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8th May 2007 | Contact the Editor | Register here to receive your own FREE copy of contact news
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LATEST NEWS |
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 ACN Pacific goes multichannel with Talisma
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Telco ACN Pacific has upgraded its contact centre to handle more multichannel interactions with Talisma Chat, Email and Knowledgebase.
Talisma Chat enables a single user to handle several simultaneous chat sessions, Talisma Email helps users respond rapidly to inbound emails and routes emails to the best agent based on expertise, while Talisma Knowledgebase is an integrated knowledge management solution that enables agents and customers to access information 24/7 from any standard web browser. "Prior to implementing the Talisma CIM suite, inbound telephone was the company's only customer communication channel," said ACN Pacific's Shane Cahill. "There were the associated costs of doing business that way, but the world has changed and we weren't providing a convenient range of customer communication channels."
By deploying Talisma, ACN Pacific says customers can interact with agents via their preferred communication channel without having to repeat themselves each time. Talisma Knowledgebase will also provide customers with a self-service option which will reduce phone enquiries. "Our call centre staff can have the knowledge base populating information in one window of the frame to see what the customer is talking about while still having easy access to other application functions," said Cahill. "Being able to push pages to customers, especially if you have a technical issue, is another extremely useful feature." |
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 Global contact centre associations join to raise standards
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The heads of more than 30 contact centre industry associations throughout the world have pledged to cooperate to raising professionalism and performance standards in the industry.
The association presidents, representing some 40 countries, met during the world's first Contact Centre Global Forum in Cannes, France, last month. They have asked the forum's organisers to help co-ordinate their efforts, facilitating ongoing communication and best practice sharing at an international level. "Ours is now a global industry; the challenges we face in any single country are common to us all," Vincent Vanden Bossche, president of the European Confederation of Contact Centre Organisations said. "We must work together and share best practice in order to raise customer satisfaction levels, improve employment opportunities for our workforces and increase the competitiveness of the businesses we serve."
The inaugural Contact Centre Global Forum, organised by ICT Communications, attracted more than 450 delegates – contact centre industry professionals from 45 countries. "The Global Forum has allowed us to meet for the first time," said Bossche. "We will now depend upon it to maintain an open channel of communication, via regular meetings, online networking and best practice sharing." The global forum will return to Cannes in April next year.
To view some photos of the event click here |
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ATA calls for Do Not Call funding and enforcement details |
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The Australian Teleservices Association (ATA) has called on Communications Minister Helen Coonan to outline a clear enforcement strategy for the Do Not Call Register (DNCR) and provide details of enforcement funding amid growing concern for members over how the costs will be levied.
The ATA says concerns are growing that costs levied for DNCR compliance will fill Government coffers while damaging a growth industry and failing to deliver any measurable benefit to consumers. "ATA members have voiced concern that the ability for Australia to compete overseas will be reduced and the passing on costs of compliance will mean Australian businesses reduce their use of telemarketing as a leads generation channel," it said.
ATA executive director Michael Meredith says the ATA wants to help ACMA assure members the DNCR can produce the outcomes aimed for in the interest of consumers but an absence of a clear enforcement strategy and the proposed costs make it hard for industry to accept another layer of bureaucracy and additional costs for compliance when the positive outcomes are dubious and negative outcomes are likely. Australian outsourcer Unity4 Group, meanwhile, has welcomed the DNCR legislation, but called for the government to back it with sufficient resources to discourage companies from abuses. "No reputable call centre has anything to fear from the legislation, however its effectiveness will be limited by the long list of exclusions, poor recognition of emerging technologies and the difficulty of enforcing it internationally," said Unity4 Group MD Dan Turner. |
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UK contact centre consultants to open Sydney regional office |
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British contact centre consultancy ProtoCall One is opening a new regional office in Sydney in an effort to take advantage of the Asia-Pacific market.
ProtoCall One says the Australian contact centre market is widely acknowledged as the most technologically advanced in the world and cites a recent Contact Centre Focus report from March 2007 that characterises it as "miles ahead" of nearly everyone else. The report added that the region is widely expected to grow significantly, with customer contact technologies tipped to play a pivotal role in the delivery of services.
"This is a region that is open to new technologies and willing to move fast to adopt it. ProtoCall One's track record for technical excellence and innovation makes us ideally positioned to make a huge impact in this region," said ProtoCall One regional head Ian de Sousa. The company says it will make further expansion and new partnership announcements during 2007. |
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 Correction. Last Thursday's story, NZ council re-thinks customer service, should have read:
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New Zealand's Far North District Council's continuing drive to improve customer satisfaction with its front-line services has sparked a major re-think of the way in which the council conducts its business. The customer contact strategy's main objectives are to change the corporate culture, produce tangible results and significantly improve the customer experience.
Read full story here |
| 'YOUR CALL' BLOG |
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China, the Global Contact Centre Forum and Orlando....
Hey, just back from a speaking circuit for 2 weeks. I headed back to Shanghai to do a presentation on Voice of the Customer research that we had conducted and also to hear Sam from Greater China CRM present some Chinese consumer data (N=2000+ respondents - just love the size of that market...), that we had analysed for them. The number one attribute of importance to the Chinese consumer when dealing with a contact centre is that 'the problem is resolved effectively'. This differs slightly from recent Australian research which has the top priority as being 'getting all the information I need'.
I am more and more impressed each time I go to China with the professionalism and dedication the Chinese have to the call/contact centre industry. The contact centre managers I meet tend to be young, well educated and very dynamic in their thinking about the industry and how China will play on the world stage.
Read more here | |
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Research Services Provided by aca research
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