Management, Human Resources, and Life in a Customer Focused World

In January 2008, I wrote a post that still brings in a good amount of traffic (KPI (Key Performance Indicators) – Are they what they used to be?). In this post, I defined six KPI that I find to be the ones that are quality and quantity focused. A while back, I was in a [...]

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A while back,  a contact of mine from an “addiction treatment, publishing, education, research, and recovery support” contact center, asked me a question.  I didn’t have an answer for her since I’d never dealt with headset problems or complaints in the past, but she was able to eventually get the information she needed.
Her question was:
I am [...]

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Historically speaking, call centers have all too often been split — you’re either a selling agent or you’re a service agent. These two hiring profiles were polar opposites and even when sitting together in the same area they held themselves apart by force of personality and title separation. This was the paradigm that [...]

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I just reposted a post I wrote with some information about the compensation levels for call center functions at an agent level for 2007.  The same report (the U.S. Contact Center Compensation Survey by the Mercer Human Resources Consulting group) detailed some call center management pay for the same year (2007).
For Team/Group Managers, some of [...]

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Tom Vander Well’s QAQNA blog had an amusing post today that I wanted to share.  He talks about how you “Dress” your conversation.
Basically, his point is that a company with a physical dress code expects that their employees adhere to it. Coming to work in shorts and a T-shirt when the dress code is slacks [...]

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Reposted from early last year — I’m still trying to find a similar survey done for 2008 compensation to see how things have changed.
The amount that a call center agent is paid makes a big difference to them and to the company’s success. In general, the median total cash compensation varies about $3 dollars depending [...]

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In November 2008, I wrote about six “crucial” scores to look at in my  Quality v Quantity (recovered 2/18) entry.  These six scores are what I’d call a “next generation contact center’s KPI”.
What is KPI?

“Key Performance Indicators” (KPI) are financial and non-financial metrics used to quantify objectives to reflect strategic performance of an organization. KPIs [...]

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Ask a Manager is a blog where people write in and ask questions of the writer.  The latest post is about scheduling — a very pertinent question in a call center environment.  The questioned asked, in summary, was
my boss has written me in for shifts without asking me if I am available.
Almost everyone in a [...]

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Contact centers tend to be at the core of this arguement. Quality vs Quantity. What is truly the most important? Does a person’s Average Speed of Answer (ASA) mean more than their customer feedback score? Is the abandon rate the key or does customer satisfaction play a role? In truth, the answer is not [...]

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Back at the end of January 2008, MSN published an article called “10 Ways to Get Fired From a Home-Based Position” by the CEO of VIPDesk. (I can’t find the link anymore).
Here’s a few that I want to stress.

Having customers hear your kids playing in the background

Working in a noisy area or with the TV [...]

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