By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Having just returned from the 2009 ATA Convention and Expo in New Orleans, I am still processing all the valuable information that was presented and the insightful ideas that were shared. Between the several keynote addresses and multiple breakout sessions, there were over thirty presentations of which to avail oneself. […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD The label “call center” amuses me. Firstly, most call centers now process more than just calls, such as email messages and text chats. Though revising “call center” to “contact center” seems to adequately address that concern, it’s a moniker that’s never clicked with me. The second consideration is ironically that […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I wonder if my local phone company is clueless; it seems that they just don’t get it. By “it,” I mean everything: marketing, pricing, customer retention, technical support, and customer service. Although they are surely aware that they no longer function in a monopoly environment, their actions belie that reality. […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD There has been a great deal of change in the DeHaan household over the past year. Last summer Laura and Chris were married, with Laura moving out of state and looking for a new teaching job. Plus, they both started graduate school last fall. This spring, Dan and Kelli graduated […]
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, 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, […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I have long been a proponent of the necessity for outsourcing call centers to have websites. In fact, I view a website as a veritable requirement for success in today’s market. To the point, call centers lacking a website are quickly viewed as second-rate providers and not worth the consideration […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD There are many good things happening in the call center industry. Millions of people are employed in productive positions that benefit both commerce and the economy. These jobs are desirable nonmanufacturing positions and essentially nonpolluting, making them highly attractive to state and local governments’ job-creation efforts. Call center agents receive […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In the most recent U.S. presidential election, both major party candidates were claiming to be the true agents for change. Whenever I hear a politician spouting change rhetoric, I am immediately cynical. My initial reaction is that they are disingenuously saying what they need to in order for people to […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In recent months there has been a great deal to cogitate about. There was a media preoccupation with the U.S. presidential election, coupled with a focus on the credit crisis, which seemed to worsen every day, eventually turning into a financial crisis and threatening the global economy. Throughout it all, […]