tags: Service

Meetings TV is "On the Air" First Site to Deliver On-Demand Video Site Tours to Meeting and Event Planners Meeting and Event Planning just became a lot easier, thanks to Meetings TV(www.meetingstv.com).This new web service allows planners to get "an inside look" via video site tours of destinations, hotels, meeting venues and service providers for their next sales meeting, conference or private event. "Although this is a new website, the development of Meetings TV has been in the works for over two years," states Jim Grillo, partner of the firm. "We conducted extensive focus groups with meeting & event planners to find out what they were looking for in the marketplace. Once we determined their needs, we launched this concept successfully in Chicago, a major market meetings & convention destination. Based on this success, we are now debuting Meetings TV to the global marketplace." The Meetings TV (http://www.meetingstv.com) platform allows for professional and novice planners to search for resources by destination, by category or by keyword. "We felt it was important to represent all segments of the market, provide free video bandwidth and affordable listing options for suppliers," says Grillo. "So whether you're at the initial phase of searching for destinations, trying to narrow down hotel selections, or searching for transportation providers or caterers, Meetings TV will have solution providers in our comprehensive directory with or without video." Register for Free - Post Video at No Additional Charge As part of the firm's beta launch, Meetings TV is providing free memberships to any industry supplier. Additionally, supplier members who register for a basic, premier or showcase listing are entitled to post their video at no additional charge. The firm is working with third party video production companies to provide cost-effective solutions on custom video for any organization that is interested in creating a video of their business or destination. "From a marketing standpoint, videos not only help get your message in front of your customers but extend your reach, making it easier to promote and sell your products and services. Video advertising brings a more educated planner and saves both the planner and supplier a lot of time by shortening the sales cycle. We encourage all meeting venues and suppliers to take advantage of signing up for a free listing or post their videos on Meetings TV" says Grillo. Meetingstv.com, a Premier Tourism Marketing Company (www.premiertourismmarketing.com) 621 Plainfield Road, Suite 406, Willowbrook, IL 60527 Phone: 630.794.0696 Fax: 630.794.0652 Email: grouptraveldirectory.site@gmail.com

Meetings TV is "On the Air" First Site to Deliver On-Demand Video Site Tours to Meeting and Event Planners Meeting and Event Planning just became a lot easier, thanks to Meetings TV(www.meetingstv.com).This new web service allows planners to get "an inside look" via video site tours of destinations, hotels, meeting venues and service providers for their next sales meeting, conference or private event. "Although this is a new website, the development of Meetings TV has been in the works for over two years," states Jim Grillo, partner of the firm. "We conducted extensive focus groups with meeting & event planners to find out what they were looking for in the marketplace. Once we determined their needs, we launched this concept successfully in Chicago, a major market meetings & convention destination. Based on this success, we are now debuting Meetings TV to the global marketplace." The Meetings TV (http://www.meetingstv.com) platform allows for professional and novice planners to search for resources by destination, by category or by keyword. "We felt it was important to represent all segments of the market, provide free video bandwidth and affordable listing options for suppliers," says Grillo. "So whether you're at the initial phase of searching for destinations, trying to narrow down hotel selections, or searching for transportation providers or caterers, Meetings TV will have solution providers in our comprehensive directory with or without video." Register for Free - Post Video at No Additional Charge As part of the firm's beta launch, Meetings TV is providing free memberships to any industry supplier. Additionally, supplier members who register for a basic, premier or showcase listing are entitled to post their video at no additional charge. The firm is working with third party video production companies to provide cost-effective solutions on custom video for any organization that is interested in creating a video of their business or destination. "From a marketing standpoint, videos not only help get your message in front of your customers but extend your reach, making it easier to promote and sell your products and services. Video advertising brings a more educated planner and saves both the planner and supplier a lot of time by shortening the sales cycle. We encourage all meeting venues and suppliers to take advantage of signing up for a free listing or post their videos on Meetings TV" says Grillo. Meetingstv.com, a Premier Tourism Marketing Company (www.premiertourismmarketing.com) 621 Plainfield Road, Suite 406, Willowbrook, IL 60527 Phone: 630.794.0696 Fax: 630.794.0652 Email: grouptraveldirectory.site@gmail.com

Amazon wants to pick your brains Amazon.com has unveiled a new service that aims to leverage the power of human intelligence as a way to tackle high volumes of repeatable tasks.

