Tag Archives: call centre

News

Cloud-based call centre platform, TCN, launches new EU head office as part of global expansion

TCN, Inc., a global provider of a comprehensive cloud-based call centre platform for enterprises, contact centres, BPOs and collection agencies, has officially launched its new EU head office.

The office in Bucharest, Romania was opened on February 1, 2023 with specially invited guests including current clients, representatives of local businesses including Raiffeisen Bank, Generali Insurance, Alpha Bank and OTP Bank and senior TCN executives from the US, EU and UK teams.

Guests heard keynote presentations about TCN and its plans for the future and award-winning products, such as the TCN Operator platform, from Kerry Sherman, executive vice president of business development, Darrin Bird, executive vice president and chief operating officer, Victor Marco, business manager Europe, Adrian Stefan, director of sales and Spencer Taylor, head of UK & Eire operations.

A team of around 10 TCN staff will be based at the EU office, including developers, technical support and operations executives. TCN also plans to expand the office to support the region further.

The team will provide technical support to EU clients and second-tier technical support for UK clients, offering longer support times to clients.

“TCN is based in the US but is rapidly expanding globally,” said Darrin Bird. “We now have a large remit in both Europe and the UK, and it was essential that we open an EU head office to provide greater support to those clients. The EU team will also be working on advancing our products technically. I was delighted to be a part of the day and to talk with so many current and future clients,” he added.

“TCN is already helping to increase overall company call volume and productivity of our clients, while reducing call waiting times, but our software has even greater capabilities and we are excited to be able to advance work on that while having a dedicated home for our support teams here in Europe,” said Victor Marcu.

“The standard of our technical support is just one of their many USPs. It’s an exciting time for the company,” he concluded.

For more information about TCN, visit www.tcn.com

Events, News

TCN to Host Second Annual C3 Virtual User Group Conference for Contact Centre Professionals

TCN, Inc., a global provider of a comprehensive cloud-based call centre platform for enterprises, contact centres, BPOs and collection agencies, will host its second annual C3 Virtual User Group Conference.

The one-day US-based virtual event was such a success last year that this year the number of sessions has doubled to take place over two days. This year’s event, which is open to UK companies, will feature various presentations that aim to educate contact centre professionals on the latest industry trends and practical insights into how TCN clients can use its cloud-based platform to improve operations and provide a better customer experience.

With the theme of “connect, collaborate and communicate,” attendees will have the opportunity to learn alongside other TCN clients while hearing from various motivational speakers, industry experts and TCN executives and product engineers.

The first day of the event will start off with Thurl Bailey, a retired NBA player and motivational speaker who will give a keynote presentation titled, “I see potential in you!” In this session, he will speak on how important those words were to him, particularly as a young man trying to navigate the world around him.

Bailey will discuss the adversities he faced growing up, and how the five words, “I see potential in you,” helped lead him to the success he’s achieved today.

The final session to conclude the conference will be a keynote presentation from Mark Brennan, a partner at Hogan Lovells. Brennan’s presentation will discuss compliance updates, particularly recent federal and state developments that have affected new privacy laws and the nature of outbound calls, texts and other digital communication outlets.

As a global technology and compliance expert, Brennan will also give attendees insight into how they can update their approach to compliance despite these recent changes and how to be adequately prepared for other upcoming trends in 2023.

Additional presentations throughout the two-day event include:

“Modern Challenges of Communicating with Your Clients,” presented by Jesse Bird, co-founder and CTO of TCN; Scott Brownlee, product training and customer engagement at TCN; Sameer Maini, chief executive officer at Collaborationroom.AI; and Josh Ploude, founder and CEO of Aperion Systems.

“Digital Communications: Meet Your Customers Where They Are,” presented by Mike Borden, senior account manager at TCN.

“TCN Product Vision: Delivering a World-Class CX Platform,” presented by Jesse Bird, co-founder and chief technology officer at TCN .

“State of the ACA,” presented by Courtney Reynaud, president of ACA International .

“Workforce Engagement: A Framework for Agent Efficiency,” presented by Chaz Butterfield, senior account manager at TCN and Deon Appelgryn, product engineering manager at TCN .

WHEN/WHERE

Virtual (online)

Date: January 18 –19, 2023

Time: 4pm- 7pm GMT

For more information and to register for TCN’s C3 Virtual User Conference, visit https://www.tcn.com/c3/

For media and industry analysts interested in attending, contact: Jodie Booras at jodieb@gabrielmarketing.com

News

White paper addresses contact centre best practices in the wake of PCI DSS 4.0 rollout

PCI Pal has released a comprehensive white paper with Servadus, and Verizon Business Group, Professional Services, mapping the contact centre landscape over the past few years and taking a look ahead as the industry moves to adopt new payment security standards.

The white paper, Keep Calm and Simplify: Contact Centre Best Practices in the Era of PCI DSS 4.0, also looks at best practices and emerging technologies that will shape the payment security industry.

In 2018, PCI Pal and Verizon published their first joint piece, Keep Calm and Descope, looking at the benefits of descoping organisational infrastructure to minimise the requirements of PCI DSS. While the message within the original white paper still stands today, the impacts of a global pandemic, the ever-changing threat landscape, and the significant update to the standards themselves have prompted this further collaboration.

According to the white paper, the key challenges faced by contact centres heavily revolve around increased call traffic combined with the introduction of remote work during the pandemic, the rise in digital fraud and the tight labour market. In addition to the significant amends to the standards, the introduction of PCI DSS 4.0 significantly raises the payments security bar for all organisations accepting credit card payments.

“PCI DSS 4.0 is a much more robust set of standards compared to those we have seen in the past,” said Geoff Forsyth, CISO at PCI Pal. “This industry is constantly adapting to new challenges and increased threat levels, which is why there is a need for solutions that do the same. It’s been a pleasure working with our partner Verizon once again on a joint piece to explore the ever-evolving needs of the industry and what is necessary to keep consumers’ data and information secure.”

