EDIT SERIES

An Invitation from Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert)

We’ve all seen the TV shows in which people or properties get a new lease on life via makeovers. Now Interactive Intelligence is bringing this concept to the call center.

Customer Experience Makeover – Contact Center Edition is a contest being staged by Interactive Intelligence through which companies are encouraged to tell their stories about why their businesses are good candidates for a call center renovation. The contest is open to organizations around the global that are interested in having Interactive Intelligence come in and at no charge do a makeover of their contact center and related products and technologies. That includes consulting and a contact center makeover, and also addresses related products and systems that touch the contact center, including CRM applications, desk phones, headsets, and more, explains Joe Staples (News - Alert), chief marketing officer at Interactive Intelligence.

Entries are being accepted through April 30. To enter, visit customerexperiencemakeover.com.

A short list of finalists will be announced shortly after that date. The winner will be revealed at Interactive Intelligence’s Interactions 2014 conference, which will take place June 2 through 5 in Indianapolis, Ind.

A panel of judges will determine the winner based on answers to questions about why their organization is a good candidate for this makeover, what pain points they have with their current call center, and what other functionality they and their customers could benefit from in the contact center. 

The prize, which is worth millions of dollars, will leverage cloud-based technology to provide the winner with the latest and greatest in contact center and customer experience solutions, says Staples.

Interactive Intelligence will document the winning organization’s contact center transformation with photos, video and write-ups over the course of the makeover process. That way, anyone interested in how they too can transform their contact center can get a real-life view into how it all happens.

“This gives us an opportunity to showcase the difference that a contact center can make to the success and value of a business,” says Staples. “We are convinced that customer service can really be a competitive weapon for businesses. One of the long-enduring values a company can have is the service level that they deliver to customers.”

Indeed, as discussed in the October cover story of CUSTOMER magazine, delivering a positive customer experience is just good business. Ensuring that customers, partners and prospects have positive interactions with – and impressions of – your brand is becoming even more important. That’s because the new connected consumer has more choices of suppliers, more opportunities to use online resources for comparison shopping, and more available venues through which to vent their dissatisfaction if they don’t get what they want when they want it.

To be competitive, organizations today must provide the products, services and support that customers have come to expect – and quickly, as most of us have grown accustomed to immediate gratification in today’s always-connected world. Speaking of connectivity, customers want to connect with businesses based on their own personal preferences. That means organizations need to be ready, willing and able to interface with customers and prospects over any and all communications media, and to do it seamlessly and effectively. And rather than simply pushing out products and messaging to the masses, customers want solutions and service that cater to their individual needs and preferences.

“The world has become an increasingly competitive place, and there are so many products and services out there that it’s critical organizations distinguish themselves based on their customer service,” says Don Brown, CEO of Interactive Intelligence.

Interactive Intelligence is a global provider of contact center, unified communications, and business process automation software and services designed to improve the customer experience. It has more than 6,000 customers worldwide, and its solutions can be deployed in the cloud or on-premises.

The company is among Software Magazine's 2013 Top 500 Global Software and Service Providers, and has received a Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) Company of the Year Award for the last four consecutive years.

Founded in 1994, Interactive Intelligence employs more than 1,800 people worldwide. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, and has offices throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. 

For more information on the Customer Experience Makeover contest, visit customerexperiencemakeover.com.