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White papers
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Download some of our popular white papers.
They cover a range of contact center and customer
service challenges and best practices.
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Customer
service and contact center best practices |
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Just as businesses were coming to terms with the need to go multichannel, social media arrived, adding to the chaos. Customers are now using the social megaphone to warn organizations that they are not going to put up with bad service. In response, some businesses have panicked and launched social initiatives that are not joined up with the rest of the business, creating yet another silo, which compounds the problem with its high visibility. On the other extreme, some businesses have their heads stuck in the sand, unwilling to respond.
How can you plan and launch your social initiative to maximize the odds of success and avoid damage to your brand? Authored by Esteban Kolsky, thinkJar principal, former Gartner analyst, and social media guru, this whitepaper provides a seven step roadmap. It shows you how to create successful social initiatives on Facebook®, Twitter®, online communities, and blogs, while integrating them with traditional customer communication channels.
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Megatrends
are not fads; they won’t
go away after a while. The trick
is to embrace change and stay
ahead of these trends instead
of getting swept away. As mobility,
online communities and social
networks collide with globalization,
contact centers and web customer
experience organizations find
themselves in the eye of the storm.
They are buffeted by powerful
winds of change, increased expectations
from CxO’s, and the imperative
to build competitive advantage
through superior customer experience.
This white paper discusses
the eight megatrends transforming
these organizations today, and
best practices to make the most
of the unique opportunities
each megatrend presents.
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Contact
centers and ebusiness operations
want their IT departments to take
charge. Besieged by a whole slew
of technology trends that won’t
go away, contact centers need
IT to respond, to draw up and
deliver on a smart master plan
that includes WEB 2.0, cloud computing,
virtualization, going mobile,
going green, going social, right-shoring,
etc. An indecisive IT organization
could slow down the organization,
maybe even bring its survival
into question.
But IT departments are naturally
cautious and inclined to move
slowly. Reacting to new trends
or leading in times of change
is just not their style. The
only way out of this impasse
is for IT to reduce the risk
of quick decisions by seeking
out technology they can trust,
technology with IT-friendly
traits. In this white
paper, we discuss eight IT-friendly
software traits that minimize
risk, maximize ROI, and encourage
innovation. Although the focus
is on contact center and web
customer service software, the
discussion is broad enough to
be a valuable guide for any
technology investment.
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Businesses
are looking for ways to get past
"me too" customer service and
take customer experiences to new
levels. Delivering customer experiences
that are tailored to the customer's
native language and culture—Multilingual,
Multicultural Customer Experience™
(MMCE)—could be the holy grail
in taking customer experiences
to such levels. MMCE is a holistic
approach to customer experience
that encompasses content, context,
language and culture.
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Thanks to global competition,
competitive advantage based on
products—and even operational
efficiencies—continues to
erode. Businesses are beginning
to look at customer
service as the only
true differentiator.
In a recent survey of enterprises,
sponsored by eGain,
77% of respondents agreed
that customer service played a
primary role in their overall
business value proposition.
Delivering good service is not
easy, though. M&As, product
lifecycle compression, and outsourcing
make it difficult, if not impossible,
for customer service organizations
to keep their agents up-to-date
on best-practice interaction and
service fulfillment processes,
service compliance, contextual
sales, and product knowledge.
How can companies provide distinctive
customer service and boost sales
in this environment? "Cloning"
the capabilities of the best customer
service representatives across
the agent pool—in-house and
outsourced—is a powerful
approach that can help improve
the quality and value of all interactions
with customers. Starting with
a unique Agent Cloning™ Framework,
this paper shows you how to implement
a cloning program to take your
customer service capabilities
to new levels.
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The
Only Captive Revenue Generation
Opportunity Left for Contact Centers:
What It is and How to Exploit
It |
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In the age of do-not-call regulations
and aggressive spam filters, contact
centers and marketing organizations
are finding it increasingly difficult
to deliver marketing messages
to customers and prospects. No
matter how valuable you believe
your offer is, the chance of an
unsolicited marketing communication
reaching recipients is remote
at best. In fact, some industry
studies show that a measly 0.4%
of all marketing emails are actually
opened.
So how can businesses reach prospects
at a time when they are truly
receptive to hearing supplier
messages?
There is only one true captive
marketing opportunity left, and
it is often misused or under-utilized.
Contact centers hold the key to
unlocking the immense potential
of this marketing opportunity
for revenue generation. Read this
white paper to learn what it is
and how to implement it in order
to maximize the odds of success.
