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Jacada Ltd., a provider of unified desktop and process optimization solutions for customer service operations, has announced that Lillian Vernon, a 54-year-old national catalog and online retailer that markets gift, household, children’s and fashion accessory products, has selected Jacada WorkSpace as its standardized unified agent desktop for its customer service operations.

Said Mike Muoio, CEO for Lillian Vernon: “We are standardizing on Jacada WorkSpace as our unified desktop to create greater operational efficiency, increase agent and customer satisfaction and reduce agent training times, which is critical during our peak seasons.”

Jacada WorkSpace, using “non-invasive integration methods,” promises to unify many unlinked processes into a single, intelligent desktop for each of the 500 Lillian Vernon agent desktop environments. Muoio said that “We are confident that the implementation of Jacada WorkSpace will enable us to achieve a payback within twelve months of deployment.”

Lillian Vernon Corporation is an American catalog merchant and online retailer that sells household, organizational, children’s and fashion accessory products. Calling itself a “pioneer in customized merchandise,” Lillian Vernon today offers 14 different kinds of personalization and personalizes 5.3 million products a year. In business since 1952, Lillian Vernon publishes three catalog titles: Lillian Vernon, Lilly’s Kids and The Big Sale Catalog. Lillian Vernon’s corporate headquarters are located in Virginia Beach, Va.

Sun Capital Partners, Inc. is a private investment firm focused on leveraged buyouts, equity, debt, and other investments. Sun Capital affiliates have invested in and managed more than 140 companies worldwide with combined sales in excess of $33.0 billion since Sun Capital’s inception in 1995. Sun Capital has offices in Boca Raton, La.; Los Angeles; and New York; and has affiliates in London, U.K.; Tokyo; and Shenzhen, China.

Marketing solutions provider Harte-Hanks, Inc. announced today that Ultimate Electronics has selected Harte-Hanks and its Allink Advantage solution for optimized, multi-channel database marketing. Under terms of the new partnership, Harte-Hanks will provide a fully integrated, robust database marketing solution to drive Ultimate Electronics’ newly-implemented prospecting strategy. Harte-Hanks will also provide analytic support to “help the retailer enhance its understanding of its customer base and fully-integrated e-mail delivery through the Harte-Hanks Postfuture platform to establish better multichannel dialogues with customers.”

Ultimate Electronics is a private consumer electronics company specializing in home and car entertainment. Based in Colorado for 38 years, the company now has 32 superstores in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Ultimate was recently ranked among the top five consumer electronics walk-in retailers and in the top three for the best in-store service in Consumer Reports’ “Best Places to Buy” survey.

San Antonio, Texas-based Harte-Hanks, Inc. is a worldwide direct and targeted marketing company that provides direct marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities.

Talisma Corporation, an enterprise Customer Interaction Management solutions provider, has announced that its Talisma Knowledgebase has been selected by Speakeasy. (Good name there.) Speakeasy is an independent broadband services company with some 40,000 customers.

Talisma Knowledgebase promises to streamline the “entire documentation and workflow process for companies to share information with employees, customers, and partners.”

In a sly quote running in the announcement, Talisma president / CEO Dan Vetras said, “We’re pleased to work with another business that is experiencing rapid customer growth and making a significant impact on their industry.”

Talisma CIM 7.0 supports the German language and fully integrates online communication channels, including email, chat, VoIP, web self-service, and telephony with business process functionality and third-party data integration capabilities.

Talisma is a customer interaction management solutions provider integrating email, phone, chat, and self service with a web services platform, comprehensive analytics, and a system-wide knowledge base. Among Talisma clintele are AOL, Aviva, Banque Populaire, Betdaq, Canon, ChevronTexaco, Citibank, Dacorum Borough Council, Daimler-Chrysler, Dell, DHL, E.on, EPSON, Ericsson, Intuit, Microsoft, MWB, Pitney Bowes, Siemens, Sony, Sprint, NHS University Hospital of Leicester and Xchanging. Talisma currently operates in 33 countries and offers language support for 12 languages.

Speakeasy offers services including Voice over IP, OneLink dedicated DSL, business class T1 and multiple business-grade connectivity options. Speakeasy’s services are available in most metropolitan areas within the continental United States or, in Alaskan, “The Lower 48.”

