Author Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, publishes books about business, customer service, the call center industry, and business and writing.
Hiring someone to market our books seems like a logical decision. After all, we hire professionals to edit our books and design our covers, so why not book marketing too? This is exactly what I thought and precisely what I did. Over the years I’ve hired a book launch expert, a publicist, a book marketing […]
Technology May Save Money but Human Agents Make the Difference By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. We’ve been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence (AI), and we’re going to hear a lot more about it. Some claim AI is the future of the call center industry, saving money and retaining business. Others fear it’s the end […]
A Decentralized Call Center Is an Oxymoron By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In the early days of our industry, the label call center fit perfectly. We handled calls from a central location. This was necessitated by the platform we used, which we installed in our office. It consisted of physical hardware to switch calls and […]
Some publishers strongly suggested that authors use their advance for marketing their book. Though this sounds reasonable, my advice is not to do it unless you have a long-term reason for it. First, let’s talk about advances. An advance for a book was originally intended as money for the author to live on as they […]
Now May Be the Time to Say Goodbye to Your Premise-Based System and Move into the Future By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Hosted telephone answering service systems have been around for a long time. Though many operations have praised the benefits of using a hosted system and switched to them, other services have been resistant […]
Address These Critical Items to Better Retain Staff and Serve Callers By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Operating a successful call center in the healthcare industry is hard. There is a never-ending tension to balance the expectations of patients and callers with the needs of operational staff, all the while remaining fiscally viable. Here are six […]
When most people think about using artificial intelligence to write, their mind goes to people who may abuse the technology. Yes, some people will use AI to churn out sub-par books. But don’t worry about them. Instead, look to how you use AI. View AI as a tool to help you write better, just like […]
We Should Embrace AI as a Useful Toolset and Not Fear It By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Artificial intelligence (AI) is not a fad that will soon go away. It’s a fundamental shift in how all businesses—and even every person—will function in the future. And though you may not yet realize it, that future is […]
Rejection hurts. We’ve all heard stories of popular books that had scores of editors or publishers reject them before someone realized the potential and published them. The rest is publishing history. Since writers deal with a lot of rejection, Writer’s Digest had the idea to provide a creative outlet for them to vent their frustration. […]
Technology Provides More Communication Channels to Serve Patients Better By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD The label of call center referencing outward-facing communications is an historically accurate term. At one time it handled calls from a central location. Hence, we formed a descriptively accurate name of call center. But many call centers have moved beyond calls […]