Contact Centers

Users have recognized the value of social media as a vital, reliable, and trustworthy business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) channel. Social media is thus becoming a must have in a smart organizations emergency communications toolbox. Case in point: Belmar, New Jersey, a small, popular seaside community on the Atlantic Ocean, located...

Companies have been expanding their marketing strategies from mass marketing to targeted marketing in order to increase response rates and sales. But with customers now in control of their corporate relationships, companies realize that they also have to engage with their clients on a customized basisand forward-thinking organizations are doing th...

Years of focus on healthcare reform coupled with the prolonged economic downturn has put pressure on healthcare organizations to figure out how to make changes with scant resources. However, when it comes to customer engagement within the healthcare space, positive developments are proceeding apace. Not only is the level of service improving stea...

Big Data, a hot business topic these days, is emphasized on a myriad of web sites of solution providers in the contact center space, claiming the ability to glean customer intelligence and improve the Customer Experience. But what are the realities of this emerging trend? How much is Big Data really being used in the contact center? Is Big Data a...

Automated interactive self-service solutions have evolved from interactive voice response (IVR) to include automated chat, SMS/text, and virtual agents (VA). Frost & Sullivan categorizes them as 'automated interactive customer contact' (AICC) solutions. But AICC solutions will demonstrate returns on investment to companies only if consumers can eas...

This market analysis provides market sizing and forecasts for the North American contact center outsourcing market. North American market revenue represents revenues derived from clients based in North America, regardless of fulfillment model. This includes onshore, nearshore, offshore, home-agent, automated and technology-based solutions. This mar...

Frost & Sullivan forecasts that the total number of contact center seats will shrink from 4.1 million in 2012 to 4 million by 2017. Even so, there are opportunities for vendors in this mature market. For example, consider hosted solutions. Hosted delivery allows companies to cut costs by buying only the applications and capacity they need, an attra...

Todays customers expect companies to provide a consistent and high quality Customer Experience, regardless of channel, including walk-in retail. Omni-channel strategies that integrate the Web, contact center, and retail channels (and subject matter experts), are becoming increasingly prominent in pursuit of a quality Customer Experience. The di...

Social media contains information and insights that help companies identify issues, threats, trends, sales opportunities, and influential buyers. It provides knowledge about customers, partners, competitors, and employees, and it helps deepen customer and staff relationships. Social media analytics has emerged as a powerful tool to measure social-s...