Microsoft is stuck on the C: drive Bill Gates’ Nov. 1 announcement that Microsoft would soon be in the SaaS (software-as-a-service) business should be taken as a warning sign to the faithful: Something is rotten in Redmond. In the past, Gates has aimed his message at the consumer, both business and personal. He usually extols the virtues of whatever technology is being unveiled and explains to his audience how it will fundamentally change their lives (for the better, of course). This time he had nothing substantive to offer them.

By Dendy Harjanto, founder and CEO of eMecca Consulting

In a deteriorating economy, the watchword for business is to give customers what they want. You'd better take it for granted that customers are never satisfied, and will desert you for the competition if they're not completely happy.

Keeping your customers smiling is even more important when you consider that it can cost up to 10 times as much to attract a new customer as to retain a current one. Sales models that focus on attracting new customers are redundant. It is worthwhile to prep yourself on the CRM industry. Trust me.

The goal now is to stop existing customers straying. Several new technologies can help with this, including content management, customer relationship management (CRM) and other forms of what's known loosely as mass customization.

Of all the technologies available, however, CRM is the darling of many organisations. It enables companies to identify, attract and retain customers by targeting them more effectively.

According to Harvard Business Review, it costs six to seven times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. The urgency of keeping customer has spawned interest in CRM solutions with the objective of being able to better acquire, retain and satisfy customers.

Business must not think of CRM as just a call centre, which often has an undeservedly negative connotation, but rather as a pro-active business process which harvests all data about all client interactions.

Turning this data in pro-active interfaces with clients to enhance their purchasing experience and thereby engendering customer loyalty is the true meaning of CRM.

CRM is NOT a buzzword. Heads of enterprise, particularly those involved in direct selling and direct marketing know that managing the needs and wants of their end-users is crucial. Infact, more and more businesses are setting departments in their organisations that are devoted to this aspect of the business alone.

This analysis is being fed by bullish market estimates.

For example, AMR Research, Inc., the leading industry and market analysis firm specializing in e-business strategy, enterprise applications, and technology architecture, predicts the CRM market will reach US$16.8 billion by the year 2003, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 49 percent over the next five years. According to the firm's Customer Relationship Management Software Report, 1998 - 2003, the highly fragmented CRM market will garner tremendous buyer attention over the next several years.

Is this optimism misplaced? Probably not. The rewards to businesses that can implement CRM properly are great - satisfied, long-term customer relationships are exactly what firms need in a tough economic climate.

But implementing a CRM strategy is challenging and can be expensive. It requires the co-coordinated delivery of products and services that meet both customer needs and the financial goals of the enterprise itself. There is evidence of good return on investment from CRM deployment, but few hard figures.

One of the criticisms of CRM software is that many implementations actually fail for a number of reasons including unrealistically high expectations and confused objectives.

Let’s touch on the SME market. The benefits of CRM applications are fairly obvious to SMEs, but the cost often proves a restraint on take-up. The few SMEs that have decided to acquire these applications have chosen software that, while labeled CRM, is often disparagingly referred to as "contact management".

If a company really wants to go for high-end software which will give its staff an easily accessed "library" of invaluable customer information, there will be some pretty steep pre-and post-consultancy spending. Not only that, the company will be obliged to go through a big cultural upheaval as staff spend time becoming familiar with the software, which, in turn, may demand extra resources.

The bigger the elephant you try to swallow, the more likely you are to choke. The irony is that after being ignored for so long, the SME market seems about to gain its own CRM vision - and one shaped by the failures of enterprise implementations.

