Customer Inter@ction Solutions' sixth annual CRM Excellence Awards, Part I.For the sixth consecutive year, the editors of Customer Interaction Solutions dared readers to prove that their companies have what it takes to win the coveted cov·et v. cov·et·ed, cov·et·ing, cov·ets v.tr. 1. To feel blameworthy desire for (that which is another's). See Synonyms at envy. 2. To wish for longingly. See Synonyms at desire. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) An integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and postsales activities in an organization. Excellence Award. Below is Part One of the winners--the companies that offer the best and the brightest customer relationship management products and services, all to the benefit of their clients. Winners were chosen on hard data: quantifiable results that convinced us, without a doubt, their clients were infinitely better off with these companies' products and services than without. Congratulations to the winners! Aplicor Aplicor CRM www.aplicor.com "The client, an Internet and network services provider, selected the Aplicor CRM solution. Leveraging Aplicor's 'Rapid Results' implementation methodology, and leveraging the configurable nature of the product, the client's sales and customer management processes were quickly modeled or enhanced in Aplicor. Within the first 30 days, sales staff and account managers were able to utilize the Aplicor system in a production environment. By the end of the second month, the implementation was complete and the client was fully utilizing account and contact management, lead management, opportunity management with sales forecasting Sales forecast A key input to a firm's financial planning process. External sales forecasts are based on historical experience, statistical analysis, and consideration of various macroeconomic factors. , marketing management, customer support and a mix of library reports and data warehouse analysis reports. The company experienced a decrease in average sales cycle elapsed time e·lapsed time n. The measured duration of an event. Noun 1. elapsed time - the time that elapses while some event is occurring from 111 days to 98 days; a verifiable increase in 'closable' pipeline volume of 18 percent after three months of use; an average ticket revenue size increase of approximately nine percent; and a sales conversion rate increase of approximately eight percent." Citrix Online Citrix Online is a division of Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS) that sells Web-based remote access, support, and collaboration software and services. Its products are GoToAssist, GoToMeeting, GoToMyPC, and GoToWebinar. Citrix GoToAssist 6.0 www.citrix.com "Before the client implemented GoToAssist, traveling directly to the client was the only way to effectively install the client's software. There were so many variables that came into play during an installation that [the client] needed to be on-site to install it appropriately. Traveling took valuable personnel away from the office for an extended time and the trips were costly, necessitating airfare air·fare n. Fare for travel by aircraft. Noun 1. airfare - the fare charged for traveling by airplane fare, transportation - the sum charged for riding in a public conveyance , hotel and other expenses. Since implementing GoToAssist, the client has significantly reduced travel costs and shortened troubleshooting time. In addition to the travel savings, support-team productivity is higher because issue resolution is so much faster with GoToAssist. GoToAssist helped the company's support team react rapidly when troubleshooting client systems. With just a few clicks, a support technician can see what the client sees. The company can show clients how to use an application or the clients can just fix the problem themselves. GoToAssist has helped resolve issues more quickly and has aided in educating clients on how to use the client's software more efficiently. Since implementing GoToAssist, the client company has been able to provide faster support and keep costs at the same level even though its call volume has increased." ClientLogic ClientLogic Integrated & Personalized per·son·al·ize tr.v. per·son·al·ized, per·son·al·iz·ing, per·son·al·iz·es 1. To take (a general remark or characterization) in a personal manner. 2. To attribute human or personal qualities to; personify. Customer Service Program www.clientlogic.com "The client, an Internet service provider Internet service provider (ISP) Company that provides Internet connections and services to individuals and organizations. For a monthly fee, ISPs provide computer users with a connection to their site (see data transmission), as well as a log-in name and password. , formerly had a rebate-processing provider that struggled with manual data entry, slow processing times and poor bank reconciliation reporting. In order to use rebates as a way to increase customer sign-ups and to make a positive first impression. ClientLogic developed a fully integrated and personalized rebate-processing program for the ISP (1) See in-system programmable. (2) (Internet Service Provider) An organization that provides access to the Internet. Connection to the user is provided via dial-up, ISDN, cable, DSL and T1/T3 lines. . In a mere 60 days, ClientLogic