Open Solutions are now to be found in a nice place, namely British Columbia, Canada. To wit, company representatives have announced that B.C. community-based credit union Grand Forks District Savings Credit Union has selected Open Solutions Inc.’s oh-so-starkly named The Complete Credit Union Solution to handle its core data processing and member service needs.

Founded in 1949, Grand Forks District Savings Credit Union has approximately 10,000 members, assets of nearly CAD $200 million (approximately US $175 million).

Built on a single, centralized relational database, The Complete Credit Union Solution’s open architecture and member-centric platform are designed to assist credit unions in streamlining front and back office applications and improving member service.

Open Solutions Inc. offers a fully featured strategic product platform that integrates core data processing applications built on a single centralized Oracle relational database, with internet banking, cash management, CRM / business intelligence, financial accounting tools, imaging, digital documents, Check 21, interactive voice response, network services, web hosting and design, and payment and loan origination solutions.

The overall upgrading of the United Kingdom’s CRM continues this week, and Lagan is all over the map of the Isles. With early Monday morning came the announcement that three local authorities in Northamptonshire had signed an £800,000 (approximately $1.58 million) joint deal with Lagan for the company’s Customer Relationship Management system.

In what is being touted as “a forward-looking initiative designed to make access to local authority services easier and quicker for citizens across the region,” Northampton Borough Council, Daventry District Council and Corby Borough Council worked in tandem to procure the system.

Under terms of the agreement, the initial implementation of the Lagan solution will focus on achieving specific service improvements and efficiency gains and into inter-authority shared-service delivery initiatives. These initiatives may result in future partnerships into other public services such as the county council, the Primary Care Trust, and law enforcement.

The cooperation was initiated by all parties and supported by the IDeA, an organisation working in partnership with all councils on CRM improvement. James Fox, Corby’s corporate enterprise team manager, stated that the first bits of Lagan CRM went live in July and is part of a three-year programme with a greater future ever in mind: “With the population of Corby set to double to more than 100,000 by 2030, a wider ‘Catalyst Corby’ regeneration scheme will include new leisure, retail and commercial facilities across the town as well as a modern transport infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, Surrey Heath District Council has released some performance results shown by its own ongoing implementation of a Lagan CRM system in “reconcil[ing] the two-fold challenge of improving service delivery whilst reducing costs.”

Read an announcement from the council: “Incremental efficiency gains and cost reductions have been identified to support the CRM implementation that has already delivered a quantifiable improvement in service delivery to customers. Furthermore, the technology has created a platform for ongoing cost savings, critically by supporting the Council’s move towards shared service delivery with neighbouring authorities.”

Surrey Heath Council first “embarked upon a concerted drive to transform service delivery and provide customers with a single point of contact for all council services,” i.e. look into that wacky CRM stuff, back in 2004. “CRM was identified as the tool to create a consolidated service centre,” said Surrey Heath district council head of CRM Richard Payne.

Surrey Heath chose Lagan’s CRM solution and began an “aggressive” five-stage implementation programme in February 2005. The plan – reportedly still on schedule – calls for all services to be run within the CRM infrastructure by February 2007.

The Council prioritized the deployment of environmental services – an area which creates significant volumes of customer interaction for services including pest control and waste management. Lagan’s CRM solution has been integrated with the MVM software used by environmental services and the contact centre reportedly now resolves 80 percent of customer enquiries at first contact, the council’s original goal for the service.

Reportedly, Lagan CRM has also enabled an overhaul of back end processes to introduce service improvements such as automated faxes to certain third-party contractors. Surrey Heath has also integrated the ACOLNET Building Services application. And thanks to apparent customer satisfaction in Surrey Heath, the council is now working with local partners including neighbouring Hart district council, the police, NHS, Surrey county council and local disability groups to assess opportunities for closer collaboration – presumably meaning more pounds for Lagan.

The Borough of Surrey Heath covers 36.5 square miles and its main town is quaint Camberley; located in northwest Surrey, Surrey Heath has a population of over 80,000.

