Latest CRM Software Industry News

UK online gambling industry fails to offer adequate customer service

EMBARGOED for Monday 27th November ľ Online gambling is set to exceed ú5.2 billion this year ľ with 76 per cent of the UKĺs 29 million internet users betting on a regular basis. An independent audit, by customer service specialist Talisma, of the 100 most popular UK online gambling sites has revealed that despite the success of the industry, many of the websites are failing to deliver acceptable levels of customer service.

The recent introduction of the US anti-internet gambling bill, which restricts the accessibility of online gambling to US residents, has created much confusion into the legality of online gambling in other countries. Posing as a customer, Talisma asked every site in the audit whether betting via the internet is legal in the UK. The support offered by the 100 gambling sites was less than satisfactory, with:

Ľ 40 per cent of e-mails ignored
Ľ 16 per cent of the calls made to the sites not answered
Ľ 30 per cent of online internet chat sessions requesting advice not replied to

With customers now encouraged to interact with gambling sites using more cost effective communication methods such as email and online chat, the audit also analysed how good the sites were at supporting these new channels. When tested, 80 per cent of the websites had disparate systems supporting different communication channels, meaning that staff were not able to access the necessary information to solve enquires, creating frustration in the customer and probable lost business.

The audit carried out in August 2006 also concluded that online self service support for customers was particularly bad. Only four per cent of sites were able to provide users with a service that allowed them to search online help documents for solutions to their problems.

ôOver the past few years the industry has made a significant investment in online gambling sites. Many organisations are failing to integrate their online services with customer service operations. When you consider that the online gambling market is becoming increasingly competitive and that customers are able to move to a competitor with a click of a mouse, organisations need to start perceiving customer service as a differentiator rather then a luxury,ö said Jon McNerney, vice president international operations at Talisma.

Methodology The Talisma online gaming audit was conducted amongst the top 100 UK online gaming companies in August 2006. The audit monitors key best practice characteristics of customer service, including:

Ľ Access to service channels: Email, Chat, Phone and Self Help
Ľ Response speed
Ľ Accuracy and completeness
Ľ Personalisation
Ľ Media Blending

Final audit scores are calculated based on point scoring across multiple service channels. Service channels are weighted within the audit based on best practices and popular acceptance. The proper execution of these best practice criteria has been proven to elevate the quality of customer service and deliver optimal return on investment (ROI).

To download a copy of the report please visit: www.talisma.com/ukgamblingaudit.

Next generation Customer Interaction Management solution enhances unified communication channels to further improve the customer experience

Bellevue, WA ľ November 14, 2006 ľ Talisma« Corporation (www.talisma.com), the market leader in enterprise Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions, today announced Talisma CIM 8.0, the most innovative product on the market for addressing companiesĺ unified-channel interaction management needs. The latest edition of the cutting-edge offering introduces two new products, Talisma Voice and Talisma Campaign, and includes numerous enhancements to existing channels, empowering organizations to proactively engage customers and prospects to further enhance the customer experience, improve service quality, and uncover new business opportunities.

ôTalisma is always finding fresh, innovative ways to improve customer service,ö said Ian Bodsworth, European Customer Interaction Manager, EPSON. ôWith version 8.0, Talisma has exceeded our expectations for an integrated customer service solution by offering a product that will provide everyone with an opportunity to make the most of each customer interaction. I see CIM 8.0 leading to greater customer loyalty and increased customer spending because of the new proactive capabilities.ö

Talisma Voice allows companies to offer Web site visitors instant access to a live agent using Voice over Internet technology, providing rapid, personalized service. To use the technology, visitors simply click a button on the site to establish a voice connection with an agent directly to their computer. Talisma Voice helps organizations by providing online instantaneous voice communication to increase customer satisfaction, reduce Web site abandonment, and drive increased sale closure rates, while at the same time reducing telephony infrastructure costs.

Talisma Campaign enables contact centers to facilitate a continuous customer dialog and proactively deflect inbound emails and telephone calls by educating, alerting, and informing customers about product updates, billing notifications, and profile updates. The real-time offer engine enables companies to create personalized offers to send to customers based on a customerĺs response to a previous campaign, the customerĺs profile, or their current Web site activity. Talisma Campaign can also distribute up-sell and cross-sell promotions to agents to deliver to customers based on the customerĺs profile and interaction history.

