Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
I’m not really surprised to learn of blogs being used as weapons during and after divorces. I was a little surprised to see that the practice is prevalent enough to attract the attention of mainstream media.
I was not a blogger when I went through my divorce, and my ex barely knows how to turn on a computer. I think I have enough sense not to blog about my dirty laundry, but it’s a truly scary thought to imagine my ex using a blog to attack me.
Posted in Ethics, Human Interest, Trends, Web 2.0 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on March 19, 2008
I’ve already written about how difficult it is to walk the talk when it comes to First Contact Resolution (FCR) — see, First Call Resolution: Great Principle, Hard to Apply.
So if you’re struggling with First Call Resolution in your center — whether to implement FCR, how to implement FCR, how to make sure what you track as FCR is meaningful — then you should be interested in ICMI’s latest Member Research Report on First Contact Resolution.
It’s free for ICMI Members. Whether you are an ICMI Member or not, you can download it right now. You’ll learn what your peers (298 call center professionals surveyed in January 2008) are doing with FCR for Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Customer Service, ICMI, ICMI Membership, ICMI Publications, Metrics, Research, Statistics, Trends | Tagged: Call Center Management, call center metrics, Call Centers, FCR, first call resolution, first contact resolution, ICMI, ICMI Membership, KPI, Metrics, research report | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on February 20, 2008
If you’ve been around the call center industry any length of time (say, 5 minutes), you’ve heard the buzz about “agent empowerment.” It’s a hip-sounding phrase, and if you’re a call center representative it has a nice ring to it. If you’re a call center manager, however, it may sound more vague and perhaps threatening to you (“I’m supposed to be the one with the power, right?”).
Of course, if you’re a call center manager, the chances are you’re a “people person,” anyway — since that’s an essential quality for success in the people-intensive call center environment — so you may already be touchy-feely and confident enough to appreciate the idea of empowering your employees. Don’t be scared: it will be good for you!
To help everyone understand the truth behind the buzz about agent empowerment, ICMI assigned our crack research team (that would be Greg Levin) to investigate. You can read the report for free if you’re an ICMI Member, or download it for $24.95 if you’re not so privileged. Here’s what you can expect: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, ICMI, ICMI Membership, ICMI Publications, Management, Research, Trends | Tagged: agent empowerment, Call Center Management, Call Centers, ICMI, ICMI Membership, ICMI Publications, Management, Research, Trends | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on February 8, 2008
That’s an attention-getting headline, isn’t it? Even though the date by which the billionth death would take place is the year 2100, it’s still an appalling prospect. But that’s the point the World Health Organization wanted to make, of course, in their report issued today, “WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008.” I read this AP article about it on Wired: “Tobacco Could Kill 1 Billion by 2100.”
The World Health Organization warned in a new report Thursday that the “tobacco epidemic” is growing and could claim 1 billion lives by the end of the century unless governments dramatically step up efforts to curb smoking.
Governments around the world are complicit in this travesty, it’s clear: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Ethics, Health, Human Interest, Politics, Research, Science, Trends | Tagged: cigarettes, epidemic, smoking, tobacco, WHO Report, world health organization | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 31, 2008
I won’t try to sum up Roger Cohen’s NYT column here. To do so would do it injustice. Read “America’s Riveting Democracy” for yourself.As this election campaign is demonstrating, the United States remains the most vital, open, self-renewing and democratic society on earth. In December 2007, there were 1,059,793 naturalization applications pending: one million people are not clamoring to join a nation in eclipse.
Posted in Politics, Trends | Tagged: democracy, Politics, Trends | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 31, 2008
Here’s yet another angle to consider regarding Hillary’s candidacy, in this NYT column, “The Dynastic Question,” by Nicolas Kristof.
Does it diminish American democracy if we keep the presidency in the same two families that have held it since 1989?
Posted in Trends | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 31, 2008
This is too funny — and scary! If you’ve got any kind of presence online at all (and if you’re reading this the chances are you do), you ought to read the reality check provided in this snappy Wired article, “How Facebook Exposed Us All as Freaks.”
So you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day in the traditional fashion — bucket of chicken, webcam, gorilla mask — and thinking, “Good thing I’m wearing this gorilla mask! Otherwise, my new pal fortyishhooffetishist might recognize me from Facebook!”
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Posted by Ted Hopton on January 30, 2008
I was disappointed by the naivite displayed in this post on the The 1to1 Blog, titled “When Will Contact Centers Be Taken Seriously?” I suppose people who only look into call centers now and then, or base their take on the state of the industry on a lunchtime gripe session at a conference are bound to miss what the actual trends are and may have an outdated view of the current state of the call center industry.
Sure, plenty of call centers still struggle with being perceived as cost centers, but the true trend we’ve been seeing in the industry is a positive one. More and more contact centers *are* getting recognized for the incredible value they provide to the organization. The value of call center data for analysis has never been higher, and the wide array of tools on the market to leverage this to understand the customer experience speaks to the attention executives are paying (in dollars, no less) to their frontline point of contact with customers: call centers. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Call Center Management, Call Centers, Trends | Tagged: Call Centers, Strategy, Trends | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 21, 2008
I like this Wired column, “How Email Brings You Closer to the Guy in the Next Cubicle,” by Tim Harford. His premise is that increasing use of email, web applications and online networking might be thought to minimize the need for living physically close to our workplaces and social circles. However, he concludes that, far from removing distance barriers, technology actually reinforces the value of proximity and face-to-face contact.
Technology makes it more fun and more profitable to live and work close to the people who matter most to your life and work. Harvard economist Ed Glaeser, an expert on city economies, argues that communications technology and face-to-face interactions are complements like salt and pepper, rather than substitutes like butter and margarine. Paradoxically, your cell phone, email, and Facebook networks are making it more attractive to meet people in the flesh.
Thought-provoking article — and although it runs counter to conventional wisdom, it rings true.
Posted in Technology, Trends, Web 2.0 | Tagged: Technology, Trends, Web 2.0 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ted Hopton on January 19, 2008
Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World is one of those enriched accounts of an historical event that I enjoy reading (another example is The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America). They also tend to have long titles that pretty much sum up what the book is about!
I was first intrigued by the “map” aspect of the book, since I misunderstood how important the mapping of cholera cases in London was to stopping the epidemic. In folklore, the map has been played up more than it merits. What’s really behind the successful intervention are remarkable and determined individuals with different perspectives who get drawn together unexpectedly. It’s a story of heroism as much as it is of science, and Stevens offers a forward-looking perspective on urban living in the future, as well.
Posted in Books, Health, Trends | Tagged: Books, Health, Innovation, Research, Science | Leave a Comment »