Lagan was established in 1994 as a spin-off from Queen’s University Belfast, with backing from QUBIS Ltd. Lagan specializes in CRM solutions, principally for government. The firm has recently received kudos with its appearance in the Deloitte Fast 50 for four successive years and a listing in the Sunday Times ARM Tech Track 100 as one of the UK’s fastest growing technology companies.

Quite a score for RightNow Technologies this week, as Nikon Europe announced the extension of its relationship with the solutions provider and deployed RightNow Marketing as its out-bound customer communication system.

The first promotions deploying RightNow Marketing are on, um, right now. In France, Nikon’s new D80 camera is being plugged to consumers, replete with offers for a free SD card.

Nikon Germany and Austria are using RightNow to run a sales promotion to target eligible customers with what company PR describes as involving “either a six month ‘all risk’ insurance policy or a cash back incentive.”

Reportedly, Nikon is currently standardizing inbound and outbound customer touch points on RightNow’s CRM suite.

Deployment of the system has been reported as “still in its early stages.” Some two million pieces of email were planned for the system to produce annually, but this number will rapidly be far exceeded, perhaps by Nikon Germany alone in 2007.

The rolling out of RightNow Marketing across Nikon’s Europe is part of a greater global program which has seen RightNow Service and Marketing also deployed in the United States.

Meanwhile, RightNow Technologies – conveniently remembering that the present is in fact the holiday season – has released its top five pieces of advice to retails on “how to help their customers have a relaxing online shopping experience in the penultimate weeks (sic) and, as a result, encourage customer loyalty and ultimately profit.”

Those five tips are:

• Provide self-service (“Customers need to get knowledge when they want it – even on Christmas Day. Make sure your site is easy to navigate and your Frequently Asked Questions section isn’t just a static portal of data.”);

• provide in-stock notice;

• streamline the order process;

• provide context sensitive help; and

• supply live chat capacity.

Said RightNow VP of the UK and Ireland Wayne Foncette, “At the busiest time of the year, with less than 24 online shopping days to go, even well known stores are still not getting their online presence right.” (Shudder – we’re now referring to them as “online shopping days?”)

By the way, RightNow reminds that recent studies forecast internet sales in Britain to top £7 billion (approximately $13.86 billion), up from last year’s £5.5 billion (approximately $10.89 billion). Just so you know.

Founded in 1997, RightNow Technologies itself is billed as the firm “leading the industry beyond CRM to high-impact customer experience management solutions.” RightNow boasts a clientele of more than 1,500 companies around the world, including Alaska Air, Andrews Federal Credit Union, Banknorth Group, Bell Microproducts, Briggs Corporation, Cendant, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Dow Chemical, Dun & Bradstreet, Friend Communications, Germany Pioneer, International Rectifier, Kodak, Merry Maids, Paddy Power, Sketchers, The Right Start, Thomas Cook, Victoria International, and Victoria University of New Zealand.

Amcat, a customer care and interaction solutions provider, has announced their winning of the contract to supply San Diego-based mortgage and loans broker Citizens Plus Inc. with a new customer interaction system. Amcat’s technology will expand the Citizens Plus communications capability and reach, ultimately via offering a wide range of loans including purchase, re-financing, debt consolidation and home improvement.

Citizens Plus president Derek Wilson stated in the announcement that “We are a local broker that is trying to build a big reputation in our region, offering an alternative to the larger traditional mortgage brokerage firms. Our business philosophy is simple: we encourage productivity and mutual respect for both our employees and our customers. In order to achieve this we needed a contact management system that could provide us with the sophistication and flexibility required to tailor our campaigns to our specific markets and maximise our number of leads.”

Amcat is a provider of contact center solutions that, as company PR proclaims, “helps employees delight customers.” The Amcat IP-based customer contact platform is today used at 2,000 companies. Citizens Plus Inc. is a mortgage brokerage that prides itself in providing high-quality financial solutions to the public; the company’s stated mission is to “provide high quality mortgage solutions at the most competitive rates in the nation.”

Judging by sheer names alone, the teaming of QuestionPro and CRMGuru.com seems like a match made in heaven.

QuestionPro is a provider of online survey services and CRMGuru.com is reportedly the world’s top online community focused on Customer Relationship Management. The teamup hopes to “jointly create opportunities to highlight ways that technology can help businesses glean critical insights necessary to drive sales and measure customer satisfaction.”

