Transactions: Customer Wins for October 26, 2004

Smiths Medical has selected EADS' Centergy M7480 multichannel contact center solution to improve its customer interactions. The provider of medical devices used in infusion therapy previously had its contact center outsourced to a third-party provider. Approximately 40 agents will staff the new contact center in St. Paul, MN, and will use Centergy to interact with customers via voice, email, Web, and fax. "Bringing the contact center back inside the company to provide superior customer service forced us into unknown territory," said Rod Kellog, vice president and general manager of Smiths Medical's diabetes systems division. The division expects to receive a growing number of calls from customers and prospects who are among the 18.2 million Americans with diabetes. "EADS modular approach, single scripting, and networking capabilities were impressive." Smiths Medical already uses EADS' Pointspan M6880 PBX platform. That fact will allow the company to integrate the information within the voice network with the Centergy M7480 solution in the contact center. Smiths Medical is also upgrading the Pointspan's operating system software to improve network management and productivity benefits for its customers. Salesforce.com has announced that Nursefinders, a leading national provider of healthcare personnel and home health care services, has made Salesforce.com the centerpiece of an initiative to grow sales. Nursefinders credits the on-demand CRM provider with introducing a new level of sales accountability that has improved Nursefinders's ability to pursue and win large accounts. Salesforce.com has also announced that Cox Business Services, a division of Cox Communications, has implemented Salesforce.com's on-demand service for 410 employees nationwide. Cox Business Services selected Salesforce.com for its user experience, degree of customization, and ability to enables collaboration across multiple locations. Additionally, Muzak LLC has rolled out Salesforce.com to 400 users nationwide. Muzak selected Salesforce.com to replace dozens of systems representing nearly a decade of consolidating. SecureInfo Corporation, a provider of information security solutions, has deployed the Remedy Customer Service and Support solution to manage its customer-facing call center. SercureInfo expects the Remedy solution to help it align people, processes, and technology to boost service levels, better evaluate performance, and reduce IT costs. SecureInfo will use the application's customer support and built-in escalation models to deploy the solution. Manticore Technology, a provider of application service for online marketing optimization software, announced a multiyear sales agreement with Kroger, one of the nation's largest retailers. Kroger will be using Manticore's Virtual Traffic Master 4.0 to manage and improve 12 of its Web sites, including Kroger.com, Ralphs,.com and KingsSoopers.com. Kroger also plans to use the Manticore solution to collect and track the interests and preferences of online shoppers. Utopy, a provider of speech analytics, announced that CCH has selected Utopy SpeechMiner Enterprise 3.0, a speech analytics software application, for its customer contact center. CCH selected SpeechMiner to improve customer satisfaction and service representation while reducing service costs. CCH will use the software to automatically monitor thousands of calls a day, retrieve customer information, and identify calls that haven't yet been resolved. Related article: Turning Service Into Sales Contact center agents require new technology and tools if they're also going to be sales agents.