Reflections of a Call Center Owner

CallCenterScript.com

2005-10-24T09:39:00.000-06:00

I have decided to move my blog from Blogger to MovableType so I can have more features and options. I have copied over my previous posts to my new home at:

http://www.callcenterscript.com/

Please visit me there to find my latest post!

Indian Sweat Shops

2005-10-05T21:33:00.000-06:00

I came across this following article written by an Indian that worked at a call center.

To help US readers - 7,500 Rupees is equal to about $170 monthly income. That equates to about US$1.50 per hour.

The US call centers pay on average between $7 and $10 per hour for an average agent. The US call centers also offer a 20 minute paid break every four hours. Many offer break rooms with microwaves, free pop, and other such benefits. Add on top of that the cost of FICA and other employment taxes that the Call center must pay and you can come up with a fully loaded agent hourly cost of $10-$14.

You can see why a US Call Center tries to average at least $22 per billable hour and Indian Call Center can get away with charging $14-$18 per hour.

But when you outsource, consider that the agent in India might be enduring conditions like this.

This, in his own words, is his story:

I am 20 years old.

I was recently hired by a call centre in Kolkata to work for an overseas-based company. I was earning Rs 7,500 per month.

My workday began with calls I had to answer for five hours continuously, without a break.

As soon as I was through with one call, the next one would be waiting.

There was no time for me to even say a few words to the person sitting next to me.

After five hours of constantly answering calls, I would get a 20-minute break.

Then, I would take calls again for another three hours. Without a break.

I would take around 350 calls a day.

One day, I reached breaking point.

After taking 156 calls at a stretch, my throat started to hurt terribly.

I paused to take a breath and, in the process, I missed a call.

The calls that are directed to us were constantly monitored by a machine. Immediately, it alerted my supervisor to the fact that I had missed a call. My supervisor came and asked me why I was in the 'wrap mode'.

What this means is that my dialler shows a red bar when the person on the other end of the line hangs up without getting a response. The red bar is an indication that I did not take the call -- that the call was not 'live'.

At that moment, I just wanted to pick up my bag and leave. Permanently.

Instead, I stayed calm for the duration of my hours at work.

I fielded all my calls till 1 am.

But I had made up my mind -- I would quit this job with its inhuman pressures and its lack of empathy for employees.

Workplaces like this have only one goal -- to make money. This job expects you to work even if you are feeling ill; even if your throat hurts.

You cannot take even a 10-second break; the dialler throws calls at you continuously and you have to start pitching (taking them) immediately.

If you do not respond to the person at the other end of the line, s/he might hang up. That shows on your machine.

You have to ask for permission to go to the toilet. Often, your request is denied by your supervisor.

You repeat the same five sentences 350 times a day.

Isn't it pathetic?

When I started out, there was no pressure. Gradually, though, the stress grew beyond the levels of human tolerance.

Working at the call centre was a great learning experience for me. Now, it was time for a break.

When I worked, I had no time to watch a film, no time to read a book, no time to meet friends, no time to swim.

For the last few months that I worked at the call centre, I had time only for two meals a day. As a result, I lost my appetite.

I would return home at 2.30 am and go to sleep at 4 am. I would get up at noon and go back to work at 3.30 pm.

Now that I have quit, I can go out with my friends. I can spend time rediscovering myself.

With the approximately Rs 65 per hour that I made, I can buy a few books and have some fun.

Maybe that will take away the pain that came with this job.

But, believe me, the money could in no way make up for the pain!

I'll never work at a call centre again. Nothing is worth the ordeal I went through.

A Push Poll Characteristics

2005-10-03T20:36:00.000-06:00

A legitimate survey, whether it be market research or a political survey, has some of the following characteristics:

-

A statistically random sample representative of the population
- A carefully crafted survey that attempts to avoid creating any bias in how the questions are presented
- Well trained interviewers that stay to the script, and know how to ask probing questions without creating bias or influence.

