By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Do you like spam? Does anyone? I’m not talking about the luncheon meat product SPAM, which is produced by Hormel Foods Corporation, but rather the inundation of unwanted messages that increasingly plagues us. Unless you happen to be one of those who delight in propagating spam messages, I am confident […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. This fall, the thoughts of school age children everywhere are focused on returning to school. Some approach the new school year with dread and trepidation, a few with excitement and high expectation, and others with inevitable acquiescence and acceptance. Regardless of their personal perspective, many will be faced with the […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Telephone answering services are by definition a subset of the call center industry. However, while the greater call center industry has a history spanning more than 30 years, telephone answering service has an 80-year history. In the 1920s, and the decades that followed, enterprising entrepreneurs began opening localized telephone answering […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. The first annual Reach for the Stars Pediatric Telehealth Conference was held April 30 through May 1 in Bloomington, MN. The conference, organized by Children’s Physician Network of Minneapolis-St Paul, MN, focused on Achieving Clinical Excellence in Telephone Triage. With nearly 300 participants and a dozen vendors represented, attendance exceeded […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. AnswerStat magazine (AS): Joe, you own and operate Mediconnect, a telephone answering service for the healthcare industry. How did you get started and how long have you been in business? Joseph Sameh (JS): I was a business/clinical practice manager beginning in 1976. Growing practices was among my primary responsibilities. Each […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In retail, the term shrinkage is euphemistically used to reference stock which “disappears” before it can be sold. In essence it is a product that the retailer bought, but can’t sell. To be direct, shrinkage is theft. While some of this occurs in the form of shoplifting, it also results […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In the years between high school graduation and my first real job, I took on a variety of part-time work while being a full-time student. One job was at a machine shop, where my sole goal was to have all body parts intact when I left. Another job was laboring […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Last month, in part one of this article, we discussed Benchmarking. The premise was that there is value in being able to statistically compare your call center with other centers. Taking that concept to the next level, there is the more intense and equally more valuable Business Improvement Group. Business […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD North American culture salutes the solitary leader, the charismatic visionary, and the lone voice. It celebrates those boldly marching to the beat of a different drum. It is this perspective that makes for exciting cinema, painting an inspirational picture for viewers to admire and emulate; it successfully offers to fill […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Growing up I remember a commercial on the radio with the tag line, “Service sold it.” Even as a young child I was able to grasp the concept that this business provided such a high level of service that their mere reputation was sufficient for them to close sales and […]