| Research |
23.05.2008
CCMA Ireland's annual conference
"Home working: Could this be the answer to the resourcing issue?" will take place on 5th June in Croke Park's Convention Centre, Dublin.
CCMA Ireland's article in the Irish Times (dated 14th May 2008) titled - Weighing the Benefits of Working from Home - quotes homeworking "will be beneficial on two fronts - opening up new personnel resources for the whole sector, while at the same time helping people who want to improve their work/life balance by doing more work at home and steering clear of the long daily commute".
Download the event brochure on www.ccma.ie - It's an event not to be missed.
Email CCMA Ireland today - info@ccma.ie - to confirm your attendance - Places are strictly limited so quick registration is adviced.
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21.05.2008
Softigator Call Center Radar 12-05-08 to 19-05-08
Here are the last week's global headlines. To read the full abstracts and follow the links, go to the member area and click on "start" - or go to
http://www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/artikel/artikelid_259.html.
If you are not a member yet, please click on the registration button, and confirm the verification link which you receive seconds after your submission. It's free.
All members are invited to participate and send press releases, comments and ideas to service@softigator.net.
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General:
Indian voice-based BPOs, such as 24/7 Customer and Communicate2, are responding with innovative applications based on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to target clients better while smoothening out the client-caller relationship.
SaaS VoIP solutions also deliver savings over time because of their high scalability.
HUMAN call centres could soon be a thing of the past thanks to Artificial Intelligence company Artingence.
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Events:
For an overview of Call Center Events worldwide go to:
http://www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/callcenter_market.html
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Europe:
Citigroup announced plans to cut 700 jobs.
According to E-consultancy, providing a contact number during the online shopping process can foster trust in consumers, who are reassured that they can discuss any issues they may have with an adviser over the phone.
Barclaycard plans to close a call centre which will lead to the loss of 900 call centre jobs.
O2 UK reports results of its Glasgow contact centre, which employs about 1,500 staff.
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North America:
Convergys is closing its three Alberta call centres affecting about 400 people. Centers in Lethbridge and Red Deer are also slated to close.
The Emergency Management Office is cautioning Nova Scotians that 911 calls placed over the Internet may not be as safe as emergency calls over a land line.
Dallas-based Pizza Hut Inc. will close its only company-owned telephone call center.
Florida-based Cross Country Home Services will locate a call center in Anderson, North Carolina.
While specific sectors of the call center industry fluctuate, the industry as a whole continues to boom throughout the United States.
Customer service management firm Alorica to create more than 600 new jobs by 2009.
AAA Member Services Company announced plans to build a customer call center.
Verizon Communications subsidiary Verizon Business has opened a customer service center in Tulsa to provide technical support for large business customers.
ACCENT 180 employees of a call center were notified Monday that they will be laid off July 18.
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Africa:
South Africa: Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on Tuesday opened a global call centre that will service customers for the oil multinational, Royal Dutch Shell.
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APAC:
MANILA, Philippines -- Convergys Corp. announced plans to open five more call centers in the country, which are expected to bring in 7,000 more jobs.
Abu Dhabi: The Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA) launched an appointment booking facility.
CHARLESTOWN, Nevis - Brown Hill Communications Ltd., a locally operated subsidiary of a large North American telecommunications company will employ 100 locals by December 2008.
The country's telecom watchdog, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), has formally invited applications from eligible entrepreneurs for licence to establish call centres.
Online travel service operator Elong.com will focus on promoting its online booking service over the next few years, instead of expanding its call center service.
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15.05.2008
Participate in UK Contact Centre Operational Review - receive report for free
Softigator member Steve Morrell from ContactBabel is looking for Call Centres to participate in the new UK Contact Centre Operational Review. All participants will receive the report for free plus a gift voucher from Amazon. If you would like to take part, please get in touch with us at service@softigator.com for further details.
For the last 5 years, the UK Contact Centre Operational Review has been used by thousands of customer service, operations, HR and IT professionals to help measure and improve contact centre and customer service performance.
ContactBabel's 2008 research programme is underway, and we would like to invite any UK business which has more than 10 employees working in a telephony-based role to take part, whether inbound, outbound, sales or service-focused.
Participants, who are guaranteed absolute confidentiality at all times, are asked to complete and return an Excel-based questionnaire, which covers key elements of performance, HR and IT within customer-facing operations, whether contact centre, sales department, helpdesk or customer service operation.
