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Call Center

Going Beyond the Call

Offer Call Backs and Customer Service Options By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. In thinking about going beyond the call, you may assume this is an article about offering web chat, text messaging, and email response in addition to handling phone calls. Though I’m an advocate of these options, thereby turning your call center into a […]

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Call Center

Make Chat Availability a Priority

Make Customer Service a Distinguishing Factor for Your Organization By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Companies are increasingly offering chat services as a way for their customers and prospects to reach them. Not only is this an option that more and more people want to use, but many businesses find it’s a cost-effective customer service solution. […]

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Call Center

Is Your Management Style Hurting Your Call Center?

After Doing All You Can on the Hiring Side, Turn Your Attention to Retention By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. A college friend recently shared his experience working at his part-time job. Several of his coworkers had quit, and he planned to do so as well. His departure would move his employer from drastically short-staffed to […]

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Call Center

Embrace SaaS Flexibility

Tap Internet Provided Services to Maximize Outcomes By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. SaaS (Software as a Service) is a subscription service that provides software solutions from a centrally located host. It also goes by other names, with some vendors making distinctions between various offerings. For our purposes, however, we’ll look at the concept generically. SaaS […]

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Call Center

Call Center Work-at-Home Opportunities

The Benefits of Home-Based Telephone Agents By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. In the past few years, we’ve seen an unprecedented move to pursue work-at-home opportunities in call centers. Granted, a few operations were already there. And some outright reject home-based staff as an option. But others have embraced a distributed workforce as a new way […]

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Call Center

Look Forward To Embrace The New Year

Seek to Control Whatever You Can to Produce Optimum Outcomes By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. The last two years have been rough. And I’m ready to embrace the new year. Though I hate to tap the too-often-stated label of unprecedented, it’s an apt description of what we’ve been through. Just as individuals have suffered, so […]

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Call Center

Dealing With Staff Shortages

Tips to Achieve a Full Schedule for Your Call Center By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. For years many call centers have faced an ongoing challenge to fully staff their operation. But over the last year and a half this quest has become even more difficult, with an increased number of people opting to stay home […]

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Call Center

Call Center Innovation Provides Fresh Opportunities

Develop a Mindset of Ongoing Change to Produce Meaningful Results By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Most call center owners and managers want to see innovation in their call center. They yearn for leading-edge solutions that will promote quality and drive client loyalty. These are lofty goals. And they are also equally hard to realize. In […]

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Call Center

Create Sticky Customer Service in Your Call Center

Real World Customer Service Stories to Inform Your Practices By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD For over twenty years I’ve written a “From the Publisher” column in each issue of Connections Magazine. For many years that meant six columns a year, although it initially was four and at one time it ballooned up to ten, but […]

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Call Center

The Benefits of Home-Based Call Center Agents

Discover Why Every Call Center Should Move Toward Having a Remote Staff By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Many businesses struggle to find entry-level employees. This includes the call center industry. Though the technology to allow for remote work has existed for a long time—and continues to get better—some call centers are reluctant to embrace the […]