Offers Key Insights for the Call Center and Contact Center Industry Running a call center is challenging, but it can also be rewarding. In his latest book Call Center Connections, call center veteran and publisher of Connections Magazine, Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, provides practical insights and tips to help call center professionals excel in their […]
Call Center Outsourcing Can Produce Significant Outcomes By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD As healthcare facilities evaluate their effectiveness and efficiencies, they scrutinize every area. One such consideration is the call center. At some point they often consider the benefits of outsourcing their call center work to a specialist company that focuses entirely on providing call […]
Consider the Pros and Cons By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Call centers were once centralized operations that functioned at a singular facility. Yet, thanks to today’s technology, they no longer need to be constrained to one location. This means that today’s call center can function as a distributed enterprise, with some agents working from a […]
Examine the Benefits and Disadvantages of Video Calling By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD For years, some call center managers have looked forward to having video capability in their call centers. Others weren’t so open to video calls. And most agents have opposed it as well. Yet the past few years have prepared us, even conditioned […]
Discover the Right Balance in Agent Scheduling for Your Healthcare Contact Center By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Some healthcare call centers only employ full-time staff. Others do the opposite and only hire part-timers. The ideal solution might be to balance a combination of both full-time and part-time agents. Full-Time Call Center Agents A key benefit […]
You Can’t Schedule for the Unexpected, but That’s No Excuse to Be Unprepared By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Traffic at many call centers fluctuates with the weather, affecting some centers more so than others. Of course, non-weather-related events can also impact call traffic. This includes natural disasters, pandemics, riots, the threat of violence, media-produced frenzies—and […]
Printed Words Offer Many Benefits over Their Electronic Counterparts By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In addition to writing a lot, I also read a lot. I read both print and e-book formats. I have a Kindle loaded with content, and I also read on my phone. At one point, I read mostly e-books, but over […]
Be Ready for Artificial Intelligence to Revolutionize Your Call Center By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD One of the spaces I inhabit is the call center industry. Another of my worlds is writing. These two areas intersect in this column. Another commonality is how technology, specifically artificial intelligence (AI), will affect both sectors. Futurists in the […]
Pursue Big-Picture Solutions, Not Incremental Improvements By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD There’s a lot of talk about customer experience and ways to enhance it. Though this is the right outcome, too often the approach to get there is shortsighted. Making incremental changes to improve one metric may help a bit, but how many metrics must […]
How to Survive When Receiving Twice the Calls or Having Half the Staff or Both By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Running a call center is hard, at least doing it right. Even under normal conditions, managers struggle to balance traffic and staffing levels while maintaining high quality and minimizing complaints. But what happens when conditions […]