Infinity CCS

Can You Afford To Leave Compliance To Chance?

Bernie Kane, QA Consultant.

So far this year the FSA alone has issued fines totalling over ?20 million. A significant proportion of this has been related to failure to comply within telephone and internet sales. If you add this to similar levels of fines issued by OFWAT, OFGEM and OFCOM, to list just a few of the regulators, the contact centre market is paying a heavy premium to sell regulated products.

Has The "Customer Is Always Right" Motto Gone Too Far?

Carl Adkins, Founder of Infinity CCS

Rare is the business, or industry, that doesn?t encounter its share of criticism from disgruntled customers, whether in the consumer or B2B world. However, it is arguably those businesses that rely on contact centres to manage much of their customer interactions that fare worst. This is often typified by financial services, telcos and utilities industries who can find themselves pilloried in the press for their apparent lack of customer service.

How Much Time Do You Need For Quality?

Rebecca Leonhardt, Operational Consultant

"Calls may be recorded for Quality and Training purposes". Is your organisation one of the many who has this message played to customers when they dial your contact centre? If so are you following through on the expectation you are implicitly setting?

Ministry of Performance Is Gaining Momentum ? Are You On Board?

Jonty Pearce, editor of Call Centre Helper

In my role I get to speak to a lot of contact centre managers and suppliers to the contact centre industry. Unfortunately the success stories, and there are still some, are being overshadowed by continual news of recession and more job losses within the industry.

Understanding the link between contact and customer behaviour or why conversations can tell you everything

By Duncan White, Managing Director of horizon2

Why do 80% of people who answer customer satisfaction surveys as satisfied or very satisfied then go on to churn? And if that is the case, why do we continue to measure customer satisfaction when it appears to be of little or no value? Is this a classic case of counting what can be counted rather than counting what really counts (to paraphrase Albert Einstein)?

Introducing - Structured CRM

By Carl Adkins, Managing Director, Infinity CCS

In my experience, contact centres seem to get themselves caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the agent desktop.

Some elect to utilise their legacy transactional based systems, however these systems were neither designed for use in the contact centre, nor were they designed to focus on customer relationships. They normally lack a unified view of the customer, holistic contact history, or a means of tracking any customer contact activity.

Cutting The Cost of Regulatory Compliance

By Phil Norris, Infinity CCS

On July 6th of this year, the FSA announced plans to create a more consistent and transparent framework in which they fine non-compliant organisations; a move that can see the scale of fines in some circumstances treble. These guidelines include fines of up to 20% of a company?s income from products or business area lined to the breach and up to 40% of an individual?s salary and benefits from their job relating to a breach.

Cost Reduction Starts On The Shop Floor

By Nick Walker, Infinity CCS

Having worked as an agent in a contact centre and now working within a contact centre software provider, I am somewhat a poacher turned gamekeeper. However, my time on the shop floor has helped me tremendously to understand the day to day issues that many contact centres face and see how the technology can make a significant contribution to improving productivity, reducing costs and improving customer service.

The Benefits of Automating Paper Based Call Monitoring Forms

By Carl Adkins, Managing Director, Infinity CCS

The benefits through automating your paper-based call monitoring forms are far reaching. Not only do you make considerable savings from automating your paper-based forms, but you improve the management and retention of your agents and the performance and productivity of your contact centre.

How Do You Measure Up In Your Industry Can Benchmarking Help?

By Mats Rennstam, Founder, Bright UK

Benchmarking is a fantastic tool to improve both your performance and customer satisfaction. It is however, very hard to carry out in a reliable way to make sure that you compare apples with apples. For you to get maximum value out of a benchmarking exercise it needs to be:

Is The Desktop Slowing Your Agents Down?

Bernie Kane, Director Infinity CCS

We spend a lot of time and money getting new and existing customers to call us, however, once connected, too many contact centres fail to provide their agents with the right tools to enable them to do their job effectively.

Are IT Budget Freezes Leaving Your Customers In The Cold?

Carl Adkins, founder of Infinity CCS

Every supplier talks of Return on Investment (ROI) and this is particularly prevalent in the contact centre industry. Reduce costs, improve performance and increase sales are the claims, however, standard practice sees the contact centre having to make the upfront commitment and taking the gamble as to whether such claims are going to be realised in the future.