Categories
Call Center

What Clients of Outsourcers Seek

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Not surprisingly, the vast majority of readers of Connections Magazine operate a call center. Many are outsourcers, providing contact center services for other organizations, while the rest are internal (in-house) call centers that outsource, or have the potential to outsource, some or all of their contact center work. Consequently, there […]

Categories
Call Center

Does IVR Stand for “Idiotic Voice Response”?

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Last fall I bought a new wireless router for my network. One of the features it boasted was the option to connect an external hard drive to it for backing up files from any network computer. As you might suspect, I wasn’t able to get it to work, so I […]

Categories
Healthcare Call Centers

Watch What You Bill

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. One of the common outcries emanating from the healthcare debate is the charges for services rendered. Seemingly, everyone has a story about an outrageous bill covering what he or she perceived as a relatively minor procedure, test, or visit. Although those generating the bills know the imperative need to capture […]

Categories
Business

Fewer Magazines Means More Attention on Those That Remain

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I am a voracious magazine reader. For years, I have had a stack of magazines awaiting my attention. Although I eventually read them, it may not be done quickly. Lately, however, my backlog of unread magazines has been steadily diminishing. This is because some magazines have ceased publication, others have […]

Categories
Writing and Publishing

The AWOL Blogger is Back

It’s been two weeks since my last blog and some are wondering what happened.  This is the longest span of non-blog-activity that I have encountered since I began walking down this path. It’s not that I’ve run out of ideas; I have plenty: from the rabbits in my yard, to Super Bowl ads, to the […]

Categories
Telephone Answering Service

Seasonal Traffic Opportunities

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD As a publisher, December is a slower time of the year for me. It’s not that I have less work to do, but I have fewer interruptions in the form of ancillary email messages and phone calls. Conversely, for most answering services, the winter holidays present the opposite scenario, with […]

Categories
Call Center

The Future of the Call Center Industry – and the Magazine that Supports It

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD When mapping out the future, it’s always wise to first look back to see where we’ve been. In 2009, the call center industry has gone through a lot. Like most industries in the United States, and likely around the world, the economy was – and continues to be – a […]

Categories
Writing and Publishing

More News Than You Can Use

As a publisher, I receive all manner of press releases. Some are appropriately targeted and end up in one of my magazines, newsfeeds, or newsletters. Others are close, but slightly miss our focus, while many are seemingly sent to me without forethought or strategy. Here are the headlines that I have received in the past […]

Categories
Healthcare Call Centers

Would You Buy Shoes from This Man?

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. When my daughter visits, we often go for walks. Unfortunately, I had been finding it necessary to forego that particular pursuit, not because of a lack of interest, but because blisters would be a painful result. Although we were both dismayed at this, it was my daughter who took the […]

Categories
Call Center

Blogging about Technology

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I’ve been actively blogging for about two years (see blog.peterdehaan.com: 376 posts, 102,000 words, with 1,000 article views a week; the record is 2,065). I cover whatever is on my mind, anything and everything, from work to personal, from trivial to profound, from mainstream to geeky. I organize my musings […]