship, including a deal in which ABB invested $10 million in ECOtality. 4/25/2011 26th Annual Top 50 Interactive Teleservices Agencies Ranking Revealed Norwalk, CT (April 20, 2011) TMC, a global, integrated media company helping clients build communities in print, in person and online, today announced the Customer Interaction Solutions magazine's 26th Annual Top 50 Interactive Teleservices Agencies Ranking. Customer Interaction Solutions has been the preeminent publication in call center, CRM and teleservices industries since 1982. 4/21/2011 Kaseya Expands Capabilities and Visibility of its IT Automation Platform Kaseya, a provider of IT systems management software, unveiled two new modules, Service Billing 1.0 and Service Desk 1.3, that are designed to expand the financial capabilities and organizational visibility of the Kaseya IT automation platform. The Kaseya platform can be used by clients to take advantage of the changing market dynamics and meet growing demands from small to medium-sized businesses for ongoing, proactive IT services. 4/21/2011 Syntellect a Sponsor at UK Call Centre Management Association Awards Enghouse Systems Limited's, wholly owned subsidiary Syntellect Inc., is a global leaders in contact center and telephony self-service software solutions. The company recently announced that it will sponsor the UK Call Centre Management Association (CCMA) Support Manager of the Year Award for 2011. At CCMA's sixteenth annual Awards Gala dinner on the May 12, 2011 at the Palace Hotel in Manchester, the winner of this prestigious award will be announced 4/21/2011 UAE's Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank Opens All-Woman Call Center United Arab Emirates-based Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) has announced the launch of its Al Ain call center. Not really big news? This contact center is bound to be a little different. The center will be entirely staffed and run by Emirati women. The women-only call center in Al Ain comes as a realization of the bank's strategy to "employ and empower UAE nationals and to magnify the vital role of the Emirati women in society," said the bank in a statement. 4/21/2011 Singo Solution Selects AdaCore Products The Ada programming language and GNAT Pro Development Environment from AdaCore have been selected by Singo Solution, Inc., a global provider of specialized call-center solutions. 4/21/2011 PNMSoft to Discuss Benefits, Challenges of BPO Hoping to finish strong after three successful webinars the past few months, PNMSoft is gearing up for its final webinar in the series, "Managing Change in BPO," which will take place from 4 to 5 p.m. BST (British Summer Time) on Tuesday, April 26. 4/21/2011 IVR Technology Group Unveils iCall to Streamline Automated Outbound Call Processing IVR Technology Group, a provider of intelligent voice response services and solutions, announced the launch of iCall, a feature-rich, streamlined approach to automated outbound call processing. 4/20/2011 Crytek Uses New Autodesk Scaleform in its New Game German video game firm Crytek has selected Autodesk Scaleform software, to be used in the development of a new game called "Crysis 2." 4/20/2011 OnboarD's IssuTrax Selected by Celebrity Cruises Celebrity Cruises has signed a fleet-wide contract OnboarD and has selected IssuTrax Facilities Maintenance Management system to provide the highest level of service within the industry when addressing guest related matters. 4/19/2011 Craftmatic Expands Adjustable Beds Call Center Sales Department Craftmatic, a leading innovator of adjustable beds, has recently expanded its sales team and call center in order to meet the growing demand for adjustable beds. Craftmatic's sales for the first quarter of 2011 were higher than those in 2010. 4/19/2011 Fake FTC Sweepstakes Scam Operation Busted by VerifyPhone.com VerifyPhone.com, an online public directory with specialized service, has announced that the recent spate of callers posing as FTC employees has been exposed. An increase of phone scammers impersonating Federal Trade Commission employees has been brought to the notice of FTC and VerifyPhone.com and the company has issued warnings to the general public to be aware of the scams. VerifyPhone.com provides its users access to all the information that they require. 4/19/2011 JPay Relocates its Call Center to Miramar & adds 75 New Jobs Payment service provider JPay, Inc. has announced that it is moving its call center operations to South Florida, generating 75 new jobs in the state. 4/18/2011 InfoGrow Launches CRM2Maps for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 InfoGrow Corporation, an expert in location intelligence, mapping and CRM, has recently announced that it has introduced CRM2Maps for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. 4/15/2011 Ramco's New OnDemand ERP Finds Favor with the Public Ramco Systems, a leading software company focused on consulting, products, and managed services, is offering manufacturers in the Aviation, Aerospace and Defense industry a choice in enterprise solutions. 4/15/2011 Toshiba's Strata CIX Phone Systems Improve Customer Experience at Barnes Motor & Parts The Telecommunications Systems Division of Toshiba America Information Systems announced that it assisted Barnes Motor & Parts to enhance customer service at call center and 16 NAPA automotive parts stores in Eastern North Carolina with Toshiba's Strata CIX IP business phone systems. 4/15/2011 Affinion Chooses Syntellect to Provide Outbound Call Center Services Affinion International, a leading innovator of customer to brand marketing, protection and travel products, has recently announced that the company has chosen Syntellect Inc. to provide automated telephone services for customers. Syntellect is a global leader in telephone self-service software solutions and according to the terms of the agreement, its UK partner CCT will help to provide automated telephone services for customer management. Affinion states that the company has already experienced an immediate improvement in efficiency of their customer service operations. 4/15/2011 American Support Included in WorldBlu's 52 Most Democratic Workplaces American Support, a Chapel Hill-based billing, technical and customer support service provider, recently announced that it has been named one of WorldBlu's 52 Most Democratic Workplaces. 4/15/2011 Autodesk Unveils AutoCAD WS Mobile App for Android Allowing Android users to view, edit and share their designs through web browsers and mobile devices, Autodesk has announced the availability of the AutoCAD WS mobile application on the Android platform. 4/15/2011 Koç.net and Surado Form Partnership to Promote Surado CRM Online Turkiye Koç.net, a leading independent alternative operator in corporate data market and telephony services, has recently announced that it has formed a partnership with Surado to offer SMEs Localized Turkish online CRM solutions. 4/15/2011 Raiffeisenbank Picks Altitude uCI Solution To drastically improve agent productivity and customer contact success, ZAO Raiffeisenbank has recently adapted Altitude Software's uCI solution. One of the busiest banks in Russia since 1996, ZAO Raiffeisenbank offers a full range of services to retail and corporate customers both resident and non-resident, in roubles and foreign currencies. According to Interfax-CEA, ZAO Raiffeisenbank ranked 6th in Russia in terms of private deposits and 8th in consumer lending in Russia, based on 2010 results. 4/13/2011 Cincom's Selling Platform is Now Available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Cincom, a Gold Certified Partner of Microsoft Corporation, announced that its Cincom Acquire, the knowledge-based selling platform is now available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. 4/13/2011 MGF Supports Japan Through Text-To-Give Campaigns Mobile Giving Foundation (MGF) is continuing its Japan Relief Efforts initiatives through Text-To-Give Campaigns. 4/13/2011 eGain Knowledge 10 Solution Integrated with Oracle CRM On Demand eGain has accomplished Oracle Validated Integration of its eGain Knowledge 10 solution with Oracle CRM On Demand Release 18 via the through Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). eGain is a Gold-level member of the OPN. 4/12/2011 Omnilert Launches Emergency Notifications Solutions through U.S. Communities Contract Omnilert, a provider of e2Campus and Amerilert unified emergency notification systems (ENS), launched their solutions through U.S. Communities Contract. 4/8/2011 Gold Competency for CRM Given to CIBER in the Microsoft Partner Network CIBER, Inc. recently announced that it has been awarded with a Gold competency in the U.S. for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN). The certification further demonstrates the value that the company provides to its customers by showcasing best-in-class solutions that have been subject to rigorous and auditable approval processes. 4/8/2011 Three Contact Center Software Necessities for Quick ROI Improving the quality of a call center operation is something that all communications operation managers wish they could do. Getting results out of your team means you'll need each of them performing at top quality, and to make sure they do this there are a number of contact center software solutions that you can incorporate. 4/7/2011 Workforce Software an Essential Component to Call Center Management Payroll cost is the single largest piece of a call center's budget, which is why effective management of your call center operation is so essential. By ensuring that your agents are being used as effectively as possible, you stand to save a considerable sum. 4/7/2011 Faith Call Center Offers Outbound Services Company officials at the Faith call center have realized that an outbound campaign can radically alter the number of sales leads that are generated. It has now decided to offer packaged outbound services designed by seasoned industry specialists to comprehensively address the needs of companies. 4/5/2011 Hosted Contact Center Provider Five9 Named One of the Largest Companies in the Bay Area As the hosted and on-demand industries have exploded over the past decade, so have the companies most eager to adopt the methodologies that the cloud allows. Included in that group is hosted call center service provider Five9 which was recently ranked the 22nd largest software company in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company attributes their recognition to their customers. 4/5/2011 CALL CENTER: TAKE THE EXTRA STEP FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE Imagine that every single person in your business feels like they are personally accountable for the satisfaction of every customer. Imagine how hard every employee would work in that case. Now visualize that there is a way that you can track not only the service calls but the service tech that handled the call, right to the last detail. 4/5/2011 Assurant Solutions' RAMP Ramps Up Revenue-Producing Sales The American Teleservices Association or the ATA is the only nonprofit trade organization that dedicates itself exclusively to the advancement of companies that utilize contact centers as an integral channel of operations. It acknowledged Assurant solutions' patented, analytics-based call processing system- RAMP- and conferred on it the 2011 Technovation Award at its annual Awards Gala. 4/4/2011 Bruce Telecom chooses Telax Hosted Call Center In locations like Bruce County in southwestern Ontario, Canada, harsh weather can be a real threat to businesses' service continuity. That's one of the reasons Bruce Telecom, a 100-year-old communications provider, announced today it has entered into a five-year partnership with Telax Hosted Call Center. 4/1/2011 Hyundai Securities To Improve Customer Marketing By Using SAS Customer Intelligence Analytics Hyundai Securities, one of Korea's biggest financial institutions is utilizing SAS Customer Intelligence for its Customer Segmentation system, which is used for customer marketing across the company. The company plans to target and cater to VIP customers to increase its retail profits. The company is utilizing SAS Analytics to design a new customer welcome program, and a VIP customer management program. It will employ statistical models that will help it to recommend products to its VIP customers, based on analysis of the individual purchase preferences of each customer. 4/1/2011 Asia-Pacific's Contact Center Industry Scrutinized in New Report According to a recent study by Frost & Sullivan, the Asia Pacific "continued to be a high-growth region for the contact center industry even during the global economic slowdown." 