Cisco makes a big play for eService with WebEx, eGain

My very last week at Forrester (June 06) I published an eService Wave, rating the leading multi-channel customer service vendors:  eGain, Kana, Rightnow, Talisma, etc.  There was a bit of controversy because I included Genesys, a telephony vendor.  And they did very well.
I’ve always assumed that eService would be consumed by a larger market, and [...]

Google CRM shows ubiquity of market

Who’d have thought we would one day see an ad for CRM that says, “dude… that’s awesome!” But that is exactly the tag line for CRM for Google applications on the Web store for Etelos, a Seattle-based vendor of OnDemand applications.
Based on surveys of SSPA members last fall, I predicted that mid-market technology companies would [...]

SSPA Best Practices Conference Update: Recognized Innovator Awards and Technology Sessions

I’m excited to bring you an update on our upcoming SSPA Best Practices Conference, to be held May 6-8 in San Diego.  Our theme this year, “Optimizing Support to Deliver Exceptional Customer Value,” is exemplified by incredible content from our members, industry luminaries, and our own SSPA Benchmark Database.  In this update, I’m going to [...]

Highlights of Talisma CIM 8.0: Slick VoIP and Elegant Offer Management

I was given a briefing last fall on Talisma’s plans for their next major release, Customer Interaction Management (CIM) 8.0, and now that the release is ready to go GA (general availability) later this month, the gang at Talisma spent some more time with me last week, including a demo of the new version.
There are two major [...]

The Return of the Chat Bot (And This Time They Work!)

Those of you who have seen me speak over the years know that I love to give examples of bad self-service technology, and nothing has received more of my stage time than the terrible early products for automated chat dialogs, aka chat bots, response robots, or avatars.  Call them what you will, they were bad.  In [...]

Services Innovation Alive and Well: Launch of SRI

It is not every day that initiatives launched by associations garner press coverage in the NY Times, Business Week, InfoWorld and CNET.  But that is just what the SSPA, and our sister association TPSA (Technology Professional Services Association), did last week with the launch of our Service Research & Innovation Initiative.  Of course, partnering with [...]