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11
TCO traps to avoid in contact
center customer service software:
What they won’t tell you |
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Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
is clearly a concern of IT executives
and business managers, when it
comes to buying, maintaining and
extracting business value from
enterprise software. This brief
examines some of the obvious and
not-so-obvious TCO traps that
companies should be aware of,
as they select, implement and
maintain contact center customer
service, customer interaction
management or eService software—cost
drivers that many vendors don’t
want you to know about. Whether
you are in the process of acquiring
CRM customer service software
or you are already using such
solutions, leveraging the uncommon
knowledge and tips contained in
this paper will put you on the
fast track to minimizing costs
and maximizing ROI.
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Customer
Support Megatrends and Next Practices |
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As mobility, online communities
and social networks collide with
globalization, support organizations
find themselves in the eye of
the storm. They are buffeted by
powerful winds of change, increased
expectations from CxO’s
and the imperative to build competitive
advantage through all-channel
customer support. This white paper
discusses the eight megatrends
transforming customer support
organizations today, and best
practices to make the most of
the unique opportunities each
megatrend presents.
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Combining
Service Excellence with Profitability:
The New Contact Center Best Practice |
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In a recent Aberdeen Group survey
of top executives, 83% of the
participants said that their contact
center is critical or important
to their enterprise. However,
senior management is also expecting
call centers to transform themselves
from being cost centers to profit
centers. Another survey of C-level
executives, Purdue University's
Center for Customer-Driven Quality
found that in addition to their
usual attention to cost reduction
and revenue generation for call
centers, these executives are
starting to place a major emphasis
on caller satisfaction, increased
wallet share and increased market
share.
In this white paper, sponsored
by eGain Communications Corp.,
a major supplier of software for
contact centers, help desks and
web self-service, Dr. Jon Anton,
a leading industry expert in contact
center operations and customer
satisfaction, writes about strategies
and best practices employed by
contact centers to transform themselves
into strategic and profitable
value centers. Examples are drawn
from world-class companies known
for their innovation and excellence
in customer service and contact
center performance.
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B2C
Customer Service Innovation Secrets
for B2B and Vice Versa |
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In a business environment where
products and even operational
efficiencies are commoditized,
winning companies are dominating
their markets by providing unique
and exceptional customer service
and experience. These companies
think out of the box and exploit
high-impact strategies, innovations
and best practices from outside
their specific industry sectors
and markets to get beyond “me
too” customer service and
support. For example, leading
B2B companies are leveraging B2C
customer service secrets and vice
versa. This white paper outlines
examples of these strategies,
innovations and best practices,
and explains how you can exploit
them to deliver unique customer
experiences, improve customer
loyalty, and ultimately reinforce
your brand.
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Break
the Rules to Win in Customer Service:
10 Contrarian Ways to Out-innovate
the Competition |
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“Contrarian
wisdom” has often been
the winning approach in many walks
of life including business success.
Avoiding the “herd mentality”
has been key to the emergence
of many groundbreaking philosophies,
scientific breakthroughs and business
innovations that have changed
the world for the better. The
same applies to customer service
and contact center innovation!
Companies that are not bound by
prevalent fallacies and rules
of conventional wisdom have been
able to break out of the pack
and win in customer support. Drawn
from the winning ways of our leading
Global 2000 clients and our own
domain expertise built over two
decades, this white paper outlines
10 contrarian secrets including
out-of-the-box ideas that you
can leverage to stand out from
your competitors in delivering
a superior customer service experience,
and bolster your position in the
marketspace.
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Delivering
on the Service Level Brand Promise
to Customers Every Time: 9 Ways
to Get There |
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It’s no longer a secret that
outstanding customer service has
become an imperative for superior
performance, if not for the very
survival of businesses. Many recent
surveys show that existing and
prospective customers will defect
to competitors if companies deliver
poor service or do not deliver
on their service promise.
Moreover, poor service can irrevocably
damage brand equity, which is
often the only differentiator
in many industries. So how can
companies “walk the walk”
in delivering the service level
brand promise every single time?
And, how can they do it in a cost-effective
manner?
This paper provides nine tried
and tested strategies and tactics
that our Global 2000 client companies,
most of who are known for world-class
customer service, have used for
consistent and cost-effective
delivery of the service promise.
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Doing
More with Less: Next-Generation
Strategies and Best Practices
for Customer Service |
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Our new economic reality is one
of increased competition, informed
and demanding customers, commoditization
of products and services, and
relentless pressure to cut costs.