CIM 8.0 Enhancements
Unified Communication Channels
Talisma Chat includes an enhanced Web Collaboration component that scales to support a significant number of agents co-browsing with Web site visitors, and includes Web form filling and Web page pushing. These features are especially useful for shopping cart transactions, technical support tickets, and completing financial forms. Administrators can assign collaboration capabilities to individual agents or groups of agents, with advanced administrative features to support contact centers of all sizes.

Talisma Email provides agents with enhanced search capabilities. Companies can also leverage Talisma Answer, an advanced Talisma Email add-on module, to intelligently automate the creation and delivery of email responses. Talisma Knowledgebase supports regional settings, non-English characters and character sets in the glossary, and is certified on Japanese OS and SQL in Japanese locale. The release also introduces soft phone capabilities in Talisma Phone that enhance agent transfer options and enable agents to prioritize calls by channel.

The agent desktop offers an improved Agent Client with a new GUI that allows designated supervisors or users to customize agent workspaces. Contained in the agent workspace are configurable panels that host customer communication utilities, access to enterprise data and applications, views of real-time performance monitoring which are easy to navigate and result in optimized agent productivity.

Customer Interaction Management HUB
The most significant enhancement to the CIM Hub is the addition of the advanced Proactive features included in Talisma Voice and Talisma Chat. The two products leverage a Proactive Rule Builder, allowing administrators to configure business processes to determine when to push a proactive chat or voice invitation to a Web site visitor. Administrators can also configure the system to identify appropriate opportunities to contact a site visitor based on their presence on a particular Web page or length of time on a Web page, and specify conditions based on attributes such as the customerĺs browsing behavior, the value of their shopping cart, or whether they have been receptive to a chat or voice interaction in the past.

For example, a retailer can use Talisma Chat or Voice to secure a sale with a customer who is demonstrating difficulty completing a purchase in the shopping cart area of the site. The proactive capabilities of Talisma Chat and Voice are also useful to aid a customer who may be seeking product or service support and is stranded on a Web site. The system, or agent, can initiate an interaction in order to help the customer find the needed information.

The CIM Hub also includes a new administrative Chat Workflow Builder, triggering actions based on pre-defined chat events such as start, end, or transfer of a chat session.

Cross-Channel Reporting
CIM 8.0 includes a Real-time Dashboard and Historical Report Builder that graphically represent continuously refreshed statistics in a variety of graph formats including lines, gauges, and bars. It also includes new analytical capabilities allowing businesses to compare proactive versus reactive chat and voice interactions, using metrics such as acceptance, refusal, and end session actions.

Our company vision has always been to enable businesses to provide an exceptional customer experience, said Dan Vetras, President & CEO, Talisma. Talisma CIM 8.0 furthers that vision by emphasizing the importance of our pervasive and proactive capabilities. The enhancements to our CIM suite help companies take advantage of business opportunities and improve operational efficiencies. Talisma CIM 8.0 will not only address market demands for an integrated solution that can handle any channel of interaction, but will also help businesses improve customer satisfaction and enhance the overall customer experience.

Talisma CIM 8.0 is scheduled for release in February, 2007.

Award-winning knowledge base solution integrated into existing Talisma Japanese CIM products

Bellevue, WA ľ November 14, 2006 ľ Talisma« Corporation (www.talisma.com), the market leader in enterprise Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions, today announced that they have expanded their joint partnership with Japanese reseller Vital to sell Talisma Knowledgebase in Japanese with support for Japanese SQL and MS Server Japanese OS. The product will be available for purchase in Q1 2007. The announcement was made today at a joint press conference with Vital and Tim McMullen, Senior Vice President of Products and Alliances for Talisma. The new product release closely follows Talismaĺs CIM 7.0j, and CRM 7.0j releases, and the launch of the companyĺs first localized Web site in Japanese.