The 2008 questionnaire has been altered to be quicker and easier to complete, and we are also offering a £25 Amazon.com gift voucher for each completed questionnaire. Of course, all participants will also receive a complimentary copy of the full report, which otherwise costs £250 + VAT.
The deadline for the questionnaire’s completion has been extended by popular demand to June 20th 2008.
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13.05.2008
Graham Technology becomes ciboodle
Glasgow, U.K. – Graham Technology, a provider of customer-oriented business software and services has changed its name to ciboodle. Following its recent acquisition by SWORD Group, the company has adopted the name of its flagship product to reflect the focus of the company moving forward.
ciboodle is the company’s award-winning business-process-driven CRM software product for contact centers. Targeted primarily towards large companies in sectors including financial services, utilities, telecommunications and retail, it is the only BPM-based CRM product focused solely on the contact center market.
"As a product, ciboodle has been a massive success since its launch 18 months ago, securing customers like Scottish Water, Vodafone Netherlands and Friends Provident, and receiving widespread analyst recognition and several industry awards," said Mike Hughes, business unit director at ciboodle. "This name change is reflective of the direction that the company has been taking since the concept of ciboodle was first agreed upon. Graham Technology is a name synonymous with quality and success, but ciboodle represents the future of this company, and it is fitting that this is the name that we are unified behind."
The acquisition by SWORD Group has provided ciboodle with an enhanced ability to target international and vertical markets through the firm’s extensive presence in banking, insurance, energy and telecoms sectors across the world.
"We are making great progress with the integration of ciboodle into the SWORD family, which is to become the primary customer interface for the group’s business software products," said Tony Holland, Chief Operating Officer at SWORD Group’s software division. "We are already evaluating our existing accounts for good matches, particularly among our financial services and insurance customers, where we see a lot of synergy between ciboodle’s capabilities and the requirements of companies in that sector."
The United States is a key market for ciboodle, where the contact center sector is considered to represent over two-thirds of the global market, with over 60,000 contact centers and 5.5 million contact center agents. SWORD already has a strong foothold in the U.S., with offices in New York, Houston and San Francisco.
"A key part of ciboodle’s existing business plan was to increase the company’s U.S. presence, and we have significantly enhanced that plan since the acquisition," added Holland. "By the end of the year, we expect to have established a key new office in Chicago, and ciboodle will also operate out of our New York office, which is focused primarily on the financial services sector."
About ciboodle
For over 20 years, ciboodle, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sword Group, has helped improve the way large organizations interact with their customers. Provider of the award-winning ciboodle customer interaction software suite, the company also offers a range of professional technology services. This proven combination attracts and retains high-value customers for ciboodle’s clients, while reducing their operational costs. With industry experience in a multitude of sectors, the company is consistently recognized by industry analysts as one of the world's leading customer-centric technology providers.
www.ciboodle.com
Media and analysts contact:
Danny Sullivan
inmedia Public Relations Inc.
Tel (UK): +44 (0) 141 404 6478
Tel (US): +1 613 686 5657
Email: dsullivan@inmedia.com
Linda Forrest
inmedia Public Relations Inc.
Tel: 613-234-7227 x234
Email: lforrest@inmedia.com
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12.05.2008
Softigator Call Center Radar 06-05-08 to 11-05-08
All members are invited to participate and send press releases, comments and ideas to service@softigator.net. Registration at softigator.com is free and takes 1 minute plus verifying our registration link we send you via email.
To see the abstracts and sources of the following articles, go to Softigator.com and click on “Start” or go to http://www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/start.html
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General:
Because speech analytics is new and relatively unknown both within the call center and across the enterprise, it can be perceived as a risky investment.
Call Centres continue to grow well ahead of the market. A recent report from Global Industry Analysts suggests that the call centre market looks set to grow to an astounding $195bn in global annual revenues by 2010.
Emergency officials are warning residents that 911 operators may not find their location if they place their call through an Internet phone provider.
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Events:
For an overview of Call Center Events worldwide go to:
http://www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/callcenter_market.html
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Europe:
NI will benefit from 800 jobs at an Indian telecom firm.
Emergency call centres were honoured in an awards ceremony held by the Call Centre Management Association (CCMA) in Manchester last week.