“These new standards coupled with dependable solutions, like the ones PCI Pal offers, will keep security tight without negatively impacting the customer experience,” said Ciske van Oosten, Head of Global Business Intelligence at Verizon.

To access the white paper, visit: https://www.pcipal.com/knowledge-centre/resource/keep-calm-and-simplify-contact-centre-best-practices-in-the-era-of-pci-dss-4-0/.

News

RingCentral announces RingCentral Rise™ which will offer unique, co-branded unified cloud communications to customers

RingCentral, a leading provider of global enterprise cloud communications and contact center solutions, today announced RingCentral Rise, a new platform designed exclusively for service providers around the world.

By leveraging Resources, Innovation, System integration, and Experiences (Rise) from RingCentral, service providers can now offer their own unique, co-branded unified cloud communications solutions including team messaging, video meetings, cloud phone system, and contact center solutions to businesses in a fast, flexible, and scalable manner.

Organisations across the globe are increasingly anxious to shift from their legacy communications solutions to the cloud.

However, the process of this cloud transformation can be slow, costly and time consuming and a frustrating experience for customers. With RingCentral Rise, service providers now have the means to create differentiated cloud communications offers that help customers to rapidly move to the cloud with an integrated end-to-end managed service with the latest joint innovations for UCaaS.

A number of major service providers around the world are already deploying RingCentral Rise including AT&T Business (US), Ecotel (Germany), MCM (Mexico), and TELUS (Canada).

“RingCentral is a leader in developing effective strategic partnerships in the global UCaaS market,” said Elka Popova, Connected Work, Vice President, Frost & Sullivan.

“The Rise program from RingCentral marks a new phase in the UCaaS industry’s evolution as it highlights an important shift in operator and vendor strategies. The program meets the needs of businesses and partners that demand greater simplicity in terms of core feature set, packaging and pricing, while offering greater flexibility in terms of integrations with customer-specific workflows.”

Additionally, RingCentral recently received a Competitive Strategy Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan for Excellence in Best Practices for Global Strategic Partnerships in the UCaaS Industry.

RingCentral Rise is unique from other unified communications solutions for service providers. Unlike reseller programs and privately hosted unified communications products, Rise is a platform built on the RingCentral cloud that deeply integrates with service provider technology, provides co-branded applications that are constantly updated with the latest innovation, and unlocks opportunities for co-creation with an open platform.

In addition to the technology platform, RingCentral is offering a full go-to-market program built for service providers, including a service provider portal, a channel harmony program, and a dedicated service provider team.

“RingCentral has a vision of bringing the very best cloud communications capabilities to businesses everywhere. Central to that vision is partnering with the world’s leading services providers to provide their customers with the industry’s leading team messaging, video meetings, and enterprise-ready phone system,” said Homanyoun Razavi, executive vice president and head of Global Service Providers at RingCentral. “With Rise, we can accelerate the speed to market and the speed of innovation, with an industry-first open platform for service providers backed by a dedicated business unit. We’re excited to jointly innovate across 5G, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to bring differentiated products to market that humanize cloud communications with blazing speed and new ways of working.”

Benito Ohara, CEO, MCM said: “The RingCentral partnership came at exactly the right time when we were looking for something fresh, different and out-of-the-box for our customers. RingCentral is aligned with our philosophy to adapt communications around the customer, offering speed, flexibility, and open integrations.”

Customer Service, News

The changing landscape of customer experience and why brands are still getting complaint handling wrong

A leading customer service provider has challenged businesses in the UK to change the way they think about customer interaction, amid rising levels of consumer dissatisfaction.

Woven is a leading contact centre, customer management and BPO service provider, operating from offices in Bristol, Swindon and Ipswich and working with brands across a range of industries, including Toyota and Kärcher.

Its research found that the number of customers experiencing a problem with an organisation has increased during the last two years by 1.5% to 14.3%, its highest ever level.1

The number of customers who cited an “organisation not keeping its promise or commitment” as a key cause of their complaint is also at its highest ever rate, being mentioned in 17.2% of all problems or complaints.2

Just under three in ten (29%) UK customers are prepared to pay more to receive a great customer service, while 36% of Brits say they’ll stop doing business with a brand due to poor customer service.3

Commenting on the findings, Woven chief executive officer Cyril Molitor says too many brands are treating customers as commodities and that a ‘lowest cost’ approach is damaging their experiences.

He said: “It’s a simple philosophy, so why aren’t more brands practising it?

“Approaches from a purely technological standpoint and an inability to invest are leaving customers out in the cold, and brands must learn that service should not be dismissed as just a number on a balance sheet.

“But because the current market is defined by a lowest-cost approach to providing service, innovation is being constrained and value isn’t being delivered.

“And it is the customers who are feeling the impact and becoming increasingly frustrated that their expectations aren’t being met.”

Molitor warns that dissatisfaction “is growing all of the time”, but says that brands prepared to work hard on getting customer engagement “extra right” will see their efforts rewarded.

He explains: “It’s not just about getting it right, getting it ‘extra right’ increases brand favourability.

“Those customers who had a positive experience that was better than expected are more than twice as likely to increase their brand favourability than those who had a positive experience that was in line with or worse than expectations.”

Molitor believes that service is increasingly becoming the biggest driver of value and that brands dismissing this aspect as a box-ticking exercise risk alienating their customers.

He adds: “In many ways, the tail is wagging the dog when it comes to service delivery, so it is all the more baffling that brands continue to force bad business solutions onto customers.

“All they want are simple, responsive services – regardless of who they are chatting to or what they are chatting about, and whether that be through voice or text.”