launched an innovative item-processing program to handle the ISP's customer gift cards and rebates. ClientLogic began by collaborating with the ISP to alter the rebate form itself to maximize scalability and minimize manual data entry. This new form, coupled with ClientLogic's high-speed imaging and scanning technologies, enabled cutting the rebate turnaround time (1) In batch processing, the time it takes to receive finished reports after submission of documents or files for processing. In an online environment, turnaround time is the same as response time. from 8-to-12 weeks to 5-to-7 days. It also boosted data accuracy and consistency, enabling the client to deflect de·flect intr. & tr.v. de·flect·ed, de·flect·ing, de·flects To turn aside or cause to turn aside; bend or deviate. [Latin d costs and prevent customer complaints." Cross Country Automotive Services Tow-To www.crosscountry-auto.com "At the two-year mark, thousands of our client's (a leading automotive service chain) customers have utilized our customer-focused service. Specifically, the program has enabled our client to interact with customers more than 175,000 times since inception, supporting the mission of becoming the full-service, after-market service provider to its customers. Overall customer satisfaction levels exceeded 96 percent. And service work order revenue has increased by more than 500 percent since program inception. Due to the success of this program, our client has turned to Cross Country Automotive Services to develop a roadside assistance program for its customers to further its mission of providing full service, whether in the shop or on the road." Eagle IP LLC (Logical Link Control) See "LANs" under data link protocol. LLC - Logical Link Control EagleACD www.eagle.net "As a result of the EagleACD solution, the client has developed a flexible call center platform to manage its call-handling capacity. During the last 11 months, it has resulted in an improved service level and their operating costs operating costs npl → gastos mpl operacionales have gone down. And the EagleACD's 'pay-as-you-go' features have helped to eliminate payments for idle time The duration of time a device is in an idle state, which means that it is operational, but not being used. of call center agents. The client explains another benefit: 'EagleACD's skills-based routing finds the right agent among all the agents connected to the network. This allows us to optimize staffing and increase service quality for a better ROI--creating a more efficient company and a more productive call center. No over-staffing is required due to this high reliability. This reduces operating costs for delivering services.'" Empirix, Inc. Hammer Service Assurance for Siebel www.empirix.com "The client, a Fortune 100 brokerage firm using both Siebel and Genesys applications, had a goal of using Empirix Service Assurance for Siebel to ensure the company's upgraded system would be stable and scaleable, and that performance would be at least as good, if not better than, its previous setup. It also needed to ensure that no functionality was lost during the transition. An Empirix team, along with the brokerage's IT staff, performed the testing in December 2004 with experts from both Siebel and Genesys standing by. The test was conducted during off hours on a portion of the production infrastructure. During the test, the call load was ramped up to correspond to the firm's expected peak load for that portion of the application--approximately 200 simultaneous inbound in·bound 1 adj. Bound inward; incoming: inbound commuter traffic. Adj. 1. inbound calls being served by 200 agents. All facets of the system performed flawlessly flaw·less adj. Being entirely without flaw or imperfection. See Synonyms at perfect. flaw  less·ly adv. ."
Epicor Epicor Clientele CRM.NET www.epicor.com Since implementing Epicor Clientele CRM.NET, the client, a provider of travel assistance and international medical insurance, has seen improvements in its day-to-day operations through the flexibility of the solution and the ability to share information across the enterprise. The client reports, "A lot of our service agreement and care facility information was not available in our previous system. With the Epicor solution, we are able to put external documents like contracts right in the system where they are easily and quickly accessible." The client also reports, "Using Clientele we are able to capture critical metrics metrics Managed care A popular term for standards by which the quality of a product, service, or outcome of a particular form of Pt management is evaluated. See TQM. , such as client utilization, which helps us in our strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. . We can also respond quickly to new business opportunities. The rapid development capabilities enabled through the .NET architecture enable us to get new partners set up in our system quickly so we can start doing business." eTelecare Global Solutions Proprietary CRM Package www.etelecare.com "eTelecare Global Solutions was able to offer the client, a leading wireless provider, a variety of customer touch points where other vendors were not. The flexibility, accuracy and speed of our service helped to increase conversion rates, to cut costs, to reduce