Consumers in the UK are strongly opposed to offshore outsourcing in both manufacturing and services, according to new research backed by the National Outsourcing Association.
THE credit-card giant Barclaycard was under fire last night after announcing plans to close a call centre in Scotland, employing 900, only months after taking it over.
The call centre support offered by specialist PC manufacturers is superior to that offered by large suppliers, a new report indicates.
Scotland based VoiceStream group of Companies has acquired 75 per cent stake in the Chennai based firm Helios Outsourcing.
Contact Centre heads are stating time pressures for blocking progress on integrating business intelligence (BI) into their call centre systems according to a user group survey from ProtoCall One.
Virtual Call Agents could be an alternative to Off-Shoring when it comes to cost cutting.
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North America:
Time Warner breaks ground on call center in Zanesville.
An AT&T Inc. call center will be leaving Wichita by the end of summer.
Sears Canada will shutter its Hamilton call centre at the end of May, draining 142 mainly part-time jobs from the city.
A recent study of service performance in the telecommunications sector found that the U.S. ranked the highest in overall performance of telecom call centers in seven countries at 64 percent.
It is official Sitel is closing its doors in Kelowna.
USA 800 call center is looking to hire 150 people immediately.
Viable Inc., a provider of video relay services for deaf and hard of hearing people, has opened a call center in Frederick, USA.
About 1,080 call centre jobs are leaving Alberta following some downsizing from a U.S.-based firm.
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Africa:
The Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) expects that by July this year, the first 1 000 learners will have completed the Monyetla work readiness inception programme, aimed at boosting the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector.
South Africa’s outsourced contact centre industry has enjoyed sound growth and expects to see the number of outsourced seats reach about 60 000 in the next five to seven years.
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APAC:
Bangalore: Back-office services firm Convergys Corp. plans to enter the domestic call centre business in India and use revenues from local customers as a long-term hedge against the weakening dollar.
Current estimates of the total number of call centers in the Philippines range from 90 to more than 120.
New York-based business process outsourcing company Sutherland Global Services plans to double its workforce in the Philippines.
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08.05.2008
Planning makes the difference for 2008 award winners
Success was celebrated this week by six contact centres who demonstrated exceptional improvements in making their organisations a better place to work and to contact.
The Awards were presented to EDF Energy, British Gas Services, Canterbury City Council, Carphone Warehouse, Orange and Vodafone at Contact Centre Planning 2008, the 7th annual conference of the Professional Planning Forum on 29th April in Manchester.
The prestigious Contact Centre Innovation of the Year Award 2008 was presented this week to EDF Energy for using analysis of the root causes of customer contact to halve workload in key areas and create a ground-breaking end-to-end service for new customers. The planning team involve advisers in creating and using bespoke end-of-call surveys to pinpoint areas where process or product changes can most improve results and establish a baseline for measuring the success of business cases for investment or service development.
“This has totally changed how managers see planning”, explains Penny Wright, Resource Planning Manager at EDF Energy. As Su Martin, Head of Marketing Operations and Customer Experience, confirms “it’s taken us to a totally different level … we don’t just react, we plan”. Glen Ewing heads New Customer Acquisitions, who have developed the pioneering end-to-end service in the Pontoon department. “It’s changed the business and how we make decisions”, he comments. “I think the Internal Investment Board was surprised. It made them realise that they need a different approach”.
“Making life easier for customers, who currently need to make repeated or unnecessary calls, is still the biggest challenge for customer-focussed organisations”, comments Paul Smedley, Executive Director of the Professional Planning Forum, the Award’s organisers. “The successes at EDF Energy demonstrate the outstanding results that are possible for contact centres when they systematically preventing the service or communications failure that otherwise forces customers to call”. Project work has led to reductions of 50% in direct debit queries and 60% in the billing helpline – increasing customer loyalty by 80% and freeing up time for 1:1’s and team meetings.
The award was presented at Contact Centre Planning 2008, the Professional Planning Forum’s seventh annual conference in Manchester on 29th April. Almost 500 industry specialists gathered for the Gala dinner and the two-day conference at which all the award winners presented their achievements.
The following awards to recognise innovation in specific areas were also given:
The Management Information Innovation Award went to Carphone Warehouse for a rapid transformation of MI that gives visibility to the customer experience and has developed a coaching culture within the contact centre. The new reporting platform is outperforming external specifications at a fraction of the cost and saving £1.5m pa in Microsoft licences alone.
