CUSTOMER — APRIL 2013

Taking the Customer Experience Mobile

People are increasingly on the move. And they want to be able to conduct business and manage their personal lives from wherever they are and whenever they have a free moment to do so. As a result, businesses are catering to the new mobile lifestyle. At the same time, businesses are enabling their own employees to leverage the flexibility and real-time responsiveness that mobile can help deliver... Read More >>>

5 Ways to Increase Lead Generation Value
Increasingly complex interconnections, an ever-growing number of players and non transparent activities have resulted in a situation where fraud and lead recycling are common practice. As lead quality decreases, lead pricing declines, resulting in an overall deterioration of the value of the lead gen space. Nevertheless, many marketers have their minds set on finding strategic and persistent methods and strategies to increase lead generation values and to re-introduce practices that benefit the lead gen industry. To achieve this, many small improvements can have tremendous positive impacts on lead gen quality.

Power Dialer: Five9 Gives Muscle to DirectBuy San Diego's Outbound Calling
DirectBuy was founded in 1971 to offer consumers a different, less expensive way to buy home products and services. Based in Merrillville, Ind., the company has 160 showrooms across the U.S. and Canada. Members pay a fee to join, which allows them to buy merchandise directly from 700 manufacturers and suppliers while avoiding the price markups typically charged by retailers. Products include home furnishings, home improvement items, outdoor furnishings, flooring, and other accessories.

Beyond Call Tracking: Call Marketing Automation Delivers the ROI
These developments have increased the importance of call marketing for advertisers. So, for businesses that talk to their customers on the phone, call tracking is now an essential capability. It allows marketers to properly attribute calls and marketing campaigns to a lead source, providing essential business intelligence.

Talking with Servion
CUSTOMER magazine recently spoke with Shankaran Nair, president of corporate strategy at Servion, about trends and developments in the customer experience arena. Here's an excerpt of that conversation.

Thinking Outside the Office: Virtual Model Opens New Opportunities for Specialized Service
Customers serving customers -- it's one of the biggest advantages of outsourcing to a company that operates within a virtual environment. While it is true that virtual call centers provide cost savings, efficiency and flexibility not found in traditional brick-and-mortar centers, it is their unique ability to align the skills of call taking contractor with the company programs they service that has convinced so many companies to adopt the outsourced virtual model.

Conquering Channel Chaos
Faced as we are with a wealth of customer communications channels, it's very easy for them to get away from us. For many of us, it's time to take a deep breath and get control of channel chaos. Here are a few tips to help you connect better with your customers across - and between -channels.