the number of representatives needed on the program, and to improve customer satisfaction and service quality across the board; through the effective use of CRM, we were able to achieve a 90 percent cost reduction for business reply card processing on a per-transaction basis and an 80 percent reduction in IVR (Interactive Voice Response) An automated telephone information system that speaks to the caller with a combination of fixed voice menus and data extracted from databases in real time. transactions compared to their internal costs. The convenience of the business reply card we designed was proven through its use--more than 50 percent of all renewals were received via BRC BRC Black Rock City (Burning Man) BRC British Retail Consortium BRC Business Resource Center (Small Business Administration) BRC Bisexual Resource Center BRC Black Radical Congress . Another 10 percent were handled via IVR. Both approaches cut program costs considerably." IEX IEX Ion Exchange (chromatography) IEX Inter-Exchange Carrier TotalView Workforce Management Workforce Management (WFM) encompasses all the responsibilities for maintaining a productive and happy workforce. Sometimes referred to as HRMS systems, or even the larger ERP systems (Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP). There are many software vendors within this space. Version 3.8 www.iex.com The client, a large mobile services provider, saw its contact centers' conformance con·for·mance n. Conformity. Noun 1. conformance - correspondence in form or appearance conformity agreement, correspondence - compatibility of observations; "there was no agreement between theory and improve instantly with the introduction of the TotalView Real-Time Adherence (RTA RTA renal tubular acidosis. RTA Renal tubular acidosis, see there ) module. Within weeks, the client began averaging 99 percent schedule conformance. As a result, service levels have improved dramatically. The client reports, "Our contact center is meeting or exceeding service goals." It also reports that it now gets 80 percent of its calls answered in 20 seconds, with a one percent abandon rate. By using TotalView for flexible scheduling, the company reported reducing overhead costs overhead costs see fixed costs. by five percent to eight percent. Instead of having agents sit idle during shift changes, they now plan meetings, training and coaching sessions during periods of high availability Also called "RAS" (reliability, availability, serviceability) or "fault resilient," it refers to a multiprocessing system that can quickly recover from a failure. There may be a minute or two of downtime while one system switches over to another, but processing will continue. . They can also spread vacation throughout the year more easily, which has helped reduce overtime expenses. KANA KANA IQ www.kana.com Through its implementation of KANA IQ, the client, a financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. company, has fulfilled three key customer service objectives: 1) Transform customer service--KANA IQ has significantly increased first-call resolution rates and cut hold times by consistently offering customers the insights of the most experienced specialists in the company; 2) Improve service reps' productivity--KANA has enabled the client to develop a multiskilled service team, which can provide advice on a wide range of products and brands, without needing extensive retraining re·train tr. & intr.v. re·trained, re·train·ing, re·trains To train or undergo training again. re·train ; and 3) Cut contact center costs--KANA IQ has created highly productive, multiskilled teams, enabling the client to support greater call volumes without increasing staffing levels. Maximizer Software This article or section has multiple issues: * It does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by citing reliable sources. * It reads like an advertisement and needs to be rewritten in a neutral point of view. Maximizer Enterprise 8 www.maximizer.com For the sales reps at the client company (a software provider), Maximizer Enterprise CRM is providing them with access to critical data at the click of a button. The system also met the client's goals of reducing the time per transaction and of better reporting on customers. The client reports: "Overall, Maximizer Enterprise has provided significant improvement in sales rep productivity with a 20 percent across-the-board time savings, as well as 23-hours-a-week time savings on reporting and forecasting from a business unit." As for the future, the client plans on rolling out Maximizer Enterprise to more than 100 users, with plans to open up the portal to resellers and partners, as well. MEDFONE, Inc. Centralized cen·tral·ize v. cen·tral·ized, cen·tral·iz·ing, cen·tral·iz·es v.tr. 1. To draw into or toward a center; consolidate. 2. Appointment Desk for Network of Community Health Centers www.medfone.com The client, a county department of health services Department of Health Services may refer to:
Proficient pro·fi·cient adj. Having or marked by an advanced degree of competence, as in an art, vocation, profession, or branch of learning. n. An expert; an adept. Systems Inc. ProficientSales Server www.proficient.com "The client, a national bank, exceeded its business case by 47 percent within seven months of staffing its Online Chat Team with dedicated Agents. In addition to monetary returns, the bank's use of proactive online chat has positively impacted customer retention and customer satisfaction ratings. Survey feedback indicates that the bank's customers enjoy banking online and are extremely pleased with the assistance they receive from the bank's Online Chat Agents." Sage Software (formerly Best Software) ACCPAC ACCPAC Accounts Package ACCPAC Accounting Package CRM www.bestsoftware.com "Until deployment of Best Software's ACCPAC CRM, Enterprise Edition, complaints coming into the offices of a national newspaper were simply faxed over from the Wisconsin call center to the newspaper's main office, and taken care of by hand, a time-intensive and error-prone process. Making extensive use of the customization and escalation es·ca·late v. es·ca·lat·ed, es·ca·lat·ing, es·ca·lates v.tr. To increase, enlarge, or intensify: escalated the hostilities in the Persian Gulf. v.intr. features in the ACCPAC CRM customer care/support module, now when a fax is sent by the Wisconsin call center, a record is also written to the newspaper's ACCPAC CRM database in an ancillary temporary file. This file is checked every five minutes for additions, and when a new record is found, it is imported into ACCPAC CRM as a new, unassigned case. The escalations find the new case, and using another ancillary cross-reference table, are assigned the proper user I.D., and an on-screen on·screen or on-screen adj. & adv. 1. As shown on a movie, television, or display screen. 2. Within public view; in public. reminder is also provided to the customer service representative (CSR (1) (Customer Service Representative) A person who handles a customer's request regarding a bill, account changes or service or merchandise ordered. Agents in call centers are known as CSRs. See call center. )." salesforce.com Salesforce Summer '05 www.salesforce.com The client--a provider of electronic payment solutions for merchant point-of-sale and Internet transactions--reports: "We customized Salesforce to import leads directly from a new Web portal See portal. where the banks enter them. Previously, all leads were faxed in for time-consuming manual processing. Before Salesforce, it took us 24 hours to process a new lead and get back to the merchants; today, we can promise a two-hour turnaround. That kind of responsiveness is a phenomenal benefit both to the merchants and to our customer banks." SAS (1) (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, www.sas.com) A software company that specializes in data warehousing and decision support software based on the SAS System. Founded in 1976, SAS is one of the world's largest privately held software companies. See SAS System. SAS Marketing Automation www.sas.com The client, a popular interactive baseball fan Web site, gets sophisticated reporting capabilities and the newest generation of predictive analytics Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of techniques from statistics and data mining that process current and historical data in order to make “predictions” about future events. for state-of-the-art data management and data discovery capabilities. From that information, teams gain an exhaustive understanding of their fans' desires for anything baseball--even when they're away from the ballpark. By combining data from the Web site with data gained from ticketing partners, the client uses SAS to predict what fans want from the Web site and its other offerings, as well as from their favorite teams, which makes their relationship with baseball even more meaningful. With SAS, the client can look at real-time customer behavior against longer-term data and know what the customer is most likely to be interested in next. That way, the site can offer customers appropriate promotions or opportunities. The SAVO Group Sales Asset Manager (SAM) www.savogroup.com Before implementing SAM, the client had a limited view of activity on both the sales and marketing sides of the business. While high-level information about customer contact was available (i.e., which account manager met with which customers and when), it fell short of detailing the nature of the meeting, products/services discussed and outcome. And marketing management had virtually no information about what materials were being used, how frequently, with which customers, and whether they were successful in advancing relationship growth objectives. SAM's robust, intuitive reporting tools deliver all of this and more, providing previously untracked analytics about customer contact and sales asset use, from a macro level (e.g., companywide activity in a specific time period) to the very micro (e.g., usage of a single presentation slide). Siemens Communications, Inc. Siemens HiPath ProCenter and HiPath IPortal www.icn.siemens.com The client, a cable entertainment and broadband services See broadband and broadband service provider. provider, sought to improve productivity, to reduce costs and to turn its customer service from "good" to "great." The client acquired the HiPath ProCenter Advanced application's multimedia suite, which integrates e-mail, Web, IVR and outbound calling capabilities. Since deploying the Siemens solution, the company has seen call volumes to agents drop from 11,500 a week to about 9,000, with the difference made up of callers who are either using the IVR to get account balances or using the automated payment feature. With the new performance reporting capabilities, the client is able to separate customer calls from all call traffic, something they weren't able to do before, and measure call handling time among a range of performance indicators. TeleTech TeleTech On Shore And Off Shore www.teletech.com "In 2001, TeleTech established an onshore on·shore adj. 1. Moving or directed toward the shore: an onshore wind. 2. Located on the shore: an onshore beacon; an onshore patrol. adv. 