4/1/2011 Why Are On-Demand Contact Centers Becoming More Popular? Companies that regularly attend industry gatherings and stay abreast of what the trades as well as mainstream news sources are reporting know that on-demand contact center solutions have received growing attention. The more clear this becomes, the more the answer everyone is looking for is, of course, why is this concept so popular? 4/1/2011 Convergys to Build Fourth Facility in Cebu City, Philippines Convergys Corporation, a global player in relationship management, has decided to expand again by opening a fourth state-of-the-art facility in Cebu City. 4/1/2011 CollectPlus Debt Collection Software Implemented by Patient Finance and Loan Patient Finance and Loan (PFL), a state of the art medical and pre-collections company dedicated to providing high quality services to both patients, and providers, has recently announced the successful implementation of CollectPlus. 3/31/2011 Interior Concepts Shows the Benefits of Ergonomic Furniture to the Outbound Call Centers of the ACA Interior Concepts offers call center furnishing options for tons of different contact center operation styles. From Inbound to outbound and from warehouse sized operation to startups-there really are many call center types that the workstations of interior concepts haven't been utilized in. Last week, Interior Concepts headed out to the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals conference where it showcased its workspace solutions. Considering that many, if not all collection and credit businesses have outbound call faculties associated with them, the show was the perfect place for Interior Concepts expertise in the field. 3/31/2011 Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine Announces 26th Annual Top 50 Outbound Teleservices Agencies Ranking Norwalk, CONN. (March 30, 2011) TMC, a global, integrated media company helping clients build communities in print, in person and online, today announced the outbound winners of Customer Interaction Solutions magazine's 26th Anniversary Top 50 Teleservices Agencies Ranking. Customer Interaction Solutions has been the preeminent publication in call center, CRM and teleservices industries since 1982. 3/30/2011 Debt Collection Drives Up Dialer Demand in Europe, Middle East: Frost and Sullivan A tight economy means both more past-due bills and a greater urgency by organizations to collect them so that they can pay their bills, and avoid having them go past-due. This is prompting more outbound calls: with predictive and progressive dialers that make them more efficient, resulting in higher net proceeds. 3/30/2011 Acqueon Technologies Releases New Communications and Notifications Management Application Acqueon Technologies, Inc., a premier product specialist in customer interaction management, has introduced ProActive Reach, new communications and notifications management application. ProActive Reach is a software application that helps organizations to quickly and efficiently communicate with large groups of employees, customers or other groups of corporate stakeholders. 3/30/2011 The Benefit of Home Agents in Your Call Center Strategy With the advent of easy to deploy, hosted and virtualized contact solutions, call center operators have more options than ever for developing new hiring and workforce strategies. Chief among these are home-based alternatives, which employs a number of geographically dispersed agents to form well trained support for your operation. 3/30/2011 Acqueon Intros New Communications and Notifications Management Application Acqueon Technologies, a product specialist in Customer Interaction Management (CIM), has announced its new communications and notifications management application called ProActive Reach. 3/30/2011 Vodafone Germany Deployed Amdocs Mediation 8 to Manage Large Data Volumes The global provider of customer experience systems (CES), Amdocs recently announced the selection of Amdocs Mediation 8 by Vodafone Germany, the largest service provider in Europe, serving nearly 35 million subscribers with mobile, fixed and broadband Internet services. 3/30/2011 Harvesting Information from Call Center Utilities for a More Effective Strategy The information a contact center has access to can offer a vital avenue for process improvement. Especially in the workforce management space, tracking individual adherence rates and staff stats offers an easy way to make sure your call center is always prepared for an unexpected increase in call volume. By tracking this incoming information and prominently displaying it to the staff, call center operations can quickly improve adherence rates and customer service representative availability. 3/29/2011 T-Mobile to Upgrade Contact Center as Merger with AT&T Rolls On Upgrading a contact center when its owning firm is in the midst of a merger may be a strange move; for if most mergers are any indication, it leads to consolidation of facilities like contact centers to cut costs and increase profitability. Especially as other feature-rich, less expensive and increasingly customer-friendly methods such as inbound and outbound IVR/speech recognition and web automated and social community self-service take hold and eat away at call volumes. 3/28/2011 ECT Selected by Major European Network Provider for Broader IVR As a vendor of complete solutions for value-added services in the multimedia, IVR, and voice domain, European Computer Telecoms (ECT) enables new cloud-based contact center products to integrate effectively with network providers. A provider yet unnamed has chosen ECT's INtellECT Next-Generation Intelligent Network with its effective Network-Based Contact Center to facilitate the incorporation of cloud-based products into its network. 3/25/2011 Indosoft Solution Offers Enhanced Customer Retention Features Indosoft, a provider of call center software for Asterisk, has announced the general availability of improved customer retention feature sets. 3/25/2011 Contact Center Agent Performance Optimization Market Recovering Strongly in EMEA Region, Says Study The economy of the last few years hasn't really been good to anyone (except maybe for a few Wall Street bankers, but that's a different story). The downturn, which was far reaching and affected not only North America but Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) as a whole, slowed the growth in a lot of enterprise software market sectors, and the agent performance optimization (APO) marketplace was no exception. Even as the sector declined in 2009, the seeds of recovery and future growth were apparent. The highest growth was witnessed among centers in the 150 to 200 contact center seat range, according to a new study by analyst group Frost & Sullivan. 3/25/2011 DOLE 24/7 Call Center Contributed To the Safe Reparation of Hundreds of OFWs in Libya Philippine's Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) recently reported the achievement of its 24/7 call center in assisting the individuals and families of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who got stuck in the middle of Libyan crisis. Since the Libyan crisis began, the Call Center helped in the process of safe reparation of more than 4,000 OFWs. 3/25/2011 Maine Senators Reach-Out to AT&T on Behalf of T-Mobile Call Center Workers AT&T's Sunday announcement that it will buy T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom, Germany's largest phone company, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $39 billion that will make it the largest cell phone company in the U.S., was received with trepidation by the people of Maine. 3/24/2011 SupportSquad Partners with TigerDirect, CompUSA and Circuit City Looking to offer unlimited 24/7 tech support to its customers, SupportSquad has entered into partnerships with TigerDirect.com, CompUSA.com and CircuitCity.com. The company now provides services such as automatic system cleanup, optimization of PC performance and minimizing online threats. 3/24/2011 Sitel Makes Global Outsourcing 100 List For the sixth straight year, global customer care outsourcing provider Sitel has been included in the Global Outsourcing 100 list, a ranking that recognizes world's best outsourcing service providers and advisors. 3/23/2011 Forrester Call Center Research Includes User Centric's Input User Centric is well known for its game-changing approaches that take user experiences to a whole new level in contact center operations. The company which is based in Chicago has contributed to Forrester Research's latest report, "Reinvent Your Call Center Culture to Create Amazing Customer Experiences." 3/18/2011 Skype Facility Now Available on Ameyo Software Customer support centers are established to address customers problems via written or voice communication. Many customer support centers only support voice and written communication. Offering video call facility to customers, through customer support centers, helps companies to provide more effective support service. 3/18/2011 Get International Toll-Free Service Over Skype Using Ameyo Call Center Software Drishti-Soft, an innovator of contact center software and enterprise communications applications, has recently announced the availability of Ameyo for Skype. Ameyo is Drishti-Soft's call center software, which will now be connected with Skype to enable a full-featured contact center with Ameyo, in addition to an international toll free communication platform through Skype. 3/18/2011 SuccessFactors Forms Strategic Partnership with Avanxo SuccessFactors, a provider of sales, consulting, complementary business solutions and technology through its SuccessFactors Partner Program, has recently announced that the company has formed strategic partnership with Avanxo. 3/17/2011 APAC Contact Center Market Employs a Record 3.16 Million Agents in 2010: Frost The Asia Pacific region continues to be a growth center for the contact center industry. To meet customer demand, the region registered an 8.5 percent growth in contact center agent seats in 2010. By 2017, the number of seats is likely to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.5 percent, according to a study by Frost & Sullivan, a research firm. 3/17/2011 Great Bay Plans Virtual Collector Enhancement for Product Great Bay Software will launch a virtual collector enhancement for its flagship product, the Beacon Endpoint Profiler. This enhancement will offer greater flexibility in identifying all network-attached endpoints, thereby boosting the already robust database of endpoint information in enterprise environments. The customer can use the VMware Collectors to deploy the Beacon Endpoint Profiler in the major areas of the IT system while reducing their carbon footprint. 3/17/2011 DYONYX Reports Strong Fourth Quarter and Announces Corporate Expansion DYONYX, a provider of information technology outsourcing, managed and consulting services, has announced strong 4Q 2010 result. The company added several clients in segments such as commercial real estate, utility, energy and oil and gas sectors. The value of booked contracts is $16 million. 3/16/2011 Bolder Calls and Blitz Lead Manager Offer Effective Tele-Business Solution According to a press release, a leading contact center solution provider, Bolder Calls teamed up with renowned sales lead management and business contact software provider, Blitz Lead Manager. 3/14/2011 FTC to Host Workshop on Technology Use in Consumer Debt Collection Process The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will host a workshop next month on the impact of new technology in consumer debt collection. 3/11/2011 Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Aspect's Leadership in Outbound Contact Market Frost & Sullivan has named Aspect as the Global Market Share Leader for the outbound dialer systems market based on product revenue in 2009. The global outbound dialer systems market is valued by the research firm at $250 million and Frost attributes 22.3 percent of this revenue to Aspect. 3/11/2011 Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Sounds Alarm on Space Industrial Base, Jobs With the shutdown of the space shuttle, the U.S. space industrial base is facing a crisis, according to Jim Maser, president of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. Maser says his company, a division of United Technologies Corporation, already has plans to close half its offices and factory space over the next three years, and might have to lay off hundreds of employees, reports Reuters, unless NASA puts together a plan for a next-generation heavy lift rocket within the next four to eight months. 