In this environment, customer
service is the single biggest
differentiator for businesses.
In the last few years, most companies
have made significant efforts
to enhance the quality of their
customer service. However, to
create competitive advantage with
customer service today, they need
to do more with less. So, how
can companies provide differentiated
service at reduced costs? They
need to implement next-generation
customer service strategies and
best practices--both topics are
discussed at length in the paper.
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Customer
Centered Service: What It Is and
How to Implement |
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Customer service efforts often
fail or fall short of objectives
because of a largely inward focus
on strategy, process, people,
and technology. This paper describes
an outside-in approach to customer
service and a 5 step plan to implement
it.
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Interactions:
The Foundation of Business Relationships |
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More and more of your business
interactions are over the Internet,
and this trend will continue for
the foreseeable future. This paper
introduces a new category of products
and services, Enterprise Interaction
Management, that helps you manage
your business interactions over
multiple channels on the Internet
and other points of contact.
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eService:
Winning in the Global Marketplace |
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The Internet, years after its
emergence, continues to be a challenge
for most organizations. It can
not be ignored; it has indelibly
altered the customer communication
landscape by adding dimensions
such as Web self-service, email
communication, and live Web collaboration.
And, you are still looking for
the perfect way to harness its
power. What you need is a strategy
to fuse the Internet with all
existing marketing, sales, and
customer service channels--seamlessly
and cost-effectively. In this
White Paper learn how an eService
strategy can transform your business.
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BPO
2.0: The Next Generation of Outsourcer-Enabled
Contact Center Innovation |
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The basic premise of business
process outsourcing (BPO) is that
companies focus on their core
competency and move their non-core
business processes to outsource
providers allowing for optimal
use of a company’s time and
resources. BPO has grown immensely
in the last decade—the list
of functions being outsourced
has expanded from traditional
call centers to include back-office
or middle-office functions such
as purchasing and disbursement,
order entry, billing and collection,
human resources administration,
cash and investment management,
tax compliance, internal audit,
and pay roll.
This paper describes how leading
companies are using BPO to drive
innovation and do more with less
in the contact center. It includes
10 success stories from various
industries.
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Phone customer service |
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According to a 2007 Forrester
study of business and IT executives,
57% of survey respondents thought
that their company’s phone
customer service was average,
below average or poor. Today,
innovations across technology,
process, and people in this area
have re-configured the economics
and flexibility of phone-based
customer service.
As most companies struggle to
find ways to provide superior
customer service experiences,
a savvy few are already grabbing
the “low-hanging fruit”
that has been there for the taking—the
clunky old phone channel! By innovating
in the phone arena, while integrating
with other channels, these companies
are enhancing brand loyalty, extending
their competitive advantage, and
reaping operational benefits.
This
paper discusses seven such innovations—some
incremental and some rule-changing—that
you can leverage to get your phone
customer service to new levels
and drive business growth.
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Web
self-service |
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5
Web Self-Service Pitfalls: What
Every Contact Center Manager Must
Know |
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This white paper reveals hidden
pitfalls in self-service strategy
and implementation. Believe the
myths discussed in this paper
at your peril—they are proven
recipes for customer defections
and project failure! Based on
experience distilled from hundreds
of successful self-service implementations
at world-class companies, the
paper provides a best-practice
approach that can dramatically
increase self-service adoption
and reduce escalations to assisted
service, driving cost savings
and customer satisfaction.
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8
Tips for Superior Web Self-Service
Through Chat Bots |
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Chat bots are enjoying a revival,
as businesses look for new ways
to differentiate themselves through
superior customer service. The
other factor driving the renewed
interest in the use of chat bots
for web self-service is escalating
service costs. Success stories
continue to emerge, and studies
have found that chat bots can
provide memorable customer experience
as well as help reduce service
delivery costs.
Over the last few years, a number
of best practices have emerged
around the use of chat bots. Here
are the top eight strategy and
implementation guidelines for
improving the odds of success
in using chat bots to provide
unique customer service delivery,
foster brand loyalty, and reduce
customer interaction costs.brand.
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Virtual
Agents: 10 Deployment Tips |
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eGain commissioned The Usability
Company to identify the critical
factors that determine the success
of a virtual agent. The top 10
tips derived from the study are
presented in this paper
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Email
customer service |
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Next generation
email management |
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Email is now the most prevalent communication
channel for business interactions, both between
enterprises and customers and within enterprises.
