Dovetail Software Blogs: People Versus Robots: A Draw
“Whoever
said customer service requires people? Technology is creating more and
more devices and platforms that supply results to the end user without
human intermediation, and on many occasions this is all to the good.
People are moving out of the customer service zone, and paradoxically,
service is improving. At the same time, people displaced by machines
are now moving back into the service zone. The trick is to know when a
human is needed and when a machine is best.”
Call center relies on local talent, Web 2.0 technologies
“Just
six years old, Partsearch has been able to take advantage of some
emerging technology. An internal chat room at the call center helps
agents who are having difficulty locating a particular part. At least
one senior service agent—well versed in the company’s catalogue and
parts—staffs the chat room, monitoring it for difficult questions. For
example, a parts expert may see that another agent is having trouble
locating a particular part and notice that the customer has the parts
number inverted, Laumeister said. He could then direct the agent to the
right part, all while the customer is still on the phone.”
Web Services Catching on in Telecom?
“VoIP
has traditionally been relegated to basic telephony services in the
telecom industry, such as VoIP/SIP Trunking and Hosted IP Telephony
services. However, with the advent of Unified Communications (check out
the Unified Communications Conference at the Fall VON Show
in October), which brings together telephony, messaging, collaboration,
data and mobility into an integrated solution, we begin to see services
using VoIP as becoming more visual in nature, bringing telephony into
web interfaces rather than to phones, and using multiple distributed
applications which are blended to create solutions.”
Service-oriented problem solving
“Baaer
said the company’s 20,000 customer service technicians originally had
to look through 10 or more applications to attempt to solve problems.
Now, a unified call center and problem resolution portal not only helps
its staff save time and money, but the same services are also now made
available to technicians over their mobile phones as well as to
customers. And — very important — the portal includes information about
service across the customer’s nieghborhood.”
Insight into why Europeans get multi-factor authentication and we don’t
“Many
Europeans who bank online are used to the idea of two-factor security.
In addition to user ID and password, before authenticating online
bankers, many European banks require the entry of a secret code that
only you and the bank know at any given moment in time. The secret code
changes often, at regular intervals. RSA (a subsidiary of EMC) is one of the vendors that makes this form of multi-factor authentication possible with its SecurID solution.”
Virtualization: The emerging hardware vs. OS bundle debate
“However,
this move could pose an interesting conundrum for VMware. VMware works
with all operating systems, but these partners will increasingly become
competitors.
“VMware obviously sees the same threat and
has turf to defend. On Monday it rolled out plans to embed its
virtualization software on servers. Simply put, no operating system is
required.”
Today’s Debate: IT leadership coming from the wrong place?
“Government
Health IT says leadership for computing in most hospitals is coming
from the emergency room. This may be precisely the wrong place for it
to come from if you want support from the top. Emergency rooms are big
money losers and many administrators have stopped bailing them out”
