According to a survey of 900 business and IT executives from 70 countries by IBM Institute for Business Value study, Eighty percent of respondents are evaluating the impact of their analytics investments, 60 percent already have predictive analytics capabilities, and "leaders" who were perceived to be proactive in engaging analytics in their organizations were more than two times likely than average to have formal career paths for analytics professionals.The next generation of IT workers will work in highly automated environments that combine both in-sourced and out-sourced technologies that businesses will expect to get immediate value from. “We hire many of our people right out of college," said the CEO of a healthcare cloud analytics vendor. The intuition behind is that the company already possessed the internal analytics expertise to train these recruits, and the added advantage of hiring freshers is that it also gives the company an opportunity a to train these recruits in to customer service that is valuable to the company. To know more about this, go to: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/big-data-analytics/better-training-in-search-of-next-generation-it-workers/

A recent survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit found that those who were polled believe that customer service and marketing is expected to gain most from analytics, but customer service is unprepared to deal with big data. Proper analytics of the brand will enable business houses to understand how their business is performing, whether they need any improvement or not.  An October 2013 Gartner report, Market Trends: Leveraging Analytics in Vertical Industries, identified four major categories of analytics: Descriptive, Diagnostic, Prescriptive, Predictive. Three ways in which analytics is transforming customer service: Analytics is encouraging organizations to break down barriers

Analytics is changing perceptions of important measurements

Analytics is allowing brands to get ahead

To know more about the three ways in which analytics is transforming customer service, go to:https://blog.zopim.com/2013/11/20/3-ways-analytics-transforming-customer-service/

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/ 

Unless one puts in the effort of being beside their customers they can never receive helpful word of mouth. In times of crisis if employees want to protect the company's reputation, they should instil a customer service culture, then empower staffs for making decisions, and perform properly in case of a problem. In times of crisis a briefing should be done to the frontline staffs about the crisis, which is a part of the crisis communication plan. This approach helps protecting one's reputation. Words of support from the directly affected people provides opportunity to enhance one's reputation further. There is no formula for gaining goodwill and loads of satisfied tweets and Facebook posts from customers. Frontline staffs as brand ambassadors and crisis communicators and hard work only pleases customers and satisfies them. Read more at:http://managementhelp.org/blogs/crisis-management/2010/12/13/crisis-management-customer-service/ 

Why we people do not get proper consumer service is the biggest question now. Apart from fast food joints the worst consumer treatment is acquired from the people who work for doctors, when ironically we should have got the best treatment there. In cases of emergencies where e require immediate attention we are told to fill forms moreover calls irritate you on confirming whether you would be able to clear the bills even if the insurance doesn’t. Apart from banks, medical customer service frustrates people with long calls and often hang them up. The only difference is that you speak with a live person instead. Then there are these unfriendly tools on the websites which assures you about the non occurrence of the problem again but if we had spend time searching every inch of the website this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. read more at:http://managementhelp.org/blogs/training-and-development/2012/03/07/poorest-customer-service-in-the-land-where-it-really-counts/ 

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/  

Companies can maintain customer support department to answer customer doubts and problems in social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook. Answers to customers should be quick and within few hours of posting. We can implement softwares that can be synchronized with Facebook, to manage private messages and posts, and to keep track of customer service questions & problems and also to serve requests. Some of these softwares are Sales Force Desk, Happy Fox etc. One can use the Facebook page to spread the problems associated with that particular product and other product issues. Social space provides a platform to make people aware of the product defects. It will demonstrate the business house's willingness to take responsibility for mistakes making fans aware of the present business scenario and maintaining transparency. Some brands often offer their fans monthly exclusive deals and some host frequent giveaways. To know about this aspect follow Jim Belosic (CEO of ShortStack)'s link: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-customer-service-facebook/ .

An article by Sue Cockburn, Founder of Growing Social Biz, conveys that it's not that the customer is always right. They're not. But, they need to see us owning the problem when they believe they are right. Arguing to prove we are right and they are wrong may allow us to win the battle, but we'll likely lose the client. Clients deserve the benefit of the doubt. Maybe sometimes we'll be taken advantage of and sometimes we won't be able to fix mistakes or won't be able to take responsibility for something that is very clearly customer error and possibly not fixable. Keeping the customers we have and building on that base is much more cost effective than gaining new customers while existing ones stream out the back door!

