Tag Archives: contact 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/.

Appointments, News

Fast-growing contact centre specialist MaxContact builds on record year of growth with new VP of Engineering  

Matt Yates will lead the Manchester business’ engineering team in developing innovative new tech solutions that improve the lives of people that interact through engagement platforms  

Manchester-based customer engagement technology provider MaxContact today announces a key new appointment to the senior team following an unprecedented period of growth.  

In 2021 MaxContact’s rapid growth saw it become one of the fastest-growing contact centre specialists in the country. The company has seen record sales across the year, with a 45% growth in subscription revenue in 2021, while it has also doubled its headcount from 30 to 60 staff in its Manchester office.  The company was also named one of the North’s top 50 fastest growing tech companies in the Northern Tech Awards 2021.  

 MaxContact provides customer engagement software that goes above and beyond to build smarter customer experiences, with a 97% CSAT rating. In an industry where new features and innovations are rapidly evolving, MaxContact prides itself on combining great people, the right approach and powerful technology so customers can reach the right people, on the right channel, at the right time, every time.    

Matt Yates joins the business as VP of Engineering to lead the tech team in developing innovative new solutions and create a market-leading customer engagement platform, as well as discovering new areas for business growth. Matt brings over 20 years industry experience growing and developing engineering departments, most notably for Ivanti (formerly AppSense), where he helped grow the company from £20m – £100m in annual revenue in just five years.  

 Ben Booth, CEO of MaxContact said: “My co-founders and I set up MaxContact because we saw first-hand the frustrations organisations experienced in this industry with solutions over-promising and under-delivering on features, support and resilience. With Matt at the helm of our engineering team, I’m excited to see us develop even more features and technologies that continue to improve the lives of people that interact through engagement platforms.  

“We have big dreams to continue our rapid growth and transform the industry in 2022 and beyond and with people like Matt on board, we’ll continue to make the business be a force for good not only for our people and our organisation, but for the wider industry.”  

 Matt Yates, VP of Engineering at MaxContact, said: “It’s fantastic to be joining MaxContact at such an exciting time for the business. I’m really passionate about using technology to help people find better ways of working, which chimes well with the values at the heart of the business. The team they’ve built is really special and I’m looking forward to bringing my experience in enterprise IT to help continue growing the company into an industry leading scale-up, all by putting people first.”  

 About MaxContact  

MaxContact is a customer engagement technology company with a difference. It was founded in 2015 by a group of contact centre professionals who had become frustrated with providers that over promised and under delivered on features, support and resilience. It’s now one of the fastest growing contact centre specialists in the UK and was recently ranked one of the top 50 fastest growing technology companies in the North by the Northern Tech Awards 2021.   

News

Clarabridge and Five9 Partner to Provide Industry-leading Conversation Intelligence for the Contact Centre

Industry-leading provider of AI-powered text and speech analytics Clarabridge, Inc has joined Five9’s ISV Partner Program, a leading provider of the intelligent cloud contact centre.

Clarabridge’s innovative conversational AI with natural language understanding is specifically tuned for the diversity of customer experience conversations across industries to uncover actionable insights that improve customer loyalty, reduce operational costs, and drive contact centre efficiency. The partnership with Five9 enables an integrated offering that can capture the richness of customer feedback with the convenience of a cloud contact centre solution that lets you know exactly how your customer experience program is performing.

As data volumes explode and customers seek more empathetic customer service experiences, businesses need an analytics platform that gives them a clear view of their customers and internal operations. Clarabridge’s CX Analytics seamlessly loads and enriches contact centre interactions recorded with Five9, including calls, chats, digital support threads, and all other customer feedback data. As a leader in cloud contact centre solutions, Five9 enables businesses to provide customers and agents with the contact centre experiences they want. Clarabridge provides in-depth analytics on Five9’s call data that demonstrates precisely where and why issues arise in the customer journey. Clarabridge and Five9 let contact centres quickly and easily discover agent coaching and process improvement opportunities so that businesses can realise better, smarter, faster business value.

“Clarabridge and Five9 have an edge in the market that will greatly benefit our joint customers,” said Sid Banerjee, Chief Strategy Officer and founder of Clarabridge, Inc. “AI-driven conversational analytics on omnichannel cloud contact centre data enables organisations to optimise contact centre productivity, mature their customer experience strategy, and transform customer journeys, driving operational efficiency and greater customer loyalty.”

“Five9’s partnership with Clarabridge gives our joint clients the ability to connect contact centre management and analytics,” said Walt Rosi, Vice President, Business Development, Five9, “We are excited to have Clarabridge in out ISV Partner Program.”

For more information about Clarabridge CX Analytics, visit Clarabridge’s Contact Centre Solution page and Five9’s App Marketplace.

About Clarabridge
Clarabridge, an award-winning Customer Experience Management (CEM) solution, helps the world’s leading brands take a data-driven, customer-focused approach to everything they do. Using AI-powered text and speech analytics, the Clarabridge experience management platform enables brands to extract actionable insights from every customer interaction to grow sales, ensure compliance, and increase operational efficiencies. For more information, please visit www.clarabridge.com.

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.”