No sooner had my story on Dimension Data's 10th annual "Call Center Benchmarking Report" appeared in yesterday's 1to1 Weekly than I received another call center survey -- which, as opposed to the Dimension report, seems to indicate that call center-related satisfaction is improving.

The "Contact Center Satisfaction Index 2008: How Call Center Customer Satisfaction Impacts the Bottom Line," by CFI Group North America CEO Sheri Teodoru and coming out today, finds that call center c-sat gained 3 percent over last year, scoring 72 on the index's 100-point scale. A three-point improvement is admittedly not earth-shaking, but in today's climate it certainly does count for something.

But, not to put too fine a point on it, what?

Continue reading "The Call Center Cha-Cha" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Forrester Research's 2008 Financial Services Forum, being held this week in New York City, is in part taking a look at how financial service firms measure the quality of the customer experience they provide, and whether or not their approach has been successful. According to Forrester's vice president, principal analyst Bill Doyle, the answer is: not so much.

Continue reading "Seeking Customer $atisfaction" »

Posted by Kevin Zimmerman at 6:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

When a company like Sony, which makes some of the best and most popular products in the world, refocuses efforts to improve the customer experience, you know we've reached a tipping point.

Continue reading "Sony's Loyalty Push" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

After spending so much time covering such topics as social media and word of mouth, I decided to immerse myself in the social marketing experience. I got the opportunity to do this after a meeting with marketing services company House Party. Its site is a combination social network/party manager, where party hosts and party goers can interact on blogs and post photos and videos, and hosts can manage and track invitations, to-do lists, and more. The parties themselves are hosted by consumers—1,000 of them on the same day (or two), to be exact—for specific sponsors.

Continue reading "Customer as Marketer" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We write a lot about privacy when it comes to marketing online and sharing customer lists, but how can outdoor billboard advertising come under fire for violating people’s rights?

Continue reading "Be Sure to Smile at that Billboard" »

Posted by Jeremy Nedelka at 7:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)