ôIn the near future, Vital and Talisma will look back to the moment we embarked on our partnership and remember it as a turning point in customer service for Japan,ö said, Takahiro Asada, President of Vital Information. ôWeĺre looking forward to witnessing the growing number of Japanese companies that will purchase Talismaĺs CIM suite, and the benefits they will reap.ö

Talisma Knowledgebase is part of Talisma CIM 7.0j suite which also includes Talisma Chat, and Talisma Email. The knowledge base streamlines the entire documentation process for companies to share information with employees, customers, and partners. The flexible, self-learning knowledge base captures and presents current, relevant information to customers in a Web self-service mode, and to agents through a flexible portal within a single screen agent interface.

ôTalismaĺs expertise and commitment to help businesses provide an exceptional customer experience was one of the key factors that attracted us to them,ö said Michael Plese, Project Manager, Mazda. ôAfter comparing other solutions, we chose Talisma because of its value and ease of integration with our existing Web site.ö

With Talisma Knowledgebase, companies can reduce the number of escalations and average time-to-resolution by allowing customer service representatives to quickly handle most issues. By providing easy access to the information they need for rapid, informed and consistent responses, agents are more efficient and effective. In addition, Talisma Knowledgebase offers businesses powerful reporting and metric options for valuable insight into their customers’ needs.

The desire to have quality service and support is a demand that is universal, and is not restricted by the borders of a single country,said Dan Vetras, President & CEO of Talisma. Besides being the first country where weĺve localized a Web site, Japan is an important tech-savvy market, and a place where we look to make a significant impact on customer service. Talisma will continue to make our international footprint in markets that are serious about improving customer satisfaction and the overall customer experience.

Powerful extension to Talisma Email delivers intelligent automation of email response to improve customer service and operational efficiencies

Bellevue, WA ľ November 8, 2006 ľ Talisma« Corporation (www.talisma.com), the market leader in enterprise Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions, today announced the release of Talisma Answer, a powerful new Talisma Email add-on that leverages innovative IBM technology to intelligently automate the creation and delivery of email responses. Talisma Answerĺs release coincides with Talisma being named a Recognized Innovator by the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), the largest and most influential associaton for technology services and support professionals. Talisma and IBM are also scheduled to host a presentation discussing email automation best practices at the upcoming SSPA Services Leadership Conference, Nov. 12-14 in Washington, D.C.

ôWhile many areas of customer service and CRM technology are beginning to mature, only a select number of vendors continue to deliver pure innovative products and services,ö said John Ragsdale, Vice President of Research, SSPA. ôTalisma is truly an innovator in its space and is commended for enabling support organizations to revolutionize the way they service customers.ö

Talisma Answer relies on powerful natural language technology to understand the intent of a customerĺs email. Talisma Email can then quickly provide an automated response or suggest a response to an agent. Talisma Answer leverages IBMĺs Classification Module for OmniFindTM Discovery Edition to represent words and text passages as ôcontext vectorsö to automatically group data into similarly themed clusters for improved response precision and relevance. The learning algorithm is designed to adjust context vectors so that words used in a similar context will have vectors that point in similar directions. Talisma Answer learns the meaning of content based on contextual usage and then organizes the content for immediate processing and retrieval. Talisma Answer also learns new concepts automatically, significantly reducing application maintenance.

Talisma Answer was a winner in the Optimization Innovation category, described as follows:

Optimization Innovation. While much of the industry buzz focuses on new channels and bleeding edge technology, innovation is still needed for customer service and support optimization. Companies recognized for Optimization Innovation are delivering innovative approaches to cutting operational expenses and increasing productivity for technical support and field service agents.

IBM and Talismaĺs session at the SSPA Services Leadership Conference, Increase Customer Care Effectiveness with Intelligent Automation of Email Management, will be held Tuesday, November 14 at 10:45 a.m. EST. Attendees will learn how to define and document metrics and processes, analyze email response categories, and automate responses and suggestions in order to deliver more accurate responses and cut costs. Attendees can also visit the Talisma and IBM booth 313 to learn more about Talisma Answer.