'staging area' in Enfield, Connecticut, in the heart of the Northeast insurance corridor. After 18 months' of operations, TeleTech successfully transitioned the less-complicated calls to its Manila Manila (mənĭl`ə), city (1990 pop. 1,601,234), capital of the Philippines, SW Luzon, on Manila Bay. Manila is the center of the country's largest metropolitan area, its chief port, and the focus of all governmental, commercial, industrial, (Philippines) center and backfilled Enfield with the more-complex interactions. By January 2004, TeleTech was taking 100 percent of all provider calls and meeting or exceeding all client metrics. Over three years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time program has grown from 60 to 240 customer service representatives (CSRs)." Voxify Voxify Automated Agents www.voxify.com The client, a large hotel chain, reports that it is pleased that cost improvements came along with the service improvements. The company's VP of Reservations had this to say: "This is the first time in my career that I've been able to improve service and costs simultaneously. The ongoing savings are phenomenal. An Automated Agent call saves 85 percent over the cost of a live agent call. The more calls we take with Automated Agents, the more we save. We recouped the up-front investment in Automated Agents in less than two months." Now that the first two Automated Agents have proven so successful, the hotel chain is in the process of deploying Automated Agents to book, confirm and cancel reservations, and to service calls regarding the hotel's loyalty program. Once the additional Automated Agents are deployed, they will serve 45 percent of the hotel's callers from greeting to completion. Witness Systems Workforce Management from Witness Systems' Workforce Optimization Solution www.witness.com The client, a provider of interactive communications and entertainment services, reports that using Witness Systems' technology gained the company the ability and agility to take on much larger competitors by transforming its customer contact center into a source of competitive advantage. With the ability to balance forecasting and scheduling, service quality, costs and employee satisfaction, the client's contact center has redefined service quality and has helped the company effectively compete against the incumbent cable operators. The client's post-implementation results include a 19 percent boost in productivity; realized annualized annualized Of or relating to a variable that has been mathematically converted to a yearly rate. Inflation and interest rates are generally annualized since it is on this basis that these two variables are ordinarily stated and compared. revenue gains of more than $750,000; increased service levels by 121 percent; improved service level consistency by 71 percent; reduced call abandonment rates by 31 percent; greater employee satisfaction and retention; and more effective operations. Z-Firm LLC OmniRush Family--FaxRush & ShipRush Server www.zfirmllc.com The client, a software company, implemented SalesLogix as its company-wide CRM solution. To address its faxing and shipping needs, identified as areas for potential time savings, the client implemented FaxRush and ShipRush Server. With FaxRush, approximately 40 employees at the client company's sales and support departments were able to tap into SalesLogix to send faxes from their desktops. With FaxRush handling its faxes, the client sends anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 faxes every week--significantly more than it could send before. With ShipRush Server, the client processes shipments right from SalesLogix. When sales reps log an order in the CRM application, the shipping team uses SalesLogix to process the shipment using ShipRush Server. Because all order details and contact information are already in SalesLogix, there is no need to copy or duplicate data. For information and subscriptions, visit www.TMCnet.com or call 203-852-6800. EDITOR'S NOTE Editor's Note (foaled in 1993 in Kentucky) is an American thoroughbred Stallion racehorse. He was sired by 1992 U.S. Champion 2 YO Colt Forty Niner, who in turn was a son of Champion sire Mr. Prospector and out of the mare, Beware Of The Cat. Trained by D. : Because of the very large volume of award applications we received, the CRM Excellence Award winners will be presented in two parts, to be continued This article is about the Elton John box set. For the plot device commonly featuring the phrase "To be continued", see Cliffhanger. To Be Continued next month in the July 2005 issue of Customer Interaction Solutions. |
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