My Collection of Nothing

Response to: “AT&T operators should answer more social media calls”

This is a response to this article that I found through a retweet by @tfamous from @D_Hong:

I certainly won’t argue the “image value” of recent appearances of social media in customer service, but articles like the one from The Huffington Post’s Catherine Ventura fail to recognize the costs associated with introducing a full-blown new channel for customer service. From the article:

“Is anyone from AT&T on Twitter?” I tweeted several weeks ago, “I have a horror story.”

The silence was deafening, despite the fact that there are at least six Twitter accounts that feature AT&T’s blue-striped sphere as their avatar. Granted, with a foreboding Tweet like that, I might not have wanted to respond either, but I’m a customer, so AT&T should have been paying attention.

I have to admit I was perplexed that that the AT&T sphere is not participating more actively in the Twittersphere. – Catherine Ventura, The Huffington Post

At a company like AT&T, where there are millions of customers that need support and customer service each month, the implementation of a new customer support channel is a major strategic decision which could cost millions of dollars to implement. Any corporation undertaking this sort of effort will want to do so  in a way that is supportable, sustainable and consistent. But more importantly, as I mentioned in my previous post on the subject of Twitter, there is an emerging shift from reactive customer service to proactive customer relationship building through social media that is practically demanded by Ms. Ventura under the terms of her customer relationship with AT&T.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lunch Hour Review: Polycom VoiceStation 500

I spend a huge portion of my day on the telephone, predominantly on conference calls. For the past year I have been using a Panasonic multi-handset DECT6.0 cordless phone with speakerphones built into each handset. Honestly, I wasn’t terribly impressed with the voice quality and often found myself struggling to be heard, especially in conversations where one person tended to dominate. In these instances the Panasonic just wouldn’t let me interject clarifications or corrections at the appropriate moment. This was a major source of frustration, and led to a search for a good conference room phone, similar to those used in most offices.

I do not have a digital phone system at home, so I needed a conference phone that supported an analog line (actually a Vonage line in my case). As I researched PolyCom phones, which have always been my favorite conference phones, I happened upon the PolyCom VoiceStation 500 on Amazon.com. This phone works with analog lines, but the most exciting feature is support for Bluetooth phones and direct connection from your computer. In a single product I could have my Vonage line, my iPhone and even my computer all connected to a single device for conferences. I placed an order immediately.

Image of PolyCom VS500

First impressions:

The VS500 is very easy to install. It comes with a power “brick” which has three ports, a few cables, and the familiar three-mic base unit. To install, you plug in the brick, connect the included cable with RJ-45 ends to the brick and the base unit, and connect your analog phone line directly to the brick. Both power and voice are carried on the single RJ-45 cables, thus reducing the number of cables you must drape across your desk or conference table. The phone looksgreat, with a grey top and darker grey lower section, built in keypad, mute, and volume controls. The top of the VS500 has three LEDs which shine a bright red when the phone is muted, and green when a call is connected (unmuted) via the analog line or when the analog line is ringing. There is also an analog auxiliary port in the brick, in case you want to connect a fax, modem, or handset behind the conference phone.

Likes:

• Bluetooth connectivity
• Clarity of speaker
• Superb volume range - I can hear it from the other side of the house at maximum
• Multiple microphones with 7-10 foot range without shouting

Dislikes:

• LEDs do not light up when talking on a call using Bluetooth - Blue LEDs would have been cool to distinguish from an analog call
• Re-establishing Bluetooth connection for a paired device that was out of range - sometimes gives me trouble
• Cannot use the keypad on the VS500 to dial the mobile phone - not too bad since my iPhone sits in a cradle next to the VS500

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5

1and1 has a sense of humor

Have you ever had one of those moments where you were on hold or in queue for a contact center and the music was so good that you didn’t want anyone to pick up? Yeah, neither had I - until today.

I called my webhost (1and1.com) this morning to discuss my hosting package, and while on hold with their sales department I was treated to the ultimate in contact center hold music. What song could possibly engage me so thoroughly you ask?

This song.

For the uninitiated, this song is from the closing credits of the video game Portal by Valve Corporation.

Thoughts on Twitter

I am beginning to use Twitter, along with several free services that augment it, for keeping up with topics that are trending in real-time related to my job. No matter where you turn, you seem to see, hear or read something about Twitter these days. Large corporations are taking advantage of search tools to monitor every mention of their company on Twitter and respond in real-time to those mentions, whether good or bad. Ostensibly, this has the effect of fostering a closer relationship with those customers and potentially reducing customer service costs down the road. A simpler explanation is that customers are reacting positively to this new real-time customer service model, as evidenced by Bloomberg’s report on Comcast’s rising customer satisfaction scores. (Could the hiring of 15,000 new customer service reps since 2007 or proactive network monitoring be the reason for the improvement, or is Twitter really responsible?)

I can understand why Twitter is perceived as a revolution for customer service, but I also understand very well how the traditional contact center is organized and managed. If you think about it, Twitter is fostering a reversal of the model for customer service that has been developing in the contact center space for more than a decade. Read the rest of this entry »

After a long time away from blogging…

This is the first blog post that I have written in quite a long time. My current job keeps me rather busy, and I simply haven’t had the time to invest in writing about my daily life. Additionally, I can’t write about much of the work that I do because of non-disclosure agreements with my employer’s Clients.

I am not entirely sure what I will write in this blog or if there will be a primary topic, but I know that I am anxious to resume writing about my interests - technology, gadgets and SCUBA diving, as well the focus of most of my days at work - Cisco, VoIP and the Contact Center.

Let’s just see how things go!