ôGone are the days when customers are willing to wait more than 24 hours to get a response to an email inquiry, said Dan Vetras, President & CEO, Talisma. ôWeĺve released this cutting-edge product because we believe that customers deserve better email customer service. Talisma Answer helps contact centers significantly improve agent productivity, response accuracy, reduce costs, and help businesses provide an exceptional customer experience

Talisma Knowledgebase solution supports O2ĺs retail and call centre divisions in Ireland
London, UK ľ 5th November, 2006 ľ Talisma« Corporation (www.talisma.com), the leading provider of enterprise Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions, has been selected by 02 Ireland to provide a solution which will enhance knowledge management within the organisation. This in turn will further enhance O2ĺs customer service capabilities.

Talismaĺs Knowledgebase has already been implemented at O2ĺs national call centre in Limerick giving Customer Service Representatives rapid access to accurate and relevant information that helps them resolve customer queries even more quickly.

In January 2007 the solution will be rolled out to all 62 of O2ĺs retail outlets across Ireland. This will ensure that retail personnel can access the most current and relevant information about products, solutions and retail prices, thereby further enhancing the in-store experience of O2 customers and ensuring consistency of information across all customer-facing personnel.

O2 Ireland eventually plans to roll out Talisma Knowledgebase across the whole organisation, enabling all employees to access accurate and consistent information which they can use to better support customers.

Talisma Knowledgebase streamlines the entire documentation process for companies to share information with employees, customers and partners. With ease of use in mind, customer information is delivered through a flexible portal within the single screen agent interface. Talisma Knowledgebaseĺs intelligent search facility not only provides customer service teams with rapid access to the right information today, but through its intelligent learning routines it will learn to anticipate and better facilitate enquiries in the future.

̫O2 prides itself on its excellent standards of customer service, which we are always striving to enhance̦, said Tony Hanway, Director, Customer Care РO2 Ireland. ̫Even though Talisma Knowledgebase has only recently been implemented and the roll out is not yet complete, we are already seeing the benefits and internal feedback has been very positive. Our customer service representatives are increasingly able to solve customer queries during the first call due to the speed and quality of information supplied by Talisma Knowledgebase.̦

ôLike many businesses in the marketplace, O2 is looking to improve customer service by delivering consistent high quality information across multiple departments,commented Jon McNerney, VP and general manager of international operations at Talisma. ôThrough its recent implementation of Talisma Knowledgebase, O2 has already experienced some of the many benefits that can be achieved by implementing a cohesive and intelligent data management system to support its customer service offering.

Bellevue, WA ľ October 25, 2006 ľ Talisma« Corporation (www.talisma.com) the market leader in enterprise Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions, today announced that it signed 61 new customers in the fiscal quarter ending September 30, 2006, which raises the companyĺs new customer count in 2006 to over 200 worldwide. Talisma also continued their momentum with year over year bookings growth of over 40%.

The new companies to join Talismaĺs expanding customer list include Act II Jewelry LLC (Lia Sophia) , Centennial Wireless, Datacore, Dura Automotive, ICT Group, Mazda, Mobile 365, Scholastic, Inc., Seeĺs Candies, Speakeasy, Sutherland Global Services, and the University of Notre Dame.

ôThere are a number of vendors saying that their product is the solution to every customer service issue that exists today, and many fall short of what they claim,ö said David Kallman, IT Manager of Seeĺs Candies. ôTalisma is one company that can deliver on their promise. Talisma Knowledgebase has exemplified the necessary tools that will make our customer service reps more successful, and help us improve our overall company image.ö

In the third quarter, Talisma continued its international growth by winning a contract with the German operation of Weleda AG, a world-wide provider of complimentary medicine, health foods and drinks, and cosmetics. In addition the company launched its second international Web site, localized in German (www.de.talisma.com).

Talisma also remained involved in the CIM Forum (www.cimforum.org), which saw its membership grow to more than 150 members since the consortiumĺs launch. The Forum held two best practice discussions during the month of August, one focused on email management, and the other on CIM analytics.

ôThe growing number of interactions conducted via multiple channels has created a greater demand for Talisma products, said Dan Vetras, President & CEO of Talisma. ôOur organization continues to go the extra mile by providing exceptional customer service solutions to leading companies around the globe. Weĺre excited to see what we can accomplish in the fourth quarter of this year, as the first three have been tremendous.

