Statistically Speaking

> State and local IT spending is expected to grow from about $50 billion this year to $72 billion by fiscal year 2011, according to initial findings from the five-year State and Local IT Market Forecast released by INPUT. > Call center agent positions within Mexico are expected to rise from an estimated 33,500 to nearly 80,000 by 2010, representing an 18 percent increase year over year, according to the Datamonitor report "Mexico: A Solution for the U.S. Hispanic Market?"
>A study commissioned by mobile messaging carrier Clickatell and conducted by the CMO Council found that 70 percent of the 450 CEOs and CMOs surveyed had used text messaging to support some aspect of their business, primarily customer service. Eighty-three percent agreed that short message service (SMS) is a key means to send alerts and notifications. Eight of 10 respondents recognized text messaging to be at least somewhat of a competitive advantage. This advantage can be tracked to marked ROI, with 60 percent counting greater operational efficiencies as the highest value of ROI in text messaging, followed by higher customer loyalty (58 percent), faster product adoption (50 percent), and high response rates (43 percent). > The use of speech analytics applications will grow in the contact center at a rate of 120 percent in 2006 and 100 percent in 2007, according to DMG Consulting's "2006 Speech Analytics Market Report." > The "Airline Quality Rating (AQR) 2006," which reflects performance in the previous calendar year, reports the quality of service to be lower in 2005 than in 2004. Total complaints per 100,000 passengers rose from 0.76 in 2004 to 0.89 in 2005. However, this figure is still down from 2.48, the average number of passenger complaints in 1999. Similarly, while the percentage of on-time arrivals was 77.3 percent in 2005, down from 78.3 percent in 2004, this percentage was significantly lower (76.1) in 1999.