The Resource Planning Innovation Award was presented to Vodafone, for applying call centre planning to retail stores in the Czech Republic, growing sales by 18% and reducing cost overspends. This approach is now being rolled out in the UK.
British Gas Services gained the Innovation Award for Integrated Planning for a resourcing strategy that joins together recruitment, training and resource planning. In just one year, the centres have cut churn by 20% points, boosted new starter quality scores by nearly 60%, and increased employee satisfaction by 6%.
The Innovation Award for Lifestyle Planning went to Orange UK for Your Time, creating new lifestyle shift options, to attract and retain a deliberately diverse mix of employees, involving radical changes to recruitment, induction training and management practices on the operational floor.
Canterbury City Council won the 2008 Public Sector Innovation Award for a uniquely flexible approach to home working and job variety, supported by integrated planning for both front and back office.
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06.05.2008
Softigator Call Center Radar 28-04-08 to 05-05-08
All members are invited to participate and send press releases, comments and ideas to service@softigator.net.
To see the abstracts of the following articles, go to the member area at Softigator.com and click on “Start” or go to http://www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/start.html.
If you are not a member yet, registration is free and takes 1 minute. Just go to the top left button, register yourself and confirm link in the verification email which you receive seconds later.
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General:
Researchers at the University of Birmingham are asking volunteers from the west midlands city to have their voice recorded to help hone voice technology.
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Europe:
CPP will open a new contact centre in July in Chesterfield that will see over 300 new jobs created by the end of the year.
Energy company E.ON has announced it is creating 465 jobs at three of its sites in Nottingham.
Swinton is expanding its Norwich workforce at its city centre call centre.
Hundreds of staff at ITV Digital in Plymouth have escaped redundancy.
Tesco is to take on another 300 people at its call centre in Dundee.
Leading UK lifestyle data provider DLG has acquired specialist call centre and lead-generation experts Positive Response for an undisclosed sum.
Around 70 call centre jobs have been axed from a Black Country loans and mortgages company which has gone into administration.
Home working is still not a popular option for creating flexibility in contact centres, in spite of the widespread availability of broadband and advances in technology, research has revealed.
York District Hospital has been chosen as one of a handful of hospitals in the UK to try out a new way of dealing with phone calls from patients.
Four into one: £15m new call centre for mobile phone company.
Working from home is set to become the "next big trend" in the call centre industry, said Brendan Dick, director of BT Scotland.
Marusa Marketing Inc. has confirmed it is shifting work out of its call centre in Cambridge.
COMPUTER giant Dell is making up to 40 workers redundant at a call centre in Glasgow next month as part of a global drive to push up profits.
The call centre operated by Crimestoppers is expecting its millionth phone call this month, a new report observes.
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North America:
Call center operator PRC Inc. will permanently close its facility in Carrollton on June 30 and eliminate 339 jobs.
Union representatives and workers who were laid off from an AT&T passport call center in Dover (New Hampshire) are meeting with New Hampshire Congresswoman.
A Lauderdale Lakes-based telecommunications firm is opening a Delray Beach call center that will eventually create 450 jobs.
Just days after Dell Inc. announced it will lay off 1,100 of its 1,200 employees in Kanata and close its call centre operation, a small, new technical support company is setting up shop.
Global Hyatt Corp. will put a new shared service center for North America in Oklahoma.
Canada - About 400 downtown St. Catharines call centre jobs will disappear when TeleSpectrum Inc. shuts down in July, Mayor Brian McMullan said Thursday.
Dell Canada is closing its Ottawa call centre after only 21/2 years in operation. Five hundred people have immediately lost their jobs and another 600 will be laid off at the end of June.
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Africa:
Local contact centre equipment suppliers should look to the small and medium enterprise (SME) market for new growth opportunities, says global analyst firm Frost & Sullivan.
South Africa’s outsourced contact centre industry has enjoyed sound growth and expects to see the number of outsourced seats reach about 60 000 in the next five to seven years.
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APAC:
The State Opposition is demanding the Federal Government honours plans to create new call centre jobs in Launceston.
IDT Global Services, which operates call centers around the country and is possibly the country's largest employer of native English speakers, has begun to downsize in a move that has so far eliminated dozens of positions.
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