A push poll tries to create bias and influence opinion. It really shouldn't be called a "poll" at all, but it tries to disguise its bias behind "survey" questions. A push poll will have the following characteristics:

- A list that targets as many as possible, sometimes segmented by some criteria
- Slanted and biased questions designed to create a negative opinion of the candidate or issue
- Call center phone agents that try to influence opinion and change behavior.

Be careful to know the difference. You could face a big backlash if you utilize a push poll. I know someone at another call center that wound up as the lead story on CNN, with cameras in his phone room, because a disgrunted supervisor, who didn't get a raise, called CNN and disclosed the shady tactics being used on a particularly hot race. Needless to say, that call center lost the candidate and they had to work hard to repair the terrible PR that they got.

Push Polls - A Dirty Secret of Political Phone Banks

2005-10-01T16:47:00.000-06:00

There has been several posts and articles about a GOP funded "Push Poll" against incumbent and candidate Bernie Sanders. I came across this by The Liberal Patriot Blog.

Here is what was reported by the Vermont Rutland Herald and first posted by David Sirota:

Specifically, Vermonter Tony Gordon reports receiving a call from a out-of-state call center in Nebraska. The caller asked "While it is fine to have a gadfly like [Senate candidate] Bernie Sanders in the House, since Vermont is such a small state, we must have real leadership in the Senate. Do you agree or disagree?" Clearly, as Gordon notes, the question was deliberately phrased to guarantee a desired result and spread misleading information about Congressman Sanders - not to guage actual public opinion.

A push poll is generally a "poll" that goes something like this:

Would you vote for X if you knew that he:
- gives money to child molestors?
- runs over old ladies?
- help free dangerous criminals?
- hits baby seals with a bat?

Usually the statements are false and repulsive, but they do create a bias within the voter and there exists an association with that candidate and something negative. Voters later may not even remember the specific allegation made in the push poll, but they often retain a negative bias against the candidate.

A push poll is generally viewed as pushing the ethical limits of acceptable campaign tactics. Why is it used then? Because it can really be damaging to a candidate, especially if it deployed in the day or two before the election and before the opposition candidate can respond. A large political phone bank or call center can call tens of thousands of candidates during the course of a day. It is tough to counteract that in a short time frame.

A push poll can also backfire. I was familiar with a campaign in California where the opposition candidate essentially charged in a push poll that the incumbent molested his daughter (something like this, "Would you still vote for John Doe, if you knew that Child Protective Services had come in to protect his daughter from further abuse?"

The challenger had taken an innocent event and portrayed it as a "what if" event. The tracking polls showed that the false charges were having a real damaging impact. So the incumbent responded and his grown daughter held a press release where she tearfully refuted all charges and asked how someone could be so mean to defame not only her father but her reputation. She then recorded a short and emotional wav file refuting these claims and an automated voice broadcast call was sent out to over 100,000 voters in the area. The push poll backfired on the challenger and there was a strong backlash and the incumbent won in a landslide several days later.

Many call centers or phone banks become involved in political work, doing things like Political Surveys, Tracking Studies, Get Out the Vote calls, Voter Identification Calls, Automated Voice Broadcast calls, or Advocacy Calls. Extreme versions of Advocacy calls fall into the camp of Push Polls. Stay away from them unless you are ready to get in to some hot water or get some bad press. You will find your agents really had doing the negative calls as well. Everyone gets their hands dirty on this kind of slimy work.

A Deadly Heresy for a Help Desk

2005-09-30T23:35:00.000-06:00

I came across a post by an agent in a Help Desk call center, called Stupidity, The New Heresy. He had posted an image called "Happy Bunny" that I am showing here and made the following remarks:

[This picture] reminds me so much of my attitude towards the people that call me, day in and day out. If they would only grow a smidgen-size of intelligence in the wasted cavity where the normal human should show be, I would be a lot nicer to them.

I have got to tell you that this attitude is deadly and you have to change your agent's mindset. If you allow this attitude to be pervasive among your agents, you will continually encounter escalated customer complaints, loss of customers, and if you are an outsourced call center, you can jeopordize the entire account.

