April 2006

Magazine Features

The 2006 CRM Service Awards: Introduction and Table of Contents

The 2006 Rising Star and Service Excellence Awards

With our second annual Service Excellence award, we're spotlighting a company that positioned itself as the market-share leader in its space -- and introducing CRM magazine's Rising Star awards.

The 2006 Service Elite Awards

Talking about significant results tied to investments in contact center technologies and services is one thing. Realizing outstanding return is another. CRM magazine honors five organizations that reaped the benefits of their contact center and customer service initiatives in 2005 in the following categories: Web support services, workforce optimization, speech solutions, hosted contact center services (a new category), and agent-facing universal desktop.

The 2006 Service Leader Awards, Part 1

The contact center industry was hot in 2005, as providers of customer service and support technologies and services strengthened their commitment to delivering first-class service. Many of the industry's players made their presence felt with forward-thinking mergers and acquisitions, while others upped the ante by growing from within and extending strategic alliances. We honor the industry's top-three leaders and one company to watch in the following categories: computer telephony integration, interactive voice response, Web-support services (formerly the Web self-service category), workforce optimization (formerly the workforce management and optimization category), quality monitoring, agent-facing universal desktop, and outsourcing services. The results are based on a weighted formula that includes analyst assessments for customer satisfaction, depth of functionality, and company direction, as well as fiscal health over the course of 2005.

The 2006 Service Leader Awards, Part 2

The contact center industry was hot in 2005, as providers of customer service and support technologies and services strengthened their commitment to delivering first-class service. Many of the industry's players made their presence felt with forward-thinking mergers and acquisitions, while others upped the ante by growing from within and extending strategic alliances. We honor the industry's top-three leaders and one company to watch in the following categories: computer telephony integration, interactive voice response, Web-support services (formerly the Web self-service category), workforce optimization (formerly the workforce management and optimization category), quality monitoring, agent-facing universal desktop, and outsourcing services. The results are based on a weighted formula that includes analyst assessments for customer satisfaction, depth of functionality, and company direction, as well as fiscal health over the course of 2005.

Front Office

Full Suite Versus Best of Breed

A close look at CRM's third annual Service Leader awards issue reveals that in some areas, the age-old debate is being resolved.

Reality Check

Executive Support: The Most Important CRM Success Factor

How weak, moderate, and strong support from the brass yield different results for CRM implementations.

Customer Centricity

Meet Expectations Before Trying to Exceed Them

By trying to reduce costs, companies reduce the overall value they provide to customers and drop performance below customer expectations.

The Tipping Point

The Scientific Reason for CRM Failure, Part 2

Part II: Reduce resistance and increase ROI with change management

Pint of View

Taxing Your Patience

Customer relationship (mis)management meets the IRS.

Insight

Super Bowl Marketing Fumbles

"[I]f all the folks are in the same audience, you can turn off some people."

SAP's On-Demand Vision

What can customers gain from the software giant's hosted offering?

Making SOA Pay Right Away

These five projects can deliver ROI within six months.

Market Focus: Telecommunications: Sharpen the Focus on Agent Training/Answering the Call

Bring specialized agents into the mix to enhance service levels for wireless companies as CSRs work to understand new products and services.

Required Reading: Customer Satisfaction at Its Best

destinationCRM Dashboard

Re:Tooling

Tech Solution: Web Self-Service

Business Problem: The contact center is overwhelmed with basic, repetitive inquiries.