Regardless of the size of your company, or the heavy investment you’ve made on the front-end personalization, content management and the customers tracking side of an operation; the traditional back-office systems still have to work as an integrated whole to realize the kinds of synergies and returns you expect to attain.

About the Author and eMecca Consulting

Dendy Harjanto is the founder and CEO of eMecca Consulting. eMecca Consulting is the leading e-business solutions provider in the US and the Asia-Pacific region. With a focus in the CRM space, eMecca helps businesses manage their online relationships with users at all levels, create sustainable and long-term profitability by formulating their business processes to simplify their customer interactions.

eMecca provides organizations with creative online strategies as well as component-based architecture and implementations that best suit individual company needs.

With proven strategies and end-to-end enterprise solutions, applicable across different industries, eMecca has attracted major players and clients in the Telecommunications, Banking and Finance, High-Technology Manufacturing, Healthcare and Logistics Sectors.

Headquartered in Singapore, with operations in US, Taiwan and Indonesia, eMecca is rapidly expanding into other regional markets including Hong Kong and Malaysia.

For more information on eMecca Consulting, please visit www.emeccaconsulting.com.

E-tail Flails at Customer Service E-Mail Fewer than 40 percent of companies respond to customer service e-mails within six hours and nearly one-fourth never reply at all, according to a report released by Jupiter Media Metrix.

KISS Your Customers If You Want Them Back Programmers dream of elegant code. To them, simple is elegant. That's true of the language the rest of us use: The best writing is often the simplest. So too with Web sites. The idea is to communicate, after all. Say it best with a KISS.

by Andrew Pearce, CEO of TeleTech Asia

Hire Staff: Higher Expectations

Today, call centres have become customer contact centres creating a burgeoning industry and an exciting career choice for many. As the mass of customer relationship management technologies continues to proliferate, it is there to help the industry, however it still takes people to turn it to competitive advantage.

Peter Brannighan, chairperson of the Australian Teleservices Association (ATA) has said that a new breed of highly trained agents is emerging to work in contact centres. These people are competent in many technologies, swift to deal with a variety of issues across any medium, and skilled in using existing information to the benefit of the job at hand. I will add that technology is already taking away short, simple and repetitive interactions traditionally associated with call centres to give staff the freedom to focus on maintaining high customer service in increasingly complex contact centre environments. This benefits the industry as a whole.

New staff dynamics

Technology is already empowering the industry and those that work within it. In today’s contact centre environment, we must expect to hire those staff who are interested in technology and in delivering customer service excellence. As employers, it is our responsibility to match each staff member’s expectations by challenging, rewarding and recognising their achievements.

As employers, our ultimate goal should be to offer a comprehensive range of targeted education and development support. This will enable our management to better assess and measure strengths, to identify developmental opportunities, and to address the needs of their employees and their teams. It is a vital step in the alignment of individual, team, and organisational goals.

Every team within a contact centre faces a unique set of business challenges. To meet these varied demands, management should customise its HR programmes based upon specific group needs, as opposed to a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.

Explore the wealth of ability and potential within your organisation and share in the responsibility of promoting key performers by helping them become leaders. By empowering your employees with knowledge, you encourage creativity which helps distinguish you and your clients’ brands, ultimately setting you – and your client – apart from the competition.

Holistic Workforce Management

In the highly competitive and fast growing industry of customer relationship management, it can be tempting to cut corners in the rush to build business. Your staff can suffer adversely if this is the business ethos.

Concentrate not just on financial rewards. Instead recognise the diversity in your workforce and develop a holistic approach to your staff by providing education in areas away from the contact centre hot seat. Take the time to plan an individual’s career, enrol staff in education courses, and support their extra curricular activities. These are just a few examples of what is possible.

