By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Email is a cost-effective way to reach customers and patients. But just because it’s cheap and easy doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea. When done incorrectly, email messages can alienate the very audience we’re trying to cultivate. Send Only Useful Messages: I once had the grand idea of using […]
Tag: marketing
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When Games Supersede Work
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Last September in my column, “Let’s Play,” I discussed gamification and questioned if it was mostly hype or offered merit. I wondered then – and still do – if gamification has any application in the contact center. Those who talk about gamification mostly do so from a theoretical perspective, lacking […]
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How Much Does it Cost to Ship Socks?
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD There’s a certain brand of wool socks that I like. Okay, I really, really like them. I’m wearing a pair right now. I wanted to try a different style, but the local outlets didn’t carry it. Though I prefer to buy online and bypass the “experience” of going to a […]
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The Right Touch
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Email is a cost-effective and simple way to reach out and touch clients and customers. But just because it’s cheap and easy, this doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea. When done wrong, email messages can alienate the audience you’re trying to cultivate. Send Only Useful Messages Many years ago […]
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A Wise but Shortsighted Decision
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD It recently became time to replace our 24-year old furnace. As the installer wrapped up his work, he began teaching about the critical aspects of carbon monoxide detection. I had placed our lone detector where the furnace and water heater were located; detecting the poisonous gas at its source, I […]
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The Waste of Excessive Packaging
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I upgraded some software and paid an extra ten bucks for the installation CD. This makes restoration much easier when it becomes necessary. But for instant gratification, I downloaded the software so that I could begin using it immediately, while waiting for the disk to arrive. (It took 29 days, […]
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Fax Removal Line: A Lesson in Futility
Unethical Business Practices Hurt Everyone By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD The deluge of phone calls was not how I wanted to start my week. These calls slammed my company’s sales line—with complaints against another company. What unfolded was a revealing look at the ugliness of unethical marketing tactics. Though I haven’t had a fax machine […]
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More News Than You Can Use
As a publisher, I receive all manner of press releases. Some are appropriately targeted and end up in one of my magazines, newsfeeds, or newsletters. Others are close, but slightly miss our focus, while many are seemingly sent to me without forethought or strategy. Here are the headlines that I have received in the past […]
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 […]
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More News Than You Can Use
A few months ago, I blogged about the various random press releases that I receive each day. In that post, I committed the faux pas of labeling them all as spam — and was quickly chastised for making a sweeping overstatement that was not entirely correct. In this, I was reminded that spam is in […]