What is so deadly about this attitude? Consider his statement:

If they would only grow a smidgen-size of intelligence in the wasted cavity where the normal human should show be, I would be a lot nicer to them.

If they were smarter, I would be nicer to them. What a cop-out! This completely eliminates any accountablity on the part of the agent for proper customer service - "Hey, it is not my fault I was rude to them - they are stupid."

How will that customer ever grow in intelligence? It is something outside of the control of the agent or the company. The customer's intelligence is what it is and the company and the agent need to decide to provide a service that meets that intelligent level and deliver it so the customer feels valued and appreciated.

If you had to call this agent, and he responded in a manner that essentially said, "Hey, dumb ___ss, if you weren't so dumb, you wouldn't be bothering me. But since you are, let me help your sorry little self..."

Would you feel valued? Would you feel like you wanted to do business with this company again?

If you do find this attitude among some of your agents, ask them to define what they consider "dumb questions". You may find that there really are confused customers out there and maybe you as a company did something to make them confused. Did you send out poorly written instructions? Does your product really have some legitimate flaws that make a lot of people call a help desk? Is your marketing selling some feature that you really can't support?

Even if your company did do something that confused your customers, your help desk should never be allowed to foster and tolerate such a condesending attitude toward your customers. You need to either change the mindset (difficult but possible to do) or you need to filter out the promoters of this destructive attitude.

Impact of a Leader

2005-09-29T15:11:00.000-06:00

In reference to my last post about the importance of grooming leaders within your call center, consider this post by an agent:

There is not really any clear leadership, and yelling at everyone and vague memos have to suffice for real training.

That said, I'm still here. I haven't been fired in the five plus years, I haven't been forced to sign any kind of oral or written warning, I have only had one review (I asked for more, they said they were coming). Then on the other hand, I haven't gotten any kind of raise, I haven't got one of those high performer plaques that they give out in the Friday morning sales meetings. I have had one really good ass chewing, and got yelled at across the floor a couple times, but nothing more than that.

I found that almost all agents really want to do a good job. But without appropriate leadership, they are unclear as to how to do a good job or how exactly you define what it means to do a good job. Consider the agent's comments above - only had one review in over 5 years, training comes through vague memos, correction comes by yelling across the floor. Can you find ways to enrich lives of promising agents by grooming them to be future leaders, giving them honest feedback on their strengths and weaknesses and creating appropriate motivation to improve. Five years at one place is quite remarkable in the Call Center Universe. I hope this company realizes that the value of this agent!

Thoughts on Leadership

2005-09-27T13:29:00.000-06:00

My friend Hal makes some good points about leadership. He writes:

I think it is interesting how most of us can identify a good leader and also usually know when the opposite is true. We don’t really even try, we just seem to know when leadership is present.

Call Centers are full of areas that require leadership. You really need to grow and nuture and develop leadership within the call center. How well are you ready to have your leadership tested in a crisis?

Tip on Measuring your Inbound Call Center Agents

2005-09-23T15:47:00.000-06:00

I came across this good tip to measure (inexpensively) your agents' performance. I liked the phrase that was quoted:

"What you don't know, you can't measure, and what you can't measure, you can't improve."

Here is the tip:

Someone calls to the call center and the IVR picks up. Based upon some calculations, it decides that this call should or shouldn't go to the IVR after the call. When it should go to the IVR after the call, this is announced to the caller, and the caller need to confirm that he will participate.

Then the call is sent to the agent (who does not know whether the caller will be queried lateron) and when the agent clicks on hangup, the call is not hung up, but blind transferred to the IVR with the questionnaire.

The IVR asks its questions (how was the service, was the agent nice, etc.) and this data is lateron merged with the data from the call center. Which agent, what time, type of question, etc..

Now you know how your clients are thinking about you. And once you know - you can measure it - and improve it. Why not start off with sending me an e-mail to start a discussion about it?

Empowering Agents?

2005-09-20T10:13:00.000-06:00

So, as a manager, how do you prevent situations like this that was reported recently in the Chicago Tribune?

