By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. “You need a hobby,” my wife exclaimed in exasperation. I don’t recall the circumstances, but it is safe to assume that I was doing something she deemed a nuisance. Regardless of the cause of her frustration, her impromptu advice gave me pause. Yes, a pastime, a relaxing diversion, would be […]
Categories
Learning from History
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD One of the assignments I enjoyed most in college was analyzing case studies. I was, and continue to be, fascinated with learning what founders and their companies have done – both right and wrong. While the success stories are the more exciting and inspirational, it is the failures and missteps […]
Categories
Predicting the Future
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. It seems that seldom a week goes by when I don’t receive a call from someone wanting to interview me. Over time, I realized that the tenor of these interview requests falls into three categories. The first group is those who are trying to better comprehend call centers. The second […]
Categories
I Predict…
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD It seems that seldom a week goes by when I don’t receive a call from someone wanting to interview me. Sometimes it is a local newspaper, other times a specialty magazine. I was quite unnerved at my first interview request. I envisioned it being a hard-hitting, muckraking interrogation, intent on […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD It happened again. It shouldn’t surprise me but it does. In fact, it has been said so often that most people believe it to be true and accept it as fact. What am I talking about? Once again, a politician has stood up and impassionedly, emphatically, and convincingly asserted that […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Your call center may be an in-house operation or an outsourcer processing calls and contacts for other organizations. If you are an internal call center, you will be viewed either as a profit center or as a cost center (outsource call centers are always profit centers); also you could be […]
Categories
Are You In or Out?
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Since you are reading this column, it is highly likely that in some way or manner, you are in the call center industry. However, the question, “Are you in or out?” does not query your connection to the industry, but rather your participation within it. Those who operate call centers, […]
Categories
Call Center Credentials
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD You say and believe that your call center is good, but can you prove it? What you need is a credential. A credential is the verifiable recognition from an independent third party that you have earned and met a standard level of performance. Credentials fall under three, sometimes overlapping, classifications: […]
Categories
Call Center Benchmarking
A Path to Self-Improvement By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Benchmarking is the comparison of your call center with statistical results from the norm of industry peers. These numeric measurements are called metrics. Metrics can be in the form of financial figures, operational quality and efficiency, human resource efficacy, or whatever is deemed the most valuable […]
Categories
Beam Me Up Scotty
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD It was a lazy summer afternoon, a Friday. Things were a bit slow at the office and upper management had all left to get an early jump on their weekend. I, being a front-line manager, did not have that luxury. Besides, I had work that I wanted to complete before […]