3/10/2011 Video Contest Open to Call Center Professionals The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), a global provider of comprehensive resources for customer management professionals, revealed that the 2011 ACCE Conference & Expo will feature a video contest open to all call center professionals. 3/10/2011 Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Aspect as Global Share Leader for Outbound Dialler Systems Aspect, a provider of customer contact and Microsoft platform solutions, recently announced that the company has been recognized by Frost & Sullivan as the global market share leader for the outbound dialler systems market. 3/8/2011 Oco in Gartner's 2011 Business Intelligence Platforms Magic Quadrant Report Oco, an innovator of enterprise-class Software-as-a-Service business intelligence (SaaS BI) solutions, recently announced that it has been included in Gartner's 2011 annual Business Intelligence Platforms Magic Quadrant Report, the first such report to include a separate section on Software-as-a-Service Business Intelligence (SaaS BI) offerings. 3/8/2011 LiveOps and City of Newark to Create Work Opportunities for Citizens LiveOps, a provider of solutions aimed at solving technology and workforce needs for businesses, and the City of Newark announced a partnership to create work opportunities in the greater Newark, N.J. region. 3/7/2011 Innevo and TechMark Bring Outsourcing Services to US, Canada Innevo, a software developer from Guadalajara, Mexico, recently collaborated with TechMark Global, a technology-focused business development firm located in Binghamton, N.Y., in order to offer development and outsourcing services to the U.S. and Canada. 3/7/2011 Bloomberg Backs Liu's Fiscal Approach to 911 System Modernization New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to back his New York City Comptroller John Liu in advocating for fiscal responsibility in still trying times. Bloomberg recently acquiesced to Liu's demand that the city stop putting millions into its 911 system modernization. In January, Liu refused to approve a contract with Northrop Grumman Corporation, a leader in global security, for $286 million. The contract called for the design and installation of computer software for a $650 million backup 911 call center the city is building in the Bronx as part of that modernization, the New York Daily News reported. 3/4/2011 InsideView, The Vanella Group Partnership Helps Business Achieve New Revenue Levels The Vanella Group, a provider of teleservices for the technology industry with their Telesales 2.0 methodology, announced a partnership with InsideView, a provider of sales intelligence. 3/4/2011 Heartland Payment Systems Adds ACH Functionality to its Platform Allowing companies to process all check transactions from one location, Heartland Payment Systems has added Automated Clearing House (ACH) functionality to its Express Funds check management platform, the company has stated. 3/4/2011 UTOPY Inks Reseller Agreement with Veridian Solutions to Cover Australia and New Zealand Veridian Solutions has inked a reseller agreement with UTOPY, Inc., a provider of voice of the customer and performance optimization solutions powered by speech analytics. 3/4/2011 Shred-It Partners with Sky Technologies to Roll Out CRM-Service Shred-it, which offers secure destruction of electronic documents, has partnered with Sky Technologies, a provider of enterprise mobility solutions, to roll out a Mobile Enterprise CRM-Service Solution. 3/4/2011 Redwood Collaborative Media Launches Contact Center Association Redwood Collaborative Media has launched Contact Center Association, which will offer benefits that combine traditional professional association benefits and a new, highly interactive Website. 3/4/2011 Liberty Mutual Group Expands Presence in Boston In addition to helping people live safer and secure lives, the Liberty Mutual Group, a diversified global insurer and fifth largest property and casualty insurer in the U.S., has decided to offer the residents of the Boston community an opportunity to recover from the economic setback it suffered, by expanding its presence in Massachusetts. 3/4/2011 21st Century Insurance Call Center Singled out for 'Outstanding Customer Service' The Call Center Certification Program was launched by J.D. Power and Associates in 2004 with the aim of helping call centers in various industries to increase their efficiency and effectiveness by improving the way service calls were handled. 3/4/2011 Equiduct Moves Matching Engines Into Interxion's City of London Data Center Equiduct has moved its matching engines into its City of London data center to take advantage of Interxion's leading connectivity and Financial Hub community. Interxion is a European provider of carrier-neutral colocation data center services. 3/4/2011 Global Telesourcing Named as Call Center of the Year by Comcast Comcast has recently awarded Call Center of the Year for 2010 to Global Telesourcing, a sales-focused, premium provider of native-English and Spanish language call center services in Monterrey, Mexico. 3/4/2011 Sentry42 Launches New Gatehouse Data Centre Sentry42, which offers secure, purpose built, data center facilities, has launched a 60,000-square-foot data centre in the U.K. 3/4/2011 UK's Apex Credit Management on Awards Shortlist: With Help From Noble and Nexidia Nominees for the Oscars can rest with the awards handed out last Sunday. Those nominated for the United Kingdom's contact center equivalent, the Contact Centre Innovation Awards 2011 have to wait until April 12 at the Customer Contact Planning 2011 at Birmingham, England to find out whether they have won. 3/3/2011 Avtex Expands Contact Center and UC Applications Portfolio Avtex, a provider of integrated, interactive technology solutions, announced an addition to its Contact Center optimization portfolio and the launch of new Communications Enabled Business Process (CEBP) applications for Unified Communications (UC). 3/3/2011 Cox to Go Green by Enrolling in the Legends Energy Group's Demand Response Program Cox Communications, along with Legends Energy Group (Legends), recently announced that Cox has made Legends its official demand response partner for all Cox Virginia locations. Not only will Cox receive a payment by reducing its electricity during times of stress on the electric grid, but the company's reduced energy consumption will also have a profound effect on the local environment. 3/3/2011 Lenovo Care Premium Support Services for Consumers is Now Available Lenovo recently announced Lenovo Care Premium Support Services, which is a new support solution for consumers and small businesses that goes beyond basic PC hardware assistance. The new service will also support home network set up, operating system upgrades and browser troubleshooting, among other activities. Lenovo has created this service after analyzing the most common issues cited in customer feedback to Lenovo's support centers. This premier service will now focus on the initial set-up through the entire lifecycle of Lenovo's PC products and the related digital home environment. 3/3/2011 Convergys Expands in Philippines with New Contact Center in Baguio City Convergys Corporation, a major player in relationship management, will expand its operations in the Philippines with a new, state-of-the-art contact center in Baguio City, its first in Northern Luzon. 3/3/2011 Avtex Launches New Contact Center Applications Avtex, a provider of communication and collaboration technologies to its customers, has announced the launch of its Contact Center optimization software and new Communications Enabled Business Process (CEBP) applications for Unified Communications (UC). The company is a Microsoft Gold Partner and also an Interactive Intelligence Elite partner, and has unveiled the new products at the Enterprise Connect conference taking place this week. 3/3/2011 Thirty Percent of Companies Will Use Social CRM for Customer Service in Two Years About 30 percent of companies will use social customer relationship management (CRM) to extend their online community initiatives in the next two years, according to Gartner, an independent information technology research firm. 3/3/2011 C5 Insight Releases Dynamics CRM 2011 Bible by Wittemann and Ables C5 Insight, a provider of cloud-based solutions on industry-leading software platforms, announced that Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Administration Bible, co-authored by C5 Insight team members Matt Wittemann and Geoff Ables, is now available for purchase. 3/3/2011 Liberty Mutual Group Opens New IT Center in Boston; Fuels Local Job Market A Boston-based global provider of insurance products and services, Liberty Mutual Group has created a new Information Technology Development Center in Boston. According to the company, the new center is going to be a job-spinner. 3/3/2011 SAP Sales OnDemand Presents New Competition to Rivals Salesforce.com and Microsoft CRM Online could be looking at some stiff competition from SAP's Sales OnDemand later on in the second quarter of this year. Although it was first discussed at SAP's two-day analyst summit in December 2010, SAP is officially revealing its forthcoming application, Sales OnDemand at the CeBIT 2011 show in Germany today. 3/1/2011 ICAP Ocean Tomo Introduces Instant Messaging for Automated Sales Channels Vendors must find new ways to promote and sell their products as customers spend more time using communication related media and entertainment sources. To help vendors provide better service to their customers, Shadow Enterprises, represented by ICAP Ocean Tomo have designed a patented process that will be of interest to virtually anyone that deals with eCommerce. 3/1/2011 Singlewire Software Upgrades its InformaCast Notification Platform Singlewire Software specializing in the development of voice applications for providing secure, fast and reliable mass notifications announced the release of InformaCast 8.0, which is an upgrade to the popular InformaCast notification platform. 2/28/2011 Q&A With InetSoft on Business Intelligence One key management axiom is that "you can never have enough information." The more you know, the better the chance that the decisions you make will be the right ones. Business intelligence (BI) enables organizations to derive information from the vast and increasing amounts of data collected -- and needed -- for timely and effective decision-making. That includes strategically for enterprises and especially tactically in contact centers where revenues and operations can be improved and costs lowered to drive up profitability. 2/25/2011 LifeWatch Announces the Opening of Third Call Center in the United States LifeWatch, a provider of wireless telemedicine, announced the opening of its third call center in the U.S. 2/25/2011 Virtuoso Sourcing Installs Latitude Software Debt Collection Solution Virtuoso Sourcing Group, a provider of outsourced ARM solutions, recently deployed the debt collection solution from Latitude Software, an Interactive Intelligence company that provides debt collection software and services. 2/23/2011 Calabrio Closes 2010 with Record Growth and Unmatched Customer Support In release today, Calabrio, Inc., a leading provider of workforce optimization software, announced that sales of its workforce optimization (WFO) products through the Calabrio enterprise channel partner network grew more than 40 percent in 2010. Nearly half of its deployments in 2010 displaced an incumbent vendor. 2/18/2011 Blue Nile Picks ShoreTel Contact Center Solution In order to generate customer satisfaction, Blue Nile, an online retailer of certified diamonds and fine jewelry, has partnered with ShoreTel for a new contact center solution. 2/17/2011 Mitel Optimizes Customer Operations with Benbria's Incident Notification Solution Benbria, a provider of intelligent incident notification solutions, announced that Mitel, a provider of unified communications software solutions, deployed Benbria BlazeCast to improve their customer service operations with advanced notification, tracking and reporting. 2/16/2011 Bally Total Fitness Selects Customer Service Provider Sword Ciboodle Bally Total Fitness, a widely recognized health club brand in the United States with 270 clubs and approximately 3 million members worldwide, has selected Sword Ciboodle as lead contact center technology provider to reinvigorate its customer service program. 2/16/2011 Newell Rubbermaid Improves Customer Experience with Help from RightNow RightNow, a customer interaction company, has announced that it is helping Newell Rubbermaid's Home & Family Group to deliver exceptional consumer experiences and has been in this role since 2005. 