Ziggo, one of the largest providers of media and communications services in the Netherlands, has selected SAS(R) Real-Time Decision Manager to provide its contact center agents with relevant, real-time recommendations to meet customers' needs.

"With this new application, not only can we get more value for our customers, but we are able to improve customer loyalty and satisfaction through better quality conversations and more targeted advice," said Edgar Pors, Senior Channel Manager at Ziggo.

In many organizations, the quality and relevance of the offer a customer receives largely depends on the individual capabilities, knowledge and experience of the contact center agent. With SAS Real-Time Decision Manager providing real-time intelligent recommendations to Ziggo contact center agents, customers receive a more tailored experience. SAS Real-Time Decision Manager provides contact center agents with a complete and current picture of the client and the products and services he/she uses. Then the SAS solution recommends the most suitable offer in real-time (the next best offer) for that customer.

Allegiance, a provider of VOCi (Voice of Customer Intelligence) technology and services, today announced that Healthy Directions, LLC has implemented the Allegiance Engage VOC platform to uncover insights and focus the customer experience on issues that impact customer loyalty and repurchase decisions.

Healthy Directions provides expert guidance and advanced nutritional supplements from America's leading doctors of integrative medicine. Prior to implementing the Allegiance VOC platform, the company tracked revenue from direct mail marketing and used periodic print and email surveys to measure customer satisfaction.

"Anecdotal comments from our customer service department and infrequent survey data weren't telling us what we needed to know," said Julie Kaplan, executive director of customer experience at Healthy Directions. "We needed a formal Voice of the Customer (VOC) process that would gather feedback, analyze relationships and trends and help us pinpoint actions to strategically influence a customer's decision to buy our products."

Companies in the telecom and airline industries are tops when it comes to providing customer service on Facebook. That’s the conclusion of a recent study by the social analytics company Social Bakers.

At the company level, KLM Airlines, T-Mobile and Sony Mobile were the most active brands in responding to customers and prospects on Facebook.

Social Bakers analyzed Facebook brand pages — the ones that allow Facebook users to post — to see what companies respond most often to public posts from regular Facebook users. Between March 1st and May 30th of this year, telecom companies replied to 60.4 percent of user posts and airlines replied to 55 percent. Those are the only two industries studied that responded to more than half of the public posts on their Facebook pages.

ClearLine Mobile, a mobile marketing and loyalty technology company, has entered into an agreement with Global Service Solutions and completed the integration of a mobile marketing and loyalty program that will enable access to advanced mobile marketing and customer retention technology, it was announced by ClearLine Mobile.

ClearLine Mobile designs and manages mobile marketing and loyalty programs that create an awareness campaign to increase customer retention and sales for providers of prepaid services. ClearLine’s programs can feature mobile rewards and incentive plans, couponing, mobile and content websites, and e-commerce websites delivering airtime refills in real time, automated marketing, refill and low balance reminders and much more.

Fanbox, a leader in relational technology and loyalty programs, developed a gift card program for Ultramar service stations and convenience stores across Canada, which totals 800 corporate and partner stations.

The program developed by Fanbox was launched across the network this past June. It manages gift cards in real time, and integrates to both the till and pay-at-the-pump systems at Ultramar.

“We are very excited about this new gift card program, which will certainly continue to evolve over the long term through new features and the flexibility allowed by Fanbox’s MS2 platform,” said Jacinthe Gratton, Ultramar director of marketing and sales program