By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In this column in the March issue, “Perceptions of Call Center Outsources,” I shared from a recent study conducted by ContactBabel, called The US Contact Center Operational Review. Billed as “the largest and most comprehensive study of all aspects of the US contact center industry,” this was their second edition […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. People often contact me in search of information about medical call centers. Whenever possible, I direct them to content on the 600-page AnswerStat website. These queries are the easy ones. However, often the inquisitor asks about benchmarking and statistical issues for medical call centers. This is frequently precipitated after the […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD At the World Economic Forum, Jim Wallis suggested that wondering when the global economic crisis would be over is the wrong question to ask – even though it is the one foremost on our minds. He posited that the real query should be, “How will this crisis change us?” After […]
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My Netflix Reviewer Rank
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of Netflix, the online movie rental site. In addition to making movie selections, I spend time rating movies so that Netflix can make recommendations of other flicks that I might enjoy; it generally works quite well. After watching one obscure selection online, Netflix asked me to write […]
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Do You Tweet?
Are you into Twitter? Do you tweet? Twitter, by the way, is self-billed as a “social messaging utility.” I prefer an alternate description as a “micro-blogging service.” Frankly, it’s been a challenge for me to keep these blog posts under my self-imposed limit of 300 words (this one stands at 278), so I can’t fathom […]
By Peter DeHaan, PhD IVR (Interactive Voice Response) has its place in the call center, but we need not overstate what that place is. If IVR can truly speed up the call for the caller or gather information to assist the agent in providing better service, then use it. However, when the primary goal of […]
A weekly (or almost weekly) magazine that I receive, recently announced that it was going to have four “green” issues this year, with the goal of being “carbon neutral” in 10 years. I was curious how they would handle this “green” issue. o their credit, they emailed me when it was ready and I went […]
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A Tale of Two Calls
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Among other things, my son Dan is a hockey player. We’ll never know if there was any connection, but this past summer he began experiencing lower back pain. The common advice to “take it easy and rest” was not helping, so we embarked on a more intentional course of action, […]
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DMNews Scales Back
Weekly news publications, I am told, are the ones most squeezed in today’s markets. They are wedged between the proverbial “rock” (instant news via the Internet that trumps weekly updates) and “hard place” (advertisers reallocating their ad dollars towards more established monthlies that target the same audience or online). One of the magazines that I […]
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Another One Bites the Dust
Today I learned that another magazine I read is ceasing publication. This isn’t really a surprise to me. In fact, I’m surprised that they have hung on this long. They were an advertiser-supported magazine and their number of ads has been a bit sparse as of late. From my perspective, their content focus and target […]