Bellevue, WA ľ October 26, 2006 ľ Talisma« Corporation (www.talisma.com) the market leader in enterprise Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions, today announced that it has been cited as the leading provider of CRM to Americaĺs Top 500 e-retailers. Talisma received this latest accolade as a result of providing their CIM solutions to several of the Top 500 e-retailers as determined by Internet Retailer which include QVC Inc., Crutchfield Corp, and eCampus.com.

The e-retailers ranked in Internet Retailerĺs Top 500 Guide accumulated a combined sales total of $68.9 billion in 2005. They also built and maintained e-commerce sites that attracted more than 1.42 billion visitors per month last year. According to Internet Retailer most Top 500 retailers do not build and do not maintain e-commerce sites entirely on their own. In order to effectively manage their sites, the Top 500 use applications and services provided by more than 200 vendors in 16 categories.

Internet Retailer described an effective CRM application as being more than a data repository of shopper demographics. The publication said when a solution is integrated with an e-commerce system, a CRM program can help a Top 500 retailer provide better customer service and streamline call center operations.

ôAs the Internet continues to alter the way people interact, online retailers are realizing they must adapt to these changes in order to continue their success,ö said Dan Vetras, President & CEO, Talisma. ôConsumers used to socially communicating via multiple online channels such as online chat, email, or VoIP, want the same level of interaction from their online retailersĺ customer service systems. Our integrated cross-channel CIM solutions enable these retailers to retain valuable business and improve customer satisfaction. This award is great recognition of our commitment to helping retail organizations of all sizes deliver an exceptional customer experience.

Bellevue, WA ľ October 11, 2006 ľ Talisma« Corporation (www.talisma.com) the market leader in enterprise Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions, today announced that BECU (Boeing Employees Credit Union), one of the nationĺs largest credit unions, has deployed Talismaĺs award-winning knowledge base solution to improve member services to more than 445,000 members.

Prior to deploying Talisma Knowledgebase, BECU was using an in-house system to manage the organizationĺs data. By leveraging Talismaĺs solution, BECU will improve employee access of internal product and process information by creating an effective Web self-service solution for more than 400 member consultants.

ôOur stagnant data was limiting our consultantsĺ ability to effectively serve our members,ö said Marc Healy, Director of Member Solutions, BECU. ôFor years weĺve worked hard to manage our information effectively, and after seeing Talismaĺs solution and expertise, we knew that we had the opportunity to take a big step forward. BECU is very excited to be working with Talisma to improve our service to our members.ö

Talisma Knowledgebase streamlines the entire documentation process for companies to share information with employees, customers, and partners. The flexible, self-learning knowledge base captures and presents current, relevant information to customers in a Web self-service mode, and to agents through a flexible portal within a single screen agent interface.

BECU has already realized a rapid ROI as Talisma Knowledgebase was delivered ahead of schedule and within budget. In addition, BECU consultants have benefited from Talismaĺs knowledge base best practices to provide top-notch service to its members.

ôWeĺre seeing a trend in the number of financial institutions that are implementing knowledge base solutions to improve customer service,ö said Dan Vetras, President & CEO, Talisma. ôTalisma is pleased to be working with one of the nationĺs top credit unions and helping them to deliver an exceptional customer experience to its members. BECUĺs Talisma Knowledgebase deployment is further validation that both organizations are leaders in their respective industries.

SAN FRANCISCO ľ salesforce.com Dreamforce Conference – October 9, 2006 ľ Talisma Corporation (www.talisma.com), the market leader in enterprise Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions, and salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM), the market and technology leader in on-demand business services, today announced the availability of Talisma Chat and Talisma Email for Salesforce Service & Support via AppExchange. Talisma Chat and Talisma Email, combined with Salesforce Service & Support, provide new interaction channels to service customer inquiries while providing real-time agent access to customer information stored in the system. Both products are immediately available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange. The announcement was made today at Dreamforce Ĺ06, salesforce.comĺs annual User and Developer Conference.

With Talisma Chat for AppExchange, a single Salesforce user can handle several simultaneous chat sessions, increasing agent productivity by up to 400 percent and reducing average handle time by up to 30 percent. An optional Proactive Chat module engages Web site visitors with a pop-up to offer assistance based on pre-defined settings such as time spent on a particular Web page, shopping cart value, or any of numerous customer defined settings.

