Good morning good morning one and all, thank you for tuning your radio dial to Radio CBM 98.6, all Dwight Yoakam all the time, playing your golden oldies tomorrow.
Here's an idea: PSCU Financial Services, a financial services CUSO and provider of 24/7 call center operations for credit unions, is commending four call centers [1] in Hawaii for improving operations by adding "cultural elements from their state."
Honolulu-based Hawaiian Tel Federal Credit Union, University of Hawaii Federal Credit Union and Hawaii USA Federal Credit Union were praised for using their custom call center to "enhance member service in the last year," and Kealakekua-based Hawaii Community Federal Credit Union received the Call Center Innovator award.
This sort of thing might work well in Hawaii, incorporating local culture in the call center, but one recoils to think what would happen if other states tried it. New Jersey: "You gotta problem wid dis? Yeah? Tellya what, jabrone: You gimme your home address an' we'll send Vito and Vinnie aroun' to, ah, discuss dis here so-called problem. Right. So I put you down here as one more satisfied customer? Have a pleasant day."
Excited Alterian officials have announced the birth of a new buzzword [2]—"Customer Engagement Agency."
Saying they have "joined forces with several agency partners" to create the new buzzword, Alterian officials say "Customer Engagement marketing means that companies can deliver the most relevant message, at the right time, in the right tone of voice to each individual customer in the most efficient and cost effective manner... integrating data from the on and offline world to create a 360 degree view of the customer in order to truly engage with them at every step of the customer lifecycle."
Mark Wright, president, Targetbase, described CEA as "looking at everything a customer does, figuring out the when and why behind those actions and then using that information to predict customer behavior before it happens."
Alterian customer Bernie F. Schwartz said he would appreciate it if "those jokers didn't engage me at every step. They called six times during dinner last night testing different price points. I finally had to pretend they had a wrong number." Schwartz also said the found the 24/7 surveillance from Targetbase "tiring."
In politics President Barack Obama, speaking in Wisconsin, ignored hundreds of protesters waving "NObama" and "No to Socialism" signs to announce that, given its successful track record running Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Amtrak, the U.S. Postal Service, AIG and GM, the government would now run the nation's health care system [3].
Alluding to the fact that in the recent Chrysler dealership closings Democrat-owned dealerships remained open while those which had contributed to Republicans were forced out of business by the government [4], Obama promised that the move wouldn't affect the level of care people received, "provided they're Democrat donors."
Clash-Media, which describes itself as in the "Proactive Online Lead Generation" trade, has reported a "record increase" [5] in the number of companies "merging their online and off-line campaigns by using its service to send online sales leads directly to their contact centers for immediate follow-up."
Every lead collected by Clash-Media is verified for its "authenticity" and sent through to an organization's contact center for a sales agent to contact.
"At a time when return on investment from any marketing activity is of the up-most importance, companies need to do anything that helps increase conversion rates or lower cost per acquisition," said Christopher Petix, President of Clash-Media US, saying his ultimate goal was to "eliminate the middle man entirely," find a way to automatically sign up customers, establish direct debit payments "and fill out their customer satisfaction cards for them."
In sports the interminable Stanley Cup and NBA Championships are almost over, don't worry. Just hang on a bit longer. Courage, friends, NFL preseason is only a couple months away. We'll let you know when it's safe.
Weather report here in northern New Zealand: Steady rain until September with scattered thunderstorms in July and August. I'm beginning to see why people move to Australia.
Coremetrics has announced the launch [6] of Coremetrics AdTarget, a data syndication platform which lets users syndicate information about Web site visitors to ad providers, so they can rush personalized display ads to the screen.
"Consumers who are bombarded with irrelevant ads not only ignore them, but often walk away with negative feelings about the advertiser," said John Squire, chief strategy officer, Coremetrics. AdTarget "directly drives revenue through higher conversion rates and by increasing the likelihood that visitors will return to a site," Coremetrics officials say, while declining to release the hard numbers on studies showing that "The ads seem like they're targeted to me" is a significant reason why people return to Web sites.
With a drag and drop, company officials say, AdTarget clients can use their existing Coremetrics analytics tags, syndicating activity data across ad networks, products, and an exchange, "eliminating the need to place additional tags on their pages" so ad partners can launch "extremely relevant" display ad campaigns on behalf of clients.
That's the show for today, we're off to give Phil Spector his Weirdest Humanoid In the Galaxy [7] award.