If staff enjoy their work and have fun in the contact centre, it is translated directly into every customer interaction they enter. Companies must never become complacent to their staff. By monitoring morale, issues and workload, a happy and enduring workforce can be retained.

While a recent survey into CIC staff salaries showed skilled staff are in a position to demand higher salaries as the competition between operators for their skills increased, in my experience, staff will stay with a company for comparative pay provided they are given an opportunity to advance their career.

Career pathing is part of the total package contact centres must now offer new and existing staff. Salary, career advancement opportunities and ongoing training in new technologies make for not only happy, motivated staff - they also provide superior service to customers, and in the case of outsourcers, their client's customers.

About TeleTech

Founded in 1982, TeleTech is the leading provider of integrated customer relationship management solutions (CRM) for global organizations predominantly in the telecommunications, financial services, technology, government and transportation industries. TeleTech has operations in 11 countries, which include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

TeleTech's CRM capabilities, including B2B electronic channel management and database management, help companies inform, acquire, service, grow and retain their customers throughout the entire relationship lifecycle. TeleTech integrates a full spectrum of voice and Internet communications, including custom e-mail response, "chat" and extensive Web co-browsing capabilities.

by Andrew Pearce, CEO of TeleTech Asia

What is branding and how does it relate to the interchangeable concepts of corporate identity, image and reputation? Brand or branding is a distinctive area of marketing study and is a topic of increasing interest to marketers today.

When talking about successful branding, we generally refer to successes in terms of contribution to market share, sales, profit margins, loyalty and market awareness. In my experience, little consideration is given to the customer perspective and its part in brand development. Therefore in this case I would like to consider successful branding from another viewpoint - the end user or consumers of brands.

What’s in a Brand?

“Marketers should never lose sight of the fact that the final form of the brand is the mental evaluation held by the purchasers and users.” Leslie de Chernatony and Malcolm McDonald – Creating Powerful Brands in Consumer Service and Industrial Markets.

Corporate identity tends to be equated to awareness, while image deals more with people’s belief and perceptions about products or companies, and reputation tends to reflect an evaluation of all activities or performance. A brand, on the other hand, can represent a product, a company or service provider. Brands have identities, images and reputations. The primary purpose of branding is recognition and reinforcement of the product, service or company in the minds of existing and prospective customers.

From the customer’s perspective, a successful brand is no more than a set of positive experiences and feelings associated with a product or service. Companies may work hard to promote and reinforce these associations, but they do not last long when these same customers encounter an unfavourable situation with a company or product.

Successful brands are clearly differentiated from other competing brands and products. Major brands have well defined emotional links with their consumers. Consumers have proved time and again that they are willing to pay a premium for the values – tangible or intangible that they associate with the brand. Association with perceived quality and reliability is a key positioning dimension for many brands. While advertising is put in place to create expectations, it is service delivery experiences that confirm or contradict expectations, and influences word of mouth and referrals.

The Role of the Contact Centre in Successful Branding

Customers want to know they are valued by the corporation that serves them. Companies can manage customer expectations by: managing the promises they make; performing the promised service; and effectively communicating with customers.

Managing customer interactions through a dedicated contact centre – whether it be outourced or inhouse – enables a company to put people, processes and technology to work to deliver more customer value, and enable a company to move from a transactional view of customers to a more holistic customer centric environment, where there is opportunity to add value to the relationship during every customer interaction. The contact centre should be used to manage the entire range of customer enquiries – from the time a customer becomes interested in a product or service through the buying process to the day to day service, support and account enquiry processes – until they are ready for repurchasing. Those services encompass activities as varied as providing new product information, enrolling customers in service programmes, providing 24 hour technical and help desk support, resolving customer complaints and conducting satisfaction surveys.

The contact centre can provide the customer with a positive experience when shopping or information gathering by delivering interactions that yield immediate results. With centralised information in the contact centre, the customer is able to receive knowledgeable, relevant solutions that echo their lifecycle, lifestyles and preferences. When companies streamline and integrate their customer care processes they make it easy for customers to do business with them over and over again – further strengthening the brand.