2/11/2011 T-Mobile UK Deploys Omnivex Software Within its Call Centers in UK Omnivex Corporation, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and provider of enterprise software for digital signage networks, recently announced that British cellular telecommunications provider T-Mobile UK is using Omnivex software within its call centers in the United Kingdom. The system displays the current RAG status view of the call center metrics in addition to other important information. 2/11/2011 Most Popular Uses for IVR in Retail Sales If you want to see how IVR can be used well in retail sales, one way is to look at a popular product and see what the core functionality is. Voxeo's Prophecy IVR platform and Prophecy IVR hosting products have been used by retail sales enterprise customers and VoiceWorks Partners to create and deploy IVR applications. 2/11/2011 Marketing Architects Selects Verifi To Enhance Direct Response Merchants' Customer Acquisition Verifi, a Software-as-a-Service-based global electronic payment and risk management solutions provider, and Marketing Architects, an outsourced sales and marketing services provider, has jointly announced the selection of Verifi's payment gateway by Marketing Architects targeting enhanced customer conversion for its direct response merchant clients. The integration of Marketing Architects' proprietary IVR platform, Voce, with Verifi's payment gateway would tremendously support customer evaluation while also contributing towards quality enhancement of the acquired customers for their merchants. 2/9/2011 http://unified-communications.tmcnet.com/ Full Avaya DevConnect Compliance has been secured by Sabio CallBack. The application now provides comprehensive integration and interoperability with Avaya Voice Portal. Sabio is a specialist contact center and unified communications systems integrator. 2/9/2011 Covario Enhances International Capabilities, Resources with New Appointments Covario, Inc. a provider of search marketing software solutions and agency services announced that it is enhancing its international capabilities and resources by hiring Larry K. H. Jenkins as vice president of global client strategies and services. The company also announced significant investments for expanding its team of digital marketing experts in China. 2/4/2011 B2B Soft And Protect Cell Launch Integrated Handset Protection Membership Program Delivering on their customer-first philosophy, B2B Soft has entered into a strategic partnership with Protect Cell to leverage their handset protection services along with B2B's Wireless Standard product, thus providing clients with handset protection alternatives to the wireless carrier's limited warranties and insurance. As a leading provider of business-to-business software solutions with focus in retail management for wireless/cellular retail industry, B2B Soft has launched its flagship product, Wireless Standard, offering robust POS solution across 4,000 locations in North America. 2/4/2011 Avtex Sponsors Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Avtex has announced its plans to sponsor the national Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 launch event series, which kicked off yesterday in San Francisco. The company will showcase a breadth of CRM knowledge at each event. It will answer questions around implementing or upgrading to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, and how other technologies can complement its already robust feature set. 2/4/2011 Yahoo! Selects RightNow and RightNow Agent Desktop Solution to Provide Superior Multi-Channel Support for Millions of Customers RightNow , helping rid the world of bad experiences one consumer interaction at a time, eight million times a day, has been chosen by Yahoo! to bring exceptional customer experiences around the globe. Yahoo! will implement RightNow CX, the customer experience suite, to help their global contact center agents deliver exceptional customer experiences across the web, social networks and contact centers, all via the cloud. 2/3/2011 Partner and Customer Momentum Trigger Record Growth for SugarCRM The fiscal year ending December 31, 2010 proved to be an amazing year for SugarCRM as it recorded immense growth in terms of customer and billings in Q4 2010. Company officials claimed that this was enough to prove that organizations, regardless of size, were opting for flexible, intuitive and open solutions from a trusted source rather than for the traditional proprietary restrictive CRM solutions. 2/2/2011 OETC Joins with e2Campus for Emergency Notification Solution Omnilert, a provider of e2Campus, a safety communication solution for education, announced its alliance with the Organization for Educational Technology & Curriculum (OETC). 2/2/2011 Sabio Gets Pan-European Contract from Office Depot Sabio, a contact center and unified communications systems integrator, has been awarded a pan-European contract from Office Depot, the global supplier of office products and services. 1/27/2011 iReminder Launches Reverse Texting for Medication Adherence iReminder, a healthcare technology company focusing on increasing medication compliance, has announced the development of reverse texting, a new and innovative approach aimed at enhancing persistency and medication adherence among teens and young adults. Therefore, this will help them in better handling asthma, controlling diabetes and adhering to their vaccinations schedules. 1/27/2011 nuBridges Protect Token Manager Intregates With Semafone's Payment Technology Delivering innovative new data protection solutions to the call center industry, nuBridges has partnered with UK-based Semafone to deploy and integrated nuBridges Protect Token Manager solution, ensuring increased protection of credit card numbers on the phone. Integrated with Semafone's payment security technology, the industry-leading Format Preserving Tokenisation solution helps combat call center fraud by masking and tokenizing credit card numbers taken over the telephone. 1/26/2011 Kobek Named Interim President of American Teleservices Association Robert Kobek has been named interim president of the American Teleservices Association (ATA) after CEO Tim Searcy left to take another post. Searcy is becoming CEO of Accent Marketing Services, a member of the MDC Partners Network. He was praised by his former colleagues. 1/25/2011 NetSteps Introduces Next Generation Technology for the Direct Sales Industry NetSteps, a leading supplier of world-class business applications for the direct sales industry, announces ENCORE, a next generation technology platform providing a total solution for global direct sales companies. Full integration is provided to financial systems, logistics, fulfillment, merchant banking and commission payment applications. 1/24/2011 CosmoCom Assists ColibriumDirect with Consumer Health Insurance Demands CosmoCom has announced that its cloud-based virtual call center technology is being used in conjunction with Microsoft's Health Plan Sales Solution for Microsoft Dynamics CRM by ColibriumDirect, a progressive Atlanta based healthcare insurance business process outsourcer (BPO), to be of assistance to the various health insurance companies in endowing U.S. customers with efficient and economical access to private health insurance. 1/21/2011 Blackbaud Unveils Top Trends In Nonprofit Technology The report on Top Technology Trends released by Blackbaud, Inc., a global provider of software and related services, exposes the growing trend of nonprofit organizations in resorting to technology for aid in the reinvention and evaluation of fundraising programs. 1/21/2011 A Challenge for T-Mobile: Reducing Sky-High Customer Churn Rates Ever since wireless number portability became the law of the land about seven years ago, wireless companies have been struggling with a big problem: customer retention. Once, customers stayed with carriers they weren't entirely pleased with in order to avoid changing their phone numbers. Now that customers can wander at will without penalty at the end of their contract periods, wireless companies have had to work harder to keep their customers. 1/20/2011 Nine Mobile Marketing Trends for 2011 Relevance will be the key revenue driver for new mobile-based services in 2011 and beyond, according to K2 Communications Pvt. Ltd., an India-based public relations firm. 1/20/2011 RainedOut Recognized with 2011 Soccer Product of the Year Award RainedOut, a provider of event and group communication services, has been honored with the 2011 Soccer Product of the Year Award for Best Web Application. 1/20/2011 Max Stiegemeier Partners With P.O.P for Voice Broadcasting System Max Stiegemeier has entered into an exclusive partnership with the P.O.P Marketing Group whereby Division 5 Technology's VOIP Platform will offer voice broadcasting to home business and affiliate marketing customers with about 0.009 cent per minute dialing rates. 1/20/2011 Emailvision Acquires ObjectiveMarketer Emailvision, the major player in software as a service for e-mail marketing, successfully completed the acquisition of ObjectiveMarketer, a pioneer in social media marketing. 1/20/2011 Blackboard Delivers Over 13 Million Messages Due to Winter Storms Blackboard Inc. delivered more than 13 million messages in a single day on Jan. 11, marking an unprecedented level of outreach in a 24 hour period for the company and highlighting the speed of its mass notification services. 1/19/2011 Online Software Suite for Small Businesses from Groobix.com An integrated suite of affordable and easy to use online business applications are brought together by the cloud-based service, Groobix.com. 1/19/2011 Division 5 Technology's VoIP platform Offers 1 Cent/Minute Rates Division 5 Technology, a communications holding company, announced that its VoIP platform will offer home business and affiliate marketing customers access to 1 cent/minute dialing rates through a partnership it forged with P.O.P Marketing Group. 1/19/2011 myDIALS Offers 14-Day Free Trial of Online Marketing Module Recently much attention has been paid to performance management within collaborative environments. To improve operational performance and business results through SaaS performance management platform service, myDIALS, a vendor of SaaS performance management solutions, has introduced a innovative 14-day free trial program of its myDIALS Online Marketing Module, the industry's first auto-deployed SaaS performance management solution. 1/18/2011 Vitality GlowCaps Now Available From Amazon Vitality andAT&T have announced that Vitality GlowCaps are now available on Amazon. These are intelligent pill caps, company officials say, "designed to help patients take medications regularly by sending reminder calls, weekly e-mail reports and monthly updates sent to your physician." 1/18/2011 Voice2Phone Releases Auto Dialer, Eases Phone Surveys, Reminders Company officials say the product "automates the process of broadcasting voice message by phone making it easier to perform phone surveys, send voice notifications or reminders to clients." It's being pitched to those looking for mass phone notification, customer surveys and reminders with virtually endless number of possible applications. 1/17/2011 Delta To Shut Down Contact Center in Jamaica; Bring Jobs to U.S. In a sign that American consumers' preference for U.S. based contact center agents may be penetrating, Delta today became the latest airline to say it will bring call center jobs back to the U.S., according to TheStreet . 1/14/2011 U.S. Cellular has Buy-One-Get-One-Free Offers for Valentine's Day U.S. Cellular is offering a buy-one-get-one-free sale on all of its Android-powered devices, now through Feb. 17. 1/14/2011 Alorica Awarded for its Analytics Tool and Web-based Management Service Platform Alorica Inc. a provider of outsourced customer contact management services announced that it has been selected as winner of the 2010 Product of the Year Award for both Alorica Analytics, its proprietary, state-of-the-art analytics tool, and Helix by Alorica, its Web-based technology management service platform. 1/14/2011 CyberTech and Teleopti Become Partners CyberTech, a call recording provider, and Teleopti, a provider of strategic Workforce Management (WFM), have entered a partnership agreement. The partnership will help CyberTech expand its ever-growing base of best-of-breed contact center solution vendors. 1/14/2011 Pitney Bowes Introduces Volly, a Comprehensive B2B Communications App If you're a business-to-business company, no doubt you regularly drown your customers via a variety of media. You may mail them invoices, statements and reminders, bulk mail them catalogs and brochures, e-mail them updates and newsletters, text them coupons and send them promotions via social media. What you may be looking for is a way to streamline the flow of multimedia communications. It would save you time, and it would cut down on the annoyance factor for the customer - and perhaps save some trees. 