Author Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, publishes books about business, customer service, the call center industry, and business and writing.
Analyze Your Short Stories In my post “Writers Should Start Short and Then Go Long,” I talked about the benefits of writing short stories. I’ve catalogued mine and analyzed them. You should analyze your short stories too. Here Are My Results So far, I’ve written 23 short stories (plus one that turned into a novella). […]
Writers Should Start Short and Then Go Long In “How to Write a Book,” I posted that the best approach for aspiring book authors is to start out with shorter pieces. No one wants to hear that, but it’s true. Shorter pieces let writers experiment and learn—quickly. Feedback is fast. And in an online world, […]
Align Sales and Marketing Strategy with Client Geographic Distribution By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Since you can target online ads to specific markets, conduct a geographic analysis of where your customers are located. Let the results inform future ad targeting. Here are some considerations: Local Market Though there’s no longer a technical reason to go […]
In 2016 I posted “Recommended Podcasts for Writers and Content Producers.” Though I’ve made some updates to my writing podcasts post over the years, it’s time to make a new post. Of that list of 17 podcasts, six have ceased and one I stopped listening to. That means 10 have remained, some of which have […]
Now Is an Ideal Time to Enhance the Skill Level of Your Telephone Staff By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. We live in interesting times, to say the least. Too often the healthcare call center industry spends much time focusing on the crisis of today that it squashes all thought about planning for tomorrow. Once we […]
Writers are often unsure of how to format thoughts in their writing. Thoughts are best put in italic and do not include quotes. For example: I hope this description makes sense to you. An attribute tag, such as “he thought” is not used, since the person doing the thinking should be obvious from the context. […]
Customer Service Failure Exists in Both Big and Small Ways By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD After moving from one town to another, I continued working with my long-time business accountant. Though most of our interactions occurred over the phone and through email, I persisted in making an hour-long trek to his office each tax season. […]
Some writers post new material on social media. Others repeat content from their blog. I do neither. Here’s why. Republishing the whole post isn’t a good idea because it repeats content, and search engines dismiss duplicate content. And I feel it’s too time-consuming and therefore not a good use of my time to write new […]
Real World Customer Service Stories to Inform Your Practices By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD For over twenty years I’ve written a “From the Publisher” column in each issue of Connections Magazine. For many years that meant six columns a year, although it initially was four and at one time it ballooned up to ten, but […]
Verify Key Information and Don’t Assume You Know the Answer By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD My first full-time job was repairing copy machines. One day, toward the end of my short tenure there, the new service manager shared his vision for the future of his department. The company had two product lines, each with its […]