Customer Service

The joke used to be on the U.S. Postal Service. Indeed, jabs about the government's mail system may have driven business to private-sector competitors like United Parcel Service, Federal Express and DHL. That was decades ago; now, it seems, some of the same companies designed to outperform the USPS...

RightNow Technologies has gone deep with contact center functionality in November 08, the latest quarterly update of its flagship Software as a Service CRM application. The new version builds on RightNow's strong self-service platform with the addition of agent-scripting technology, a desktop add-in...

Saturday, Nov. 8, 6:15 p.m. The Wheaton, Md., Metrorail stop in greater Washington, D.C. I am meeting a friend at 7, and I'm later than I wanted to be getting to the Metro. Unfortunately, I'm a bit off my stride. I forgot to get dollar bills and now have to scrounge through my purse looking for eno...

If you've flown lately, you know the drill: long lines, delayed flights and higher ticket prices. Consumers have come to expect no less, and no more, from air travel. Even without the stress from a struggling economy, air travel in particular tends to bring about discomfort, dissatisfaction and anxi...

Five years ago, Mark Goldstein and three partners recognized that loyalty programs were becoming a cottage industry. Coming up with the right way to manage those programs, he believed, would be a neat trick. So would finding an effective way to lure in customers. "The toughest part of the business i...

Enterprise organizations often think of customer service as an unavoidable fact of business, a necessary expense. Rethink customer service, however, and it can become a strategic weapon that fosters growth and competitive advantage. Some common steps can turn customer service into a strategic weapon...

The competitive environment that characterizes today's broadband and value-added services landscape benefits the growth of many digital lifestyle products and services. Consumers are also primary beneficiaries of increased competition among carriers. Case studies reveal that when at least two servic...

The U.S. government is getting better at designing Web sites that are user-friendly and provide value, according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, released by the University of Michigan and ForeSee Results. Satisfaction with federal Web sites improved 1.4 percent to 73.9 on ACSI's ...

Sure, Web-based chat applications on your site represent a leap in customer service and sales technology. But let's not forget that the brick-and-mortar standards still apply. If an end user is comfortable and finds your online rep trustworthy and predictive of his or her needs, the opportunities in...

It has been eight years since the 2000 presidential election revealed the many flaws that existed in the mechanics of U.S. voting systems. Despite that debacle, many states have not made even basic improvements to assist voters -- such as providing user-friendly Web sites that tell them how to regis...

Last year's online shopping season surpassed $29 billion in sales, up a full 20 percent from the previous holiday. More consumers did their shopping online than any holiday season before, due to the convenience and increasing popularity of the Internet as a way to get too many things done in too lit...

With so many companies tightening their budgets in the midst of the tough, uncertain economic climate, there's a tendency to look at social networking as the new, free panacea. I've seen a few financial services and insurance companies start social networking strategies, promising to be open and rea...

Imagine getting a $45 billion bill without knowing exactly how you ended up with such a big tab. That's exactly the situation facing Americans struck by identity fraud. In 2007, the misuse of lost and stolen identity information cost $45 billion, an average of $5,574 per incident, according to Javel...

As Wall Street unwound last week, RightNow CEO Greg Gianforte watched from a vantage point an ocean away. He was in London, making a stop on his self-assigned global tour to visit the company's top 50 users. Like many people, Gianforte is viewing the events with a combination of uncertainty and cau...

There is a near-universal desire among firms to link all aspects of their supply chain -- including the customer front end -- on one platform. However, there are relatively few applications on the market today that address that demand. ModusLink hopes to fill that void with its newly launched e-busi...