1/14/2011 Cell-CRM.com Offers Free CRM Software No doubt 'customer relationship management' has been a seductively attractive concept to discuss among trendsetters, organizations and customers. 1/14/2011 Sales Enablement Solutions Help Outbound Call Centers and SMBs with Revenue Generation To compete in today's sluggish economy, an organization's sales and marketing departments need to be more strategic than ever before. Enterprises and SMBs that are able to succeed in the current market are those that consistently drive revenue, while at the same time operating their business in a responsible and sustainable manner. 1/14/2011 Insurance Provider MajescoMastek Announces Latest Version of STG Billing System MajescoMastek, the U.S. subsidiary of global technology solutions provider, Mastek, introduced the latest version of the STG Billing system at their third annual User Conference at the Ritz Carlton in Miami, Fla. 1/14/2011 iSPRINT Packaged Solutions Adds SugarCRM to its List SugarCRM Professional on Demand software is now listed under iSPRINT for Packaged Solutions. An announcement in this regard has been made by customer relationship management or CRM Company, SugarCRM. 1/13/2011 US Army Deploys RightAnswers Unified Knowledge Suite The U.S. Army, looking to streamline its service desk operations, has selected the RightAnswers Unified Knowledge Suite, which provides 24/7 online service desk support. RightAnswers provides enterprise knowledge management, self-service and knowledge base development solutions to support organizations providing internal support, and those who offer customer service. The solutions provided in this suite consist of three components: software, content, and services. 1/13/2011 Cycle30 Completes Cable Conversion with Billing Platform Comverse, a provider of billing and active customer management solutions, and Cycle30, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Communication Inc. (GCI) , announced that the cable TV services provided by Alaska's largest telecommunications and cable provider have been converted to Cycle30's hosted billing platform, powered by Comverse BSS. 1/10/2011 Q&A with Altitude Software These are "interesting times" for contact centers what with a slow, but recovering economy, ever-more (and rightfully) demanding customers requiring topnotch service and limited resources. The advent of the social channel as a customer interaction vector, with its tremendous power to sway business and of new UC solutions and increasingly improving service options including outsourcing and home-based agents are providing considerations and choices for center managers. 1/10/2011 Promocall Contributes to Charity Through Monthly Draw Pormocall, a leading U.K.-based call center, has recently announced that the company is launching a monthly draw in partnership with its offshore partner in Tangier, Morocco. The winner will receive 40 hours of free outbound telemarketing for any project of their choice. 1/7/2011 Intelestream Implements ROI-Driven CRM Solution for Jaffe PR Intelestream, Inc., a provider in CRM consulting and CRM software-as-a-service, has implemented a successful ROI driven CRM solution for Jaffe PR. The application is designed as an affordable, turn-key CRM solution that can be easily customized according to individual requirements. An Internet connection and a Web browser are all that is needed to use the application, so getting started is easy. 1/7/2011 Call Center Service Provider FaithCallCenter Expands Call Center Offering FaithCallCenter, a leading call center services, data entry services, virtual assistant services and software development provider, has recently announced that it has now increased its call center offerings to include a multilingual contact center. By outsourcing to call centers, organizations can expect swift responses, cost saving, and precise solutions to issues. 1/7/2011 CSU Picks EnergyConnect to Provide Demand Response Services EnergyConnect, Inc., a provider of smart grid demand response services and technologies, secured a multi-year contract to provide integrated demand response services to the California State University system(CSU). 1/5/2011 Drishti Deploys Ameyo IPCC at Shell Transource Drishti-Soft Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an innovator of communications technologies for next-generation enterprises, has deployed Ameyo IPCC at Shell Transource to power the company's critical domestic processes. 1/4/2011 Operations Monitoring Crucial to Improved Call Center Performance A blog post at Medarch.net offers some insight on how "analytics and contact center quality monitoring are changing the way companies do business and dramatically improving contact center operations." 12/30/2010 Kanoo Travel Opens Women Only Call Center The Saudi travel agent, Kanoo Travel, opened a call center with women employees only. As per a report in Arab News, around 20 women employed by Kanoo Travel have completed telephone operation training and are now operating the company's first and exclusive ladies-only call center. 12/29/2010 ASC Introduces Business Process Automation Solutions at Call Center World 2011 To support the definition, execution and tracking of business process, ASC Telecom will present its business process optimization (BPO) solutions at Call Center World 2011 at the Estrel Convention Center in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 21 to 24, at booth C2a, Hall 4. 12/28/2010 Etisalat DB Opens Second Customer Call Center Cheers Mobile Services, the GSM service from Etisalat DB Telecom Pvt. Limited, a joint venture between UAE'S Etisalat and the Dynamix Balwas Group, inaugurated its second customer contact center in Noida, India. 12/27/2010 Veterans' Administration Opens Call Center Services in Hot Springs On the first day of business at the Veterans' Administration Call Center in Hot Springs, the agents handled nearly 1,000 calls that were coming into the Black Hills Health Care's VA Call Center in Hot Springs, S.D. 12/27/2010 GoDaddy.com Enhances Call Center Services with Verint GoDaddy.com has implemented the next-generation Impact 360 Workforce Management solution from Verint Witness Actionable Solutions, a provider of enterprise workforce optimization software and services. 12/27/2010 India's Cheers Mobile Opens Second Call Center India's Cheers Mobile Services, the GSM service from Etisalat DB Telecom (Etisalat DB), this week announced the opening of its second contact center in Noida, India. Etisalat DB, which is a joint venture between United Arab Emirates-based Etisalat and Indian firm Dynamix Balwas Group, has an end-to-end outsourcing partnership with Tech Mahindra for the north and south regions. 12/23/2010 inContact Offers Powerful Value Proposition in Call Center Outsourcing The call center is an important division within any organization simply because it provides an important interaction point between the company and its customers. The challenge, however, is that not every company has the infrastructure to support an in-house call center organization. To help meet the customer interaction needs of the business and still stay within budget limitations, many are turning to call center outsourcing. 12/23/2010 Proper Contact Center Data Warehouse Methods Help Produce Call Center Certification The call center is an important division for any organization as it serves as the primary interaction point between customers and the company. In many situations, it is the only interaction point and therefore, responsible for the customer's experience and satisfaction. Due to this heightened level of importance, it is critical that the contact handling process is conducted both efficiently and effectively. 12/23/2010 Do You Have A Hotline For Your Customers? On the Call Center Metrics blog, a recentpost noted that these days, "almost all big (and even small) companies have their own call centers or use services of external call centers who handle customers' calls." 12/17/2010 New Small- to Mid-Size Call Center Product for 2011 Aspect, a provider of unified communications (UC) and collaboration services and software, announced its plans to deliver a software-based product for small- to mid-size contact center applications using Microsoft Lync as its media server, in 2011. 12/17/2010 Amerilert Renewed Contract to Provide Personnel Alerting Services for Defense Logistics Agency Omnilert, LLC, is a maker of Amerilert one of the leading unified mass notification systems for mid-sized corporations, nonprofits and government clients. The company recently announced that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) activities at the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center have gone ahead and renewed a contract for the Amerilert unified mass notification system. The DLA Installation Support team at Battle Creek, Michigan has been using Amerilert to securely broadcast critical news and public safety information to all DLA employees and contractors associated with the facility. 12/17/2010 Adelaide Contact Center Chosen by Toyota Adelaide's contact center Contact 1-2-1 has been tapped to operate the Toyota Fleet Contact center (TFCC) for its national dealer network and sales and marketing teams for the next three years. Vic Johnston, manager of Fleet Strategy for Toyota National Fleet, said that the goal is to make the TFCC an integral part of the Toyota Fleet sales and marketing team. 12/10/2010 Rostrvm Solutions: Contact Centers 'Must Not Fail' According to officials of Rostrvm Solutions, customer contact services have experienced a significant change in what their customers expect and the way that they want to do things over the last few years. 12/10/2010 Northeast States Receives Improved Access to Jitterbug J Cell Phones GreatCall, which sells developing wireless services "focused on keeping people connected, safe and healthy," according to company officials, announced that Tri-State appliance and electronics retailer P.C. Richard & Son will carry the Jitterbug J cell phones. 12/10/2010 Outbound Call Center: Utah's Method Communications Hires New Leaders In order to meet with the growing demand for its targeted, strategic public relations and integrated marketing services in the region, Utah-based premier public relations and integrated marketing firm Method Communications recently bolstered its leadership tem by welcoming three communications professionals in its family. 12/10/2010 Eliassen Group Acquires Staffing and Data Management Consulting Firm Wakefield, Mass.-based Eliassen Group, a technology staffing and clinical data management consulting firm, announced the acquisition of the IT staffing division of Dextrys, a provider of product engineering and application services outsourcing. 12/10/2010 Outbound Call Center: World First Commits to Improved Customer Service A U.K.-based company, World First, has turned its back on automated answer machines for good. It is the fastest growing foreign exchange broker in U.K. and has announced a new commitment to customer service. The award-winning company has committed to answering the phone within three rings with a welcoming human voice. 12/10/2010 Q&A with Avidian Technologies on CRM Trends Avidian Technologies say its goal is to build the "easiest CRM software in Outlook": a vision that has attracted business from over 15,000-plus customers and growing worldwide. That has led the privately-held firm to be, it reports, profitable and financially stable with record revenues in 2010 even in the face of the economic slowdown. 12/9/2010 Sitel Expands Call Center Services Footprint in Nicaragua Sitel, a global business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, has opened an additional call center in Managua, Nicaragua to serve English and Spanish-speaking U.S. consumers. 12/9/2010 Apptis Awarded EPA Call Center Task Order Apptis, Inc., a leading provider of essential IT and communications services to key defense and civilian agencies, has been awarded the EPA Call Center Task Order under the ITS-EPA II Blanket Purchase Agreement. The contract is for one year and has five one-year options. 12/7/2010 Convio on CRM for Nonprofits Customer relationship management (CRM) strategies and enabling technologies have become vital for profit-oriented companies to permit them to maintain and grow revenues while reducing costs through maximizing customer lifetime value. 