To know more visit http://socialmediatoday.com/suecockburn/2428621/great-customer-service-not-about-being-perfect

An article by Matthew Peneycad, advertising agency expert in social media, conveys that on social media, advocates can greatly enrich the experience of your community, contribute to the promotion and dissemination of your content, alleviate demands on your customer service team, expose key insights that can be applied to your business planning and strategy, and provide broader exposure for your organization across the social web. They can provide meaningful input, ask interesting questions and provide responses to audience members. Through their personal social listening and activity in various social networks and communities, they can expose insights that otherwise would be of great challenge to identify and substantiate.

To know more visit http://socialmediatoday.com/rgbsocial/2422351/nurturing-social-media-advocacy-inside-out  

Amazon Simple Email Service is a cost effective outbound email sending service built on the reliable and scalable infrastructure that Amazon.com has developed to serve its own customer base. With Amazon SES, it is possible to send transactional emails, marketing messages, or any other type of high-quality content. Amazon offers “pay as you go” plan flexibility. Along with high deliverability, Amazon SES provides easy, real-time access to statistics and built-in notifications for bounces and complaints to help fine-tuning email-sending strategy. Each AWS account is independent in its sending procedure and can be treated as a separate entity. SES is structured around this idea. But there can be situations compelling to send contents from multiple AWS accounts.

Sam Minter, Expert, AWS, speaks about how to send contents successfully with SES through multiple AWS accounts. To read more, visit:

https://sesblog.amazon.com/post/Tx1KQ7HH36OTFW7/Can-I-use-multiple-AWS-Accounts-with-SES

Laura Noonan, Marketing team lead at CallFinder, talks about how important  it is to monitor the call center agents for providing customer satisfaction. She also emphasized that the companies must also provide equal priority to employees, ensuring the satisfaction with their role. She also speaks about the different advantages of monitoring calls between the customers and agents.

For more information follow

http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/723/Default.aspx

Banks are the backbone of every economy. With the help of data analytics, banks are defining the modern age of customer retention & services through out the world. However, the Indian BFSI sector is yet to implement data analytics in their day-to-day operations. Mohan Jayaraman, Experian Credit Information Company of India, explains how Indian banks can improve their customer lifecycle by using data analytics. To read about his views visit:

http://www.informationweek.in/informationweek/perspective/287791/indian-banks-improve-customer-lifecycle-analytics

Working at a stretch of 8 hours is tiresome and that too sitting at the same desk. So, TIBCO Software Inc., a US based company, developed TIBCO Spotfire Mobile Metrics, a highly accessible and user-friendly Business Intelligence tool. With the help of this tool, employees can monitor the pulse of the business instantly and business leaders can act on business opportunities and problems using personalized key performance indicators.

Well, nowadays retail banks are more focused in implementing data analytics techniques and models into their day to day decision making processes. Data analytics not only provide solutions to attract and retain profitable customers but also by the help of various tools and techniques like data discovery and visualization, it is possible to analyze the various aspects which are associated with customers. Retail bankers are trying to discover the relationships and correlations in large amounts of data using customer intelligence derived from analytics. Big data analytic enable them to track customer behavior and preferences to achieve higher level of customer satisfaction which definitely helps to achieve stakeholder’s wealth maximization. For more information, please go through the link: http://spotfire.tibco.com/blog/?p=22990

Outsourcing is an important dimension in this modern era of business, which is responsible for the execution and the handling of specific operational tasks. It allows an organization to allocate its full resources to its core area of interest, instead of deploying a substantial amount of resources in order to achieve specific operational tasks. Outsourcing provides strategic flexibility to an organization, apart from enabling it with a sense of concentrated focus towards its core playing field. 

With the Cloud services in offer, Globalization as its advantage, with competitive offerings from various outsourcing vendor organizations, Outsourcing is the taste of the time we are currently living in.

It is a bulls-eye strategy from an organizational perspective. 

Follow this link for a complete view on this aspect

https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&ved=0CFAQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fast.umich.edu%2Fpdfs%2FWhat-is-shared-services-102811.pdf&ei=8ewMU4GJNYazrgfetIDICQ&usg=AFQjCNFMU-Vool8nS2YKrDuPULXGevM80w&bvm=bv.61965928,d.bmk

Tom Christenson, President of Contact Center Solutions, CGS (a global provider of technology-enabled business solutions), talks about why and how social media can be used with call centers to improve customer services.