Video collaboration in the customer engagement center (or contact center) makes sense for many of the same reasons the technology makes sense in other settings: When customers can see a human being on the other end of their conversations, they feel a human connection. When customer service representatives or sales staffers can see the people…

Every year on Black Friday (the post-Thanksgiving shopping day that ushers in the Christmas buying season), millions of people wake up at 3 a.m. and drive to malls and big-box stores. For hours, they stand outside in the dark and the cold, hoping to score incredible deals. But they’re not really there to save money….

Banks and other financial institutions collect a significant amount of data about their customers. Often, a customer will have checking and savings accounts with the same bank, as well as debit and credit cards and perhaps even a mortgage or a car loan. The customer may also use the bank’s website and mobile app. With…

A typical big-box store is about 180,000 square feet — enough to hold three pro football fields with room to spare. No wonder shoppers often get frustrated trying to find items, sometimes giving up and buying them online. The Internet of Things (IoT) gives retailers new options for eliminating those and other hassles to provide…

During the day, I speak with banking executives who want to be as strategic and efficient as possible with their customer outreach. But when I go home, my mailbox, my email inbox and sometimes even my voicemail are filled to the brim with offers from financial institutions for products and services that don’t fit at…

I work out of Madison, Wis., and one of my closest colleagues is based in Cleveland. We’re rarely in the same room together. But when we see each other at an event, we don’t go through the whole, “It’s been a while, how’ve you been?” routine. Instead, we just pick up the conversation we were…