12/6/2010 Acuity Achieves Success With TeleNet Contracting out contact center tasks to the right partners-BPO (business process outsourcer) firms that excel in people, process and technology--can generate significant bottom-line results. For these outsourcing companies' success depends on how well they can make their clients' programs successful. 12/3/2010 Call Center News of The Week This week the call and contact center space was alive with talk about new programs, new customers and new regulation. The stories came from some major players in the field including Zeacom, Spectrum Corp and InContact. 12/3/2010 ADI Time to Provide Workforce Management Solution to PSI In an important announcement made by ADI Time, a leading vendor of cloud computing time and attendance management software services (SaaS), the company declared the establishment of a partnership with Payroll Solutions International (PSI), a Canadian-based international payroll provider, offering outsourcing services throughout the North American and International marketplace. 12/3/2010 Amcom's Smartphone Messaging Solution to Enhance Patient Care at Stony Brook The Stony Brook University Medical Center in Stony Brook, N.Y., has chosen Amcom Software Inc.'s Mobile Connect for its pager replacement and smartphone messaging system. Amazon Software connects people to each other and to the data they need. 12/3/2010 Outbound Call Center: US Cellular Wins Award for Customer Value Enhancement Frost & Sullivan's 2010 Customer Value Enhancement of the Year Award from North America has been awarded to The Belief Project from U.S. Cellular. Only when a company is deemed worthy of the honor, this award has been presented by Frost & Sullivan. An industry game-changer also needs to be developed by a company to win this award. 12/3/2010 AltiGen to Introduce New Contact Center and Unified Mobile Convergence Solutions AltiGen Communications, Inc., a provider of software-based Unified Communications solutions announced that it will be showcasing its new Contact Center and Unified Mobile Convergence solutions for Microsoft Lync Server 2010 at TelecomExpo in The Netherlands. 12/3/2010 lValicom Deploys Web-based Software Clearview Service For IT Consultants With the growing demand for cloud computing and software-as-a-service tools, Valicom has started licensing its telecom expense management software, Clearview in early 2010. Valicom is offering its intellectual capital to other independent telecom and IT consultants, thus deploying an advanced feature-rich, cost-effective platform like Clearview as a replacement to the traditional inadequate tools including manual paper processes or outdated spreadsheets. By leveraging Valicom's innovative solution, many consultants found an increase in profitability factor with added convenience. 12/2/2010 Outbound Call Center: Mindjet Is Now a Member of Oracle PartnerNetwork Mindjet revealed it is now a member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) and also one of the partners invited to participate in the Oracle Fusion CRM early adopter program. 12/2/2010 TeleTech Acquires 1-to-1 Marketing Leaders Peppers & Rodgers Global BPO firm TeleTech has always been about fostering 1-to-1 relationships between companies and customers through its wide array of customized multichannel contact center services. Now it has become a leading provider of 1-to-1 consulting services through acquiring an 80 percent in Peppers & Rogers Group, a leading global management consulting firm specializing in customer-centric strategies for Global 1000 companies. 12/2/2010 FTC Endorses 'Do Not Track' Mechanism to Protect Consumers The Federal Trade Commission has endorsed implementing a "Do Not Track" mechanism so consumers can choose whether or not to allow the collection of data on their web searches and browsing. 12/1/2010 Telecommunications Service Provider Emtelco Wins Growth Leadership Award Frost & Sullivan awarded Emtelco, one of the biggest and most solid groups providing telecommunications services in Colombia, with the Growth Leadership Award in Colombia inside the contact center outsourcing services market. 12/1/2010 Groupama Insurance Offers New Call Center Service Platform Interactive voice recognition is a great tool for call and contact centers and offers a convenient way to cheaply and effectively route calls. However for all the return on investment automated voice lines offer the simple fact is that most customers do not like them. 11/30/2010 Acapela Group Creates a Custom-Made IVR System for Public Announcements At Swedish railway stations, vocal passenger information has not always been very clear. Trafikverket, the Swedish Transport Administration wants to change this and is introducing a new system for relaying passenger information which it will soon roll out across the country. This new system is based on "Jarda," which is an original text to speech voice IVR system created by Acapela Group exclusively for Trafikverket. 11/29/2010 Blackboard Collaborates with txttools for Mass Notification Services Clients in the United Kingdom and Ireland will be delivered mass notification services by Blackboard, Inc., in collaboration with txttools Ltd. The Blackboard Connect mass notification service is provided by Blackboard, and text messaging solutions for education, healthcare and government are provided by the U.K.-based txttools. 11/29/2010 Houston READ Chose Constant Contact to Enhance Communications Houston READ Commission selected the services of Constant Contact in order to implement a better and more consistent way to communicate with donors and supporters. 11/22/2010 Convergys Recognized for CRM Solutions, Call Center Services Convergys Corporation, a major player in relationship management, was named the "Best CRM Solution Provider" and "Best Outsourcing Call Center Service Provider" for 2010 by the China IP Communications Award Committee. 11/19/2010 Emergency Alert Notification System Might Come to Your Cell Phone It's a staple of television watching or radio listening. The interrupted program, piercing noises and an announcement that says, "This is a test of the emergency broadcast system," is familiar to any American who watches television or listens to the radio. (In actuality, the Emergency Broadcast System was ended in 1997; it was replaced by the more multimedia Emergency Alert System.)You may even have a few recollections of real (not tests) activations of the system, perhaps for impending storms. So why doesn't the emergency alert system reach us on our cell phones? The good news is that very soon, it might. 11/19/2010 Contour Technology Selects OrderMotion D2C Management Platform OrderMotion, a provider of Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Campaign and Order Management Platform announced a new client. In a press release, this Burlington, Mass.-based company announced that globally renowned fitness product company, Contour Technology, LLC, selected OrderMotion D2C platform to process and manage all order and customer data generating from its direct response television (DRTV) advertising campaigns. 11/18/2010 Admiral Group Replaced Willow Foundation's IT Network Infrastructure and Telephony Systems Willow Foundation joined with Admiral Group to replace its aging IT network infrastructure and telephony systems with new systems to enhance efficiency, flexibility and allow the charity to grow its operations. The charity's existing telephony system struggled to cope with increased call volumes. Admiral aimed to ensure that any new IT investment would generate maximum return for the charity. 11/17/2010 BAS to Design E2M Engine Business Automation Solutions, Inc., (BAS) longtime GoldMine Consultant and developer of e-mail tracking software, IntelliClick, a solution for Goldmine email tracking, announced recently its selection to provide the solution for powering E2M's professional newsletter services marketing company. 11/17/2010 SAP Explains BusinessObjects Business Intelligence OnDemand SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence OnDemand is a self-service business intelligence product that lets users explore, report, and share data in the cloud anytime, "without the challenge of a long, complex technology project." 11/17/2010 Ness Technologies Wins Outsourcing Contract to Help Operate Leumi Card Outbound Call Center Leumi Card, Israel's second-largest credit company, awarded a three year outsourcing contract to Ness Technologies for help in operating its outbound call center. 11/16/2010 OTRS and GWOS Become Partners in Enterprise Monitoring Solutions OTRS, the world's leading provider of open source Help Desk and ITIL-compatible IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions, and GroundWork Open Source (GWOS), the leader in commercial open source systems and network management software, have entered into a strategic partnership, which will allow the companies to create a combined enterprise monitoring and two-way ticketing solution. The solution will enable IT managers to submit tickets directly to OTRS via GroundWork Monitor and track relevant ticket information. 11/12/2010 AtTask Deploys ForsevaTRM to Manage Collections Efforts AtTask deployed ForsevaTRM to manage its collections efforts, announced Forseva, the leader in CRM-enabled credit and collections management software delivered as a service. The company claimed that the major factor behind its selection is its comprehensive collections management features and native compatibility with the Salesforce.com platform. Both the companies expect quite a lot from this association. 11/12/2010 NXP and Partners Kick Off Emergency Call System European Trial A pan-European field trial of the eCall emergency system will be launched by NXP Semiconductors N.V. and its partners at the electronic 2010 conference in Munich. In the event of a road accident, emergency operators are automatically called by the eCall emergency system. Organizations that represent essential parts of the rescue chain are also taking part in this field trial. These include BMW, IBM, Allianz OrtungsServices, DEKRA, and Deutsche Telekom, and automobile clubs such as AvD, Touring and UAMK. 11/12/2010 Department of Veterans Affairs to Open 400-Seat Contact Center in Las Vegas In news that is very welcome to one of the economically hardest-hit regions of the country, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has announced it will be opening a new contact center in Las Vegas that is expected to create about 400 jobs. 11/12/2010 Service Appointments Imprison Americans in Homes According to The Street, a new survey found the standard 3-5 hour in-home service appointment windows "are costing U.S. businesses billions of dollars and causing 51 percent of consumers who have waited for a service provider to feel like prisoners in their own homes." 11/12/2010 Acxiom, Lealta Media Announce Agreement to Transform Customer Engagement, Loyalty From Little Rock, Ark., comesnews that Acxiom Corporation, which sells marketing services and technology, signed an agreement with Lealta Media to "further transform customer engagement and loyalty." 11/12/2010 SoundBite Unveils In-Home Service Appointment Solution to Reduce Operating Costs and Improve Customer Service SoundBite Communications, Inc., a provider of on-demand, multi-channel proactive customer communications, recently introduced the SoundBite In-Home Service Appointment Solution, which provides relevant and timely multi-channel communications for home appliance, cable, satellite and broadband service providers. The solution helps service providers lower operating costs, reduce customer churn, differentiate service and provide customers with greater convenience throughout the entire appointment experience. 11/12/2010 Texas Credit Union League, CO-OP Financial Offer CO-OP e-Commerce and Call Center Support Together with CO-OP Financial Services, the Texas Credit Union League (TCUL) is offering CO-OP Mobile and CO-OP My Deposit e-commerce solutions, as well as CO-OP Member Center 24/7 call center support. Dick Ensweiler, president and CEO of Texas Credit Union League, said in a statement, "Our member credit unions are telling us that their own members are often seeking to access accounts through mobile banking and remote check imaging and depositing. And, they want 24 hour access to lending and account information via a live agent. There is a definitely a market demand for these services." 11/11/2010 Adopting Real Time Decisioning: Smart Decision for Outbound Call Centers Call centers adopting advanced real-time decisioning (RTD) are free from 'insight gaps' unlike their competitors that have not adopted the technology, unveiled provider of customer interaction optimization software, Portrait Software. 