6 months of free cable TV won't erase insult's sting

By Scott Goldstein
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 1, 2005

Although she doesn't mind talking about the problems that made her a poster child for poor customer relations, LaChania Govan admits the media attention has come with a price.

The 25-year-old mother of two from Elgin went public last month when she received a Comcast cable bill addressed to "Bitch Dog" after she had complained for weeks about service problems.

Since then, she has appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." Her story has been told in newspapers around the country, and legions of Internet message boards and blogs have taken up her cause.

A consumer group plans to give her an award next month in Washington.

One person even saw a business opportunity and is selling a T-shirt online that reads: "Be a . . . Comcast Bitch Dog . . . Get Dish!"

Govan said she is torn by all the attention. As a customer-service representative for a credit-card company, she said it's important to speak out about the issue with the hope that service in general might improve.

But she also said she doesn't like being linked to such an unpleasant name. She can't hide from it, she said--not even at her church, her son's elementary school or her workplace.

"It's not so much the issue, it's the name associated with it," Govan said. "There has not been one day since that happened that somebody has not addressed me" in the same way her bill was addressed.

Initially, Comcast offered Govan four months of free service to make amends, an offer it has since increased to six months, she said.

That came last week when Govan said she spoke with Mark Coffman, Comcast Chicago region vice president for customer care. He left her a voicemail message shortly after the Tribune first reported her story Aug. 17.

Six months of free cable doesn't cut it, Govan said.

"This is something that is going to follow me for the rest of my life," she said.

Still, she says it has generated goodwill and some odd perks. Her local gas station, for example, gave her a free fill-up.

Comcast spokeswoman Angie Amores restated the company's apology: "We've expressed our sincerest apologies to Miss Govan, and we continue to be appalled by the way she was treated."

The company fired two customer-service employees the day the story was published. At the call center where the offense occurred, only supervisors or higher-ranking employees are now allowed to change customer names on bills, Amores said.

Consumers for Cable Choice, an Indianapolis group that advocates competition in the cable market, plans to fly Govan to Washington in September for a previously scheduled conference, where they will honor her.

"We believe that her story is symptomatic of the environment, and the environment is one in which without competition . . . customer service generally fails," said spokeswoman Cheryl Reed. "She will be given an award, sort of a consolation for her pain and suffering."

Meanwhile, those familiar with the customer-service profession say it is not surprising Govan's story resonated with so many people.

"There is a coarsening of society in general," said Timothy Keiningham, a customer-loyalty consultant and author of several books on the topic. "She's probably gotten a lot of people to go, `I've experienced this or something similar.' And she just symbolizes the standard-bearer. And the fact that she didn't just roll over."

Current and former customer-service representatives said altering a customer's real name on a bill to something vulgar is inexcusable. But they said it also points to the often overlooked pressures of dealing with irate customers, particularly those emboldened by the impersonal exchange of a telephone conversation.

"You pretty much name it, and we have to deal with it," said Chris Munson, who works in customer service for Adelphia Cable in Burlington, Vt.

Munson, who has worked in customer service for about six years, said the venomous environment seeps into his and his colleagues' personal lives.

"When we come home, unfortunately our spouses have to deal with us," Munson said. "When we get home, we can't even speak. . . . My wife is at the point where she will only deal with really important things by e-mail so I won't flip out. And that's the way that a lot of people are right now."

Network with Other Call Centers

2005-09-17T23:26:00.000-06:00

One of the things that surprised me was how beneficial it was to get to know other call center owners or managers. I first really got to know other call center owners when our center was awarded the Top 50 award as an inbound call center and I went to the conference and we had a meeting of just the top 50 companies. We went to dinner, had a reception and got to hang out together. I made several strong contacts with Presidents of other call centers, and that led to future business, future opportunities to collaborate and future opportunities to exchange ideas.

I would highly recommend making connections with competing call centers. They might bring you work. You might work for them some day. You might merge or be bought out or buy them some day.

