Winners and Losers – February 2013

This month we bring you news of award wins for Plantronics, Rostrvm, Nice Systems and Scottish Water, Aspect Software’s new partnership and funding for NewVoiceMedia.

Plantronics has won the Innovation category at the Family Friendly Awards

Created by the Family and Parenting Institute and Daycare Trust, the awards celebrate organisations with ‘Family Friendly’ practices and that put families at the heart of their companies.

Plantronics was commended for its enthusiasm to embrace a new way of working through their ‘Simply Smarter Office’, which openly encourages employee empowerment and helps staff achieve a more effective work–life balance.

“At Plantronics, our family-friendly policies and smarter working initiatives go far beyond what is legislated, so as to give the ultimate opportunity in empowering employees – allowing them to take control of their own work–life balance,” said Norma Pearce,  HR Director at Plantronics.

Plantronics’ Simply Smarter Office was established at its UK headquarters in Royal Wootton Bassett and centred on consolidating all departments from three buildings into one. The redesign was largely undertaken to implement a flexible working environment.

Plantronics encourages employees to improve their work–life balance by providing a consistent set of tools that enable them to work remotely from any location.

“With rising fuel costs and ever increasing difficulties of fitting family obligations around work demands, there has never been a better or more crucial time for simple flexible working options,” Norma added.

---

Rostrvm Solutions recognised by ISO Quality award

Contact centre software provider Rostrvm Solutions has been awarded BS EN ISO 9001:2008 and the TickIT Guide Version 5.5 for the design, development, testing, installation, support and maintenance of software products, applications and professional services.

Lindsay Brown, a Director at Rostrvm Solutions, says, “Contact centres are the ultimate ‘people-driven business’ and Rostrvm knows how much quality of service matters. We have recently passed the 3-yearly audit for our own ISO Quality Standards, covering all aspects of our product development and delivery.”

Product support provided by Rostrvm has been rated by its long-standing customers as ‘second to none’.

Lindsay adds, “Contact centres are increasingly more complex but that doesn’t mean that the software they use has to be … Rostrvm engineers are experts in doing the difficult bits, to provide simple solutions to our customers. We know what we are doing and can often save customers time and money, whether it’s inbound, outbound, multi-channel, desktop optimisation or performance management.”

---

NICE achieves top customer satisfaction scores

NICE Systems has once again been recognised as the global market leader in speech analytics by DMG Consulting LLC.

According to DMG’s 2012/2013 Speech Analytics Product and Market Report, NICE holds a 28.3% market share based on number of seats, up from 23.2% in the previous report, and has the largest number of customers.

In the report, NICE received a perfect customer satisfaction score (CSAT) in two categories; product satisfaction and innovation. In the category of product satisfaction, the company earned the top score with a rating of ‘highly satisfied’ based on criteria that included ease of configuration, system flexibility, ability to conduct root cause analysis, ability to conduct discovery, and more.

“We are pleased to be recognised year after year as the market leader in speech analytics. As noted in the report, we are also one of the leading providers of real-time analytics technology,” said Yochai Rozenblat, President of the Enterprise Group at NICE.

“Above all, we strive to provide the best possible solutions for our customers. We believe our success here is reflected in our high CSAT scores for innovation and product satisfaction.”

---

Scottish Water praised for customer service

Scottish Water has just been praised for its high level of customer service after becoming the first British water company to successfully complete the re-assessment process for ServiceMark (managed by the Institute of Customer Service (ICS)).

Scottish Water became the first British water company to undertake the assessment when it achieved ServiceMark status in 2008-9.  This requires organisations to complete a rigorous assessment process which includes a staff survey, a customer survey and an independent assessment.

Fiona Templeton, Scottish Water’s Customer Experience Manager, said: “The re-assessment and award of ServiceMark is a significant achievement for Scottish Water.”

“It has come at a time when we see our customer satisfaction at an all-time high and complaints reducing year-on-year and is further confirmation that Scottish Water is continuing to deliver for our customers.”

---

Granby team member awarded City & Guild Medal for Excellence

Josh Smith, a customer service advisor of Granby Marketing Services, has been awarded a gold medal in the City & Guilds Medal for Excellence.

Nominated for the award by both Granby and his trainer Angela Treanor from North Lancashire Training group, competing against talent from across the country, Smith received the award for his outstanding talents demonstrated during  his two-year apprenticeship course.

Smith, who works as a customer service advisor in Granby’s contact centre, has established himself as a popular and well thought of member of the team. The award will be presented in February in Lancashire.

Joanne Varey, Managing Director at Granby Marketing Services, said: “It’s a great achievement for one of our staff members to pick up such a fantastic award, and we are all very proud of him. It goes a long way to boost the confidence of the rest of the team and his achievement is also a huge testament to us as a company.”

---

Aspect Software takes stake in eg’s software solutions

Aspect Software and eg solutions, plc (a back-office optimisation software and services expert) have created an equity partnership, taking 10% of shares for £1.2 million.

The partnership provides Aspect exclusive distribution rights to eg’s products and services in the Americas and the Asia Pacific region and formalises the partnership model for both companies to address customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The combined solution of Aspect and eg can help customers realise these savings by:

• Minimising repeat calls for the contact centre that arise from back-office inefficiencies
• Increasing overall customer satisfaction
• Decreasing costs arising from errors, lags, and inefficient back office resource utilisation
• Providing visibility into throughput, resource performance, quality of work and overall performance of all resources affecting customer deliverables
• Managing back-office knowledge workers and output against KPIs
• Automating common processes to enforce best practices and minimise error and inefficiency.

Elizabeth Gooch, eg’s Chief Executive Officer, commented: “We are truly blending the front and back office.”

Spence Mallder, Senior Vice President, General Manager of the Workforce Optimization division and Chief Technology Officer at Aspect, said:  “Aspect will now be able to seamlessly orchestrate the people and processes that flow within and between the back office and front office to optimise how service is delivered. eg’s domain expertise in the back office, along with the most open and flexible work distribution solution on the market, made them a natural strategic partner for Aspect. The complementary software and expertise of eg and Aspect create a very powerful process optimisation solution that efficiently delivers a cohesive, customer-delighting service experience.”

---

NewVoiceMedia secures funding for international expansion

NewVoiceMedia has secured $20m funding from new investors Highland Capital Partners Europe and MMC Ventures, as well as existing shareholders Notion Capital and Eden Ventures.

The additional investment will help the Company’s global ambitions, including opening new offices in North America, where the solution is already widely used.

Laurence Garrett, who joins the board and is a General Partner at Highland Capital Partners Europe, comments, “We are delighted to become part of the NewVoiceMedia journey. We are working with a seasoned entrepreneurial team led by a great leader in Jonathan Gale. Eden and Notion Capital are great investors who continue to support the Company strongly and the Company has very impressive growth.”

Rory Stirling, Director of MMC Ventures, adds, “We are delighted to begin our investment partnership with NewVoiceMedia. Having experienced fourfold growth between Q1 2011 and 2012, the Company is creating a real success story with its world-leading contact centre service. MMC focuses on backing businesses that can succeed on a global scale and we think that NewVoiceMedia fits this criteria very well.”

Jonathan Gale, CEO of NewVoiceMedia, comments, “The contact centre market has lacked innovation from traditional on-premise vendors for many years. NewVoiceMedia is tapping into the major developments in the technology world, including Cloud Computing, social media and mobile devices, to provide customers with a next generation service. This investment will allow us to continue to innovate ahead of our competition and expand our service globally.”