11/11/2010 CO-OP Member Center Offers Outbound Call Services Supporting Credit Union Members CO-OP Member Center plans to provide outbound call services to help credit unions with a variety of member services, including but not limited to, proactively capturing lending opportunities and supporting marketing campaigns. 11/11/2010 Global Bilgi Does Turkcell Proud with Best Performer Award Global Bilgi, one of Turkey's biggest 500 companies, operates in 13 regions, 10 in Turkey and three internationally, and provides value-added services to 50 million people in Turkey and over 10 million people in Ukraine and Belarus. Global Bilgi has been ranked first globally in the "Best Tele-Marketing -Best Outbound Campaign- category in ContactCenterWorld.com's "2010 Top Ranking Performers" Awards, and was ranked third in the world in ContactCenterWorld.com's "2009 Top Ranking Performers" Awards. 11/11/2010 Convergys Corporation Announces Third Quarter Results Convergys Corporation a global leader in relationship management announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2010. 11/10/2010 Outsourcing, Contact Center Suppliers, Weigh In on NBC's 'Outsourced!' Audiences appear to be answering the call for NBC's new comedy "Outsourced!" as the characters and plot lines develop. The Washington Post's TV column reported last month that NBC has picked up a full season for the program. 11/10/2010 PhoneTree Launches Its Latest Product, VoiceWave Online PhoneTree, a pioneer in group communication software solutions, announced the launch of the latest addition to the PhoneTree portfolio of innovative products, the VoiceWave Online. The VoiceWave Online is a Web-based, feature-rich email and text solution, with multi-user access and designed primarily for the non-healthcare industries. It can be used as a supplement or add-on to the PhoneTree's award winning VoiceWave desktop solution. 11/10/2010 Gryphon Networks Releases Web Services API Gryphon Networks introduced Version 3.0 of its Web Services API toolkit, which allows the users to integrate Gryphon's patented Opt-in/Opt-out preference management and "Do-Not-Contact" technologies into existing enterprise marketing workflows. 11/5/2010 Alpine Access' Exceptional Growth Recognized Globally Alpine Access pioneered the virtual contact center model in 1998 to deliver high-quality customer service at a lower cost for brand-conscious companies and has achieved steady growth over the years. As validation of this fact, it announced that its revenue growth for 3Q 2010 increased by 30 percent over the previous year. This is the fourth consecutive quarter that has witnessed double-digit expansion, and the revenue growth in 3Q 2010 represented the company's 14th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth. 11/5/2010 Payday Express' Call Center Hours Increased Payday Express, a U.K.-based payday advance loans provider, announced that it has increased the open hours at its call center in order to be available for longer periods of time to its customers. Accordingly its call center representatives will be working longer hours throughout the week, and they can be contacted even outside of the normal working hours for exclusive or premium customers who require extra assistance. 11/4/2010 ConceptWave Enhances Product Lineup by Integrating CLM Features CRM solutions provider ConceptWave Software, Inc., recently announced the expansion of its portfolio with the addition of customer lifecycle management (CLM) solutions. ConceptWave's growing client base includes some of the world's largest converged operators. 11/4/2010 E-Government Bringing Back People's Trust in Government In a recently published research, ACSI and ForeSee Results revealed that e-governance is playing a crucial role in the corporatization of government and administration and raising the satisfaction level of the citizens, who are consumers of government services. 11/4/2010 Kawasaki Motors Implements SaaS Service Desk InfraDesk InteQ, a provider of on demand IT service management, has deployed InfraDesk, an ITIL SaaS service desk solution for Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. 11/4/2010 MOSSExtra.com Announces CRM Knowledge Base Search Bidoma, a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of business intelligence (BI) and SharePoint software and solutions announced the availability of MOSSExtra.com website. The new website enables Microsoft SharePoint customers to try and buy apps to help run their businesses more efficiently using existing SharePoint installations. 11/4/2010 Frost & Sullivan to Host Analyst Briefing on Contact Scenario in Russia Frost & Sullivan will conduct an analyst briefing on the current Russian contact center outsourcing market, the company announced in a press release. The company stated that the contact center outsourcing sector has been attractive for vendors in Russia. 11/4/2010 Marketing Resources Have To Be Maximized For Small Businesses To Grow In order for small to medium sized businesses to experience consistent growth, they must have a strong marketing strategy. With most businesses cutting down on their marketing budgets, businesses have to make the most of their limited resources, while continuing to be effective and ensuring a return on the investment (ROI). 11/3/2010 Oco's Analytic Application Chosen by Apex Systems to Build Next-Generation BI Architecture In a bid to deliver better workforce solutions to the customers, IT staffing and workforce solutions firm Apex Systems selected Oco SaaS BI applications integrated with SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand. 11/3/2010 San Jose's Family-Owned Engineering Firm Launches New Website San Jose, California-based cable and harness assembly firm, DC Electronics announced the launch of a new website. 11/3/2010 eFaucets.com Customer Call Center Location to Expand eFaucets.com is one of the leading online retailers of faucets, sinks, fixtures and accessories for the bath and kitchen. The company recently announced the expansion of its Customer Service Center. 11/3/2010 Comcast Reports Political Robo-Calling Overloaded Some Phone Networks If there's one outcome that everyone, regardless of political affiliation, looks forward to at the end of election day, it's the cessation of political calls, mail and television commercials. Robo-calls have been so heavily used this campaign season, they have, in some cases, caused overloading of phone systems. Comcast has reported that the massive numbers of automatically dialed political telephone calls have actually caused service problems in New England, though the company reports that with the calls dropping off today, the problems have been alleviated. 11/2/2010 Verint Declared Market Leader for Third Consecutive Year Verint Systems, a leading Actionable Intelligence solutions and value-added services provider, recently announced that Gartner has declared Verint as the market leader for the third consecutive year. 11/2/2010 Pegasystems Knocks On Opportunities with New Collections Solution In challenging economic times, individuals and firms do fall into debt, and most times, it's not their own fault. The challenge is how to cost-effectively recover as much of the past-due sums as possible -- after all, firms to whom the debts are owed need that money to prevent themselves from going into serious debt -- without falling afoul of the law while equally, if not more importantly, avoiding losing the better customers for life. After all, good economic times will return, including for those whose accounts are in arrears. How they are treated will determine whether they will return, and recommend likewise to their fans via social media, or go elsewhere. 11/2/2010 Nonprofits may Not Profit from Charitable Texts Although mobile giving is the way to go these days for nonprofits seeking funds for various disasters the world is experiencing, there are several considerations that should be taken into account so the profit outweighs the cost. 11/1/2010 Canamex Unveils PageRouter a Software-Based Messaging Engine Canamex Communications announced the introduction of PageRouter, a software-based messaging engine that is suitable for various industries. 10/29/2010 OTRS Heralds a New Era in ITSM Solutions OTRS, provider of innovative and open-source Help Desk and ITIL-compatible IT Service Management Solutions, has launched turnkey packages for OTRS Help Desk and OTRS ITSM for SMBs and enterprises. 10/28/2010 Time Warner Cable Signs Companywide Master Services Agreement Varolii Corporation, a dealer in smart, automated communications, announced that Time Warner Cable signed a companywide master services agreement with it after noticing a regional collections increase and measurable improvements in equipment recovery operations. 10/28/2010 Contact Solutions Reaches Two-Billion Call Mark with Taqua's Intelligent Switching System Contact Solutions has reached a major milestone by exceeding two billion calls, thanks to the Tacqua 7000 Intelligent Switching System (T7000). 10/28/2010 Customer Service Social CRM Roundtable Hosted by Bluewolf The cloud computing expert, Bluewolf recently hosted a free roundtable breakfast on "Customer Service in a Social CRM World," on Oct. 27, in Menlo Park, Calif. 10/28/2010 CallCopy Honored as Fastest-growing Privately-held Company in Central Ohio Again CallCopy seems to be on a roll these days. The leading provider of call recording and contact center solutions has been honored as the second fastest-growing privately-held company in Central Ohio by Columbus Business First for the second consecutive year. Business First's Fast 50 Award, an annual program which recognizes companies for their growth and financial performance throughout the previous three years, were announced Oct. 20, 2010. 10/27/2010 SoundBite Chooses IntelePeer's IP Communication Services for Voice Messaging Campaigns SoundBite Communications, Inc., a provider of on-demand, multi-channel, proactive customer communications, has selected IntelePeer's IP communication services for the delivery of its time-critical voice messaging campaigns. 10/27/2010 Vringo's Agreement with Bango Gives UK Subscribers Access to Video Ringtone Service Vringo, Inc., a provider of video ringtones and personalization solutions for mobile devices, has expanded its agreement with Bango, a mobile billing services provider, to allow subscribers from all UK mobile operators to get paid access to the Vringo video ringtone platform. 10/27/2010 Customer Effective CRM User Conference Gets Excellent Response Customer Effective Inc. has recently hosted its third annual user conference in Greenville, South Carolina. The event, which involved participation of more than 145 professionals from industries like financial services, manufacturing, professional services, transportation, technology and more, was Westin Poinsett. 10/26/2010 Google Opens Click to Call to National Numbers, Attracts Financial Companies Click to call is a term that is gaining importance in the call center and other industries where visitors to a website can gain instant information or assistance when they "click to call." This can be especially helpful when using a mobile application as you may not have the time or desire to search around the tiny screen for the information you want. 10/26/2010 InterWeave Smart Solutions Integration with SugarCRM 6.0 to Benefit Businesses Integration Technologies, is a pioneer in the development of smart solutions for uniting systems, legacy applications, databases, workflows, and Web services, announced an OEM tie-up with RemoteLink, Inc., a SugarCRM partner providing SugarCRM 6.0, the leading CRM Software for the small-to-medium business (SMB) marketplace. 10/26/2010 Phoenix Customer Support Center Strengthened by Consumer Cellular Consumer Cellular is the exclusive wireless provider for AARP members. The company recently hired two new team members to drive the growth of its Phoenix customer support center. 10/26/2010 Outsourcing, Off-Shoring, Call Center Revenue to Increase According to the research, 'Call Centers: A Global Strategic Business Report,' conducted by Global Industry Analysts (GIA), global call center service revenue is bound to reach $189.3 billion by 2015. The comprehensive report provides insights into market trends, issues, drivers, company profiles, mergers, acquisitions and other strategic industry activities. 10/26/2010 Public Safety Solution DispatchNow Deployed in Colorado County, Texas DispatchNow has full functionality through secure hosted model that allows secure access from Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP) with reduced on-site maintenance. 