Report stresses role of CRM

In the global contact centre industry, estimated to be worth some $130 billion per annum, organisations are not optimising the value of their investments in customer relationship management (CRM) practices, states PR Inside.

That's one of the findings in the 2008 Datacraft, Dimension Data Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report, which includes survey responses from 300 contact centres in 36 countries across five continents.

This year's report confirms that only a minority of contact centres have established CRM practices and capabilities.

Rostrvm Solutions, a member of the Mitel Solutions Alliance programme, has added native support for Mitel PBX platforms to the rostrvm contact centre software suite, delivering progressive applications such as automated dialing, data and skills based inbound call distribution, call centre agent support tools, media blending and business driven management information, reports Techwhack.

This new development is now available to Mitel users as a complement or alternative to rostrvm's VOIP-based Invex architecture to deploy rostrvm contact centre functionality.

Rostrvm applications communicate with the Mitel switch through the Mitel Telephony Application Interface.

Model Metrics, one of the nation's leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology and services firms, has hired Steve Bernard, a contact centre expert with over 20 years of experience implementing sales and service solutions for major corporations worldwide, says Market Watch.

Model Metrics' recruitment of Bernard marks another inflection point in the growth of contact centre solutions on SaaS platforms, it adds.

Based in Los Angeles, Bernard is Contact Center Practice director for Model Metrics and oversees the strategy, development and implementation of contact centre solutions and SaaS deployments on Salesforce CRM and salesforce.com's Force.com platform.