SoundBite Communications Announces the Availability of SoundBite Engage Platform

SoundBite Communications announced the availability of a new release of SoundBite Engage, its intelligent, multi-channel communications platform. Organizations worldwide rely on SoundBite Engage, and SoundBite's professional services team, to design, execute and continually measure and optimize their communications strategies to generate revenue, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce operating costs. The Q4 2009 release adds unique features that enable automated and agent-assisted interactive customer communications over the text messaging channel.

"SoundBite's multi-channel communications platform is representative of the next evolutionary step in how organizations will communicate with their customers," said Daniel Hong, Lead Analyst of Customer Interaction at Ovum. "For the first time, organizations can provide an intelligent, interactive customer experience via text messaging on various levels from tailored automation and agent interaction. The compounded benefits of these technologies in conjunction with other multi-channel communications are very compelling."

"The Q4 2009 release of SoundBite Engage represents the vanguard for proactive customer communications," said Jim Milton, President and Chief Executive Officer of SoundBite Communications. "Our on-demand, multi-channel communications platform ushers in a new frontier in customer communications and enables organizations to create more meaningful customer conversations using any combination of voice, text and email."

Altitude Software and Digium Partner to Deliver Advanced Contact Center Applications Suite over Leading IP Communications Platform

Digium® Inc. and Altitude Software announced Altitude Software as a new Digium Premier Solutions Partner. The agreement marks a major addition to the growing portfolio of advanced business solutions running on top of the Asterisk open source telephony platform and Digium’s telephony gateway cards.

The partnership enables contact centers to benefit from the highly scalable, resilient and cost-effective Altitude uCI customer interaction management suite working together with the Altitude vBox communications platform, a rich, enhanced SIP server that allows SIP to SIP and ISDN to SIP connectivity in contact centers worldwide. The Altitude products work with Asterisk and Digium ISDN gateway cards to create a complete multimedia contact center solution running on IP. Altitude's IP contact center provides the full functionality of the Altitude uCI suite with added connectivity to Altitude vBox, a SIP-based media voice switch, as well as to a variety of IP-PBXs through ISDN and CTI. Visit Digium's product portal for complete feature details

Interactive Intelligence & RightNow to Release Customer Interaction Solution

Interactive Intelligence and RightNow^® Technologies are introducing an integrated software solution for improved customer interaction management. The integration, with general availability in Q4 2009, combines the self-service and agent-assisted service capabilities of the RightNow CX customer experience suite, with the contact center automation and enterprise IP telephony functionality of the Interactive Intelligence all-in-one IP communications software suite, Customer Interaction Center^™ (CIC). The new integration brings the following to the RightNow agent desktop for increased productivity and improved customer service: embedded call controls, screen-pop, multichannel queuing and routing, click-to-dial, and unified reporting.

“By having a unified desktop for agents and business users to manage interactions and data, companies can decrease call processing time, increase call resolution rates, and improve overall customer satisfaction,” said RightNow’s chief solution officer, David Vap. “Interactive Intelligence’s single-platform architecture further adds operational value by simplifying installation, administration, and customization.”

“In addition to streamlining the agent-assisted customer experience, this joint solution helps IT teams reduce deployment time for faster ROI by eliminating the need for custom integration,” said Interactive Intelligence vice president of business development, Bill Gildea. “With our respective engagement teams aligned, joint clients are assured they’re receiving solid customer experience solutions backed by dedicated experts.” The II solutions portal provides full integration details

Claim Processing Company Utilizes inContact and Salesforce.com for Industry-Leading Customer Support Capabilities

inContact, Inc. announced that a provider of performance solutions for the casualty claims industry will be using inContact’s integrated product offering with Salesforce.com for its multiple call centers. The company processes calls from thousands of repair facilities and over 200 insurance companies.

The company has utilized the inContact software product in its call center operations for nearly two years, and has used the Salesforce.com customer relationship management (CRM) product with one of their internal divisions for over a year. With the Salesforce CRM product fully integrated with inContact, the company plans to expand the Salesforce.com presence enterprisewide, and is expanding into various other offerings from inContact to improve the agent training and customer experience.

The inContact and Salesforce.com integration will improve the entire call center cycle – routing, call resolution and reporting, which will combine to improve the overall customer experience. The product integration allows agents and managers to work through a single user interface to resolve customer calls and run reports. Because both applications are cloud-based technologies, companies that utilize inContact and Salesforce.com also see the overall benefits of a Software-as-a-Service offering: quick deployments, minimal cash outlay, a rapid and quantifiable return on investment, a reduced maintenance burden and a pay-as-you-go model. Read the press release via BusinessWireNews

Contact Centres Face New Challenge as Attrition Costs Fall by £800M, Reports CCA

A reduction of £800 million in the cost of staff attrition has helped UK contact centres deliver major improvements in customer service but they will face tough new challenges when the recessions ends, warns CCA, the industry champion of global customer service standards. CCA Chief executive Anne Marie Forsyth urged contact centre managers to attend CCA Convention in Edinburgh on November 4 & 5 where more than 500 professionals from the public and private sectors will debate ways to accelerate improvements in contact centre operations and to get the best performance from staff.

Forsyth said: “The recession presented serious difficulties for everyone but ironically, one positive side effect for the customer contact sector has been a dramatic reduction in staff attrition costs which were running at £1 billion a year. We need to ensure the situation is not reversed as the economy recovers and that the ultimate winner is the customer who has a right to expect first-class service from well-trained staff.”

CCA Convention, the industry’s premier event, will be chaired by Gavin Esler of BBC’s Newsnight and Sky News anchorwoman Kay Burley. Bookings are strong despite the downturn as organisations seek insight from global leaders on boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty. Visit the CCA's portal for complete survey findings and conference information