News
eBooks, the future of interactions in classrooms?
Written by Olivier Adam on Monday, 18 January 2010 22:55
Our latest article is more related to mainstream technology, and just writing an article about this specific technology is more challenging as every week sees the launch of a new product that confirms our predictions even more. Enjoy this article and if you happen to read it on a eBook reader, please send us a picture! :)
Click [here] for the full article.
Adapting schools to the Cyber Generation
Written by Olivier Adam on Monday, 07 December 2009 13:41
The TIME magazine is running a poll in which you can vote for the best inventions of 2009. Out of the 50 inventions listed, some are quite interesting (while some definitely don't deserve to be on that list). One that caught our attention is titled "school of one" which seems as an attempt to revolutionize the school system to better teach students. Is it hard to realize for many, but the students on school benches in high school are the first of the Cyber Generation to be there. Some changes that might not have been as welcome by the Generation Y kids have a potential here of being widely accepted by this new generation.
Go check out the 50 best inventions, and vote for your favorite!
Disconnect with Generation Y
Written by Rejean Bourgault on Wednesday, 24 June 2009 21:46
Retail Market
The world is changing rapidly and so are customer demands. In today’s retail market, young consumers (Generation Y, 29 years-old and younger) are demanding new ways of interacting and communicating in everyday life. The other day, one of our 5Deka fans described to us a simple interaction he witnessed between two 15 year-old girls and a cashier sales rep in a Montreal retail store (the name of the store is not important – suffice it to say, it was a boutique chain store catering to teenage girls). As you will see, this example is an illustration of the disconnect between generations in the retail market. Some companies get it, some don’t.The two young girls saw a nice item at the cash register counter, and the sales rep explains to the ladies that this item will be in special in a couple of weeks:
- Great, the girl responded, can you send us an email when it comes in special, and we will come back?
- Huh? No… We do not offer this type of service.
- Oh, well then, can I give you my cell phone number, and you’ll send us a text message (SMS)?
- Huh? No… We do not offer this service either.
- How come? We are members of Tristan (another chain of clothing) and we regularly receive their price specials by email. They even are on Facebook now!
- Well… Sorry, but you can call us in a few weeks and will let you know if the item is on special.
- Sorry, but why should we be calling you? This makes no sense.
In this particular example above, a retail store could use e-mail, instant messaging or text messaging to not only inform customers of the specials of the week but to also let them know about new stock arrival, new colors available for their favorite products, etc.
Question for you: What kind of communications tools do you use to interact with your customers? Have you taken the time to train your employees properly? As a matter of fact, the unnamed store chain mentioned in the story above also offers their privileged or club members a similar service of sending specials and sales to them in advance. The two girls, with good reason, were asking for personalized service, as if they were dealing with a small specialized boutique, and we believe each retail chain or store should be in position to interact via email, chat (Instant Messaging) and SMS with their client to stay competitive. By the way, offering all these types of customer interactions is not unique to the retail industry; it can be applied to other industries, such as Finance, Insurance, Government, etc…
A good example of different communication methods offered to students is the Student Price Card (www.spccard.ca) that my 14 year-old daughter showed me the other day. In the member profile section, the Web site offers students, four choices of communication interactions: E-mail, phone, text message (SMS on Cell phone) and Instant Message (like MSN messaging).
Question: Are you already offering or planning to offer all these type of communications? If not, you have to catch the wave right now as you are already late. The new cyber generation (15 years old and less) will soon expect companies to interact with them in the Virtual world.
Contact Center
Each year, suppliers of Contact Center technology introduce new features and functionality in order to improve on efficiency and adapt to new customer demands. One such feature introduced in 2009, is multimedia interaction, via phone, fax, email or chat, allowing an agent to treat multiple type of customer interactions in real time. In a recent training session on this new version of software, there was a clear disconnect between Generation X & Baby Boomers and Generation Y attendees. The Generation Y-ers, were embracing this new capability, while the other two “student generations” in the room (those 29 to 60 years old) could not grasp how a contact Center agent could concentrate and process more than one task / transaction at a time. The reason is simple; the mindset of the ‘older’ generation is still focused on what they have been used to seeing for the past 20 years, in other words, an agent only answers telephone calls. This is yet another wake up call and a clear disconnect between generations. For example, just watch a 15 year old kid manage five concurrent MSN chat sessions in real-time, all the while listening to their iPOD and doing homework at the same time.
Car industry
Finally, my last example for this week is pertains to the car automotive industry. While visiting a car dealership last week, the Sales Rep told me how busy and how successful his counterpart was by handling 100% of e-mails and on-line Web requests for quotes and information for that particular car dealer.
I told the Sales Rep how much I appreciated corresponding with him via e-mail after our first face-to-face meeting and encouraged him to be diligent and disciplined with his e-mails, from first contact to the final closing of the deal, as Generation Y will be very demanding of e-mail correspondence as well as SMS chat. He agreed that he needs to recognize the importance of being proficient when using his keyboard, having been recently advised by some customers not to call them on the phone, rather, that they prefer corresponding with greater frequency via e-mail instead.
Another thing comes to mind - if I were a sales manager at a car dealership today, I would not want all on-line requests only going to the one rep that has become proficient in e-mailing. I would fight for equal distribution to the entire sales force, not only to benefit from advances in multimedia communications, but to survive in the future as well.
You can download this article to share with friends and colleagues [here].
Barcode keeps on going
Written by Olivier Adam on Sunday, 22 March 2009 03:19
An articles in the IndiaTimes mentions scientists from Edith Cowan University that are working on a new generation of bar codes. This new generation of bar codes, based on the quite popular "2D bar code" commonly in use in Japan for example, would contain extra information and could transmit ringtones, images and even programs directly to the cellphone once read. This will require though more precise camera phones, but the manufacturers are already ahead of us with most mobile phones being shipped with 3.2MP or more and extra features like flash, image stabilizer, etc.