Branding, the Internet and the Part Played by the Contact Centre

The explosion in the use of the web as a channel for sales and service has provided the consumer with an overwhelming array of choices. Customers are now able to find information on almost anything online as well as have the ability to compare vendors who have similar offerings. This means that customers now have more power than ever before, and a brand’s well being is now dependant on the company’s ability to provide effective and quality customer interactions, and produce excellent customer service – for online and off line buyers alike.

Those who use the research, or to make purchases online, can attest to the inconsistency and dismal customer service received online. The major reasons for this are many and varied:

• Inconsistency of service between communication channels
• Lack of live intervention – online support
• Unsolicited e-mails and the abuse of permission marketing Lack of response to e-mails

Research shows that up to 34% of e-mails sent to some leading organisations did not receive a response. Other surveys show that in many cases email is responded to after three days if at all. We would never accept this level of service through traditional channels such as the telephone or face to face selling – yet many companies are serving up this level of service over the internet and wondering why they are losing brand loyalty.

Forrester Research, a leading internet research company predicts that, “customer service will drive the future of online sales. Web shoppers seek and expect customer service at each step of the transaction process. Exceptional service actually increases on-line buyers total satisfaction – 90% of online shoppers consider customer service to be critical when choosing a web merchant.” (Forrester Research October 2000. Customer Service Coverage Area)

Studies show that in excess of 80% of people purchasing on the internet need help in some form or other to help them complete a transaction. This lack of support is reflected in the fact that Forrester Research found that only 2.7% of web visitors buy online (look to buy ratio) and attribute this to sub standard online customer service. Market analysis firm, Datamonitor, states that, “poor online service cost retailers a combined US$6.1 billion in sales in 1999 and could balloon to more than US$173 bilion in 2000.”

Why leave your customers floundering? Use your contact centre to communicate with our customers. With the array of technology now available your company can expertly respond to each customer’s request as, when and how they want.

Customer management technology now facilitates live interaction by the customer service representative with the customer. Here are just a few of the options now available:

• Call back: customers can contact the customer service representative directly via a ‘call back’ request on your web site. This solution is ideal for those customers with a single telephone line
• Web chat: enables customers and service representatives to engage in real time, text based interactions over the internet. Again, ideal for those who have a single connections for both voice and data
• Web co-browsing: allows customers and service representatives to simultaneously support a voice or chat session while on the web, with looking – or sharing – the same page. Here service representatives can point a customer’s browser to specfic web pages that generate sales, provide support or visually engage the customer

Work with Your Customers and They Will Work with You

Time is a scarce commodity now days, and customers and businesses are loyal to companies that are easy to do business with. Contact centres provide the company with the ability to customise services with an integrated source for customer care, giving customers a true single source solution whether it be provided through e-mail management, multichannel support or live intervention.

Today’s more successful companies let customers dictate their strategic direction. These same companies are committed to getting to know their customers – who they are, what they need and how they need it. The contact centre provides these companies with a framework for managing the entire customer lifecycle, integrating customer care processes and successfully achieving brand dominance through differentiation using a mix of media.

About TeleTech
Founded in 1982, TeleTech is the leading provider of integrated customer relationship management solutions (CRM) for global organizations predominantly in the telecommunications, financial services, technology, government and transportation industries. TeleTech has operations in 11 countries, which include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

TeleTech's CRM capabilities, including B2B electronic channel management and database management, help companies inform, acquire, service, grow and retain their customers throughout the entire relationship lifecycle. TeleTech integrates a full spectrum of voice and Internet communications, including custom e-mail response, "chat" and extensive Web co-browsing capabilities.

Web Shoppers like to Be In Charge Rather than have some state-of-the-art technology figure out their interests and surprise and delight them with products and services they would undoubtedly love, most consumers would prefer to just customize Web site interactions for themselves.