Facilitate Better Communication and Connectivity Within and Outside Your Operation By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. With the staffing challenges that most every healthcare call center faces, it’s more critical now than ever to optimize your operation for greater effectiveness and increased efficiency. One way to do this is to integrate your call center. Let’s consider […]
Tag: operations management
To Know Where You’re Headed You Must First Determine Where You Are By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Year end is an especially busy time at most telephone answering services, but that’s not an excuse to focus strictly on the present and stop thinking about the future. In fact, December is an ideal time to give […]
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The Fast-Food Factor
Does Your Call Center Have a Fast-Food Hiring Mentality? By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. I’ve never met anyone who felt they were overpaid. Occasionally someone will admit to being adequately compensated, but most people say their pay doesn’t reflect their work or value to the organization. This is especially true of call center agents. I’ve […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD If you have technology in your call center, then you’ve likely been frustrated by false alarms and erroneous error messages. I was recently reminded of this as I searched for the source of an alarm, warning me that something was awry at home. The culprit: was a carbon monoxide detector. […]
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Call Center Basics
By Peter DeHaan, PhD When I ask folks if they work at an in-house or an outsource call center, I am surprised at how frequently this question is fumbled. At risk of offending knowledgeable veterans, I offer the following call center basics: Inbound Call Centers answer calls. Their agents react, waiting for the phone to […]
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Are You Shrinking?
By Peter DeHaan, PhD In retail, the term “shrinkage” euphemistically refers to stock which “disappears” before it can be sold. It is product that the retailer bought, but can’t sell because it is has been stolen or lost. In the call center, the inventory is labor and shrinkage is agents who are being paid but […]
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The Perfect Answer
By Peter DeHaan, PhD How often have you called someplace and wondered if you reached the right number? All too often, calls are answered hurriedly, haphazardly, or incompletely. Or perhaps the agent seems out of breath by the time they complete a lengthy, tongue-twisting answer. It is vital that all calls be consistently answered in […]
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Call Center Benchmarking
A Path to Self-Improvement By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Benchmarking is the comparison of your call center with statistical results from the norm of industry peers. These numeric measurements are called metrics. Metrics can be in the form of financial figures, operational quality and efficiency, human resource efficacy, or whatever is deemed the most valuable […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. What is benchmarking? At its simplest, benchmarking is objectively comparing your call center with others. Brad Cleveland of Incoming Calls Management Institute states that “Benchmarking is comparing products, services, and processes with those of other organizations, to identify new ideas and improvement opportunities.” Whereas Dr. Jon Anton of Purdue University […]