Its popularity continues to grow, despite recent
cases of email trails being a significant source
of liability and the emergence of disturbing practices
such as spamming, phishing, and spoofing. Just
as phone management grew from the PBX to the ACD
to the call center, email management has evolved
from the Lotus-Outlook model to email response
management systems and email-based contact center
business process management.
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Managing
Customer Emails: 10 Telltale Signs You Have Outgrown
Lotus Notes |
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Many businesses start out using an email client
such as Lotus Notes to manage customer emails,
and run into issues when email volumes grow. This
white paper describes 10 signs that indicate it's
time to switch from Lotus Notes to an email response
management system (ERMS) for managing customer
emails. The right ERMS will help you reduce service
costs, increase the productivity of your contact
center agents, improve service quality, and enhance
sales.
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Managing
Customer Emails: 10 Telltale Signs You Have Outgrown
Microsoft Outlook |
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It's hard not to offer an email customer service
option if you have a website. It's like a brick-and-mortar
business not providing a phone number for customer
service! If you feature an email address on your
website, customers will find and use it. Is your
business set up to handle email inquiries promptly
and effectively?
Many businesses start out using an email client
like Outlook to manage customer emails, and run
into issues when email volumes grow. This white
paper describes 10 signs that indicate it's time
to switch from Outlook to an email response management
system (ERMS) for managing customer emails. With
the right ERMS, you will be able to reduce your
service costs, increase the productivity of your
contact center agents, improve service quality,
and enhance sales.
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6
Uncommon Ways to Create Breakthrough Value with
Email Management Within and Beyond the Contact
Center |
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The use of email response management systems (ERMS)
is experiencing broad adoption as an efficient
and effective way to answer customer queries in
the contact center. However, industry-leading
companies are now using ERMS in new ways to automate
service processes not only in the "front
line" but also in the "middle office"
or the extended contact center, and within the
enterprise. This includes areas such as managing
paper-based interactions in an integrated manner
with other channels, regulatory compliance management,
extended problem resolution and service fulfillment
automation. Drawn from innovations of key clients
across multiple industry sectors, this paper describes
six innovative ways by which a robust, next-generation
ERMS can create breakthrough business value.
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Mission-Critical
Email Customer Service: 10 Best Practices for
Success |
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In this paper, we discuss ten tried and tested
ways of improving email interactions with customers.
These tips and best practices have been used by
the world's leading companies known for customer
service excellence, and will help you provide
mission-critical service through your email channel.
Additionally, the paper includes a list of key
capabilities to help you select the email management
system that will best address your needs.
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Knowledge
management for customer service |
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Knowledge
Management for Customer Service:
Critical Ingredients for Success |
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As enterprises increasingly use
customer service to differentiate
themselves, knowledge management
has gained prominence as a strategic
initiative. A key enabler, it
allows businesses to use their
knowledge assets to provide better
customer service, improve agent
productivity, reduce service costs,
generate revenue through contextual
upsell and cross-sell, and more
effectively leverage contact center
outsourcing models.. In this paper,
we discuss the critical ingredients
of success as it relates to knowledge
management strategy, technology,
people, and processes.
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Knowledge
Management for Contact Centers
and Help Desks: Lessons from the
Global 2000 |
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Knowledge management (KM) is different
things to different people. Most
organizations see it as using
technology to share critical information.
KM, to many businesses, is maintaining
a document repository that lets
engineers share design data or
consultants exchange best practices.
To contact center and helpdesk
managers, KM usually means providing
agents with a problem resolution
tool, which could be anything
from a simple answer database
to a sophisticated guided help
system.
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Live web collaboration for sales and service |
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Chat
and Cobrowse Customer Service
That Pays Off: 8 Foolproof Steps
to Success |
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Chat and web collaboration tools
have unmatched potential for improving
customer service and increasing
revenues. Financial services,
retail, telecom, and travel companies
are early adopters of this technology.
Savvy businesses in these sectors
are using chat and cobrowse tools
to attract, win, and keep customers.
As with other technology, chat
and cobrowse tools deliver the
promised pay-off only if you use
them right. In this paper, we
describe eight somewhat uncommon
but foolproof steps to help businesses
use chat and cobrowse to maximize
the value of interactions in all
phases of the customer life cycle.
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Chat
and Cobrowse on the Web: Wow and
Win Online Customers with Realtime
Service and Support |
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With more and more customer interactions
moving online, it is hardly surprising
that some businesses are no longer
content with using the web for
self-service alone. These companies,
early adopters of web collaboration
technology, are harnessing the
power of the web to offer realtime
service and support to online
customers. Referred to as “web
collaboration” because of
the uniquely collaborative nature
of the interactions it enables,
this technology set includes chat
and cobrowse tools. Although a
comparatively recent phenomenon,
web collaboration is already delivering
strategic and operational benefits
to organizations in the form of
improved customer satisfaction,
reduced costs, and increased revenues.
