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If I had a dollar for every contact center that claims to be highly customer-centric, I’d be able to purchase a condo in Aspen. If I had a dollar for every contact center that truly embodies customer-centricity, I’d be able to purchase a lift ticket in Aspen — maybe.
To get you started, here are the seven (7) “critical tactics of the most customer-centric contact centers” that Greg identifies: Read the rest of this entry »
An annual report is more than just a report on a set of metrics or measurements. In the call center we often get wrapped up in reporting only the metrics “that the executive asked for.” Read the rest of this entry »
Gordon MacPherson (founder of ICMI and my business partner for many years) was first to use the term “call center” sometime in the early 1980s. Before that, these environments used other terms – reservations, telephone centers, etc.
Best Regards,
Brad
_______________________
Brad Cleveland
President
ICMI, International Customer Management Institute
P.O. Box 6177; Annapolis, MD 21401 USA
410-267-0700, ext 958 | 410-267-0962 (fax)
bradc@icmi.com | www.icmi.com
In case you are a regular ICMI’s QueueTips reader, no, we did not miss our deadline last Friday. Well, we did not publish on the regularly scheduled day, but it’s on purpose so we can continue to test whether Monday is a better day to send the ICMI’s QueueTips notification email.
After our initial test two weeks ago, we noticed significantly more readers were active on the website and forums. If Mondays are better for more of you than Fridays for ICMI’s QueueTips to be published, that’s fine with me! call center management
I just published an interesting response from a frontline supervisor to a question in ICMI’s QueueTips: “Call Center Management Structure” (Response #3). But it wasn’t the content of the posting that got my attention as much as her closing comment:
I would love to know more about how other call centers are structured as I am writing a master’s thesis on the topic of call center leadership. — Karen, L.L. Bean, Inc.
Pretty cool! Do you know how many of your frontline supervisors are writing a thesis on some aspect of call center management? How much are you doing to encourage this kind of professional development in your management team? call center management
I just posted a great rant from a CSR about Average Handle Time (AHT) objectives in her call center, and how miserable she is trying to work under them. It’s not the most eloquent argument you’ll ever read, but it is heartfelt, passionate and shows that she “gets it” better than her management team does: doing a good job responding to callers’ needs is more important than an arbitrary (and in this case, unreasonable) AHT target.
The post is in ICMI’s QueueTips, under the topic, “Average Handle Time Standard.” It’s Response #6, so scroll down the page if you want to skip directly to it. If you’ve got AHT standards in your call centers, this rant is must reading! Could she be working in your center right now? call center management
I recently posted a response in ICMI’s QueueTips Forums, responding to a call center manager who was struggling to find the right words to explain her call center’s value proposition.
Since in my first career I specialized in teaching writing, I suggested a couple of methods to help get the words flowing (free writing, role playing), and I also attached a free copy of an article from the ICMI Members Online Archive, “The Elevator Conversation and Other Call Center Management Challenges,” written by a leading industry expert, Kathleen Peterson, and published in Call Center Management Review.
Well, it took hours of my time, largely because I am learning by trial and error, but I finally got my first video posted on YouTube, in the ICMI QueueTube channel. It’s not going to win an Oscar, but I think I did a decent job with the production of it, and I hope to become more skilled with practice.
It’s an interview by ICMI’s Brad Cleveland with Wolfgang Neuhauser, 2007 Call Center Manager of the Year in Austria. This was part of ICMI’s Global Forum at ACCE, the Annual Call Center Exhibition, our global conference on call center management, in September 2007.
I’ve started hearing more people talking about automated callback technology in glowing terms. That’s when an announcement plays while you are waiting for your call to be answered, offering to have the call center call you back instead of making you wait in the queue. Even my mother likes it (she always tells me what she likes and doesn’t like about call centers she has called, every time we get together). But I admit I have never been that fond of the practice of postponing calls to be handled later, and I further confess that my bias was heavily influenced by a discussion years ago with Jay Minnucci, ICMI’s Vice President of Consulting Services.
So I emailed Jay recently to see if he’s been won over to the automated callback approach. In a word, “no,” but his response is more fun to read than that: Read the rest of this entry »
In case you are a regular ICMI’s QueueTips reader, no we did not miss our deadline last Friday. Well, we did not publish on the regularly scheduled day, but it’s on purpose so we can test whether Monday is a better day to send the ICMI’s QueueTips notification email. We’ve been sending it on Friday afternoon for so long that it seemed like a good time to test changing it. We’ll look at the statistics and decide whether to stick with Fridays or change to Mondays. call center management
Great article by Greg Levin in ICMI’s Customer Management Insight (CMI), Tactics of Truly Customer-Centric Centers.” I recommend reading it. Here’s a taste:
call center management 
I’ve started hearing more people talking about automated callback technology in glowing terms. That’s when an announcement plays while you are waiting for your call to be answered, offering to have the call center call you back instead of making you wait in the queue. Even my mother likes it (she always tells me what she likes and doesn’t like about call centers she has called, every time we get together). But I admit I have never been that fond of the practice of postponing calls to be handled later, and I further confess that my bias was heavily influenced by a discussion years ago with 
