FRONTRANGE HEAT Achives PINKVERIFY Status
FrontRange Solutions, a developer of help desk and service management software for mid-sized and distributed enterprises, announced that its HEAT version 9.0 help desk solution has achieved PinkVERIFY status and is now compatible with Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) V3 through Pink Elephant's software certification program. As a result of the verification process, HEAT has been certified as compatible eight of the 14 processes outlined in ITIL V3, including Incident, Problem, Knowledge, Change, Service Asset & Configuration, Request Fulfillment, Event and Service Level Management.
Office Depot Renews Human Resources Contract with Convergys
Convergys Corporation, a provider of relationship management solutions, announced that Office Depot has renewed its contract for Convergys HR Solutions for another 12 months. Convergys will continue to provide HR benefits administration including COBRA, leave of absence, and annual enrollment services, for Office Depot, which has been a Convergys client since 2003. This is the eighth contract renewal in 12 months for Convergys' HR Solutions.
Study Finds Consumers Want Increased Automation in the Contact Center and have an Overwhelming Interest in Proactive Notifications
Nuance Communications, Inc. announced the findings of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting. The study revealed that consumers rate automated telephone customer service higher than live agents for certain straightforward interactions. In five out of ten posed scenarios, consumers preferred automated telephone customer service systems over live agent interactions for tasks like prescription refills (66% rated automation highly, compared with 52% for live agent), checking the status of a flight from a cell phone (61% versus 49%), checking account balances (59% versus 36%), store information requests (55% versus 37%), and tracking shipments (53% versus 47%).
The survey also revealed that automated telephone systems are an expected and accepted customer service channel with 82% of US online adults having used an automated touchtone or speech recognition system to contact customer service in the past 12 months. That figure trails behind only live agent interactions, with which 93% of consumers have engaged.
In the survey, consumers provided their level of interest in a variety of specific proactive notification options within five different industries. The aggregated results of the industry-specific questions show that a strong majority of consumers are interested in at least one proactive notification alert via their choice of email, voice message, or text message. Consumers were most open to notifications related to the travel industry (93%), which include such things as flight status updates and confirmation of reservations for flights, hotels, and car rentals. Eighty-eight percent of consumers were interested in notification from a financial services institution, with strong interest in transaction confirmations. With regard to health care, consumers strongly favored appointment reminders — something that could be adopted in a variety of other industries as well, such as utilities or professional services.
Other key findings:
- Consumers' satisfaction with customer service leaves a lot of room for improvement. Only 49% of U.S. online adults report being satisfied, very satisfied or extremely satisfied with companies' customer service in general.
- Consumers who frequently contact customer service from a wireless phone are relatively more amenable to automated telephone customer service channels. About one-third (32%) of consumers regularly use a cell phone to contact customer service. The data indicates that in nearly all scenarios, mobile customer service users rate using automated telephone customer service systems higher than those consumers who do not regularly contact customer service using a cell phone. This is significant due to Forrester's expectation that the number of wireless-only households will continue to grow, reaching 19% of all U.S. households by 2013.
- The 24-hour 7 days a week availability of automated telephone customer service is a key attribute in consumers' minds. Seventy-seven percent of consumers pointed to 24-hour, seven days a week availability as a reason they value automated telephone customer service systems. Another 40% valued that they didn't have to wait on hold for a live agent, while 31% cited the ability to obtain information quickly.
- Consumers today are overwhelmingly interested in proactive customer notifications across a variety of industries. For each of the five industries included in the survey, consumer interest in receiving some form of proactive notification was very strong, ranging from 80% (for cable television operators and telephone companies) to 93% (for travel-related companies).
- Opt-out, accurate software and logical call flows are essential components of a "great" automated speech-enabled customer interaction. Sixty-seven percent of consumers claimed that having the ability to speak to a live agent at any time is necessary in order to consider an automated speech-enabled customer service interaction a "great experience." Systems can be enhanced by improving the accuracy of the software and employing thorough and logical call flows.
According to Forrester's study, when it comes to evaluating a great experience with automated speech recognition customer service systems, two-thirds of consumers value having the ability to speak to a live agent at any time. Forty-two percent of consumers value the ability of the speech recognition system to understand them the first time a response is spoken, and 39% of consumers prefer not to have to repeat themselves. Similarly, when asked to identify what would improve speech recognition customer service experiences, the top choice (75%) of consumers was to offer the option of speaking with a live agent throughout the interaction. Being understood the first time (63%) and improving menus to direct callers to the appropriate destination (45%) round out the top three answer choices.
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U.S. Job Satisfaction at Lowest Level in Two Decades
Americans of all ages and income brackets continue to grow increasingly unhappy at work-a long-term trend that should be a red flag to employers, according to a report released today by The Conference Board.
The report, based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. households conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, finds only 45 percent of those surveyed say they are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent in 1987, the first year in which the survey was conducted.
"While one in 10 Americans is now unemployed, their working compatriots of all ages and incomes continue to grow increasingly unhappy," says Lynn Franco, director of the Consumer Research Center of The Conference Board. "Through both economic boom and bust during the past two decades, our job satisfaction numbers have shown a consistent downward trend."
Fewer Americans are satisfied with all aspects of their employment, and no age or income group is immune. In fact, the youngest cohort of employees (those currently under age 25) expresses the highest level of dissatisfaction ever recorded by the survey for that age group.
The drop in job satisfaction between 1987 and 2009 covers all categories in the survey, from interest in work (down 18.9 percentage points) to job security (down 17.5 percentage points) and crosses all four of the key drivers of employee engagement: job design, organizational health, managerial quality, and extrinsic rewards.
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