Talisma Email for AppExchange integrates with Salesforce to help users rapidly respond to inbound emails and reduce response times by up to 50 percent. Talisma Email intelligently routes emails to the best agent based on expertise, customer priority, and availability, all of which combine to increase first call resolution. This seamless integration allows salesforce.com customers to preserve their initial investment, while at the same time enhancing and expanding their agentĺs capabilities.

Both Talisma Chat and Talisma Email enhance Salesforce Service & Support case management capabilities by providing agents with single-click access to the Salesforce customer account and case information, automatically opening or retrieving cases, capturing disposition codes, and updating the customer record. Talisma goes one step further to provide a complete history of interactions across all communication channels so agents are presented with a 360 degree view of the customer, understanding fully what has been communicated to date, regardless of channel.

ôSalesforce users will begin to see the positive and immediate impact that Talisma Customer Interaction Management solutions can have on their business,ö said Dan Vetras, President & CEO, Talisma. ôWhen used with the existing Talisma Knowledgebase for AppExchange, Talisma Chat and Talisma Email provide even greater opportunities to significantly increase agent productivity and reduce costs, providing an exceptional customer experience.ö

ôWeĺre excited to offer Talismaĺs award-winning solutions on AppExchange,ö said Matt Holleran, Vice President, AppExchange partners, salesforce.com. ôOur strong partnership with Talisma continues to prove valuable as customer service and support organizations around the globe are benefiting from implementing Talismaĺs products.ö

Chat and Talisma Email for AppExchange are two of the more than 375 applications now available on the salesforce.com AppExchange, the worldĺs first on-demand directory and sharing service, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

Apex is salesforce.comĺs breakthrough new on-demand platform and programming language that is redefining what a multi-tenant on-demand application can be. Apex enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful new on-demand applications that far go beyond CRM, and for the first time, to write and run their own code hosted with the security, reliability, upgradeability and ease-of-use of salesforce.comĺs industry-leading multi-tenant service. Customers can use Apex to modify the core features and functionality of their Salesforce deployments for their unique business needs and quickly and easily integrate new applications and components from partners and developers. Without any infrastructure investment, developers can now build and run a virtually unlimited array of applications with unprecedented power to innovate with the same creative freedom as salesforce.comĺs own developers.

Bellevue, WA ľ October 25, 2006 ľ Talisma« Corporation (www.talisma.com) the market leader in enterprise Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions, today announced that it signed 61 new customers in the fiscal quarter ending September 30, 2006, which raises the companyĺs new customer count in 2006 to over 200 worldwide. Talisma also continued their momentum with year over year bookings growth of over 40%.

The new companies to join Talismaĺs expanding customer list include Act II Jewelry LLC (Lia Sophia) , Centennial Wireless, Datacore, Dura Automotive, ICT Group, Mazda, Mobile 365, Scholastic, Inc., Seeĺs Candies, Speakeasy, Sutherland Global Services, and the University of Notre Dame.

ôThere are a number of vendors saying that their product is the solution to every customer service issue that exists today, and many fall short of what they claim,ö said David Kallman, IT Manager of Seeĺs Candies. ôTalisma is one company that can deliver on their promise. Talisma Knowledgebase has exemplified the necessary tools that will make our customer service reps more successful, and help us improve our overall company image.ö

In the third quarter, Talisma continued its international growth by winning a contract with the German operation of Weleda AG, a world-wide provider of complimentary medicine, health foods and drinks, and cosmetics. In addition the company launched its second international Web site, localized in German (www.de.talisma.com).

Talisma also remained involved in the CIM Forum (www.cimforum.org), which saw its membership grow to more than 150 members since the consortiumĺs launch. The Forum held two best practice discussions during the month of August, one focused on email management, and the other on CIM analytics.

ôThe growing number of interactions conducted via multiple channels has created a greater demand for Talisma products, said Dan Vetras, President & CEO of Talisma. ôOur organization continues to go the extra mile by providing exceptional customer service solutions to leading companies around the globe. Weĺre excited to see what we can accomplish in the fourth quarter of this year, as the first three have been tremendous.