West is honored to receive the 2016 CRM Service Winner Award for Interactive Voice Response (IVR). Dedicated to helping clients facilitate more rewarding customer interactions, West views IVR as the backbone for a complete, well-rounded multi-channel customer experience. We are proud to deliver a sturdy foundation for more connected communication. Read More >
The imperative to meet customers’ ever-increasing demand for speed, convenience and personalization (with complete accuracy) can make data security and compliance a major concern. This is especially true when dealing with highly sensitive material, like protected health information (PHI) in the Healthcare industry.
Sensitive information calls for a sensitive touch. Having the right people on your side makes all the difference.
The Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) has created the Business Associate Council (BA Council) to ensure continual collaboration among healthcare associates and to provide a much needed forum for organizations seeking to stay ahead of security risks. This council will enable organizations to agree on an appropriate set of requirements to achieve greater compliance efficiencies and reduce overall costs to business associates. Read More >
By Brian Cooper, Patient Engagement Strategist, West Healthcare
Lexus is the most dependable car brand on the market today, according to J.D. Power & Associates. It has ranked the highest in vehicle dependability for five consecutive years.
What does this have to do with healthcare? A lot, when you consider the changing landscape of our healthcare industry.
We are entering a world where consumers’ experience with the care they receive matters more than ever before—and where ratings like those by J.D. Powers could soon become a reality for health systems across the United States. We are entering a world where consumers expect the same level of service and quality that they receive in other industries. We are entering a world where consumers are beginning to ask themselves: “Why should I buy healthcare from you as opposed to your competitor down the street?”
Healthcare organizations are competing ever more fiercely to gain and retain patients’ business—and first impressions are critical. That’s why the patient’s experience when reaching out to your healthcare organization seeking to do business with you is so important. That’s why a modernized access center (a centralized scheduling or contact center) is critical both for differentiating your organization and for preventing leakage. Read More >
West is a proud recipient of Frost & Sullivan’s 2015 North American Product Leadership Award in the Contact Center Outsourcing Industry. 
In the wake of customers’ ever-increasing demand for self-service, mobility and an overall-outstanding customer experience, we are privileged to help brands deliver leading communication technology and winning engagement strategies.
Frost & Sullivan recognized West for innovative multi-channel notifications/alert solutions, clear commitment to building lasting partnerships, and accelerated client growth over the past two years. View the press release here.
They graded West’s overall performance based on a wide variety of criteria such as reliability, performance, design and positioning. West scored an overall rating of 9.00, with the closest competitor trailing at 7.75. Read More >
Greg Ablett, Senior Vice President of Utilities and Business Support at West, offers his take on keeping up with today’s evolving utility customer in CS Week’s Spring edition of Newsline:
… utility customers rely on gas and electric power so much that if and when it goes out, they (understandably) tend to panic. They want to be kept in-the-know, up-to-the-minute during outage situations. There is a more user-friendly and cost effective solution. High-Volume Call Answering (HVCA) systems have transformed the way calls are fielded during extended, storm-related outage situations and on blue sky days. …
Click here to read the Newsline article (beginning on Page 3).
Join West at CS Week Conference 40, April 25-29, where we’ll continue taking an in-depth look at how the utility landscape is shifting and what companies should do to step up to the challenge. While you’re planning your trip to Phoenix, don’t forget to check out our event calendar to explore some other engaging events to stop by throughout the year!
When severe weather hits, how can utilities avoid a storm of customer dissatisfaction? The immediate response is clear: restore service disruptions as quickly as possible. But there’s another business imperative utilities can’t overlook: customer service. In general, UK utilities lag behind their US counterparts in terms of storm-related customer service. But with inclement weather on the rise in the UK — and growing demand for better service — the pressure is on UK utilities to deliver a higher standard of customer service before, during and after a storm. Read the article here.
West’s Senior Vice President of Utilities and Business Support Greg Ablett weighs in on keeping up with today’s utility customers in an article recently published by Utility Week.
Join us at CS Week Conference 40, April 25-29, where West will share more utility best practices and further explore Greg’s insights on graceful automation – and check out the rest of our event calendar to connect with us at other events over the next few months.