10/25/2010 Baynote Exec Gives Insight on Social Media Social media is becoming arguably the most critical customer interaction channel and is more popular than e-mail, according to some studies. A TMC webinar, "Keys to Successful Social CRM Programs" sponsored by SAP that took place Oct.20, outlined a Nielsen online study, "Global Faces on Networked Places" which revealed social member communities reach more Internet users (66.8 percent) than e-mail (65.1 percent). This sector is perhaps, not surprisingly, the fastest growing sector for Internet use: at 5.4 percent per year. 10/22/2010 Improved Customer Service Increases Corporate Banking According to a joint survey conducted by Finextra Research and Pegasystems polling banks and corporations, the results highlight the growing importance of customer service in corporate banking. The survey report shows that around 57 percent of corporations are ready to pay a higher price for a sophisticated self-service Web portal that allows efficient management of their entire portfolio online. At the annual SIBOS Conference, the survey results comprising responses from 98 respondents from banks and corporations in Europe, Asia and the U.S. will be presented. 10/21/2010 Redknee Improves KPN Spain's Customer Support, Satisfaction Toronto-based Redknee, which sells billing and charging software for communications service providers, announced the launch of its customer experience management offering with KPN Spain. 10/21/2010 Children's Progress Awarded for Customer Service NYC-based, award-winning educational technology company, Children's Progress, won the award in the Customer Service category at the fifth annual New York Enterprise Report (NYER) Small Business Awards Gala. 10/20/2010 BioClinica's Trident IWR Revolutionizes IVR/IWR BioClinica announced the launch of Trident IWR. The launch took place at the 2010 Society for Clinical Data Management Annual Conference. Trident IWR is a new IVR/IWR also known as interactive voice response/interactive Web response platform, which provides a unique interface to help clinical operations personnel. 10/19/2010 Fiberlink Adds New Module to MaaS360 Cloud-Based Platform Fiberlink Communications Corporation known for its cloud-based mobility as a service (MaaS) solutions recently enhanced its product portfolio with the launch of MaaS360 Device Management View. In a press release, the company announced that its new solution has been designed to provide organizations with real time data and reporting on desktops, laptops and netbooks, regardless of where devices are located or connected. 10/19/2010 Fort A.P. Hill Deploys AtHoc's Personnel Notification System AtHoc, a pioneer and leader in network-centric emergency mass notification systems, announced that Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia will deploy its award-winning AtHoc IWSAlerts system to help alert personnel in an emergency such as extreme weather or man-made threat. AtHoc is the pioneer and recognized leader in providing network-centric emergency mass notification systems to military, homeland security, government and commercial organizations. 10/18/2010 Orange Leap Provides Dallas Contemporary with Powerful Business Rules Engine Orange Leap, a provider of constituent relationship management solutions, announced that Dallas Contemporary, a non-collecting art museum in Dallas, selected Orange Leap On Demand as its platform for managing the growth of their member marketing, events, and fundraising efforts. 10/18/2010 Ryla Starts Hiring for 400 Customer Service Jobs Soon In order to handle increasing customer service needs, Ryla announced 400 new job openings to cater to the service requirements of one of Ryla's clients. A subsidiary of California-based Alorica, Inc., a global leader in delivering BPO customer contact management solutions, Ryla will set up the new call center at its parent company's existing Clovis, Calif., call center facility. 10/18/2010 Movius Versera ICE Platform Bringing Voice to Alltel Wireles Alltel Wireless selected the Versera Intelligent Communications Environment (ICE) value-added services platform from Movius Interactive Corporation to provide voice-messaging services to its approximately 800,000 subscribers across North America. 10/15/2010 izmocars Re-Certified as CLMP by General Motors izmocars, a leading automotive business solutions provider, announced that General Motors (GM) has approved the re-certification of izmocars as a Certified Lead Management Provider (CLMP). The certification is vital for izmocars as it ensures that by using izmocars iCRM and iLM systems, GM's inbound lead response time will be adhered to strictly, as well as follow up will be carried on quickly and efficiently. 10/15/2010 Webtrends Facebook Analytics Provides LeapFrog with Insight LeapFrog Enterprises strives to increase awareness, improve customer relationships, and reach more potential customers, hence selecting Webtrends to help understand and measure the value of its Facebook custom tabs and applications. By tracking visitor activities on its Facebook page, Webtrends Facebook Analytics insight will enable LeapFrog to optimize social presence and enhance customer relationship with the brand. 10/15/2010 Shiftboard Announces a Partnership Program Shiftboard has launched a new partnership program for technology providers, value-added resellers (VARs) and system integrators, who need a cloud-based scheduling solution. 10/15/2010 Telefonica turns to Syniverse to Accelerate Roaming Time to Market in Latin America Telefonica SA has reportedly selected Syniverse Technologies to serve as its exclusive provider of roaming business management service at 11 of its properties in Latin America. 10/14/2010 Apparent Networks Looking Out for Its Customers Apparent Networks, one of the leading providers of remote performance management solutions, announced that Frost & Sullivan awarded them with the Customer Enhancement Value of the Year Award. This award recognizes and appreciates Apparent Networks' commitment to its partners and customers through unique product features, value-added services and strategic partnership. 10/14/2010 Webs.com Introduces Customer Relationship Management Tool, ContactMe.com ContactMe.com, the first customer relationship management tool, targeted exclusively at home and micro-businesses, has been launched by Webs.com, the do-it-yourself solution for website creation. 10/13/2010 Five9 Announces Participation in RightNow's Summit 2010 Americas Conference Five9, a provider of on-demand call center software for telemarketing, customer service, and business continuity, announced its participation in RightNow's Summit 2010 Americas conference on October 12 to 14, at the Broadmoor luxury resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 10/13/2010 Nuance Communications Contracts Ventrica to Promote its Products Ventrica, an outsourced contact center and BPO business that offers a full range of high-quality, professional outsourced services at sensible costs, has been contracted by Nuance Communications to supply business-to-consumer and business-to-business lead generation services. 10/13/2010 Boutique Phoning Provides Clear Calling for the Blind Boutique Phoning, a rural outsourcing call center, creates unique one-on-one discussion with customers, by offering the blind and partially sighted solid results. Boutique Phoning specializes in business to business calls, and other tasks, including scheduling appointments, lead generation, research or survey studies, updating client lists, promote events or functions, and follow up on mailing campaigns and trade shows. It is now an essential part of rural outsourcing. 10/13/2010 Constant Contact E-mail Marketing Tool Most Effective Following the Crain's Small Business Forum session on "NetMarketing: Mapping Social Marketing Strategies," Constant Contact will deliver a free seminar on "Power of E-mail Marketing" for Chicago-area small businesses. With the help of practical tips and advice on using e-mail marketing, the seminar will help organizations grow so as to reach out to numerous customers. As the most effective, affordable and easy-to-use marketing tool, e-mail marketing helps build engaged customer relationships through new and repeat customers. 10/12/2010 New 855 Toll Free Phone Numbers Going Fast The Federal Communications Commission released a new toll free prefix, making about 7.7 million new 855 phone numbers available. 10/12/2010 Hosted Contact Center Solutions Deliver True and Measurable Value Just how important is social CRM in today's market? The presence of this platform is strong enough to demand a colocation with this year's ITEXPO West 2010 that took place in Los Angeles earlier this week. 10/8/2010 Language Line Offers Interpreting Services to Patients in Need Adventist Health System announced that it has entered into a partnership agreement with Language Line Services to offer its 43 hospitals and clinics access to a comprehensive suite of interpreting and translation services. 10/8/2010 Jingle Networks Acquires Beyond411 Jingle Networks, a provider of advertising and technology solutions for voice and mobile business search, has acquired Beyond411. 10/8/2010 Convio Enables Nonprofits to Engage and Communicate with Donors More than 1,300 nonprofit organizations raised $1 billion funds online in 2010 by leveraging Convio's integrated fundraising software, which represents a 64 percent increase over the funds raised last year. Based on a multi-tenant SaaS architecture, Convio's fundraising software is designed specifically for the nonprofit sector. Nonprofits organizations can leverage the integrated, on-demand online marketing, fundraising and advocacy suite to empower and support their efforts to persuade constituents in donating for a cause, and also support traditional marketing and communications. 10/8/2010 BAE Systems to Support U.S. Government Pension Agency Call Center Defense agency BAE Systems Inc. has agreed to handle the call center of Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, responding to hundreds of inquiries from Fortune 500 companies and small firms about their annual pension plan filings and insurance premium payments. 10/7/2010 Convergys Adds New Tools to Its Relationship Technology Management Channel Partner Program Convergys Corporation, a dealer in relationship management, has stated that they have enhanced their Relationship Technology Management channel partner program with new tools and enabling their partners to access new training discounts, sales tools, co-marketing programs, and demo systems. 10/7/2010 SysAid Enhances Customer Service Support Software SysAid Technologies publicly launched the latest version of its customer service support software. CSS 2.5, an on-demand SaaS, features a new SLA/SLM module, a fully integrated task calendar, a customizable report-building wizard, and additional tools to better manage the service desk. 10/7/2010 PhoneFactor Protects Commercial Online Banking Transactions for SNB PhoneFactor's Universal Banking Gateway is enabling SNB to rapidly integrate PhoneFactor with their online banking platform and this delivers simple, effective protection in place for their customers in weeks rather than months. 10/7/2010 SoundBite, CMC Providing Self-Service and Interactive Communications Strategies SoundBite Communications, a provider of on-demand, multi-channel proactive customer communications solutions and Collections Marketing Center (CMC) -- a provider of comprehensive self-service collections strategies -- are jointly helping lenders, billers and collection agencies streamline their collection process by offering self-service and interactive communications strategies. 10/7/2010 FocusDriven the Platform to Manage Communications, Marketing, and Fundraising FocusDriven is a fast-growing advocacy group for victims of motor vehicle crashes that involve drivers using cell phones. The company recently selected Orange Leap On-Demand as its platform for managing the growth of their constituent relationships, communications, and fundraising efforts. 10/7/2010 National Customer Service Week Celebrated by OnStar More than 2,000 advisors will be honored by OnStar as part of the National Customer Service Week. These advisors will be recognized for their high-quality service. For more than 15 years, the advisors have responded to 308 million OnStar calls. A wealth of information is provided to nearly six million subscribers by OnStar advisors. These advisors field more than 100,000 calls a day to support the subscribers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 10/7/2010 Consumers' Preferred Choice of Communications When it comes to interacting with businesses, customers like to be informed in different ways, stated a survey from mBlox. Companies should employ SMS and other communication methods to reach consumers. 10/7/2010 |
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