A tad more specifically, the two companies will jointly develop a set of online tools to help CRMGuru members assess and improve their CRM initiatives. The tools are expected to be unveiled in early 2007.

QuestionPro currently offers a set of tools for conducting online surveys, offering features for developing surveys including branching, randomization, extraction, and compound branching. QuestionPro’s integrated emailing system gives the user the ability to send mass invitations and track response rates. QuestionPro’s largest recent claim to fame was its achievement of certification status with salesforce.com’s AppExchange.

The CRMGuru.com website is a community development that seeks to assist business leaders with Customer Relationship Management initiatives, through articles, discussion, newsletters, reports and online events. CRMGuru.com reportedly serves more than 300,000 newsletter subscribers and site visitors monthly from 200 countries worldwide.

Loyalty Lab, Inc. representatives have announced that specialty retailer Brookstone has launched its new loyalty marketing initiative using the Loyalty Lab Customer Relationship Manager Suite. The Loyalty suite will also power all of the retailer’s marketing email communications.

Brookstone has some 306 outlets and seeks to pilot the "Brookstone IN Rewards" loyalty program (by invitation only) with Loyalty Lab. Loyalty Lab’s on-demand solution will be implemented in Brookstone’s extant systems in shops, online and call center.

San Francisco, Calif.-based Loyalty Lab is a provider of on-demand relationship and retention marketing solutions for consumer brands. Loyalty Lab’s flagship Customer Relationship Manager Suite provides retailers and service companies with integrated and on-demand email, campaign management, loyalty programs, and incentives from a single desktop. Loyalty clients include Smith & Hawken, 1-800-flowers.com, the Nederlander Organization, Pfaltzgraff, and Bally Total Fitness.

Brookstone, Inc. is a product development and specialty retailer that operates 306 branded stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, mostly in regional shopping malls and airports. The Company also operates one store under the Gardeners Eden Brand, and a direct marketing business that includes the Brookstone product line, the “Hard to Find Tools” catalogs, and an e-commerce website at www.brookstone.com.

Customer care and interaction solutions provider Amcat has announced they’ve been chosen by Birmingham-based Countrywide Skips to provide their customer contact management system. The new system will be used to enable the company to manage inbound advertising response from consumers looking to hire a skip anywhere in the country, says company PR, and will automate its business-to-business telemarketing campaigns.

All right, now, i’m going to slam on the brakes here. Congratulations to Amcat on what is certainly a good deal for their firm; Countrywide Skips skipper (okay, he’s actually the managing director) David Austin says that he expects the Amcat system to “manage over 5,000 calls per month within the next few months and our inbound calls to increase to around 16,000 within 12 months.” Fine, that’s all well and good. But what is a skip, you may ask?

Unfortunately, www.countrywideskips.com is mostly out of commission. It seems someone is “currently doing a bit of building work on our site” and so nothing but the homepage can be accessed, so bang goes assistance from “About Us.” In bulbous and excited red and blue font, Countrywide Skips does provide all skip sizes, including mini, midi, builders, RO/ROs, and grab hire service. (I think that’s a size) and also with Jumbo Bag, you can buy it, fill it and we’ll take it away. This is starting to sound like a Riddle of Sphinx thing…hopefully, Amcat can help them with their site, too.

So over at the really swell Merriam-Webster website, there are no relevant definitions for “skip.” (I can’t imagine a firm with 400 depots in the U.K. would be in the business of stuffing bowls teams captains in Jumbo Bags.) I even checked out other sites reporting this story. Over at always informed and readable TMCNet, good ol’ editor David Sims put out an open appeal for an explanation of the damn word.

According to the 4100-plus page “Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary,” a skip may be defined as “in mining or quarrying, a bucket, box, basket, cage, or wagon, in which materials or men are drawn up or let down.” Could this be the business of Countrywide Skips?

In any event, Austin declared that “The beauty of the Amcat solution is that it is perfect for growing companies such as ourselves. We can add new capacity as we expand and implement new features when we need them. We also have the capability to integrate it with our other business systems such as Sage in the future.”

Hopefully, his firm can now get to work on that website.

Amcat is a leading provider of IP-based contact centre solutions. The Amcat clientele now numbers over 2,000 companies.