Ah, Valentine’s Day. The time of year that masses of eligible singles sit at home with pints of ice cream on-hand, scrolling through nauseatingly romantic pictures in their Facebook and Instagram feeds. With each refresh comes a feeling of satisfied envy. Satisfied being the key word.
Not long ago, such Internet scrolling transitioned from mouse wheel to persistent thumb. Robert Cringley recently posted an article detailing this evolution and why a computer in our pocket trumps one at a desk.
Sitting at a desktop with Ben and Jerry’s just doesn’t paint the same picture of self-pity as a mobile device, a couch and Sleepless in Seattle in the background. It’s strangely satisfying self-pity because it’s where we want it and how we want it.
Our mobile devices are part of us; when we wear our hearts on our sleeves, smartphones are waiting in our palms to pick up the pieces. Like a best friend, they are there at all hours, ready to swoop in wherever help’s needed.
When the couch gets monotonous and a private Valentine’s Day getaway is in order, companies in every industry are fueling the peoples’ demand for mobility by: Read More >
Voice self-service is a lynchpin for most companies’ customer service roadmaps. Optimization strategy can make it exceptional. Having seen the retail industry’s customer service influence across all verticals, we at West have witnessed the importance of evolution firsthand.
The consumer-driven world in which we live has spread the demand for accurate, immediate care when it comes to anything from pizza delivery, to air travel and even to choosing an insurance provider. Retail has set a standard that companies in every industry are being challenged to exceed.
While few would venture to argue against the need to drive an individualized customer experience, it is all-too-easy for brands to neglect helping voice solutions grow beyond their infancy stage.
Yes, we need to create a customer experience that evolves with our customer’s needs. But how does a company shift beyond stating the obvious to moving toward a more finite means of accomplishing customer satisfaction? Read More >
They say that variety is the spice of life, so when it comes to providing customers with individualized, custom-tailored experiences, it’s probably best to add an extra dash or two. Although the desire for quick and painless resolution is usually universal among customers, the means of reaching this destination tends to vary wildly depending on user preference.
After West’s clients expressed an overwhelming interest in multi-modal IVR during our 2015 Connected Customer Experience Summit, it’s only fitting to ring in 2016 by talking about the potential uses and impact of multi-modal solutions. (Which we will talk about in even greater detail during our first Product Advisory Council on February 2nd).
Customers in every industry demand answers when and where they want them. (We’ve noted before that one-third of Millennials would prefer to clean a toilet than wait for a live agent). Customers will go to extreme measures to self-resolve, but need reliability when an issue demands greater attention.
This is why it is so important for brands to cover all their bases, but also make sure that they can effectively orchestrate every channel around the tried-and-true customer fallback: a phone call.
West sees 2016 as an opportunity to help our clients create a more effective, consistent and rewarding experience for their customers by exploring a next generation communication solution that combines the reliable IVR of today with a mobile-ready visual interface. This concept centers upon allowing consumers to simultaneously interact via voice, Web and SMS, while completing just about any task that they’ve set out to accomplish. Read More >
Not long ago, the masses reveled at the possibilities of email communication. A decade later, people delighted in sending and receiving easily digestible text messages. Now focus is shifting toward multi-modal interactions and combining communication channels in the exact ways that we want.
Here we are in 2016, still filled with blissful ignorance in regard to what wonders lie ahead technologically. Yet, we are in a different place than ever before in that we have come to expect this sort of continuous improvement in all technological walks of life—especially when it comes to customer service.
Though the layperson doesn’t know exactly how their customer experience is going to improve moving forward, all seem to expect that brands keep up with their increasingly high-paced lifestyles. This is why it is so vital for companies to take on this challenge head on, and address customer concerns before they have even become a reality. We must strive to continuously improve, innovate and optimize.
Easier said than done, right? Nevertheless, staying ahead of your customers and competition is worth the work. During West’s recent Customer Summit, Michael Tchong spoke to the framework needed to “Fuel Innovation.” He broke it down into four basic principles: Read More >
