By now, several of us are beginning to hear about Lean Six Sigma and are wondering what this is all about? Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a unique analytical business process available to facilitate continuous process improvement (CPI) which includes Champions, Black Belts and Green Belts that enables companies to drastically improve their profitability by monitoring everyday business activities minimizing waste and inefficiencies. CPI program tends to improve the operational, administrative and support functions of the company. Many successful companies, such as Motorola, use Six Sigma. Ranging from customers, stockholders, employees to suppliers all benefit from this business process. The following factors make LSS achieve its success: 1) Leadership commitment 2) Focused resources. 3) Common tools and language 4) Disciplined project approach 5) Bottom-line business measures. Improvements are made by working to reduce waste through a five-step process: 1) Identifying customer value  2)Mapping the value stream  3)Creating flow 4)Seeking perfection 5)Pulling based on demand. Read more about this aspect at George Aslinger's article link: 

http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/lean-six-sigma-business-transformation/articles/continuous-improvement-with-lean-six-sigma-for-beg/

According to a survey, which polled more than 13000 customers across 33 countries and 10 industries, showed that contact centers undermine the importance of customer service and hence dissatisfy them. 91 percent of customers complain that they have to contact the company several times for the same problem. 90 percent do not like to be put on hold. 89 percent report being frustrated about having to repeat their problems several times. Companies should start providing best class customer service so that they do not have to face same pitfalls with customer retention every time. To avoid call waiting, a cloud router should be used for automatically transferring  call to the next agent. Companies should invest in real time reporting software so that they have full interaction history of a customer when they call. Read more at: at:http://www.callcentertimes.com/Articles/tabid/59/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/407/CategoryID/1/NewsID/783/Default.aspx 

Online chat is a better option compared to other customer service strategies like an email exchange or a personalized phone call. For live chat, some essential criteria have to be considered. First, it is important to ensure that the client or the user is registered on the company's website as all chat sessions would originate from the website of the company. Second, it is also important to know that whether inquiries being received are quick to answer or are detailed inquiries in order to continue with at least three chat sessions at a time. Third, the basic requirement is to have an operator during live chat sessions. Due to live chat sessions, a knowledge base of prepared responses gets build up which benefits in responding to customers faster and re-type the same answer, and thus there is a consistent communication between the company and customer. Read more at: http://managementhelp.org/blogs/customer-service/2010/06/04/customer-service-strategies-live-chat/ 

This is the 21st century and here everyone expects more from business interactions. Call center analytics is an efficient and quick way to gauge its overall approach to Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Earlier, call recordings were thought to be an approach for analyzing customer demands. But due to its shortcomings like delays in recording and transcribing, has open doors to new methods. Every company seeks for newer methods to differentiate their customer service experience and optimizing it to the fullest level. A recent example is of Amazon Mayday Functionality which promises help from a real person with prior knowledge of functionality and the service is delivered with high quality video experience. With visual demonstrations it is easier to resolve the problems sometimes in matter of seconds. The greatest contribution for this technology is made by WebRTC supported on desktops and even android phones. It has proved itself successful providing the customers with the best they deserve. Read more about this aspect in Ashley Unitt (founder of NewVoiceMedia)'s article link: http://www.mewvoicemedia.com/blog/contace-centre-innovations

There are three modes of services available for customers, namely e-mail, live chat, and phone. Each of them has their own positives and negatives. E-mails are cheapest,\ and extremely useful for connecting globally. If solutions are not required immediately this can be the best platform with clear and written solutions, which are transferable. Customers do not have to deal with foreign accents or “on hold” waiting. Customers feel their importance and in this way a number of customers can be handled simultaneously. On the other side phone calls are better for people who want immediate support and are less technological forward. They get the solutions immediately and feel that their business is being appreciated. A helpful voice can calm and assure customers. Internet connection is not required. The type of medium selected depends on the type of client one faces. Usually sue to the fact that there can be multiple types of customers providing different forms of consumer support mediums is usually the best solution. Read more at:http://ezinearticles.com/?Email,-Phone-Or-Live-Chat-Support---How-to-Best-Serve-Your-Customers&id=3518663

Customer satisfaction is an important necessity for any organization to retain customers. Few basic rules of customer service includes firstly, integrity, the service provider should be honest and commit to the mistakes and also communicate ideas to correct such follies and such mistakes in future. Secondly, there is response time. It is essential that the customer service provider is able to explain the mistakes of the company through one to one communication or through e-mails in case of large customer circle in an effective way. Thirdly, there is realistic expectation. It is necessary that the consumers are satisfied with company's promises and delivery to retain customers in the long run. Thus, under promise and over deliver is the best policy. Fourthly we have respect. For customer satisfaction it is very important to respect and appreciate them and uphold their point of view. Hence these basic rules should be followed by any business house. Read more at :http://managementhelp.org/blogs/customer-service/2010/04/12/customer-service-basics/  

Genesys (a provider of customer experience and contact center solutions), announced that the company has recently entered into a partnership agreement with NTT Communications Corporation, a provider of telecommunication services for personal and corporate users.  Genesys Platform and NTT Communications have together formed Arcstar Contact Center. This contact center is based on NTT Communications' Enterprise Cloud.

Read more at: http://www.sys-con.com/node/3088305

In an article written by Judy Philbin (contributor to Business 2 Community), we come to know about different best practices that can be adopted to ensure seamless running of a multichannel contact center. Multichannel contact centers are fast evolving around the globe to cater to consumers growing demand. These contact centers also facilitates customer service through different channel of communication ranging from SMS, call, chat etc. It creates a highly streamlined customer service process

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In an article written by Chris Preimesberger (?Editor, Features & Analysis eWEEK web magazine), gives us some reasons that why we should move our contact centers to cloud. Moving contact centers to the cloud will ensure better security, flexibility and productivity. It also opens an opportunity for companies to adopt cost-efficient IT, which empowers customers to be in control of their software. Cloud-based software focuses on the customer needs and business goals and simply enables a better user experience.

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In a white paper submitted by Pronexus (telephony, speech and database integration company), we come to know about the basics of voice user interface design. This white paper outlines many minute things that one should keep in mind before designing a voice user interface. He also describes what voice user interface is and what the design issues related with it are.

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In a blog written by Irv Shapiro (CEO and head coach ifbyphone), we come to know the basic differences between proactive call optimization and reactive call tracking analytics. In his blog he explains how a VBMA suite has state of art technologies to deal with many impending problems that today's business organizations face with respect to call tracking etc. VBMA is used to route the call to a proper agent. The technology should be easy to use and not complex in its handling.

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In a blog written by Dr Jodie Monger, a pioneer in customer satisfaction research for the contact center industry, explains how problem arises in collecting multiple customer comments from post call IVR survey. He also explains what the problems are and how to solve those problems. 

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Call Center that experience high call volumes need to have the correct call center software. In an analysis by voxilla.com we came to know the best 4 call center software providers for 2014. The analysis considered customer satisfaction, overall price, features and more. Here are the best fourcall center software providers for 2014:1) 8x8, Inc., 2) SafeSoft Solutions, 3) 4PSA, 4) 3C Logic.

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/the-best-4-call-center-software-providers-for-2014-determined-by-voxillacom-1912374.htm

Genesys, a provider of customer experience and contact center solutions, has entered into an agreement with Zendesk, a software development company, to integrate Genesys cloud contact center solution with Zendesk customer service platform.The partnership will help both companies to deliver a powerful cloud-based customer experience solution and will help to expand market opportunities globally.

To read more, visit the following link:http://www.infotechlead.com/2014/05/13/genesys-integrates-cloud-contact-center-zendesk-platform-22652