In this paper, we discuss the
pain points that are driving the
demand for web collaboration,
the benefits of this set of technologies,
and some success stories. The
paper also includes a checklist
to help you select the right chat
and cobrowse solution.
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Ecommerce sales |
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Five Transformational Innovations to Boost B2C Web Sales |
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Consumers want to buy on your website. The web is now firmly at the center of business-to-consumer (B2C) sales. A 2011 JP Morgan research report forecasts that e-commerce sales will hit $963 billion by 2013.
But most websites are not good at selling. Online shopping cart abandonment rate is now a whopping 88%, according to Forrester Research. This trend is not unique to the retail sector, and is common in financial services, insurance, telco, consumer goods, and other B2C sectors. For instance, web form abandonment in financial services and insurance sectors is as high as 75%, leading to lost sales and customer defection.
How can you eliminate friction in the consumer purchase process and transform your web sales? This white paper presents five breakthrough innovations to not only turbocharge your web sales but also create the “wow” effect in customer experiences.
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Chat
and Cobrowse Customer Service
That Pays Off: 8 Foolproof Steps
to Success |
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Chat and web collaboration tools
have unmatched potential for improving
customer service and increasing
revenues. Financial services,
retail, telecom, and travel companies
are early adopters of this technology.
Savvy businesses in these sectors
are using chat and cobrowse tools
to attract, win, and keep customers.
As with other technology, chat
and cobrowse tools deliver the
promised pay-off only if you use
them right. In this paper, we
describe eight somewhat uncommon
but foolproof steps to help businesses
use chat and cobrowse to maximize
the value of interactions in all
phases of the customer life cycle.
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Chat
and Cobrowse on the Web: Wow and
Win Online Customers with Realtime
Service and Support |
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With more and more customer interactions
moving online, it is hardly surprising
that some businesses are no longer
content with using the web for
self-service alone. These companies,
early adopters of web collaboration
technology, are harnessing the
power of the web to offer realtime
service and support to online
customers. Referred to as “web
collaboration” because of
the uniquely collaborative nature
of the interactions it enables,
this technology set includes chat
and cobrowse tools. Although a
comparatively recent phenomenon,
web collaboration is already delivering
strategic and operational benefits
to organizations in the form of
improved customer satisfaction,
reduced costs, and increased revenues.
In this paper, we discuss the
pain points that are driving the
demand for web collaboration,
the benefits of this set of technologies,
and some success stories. The
paper also includes a checklist
to help you select the right chat
and cobrowse solution.
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Industry
best practices in customer service |
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Financial institutions are
undergoing
a sea change as they
attempt to deal with an
array of challenges that
includes hypercompetition,
M&As, and generational
shift in customer behavior.
These high-level business
challenges, in turn, have
created function-specific
challenges
and associated imperatives
for contact centers and
customer service organizations
in this service-intensive
sector. While other companies
struggle in this harsh environment,
some of eGain's financial
services clients are consolidating
and extending their market
leadership with innovation
in their contact
centers. These companies
are not only addressing
today's contact center challenges
and imperatives but are
also turning them into opportunities
for market leadership. The
whitepaper describes the
innovation and best practices
they have deployed across
technologies, processes,
and people for service-based
leadership.
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Citizen
Service - Customer Service
Success Stories from the
Government Sector |
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Citizens today demand responsiveness
from their governments.
The increase in popularity
of online channels has made
it crucial for governments
to expand their citizen
services beyond traditional
channels such as phone,
paper, and face-to-face
interactions to e-channels
such as email, chat, web
self-service and web collaboration.
At the same time, government
entities are facing decreasing
contact center budgets in
the face of ballooning budget
deficits. Through the use
of case studies, this paper
describes how government
institutions can provide
highly effective and efficient
citizen service while reducing
incoming calls, improving
agent productivity and keeping
costs down.
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Outsourced
Service Providers: 5 Ways
to Differentiate Your Service
Offering |
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This paper contains 5 simple
ways to enhance your outsourced
service offerings. These
suggestions will help you
improve service levels and
quality for your clients,
along with differentiating
your service with additional
offerings. We also provide
a checklist of capabilities
to look for in a service
management platform for
the outsourcing environment.
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