By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I wrapped up last year by buying a lot of products online—well, at least it was a lot by my standards. Some items were gifts, a few were for myself as I took advantage of Christmas sale prices, and the rest were for work to complete purchases before the fiscal […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I see more and more companies moving away from forced self-service to some degree of customer service. It matters not if they offer customer service by telephone, text chat, or email. What’s important is their attempt to provide support to customers and not let them flounder. This is good for […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I’ve been in many situations lately where people ask me what I do for a living. It’s a query I dread, not because I’m embarrassed but because I find the follow-up questions exhausting. Here’s an example: “What do you do?” the woman asks. “I’m a writer, and I publish magazines.” […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD The call center has had its share of detractors over the years, from businesses that dismissed it as an unnecessary cost to consumers quick to voice their frustrations and politicians who want to fix it. (Actually most of the politicians just want to garner support from frustrated voters.) One big […]
A literal implementation of omnichannel makes no sense and would not be cost-effective By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD When a new technology emerges it sometimes takes a while for the industry to converge on a singular label to describe it. Such is the case with the vision to fully integrate multiple communication channels in order […]
Too Many Poorly Implemented Surveys Have Conditioned People to Disregard Them By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Organizations of all types know the importance of receiving feedback from their stakeholders, be it their customers, clients, stockholders, prospects, users, participants, donors, volunteers, or advocates. A stakeholder who feels heard is one who feels valued. This results in […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD For the past five years, Connections Magazine has taken one issue each year to focus on healthcare, be it telehealth, telephone triage, or healthcare contact centers. For the last couple of years, this has occurred in our March issue. Our sister publication, AnswerStat, focuses on the healthcare contact center industry. […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD My wife ordered a coat online from a well-known regional chain for a Christmas present. She has a history of positive shopping experiences at the chain’s physical stores and assumed their virtual store would be no different. The coat went on sale the week before Black Friday, and when combined […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD After our basement flooded and the insurance company said, “Sorry, you’re not covered,” I knew it was time to find a new insurer. As I scanned a website for an insurance agent’s phone number, I spotted an information request form. I filled it out, including the customer-centric option: “How should […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD It doesn’t matter if a call is answered in a modern contact center or by one person in a small, single-phone office. In both cases customers evaluate them the same way and expect the same outcomes; each call is compared with every other call and judged accordingly, regardless of who […]