One place you might want to start is at the forums at TMC. You will get an idea of who is out there, what they are doing and what their challenges are.

Labor Pool

2005-09-16T00:18:00.000-06:00

One of the challenges of a call center, especially an outbound call center is having an adequate supply of agents. Turnover is a reality for call centers and that means that you have to be able to bring in new agents to replace those that have left.

There are areas within the US were call centers have seemed congregate - Omaha, Salt Lake, Florida, etc. These areas sometimes run into this problem of not enough labor pool for qualified and quality agents. Call centers who have big turnovers and are in rural areas or small towns really face these problems.

I found this article interesting that the Philippines is encountering some of these same problems.

Shortage Hits Philippines Call Centers
Industry association takes the lead in developing manpower

Lawrence Casiraya

As the market matures, Philippines call center industry is now shifting its efforts from promoting the country to ensuring it produces enough highly-skilled agents. “The issue now is labor supply,” says Raffy David, director of Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP).

According to David, the contact center industry currently employs around 75,000 workers--up from 20,000 last year. He said the industry would need 75,000 more workers this year alone.

Aside from a lack of skilled workers, call centers also deal with a high attrition rate among agents. David noted that call centers are not losing agents to other industries; rather, agents seek new opportunities in other call centers. An agreement is being worked amongst CCAP members not to deliberately “poach” agents from each other. “From a corporate standpoint, this means a member company cannot pirate agents from other companies,” David said.

CCAP is also embarking on a nationwide skills assessment program designed to provide its members with workers that are not only English-proficient, but whose skills are appropriate for the type of accounts they can handle.“An applicant can be fluent in English but his or her skills and even personality may not be adequate for an outbound sales position,” David explains.

2005-09-14T16:31:00.000-06:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

This Guy is Working for You

2005-09-14T16:21:00.000-06:00

I came across the following post from some guy who worked as an agent in some call center. My guess is that most call centers have someone like this in their center. Would you be thrilled to have this guy representing your company to your customers? The question is: How do you motivate and engage this person so they can find their job meaningful and rewarding? And if you can't, how do you screen and indentify this person and move him out of the center?

What do you think?

Here is the post:

Living in Limbo

Well, I yesterday kinda sucked at work. But it's just a call center so it doesnt matter, it just gets long sitting there for 8 hours to slide by while hundreds of people you're calling complain, hang up, ignore or act bitter to you just because you're trying to get them to pay a debt they owe for a service they used.
...
So I'm on a half hour work break from . They train you to think of it as a new type of call center but the supervisors go after you like hawks for every single minute wasted in the day and it's just another stupid call center. They want to be professional and if you punch in 1 minute late they gie you a point and then it's just stupid. Bunch of infants.

Friday is payday!

Call Centers Playing Role in Helping with Katrina

2005-09-14T15:53:00.000-06:00

There are a number of call centers that are being organized to assist with the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. Here are some of the stories out there:

Through the National Emergency Resource Registry (NERR), the Commerce Department is mobilizing the resources and good nature of businesses across the country to help meet the needs of thousands of businesses devastated by Hurricane Katrina. This call center will take calls from affected businesses wanting to rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Katrina or businesses that want to donate supplies, funds, or other items. The call center can be reached on the Web at www.nerr.gov or toll free on 888-4USADOC.

Here is a post from BrewBlog about helping with fundraising

My company had the opportunity to help with the Shelter From the Storm national telethon last week because of the large call-center capability we have. Allison and I volunteered by taking calls on behalf of the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Our job was to collect donations from folks calling in to support the Katrina disaster relief effort. Overall, the effort within our campus collected over $400,000 in donations from 4,600 callers. Props go out to our company for helping.

Credit card issuers are also doing their part to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Not only are most major companies donating money to the American Red Cross and other organizations designated to assist in this catastrophe, they are also giving some much needed assistance directly to cardholders.

1500 Capital One® associate volunteers provided call center support to help raise $4.25 million of the $17 million raised through NBC’s “A Concert for Hurricane Relief.

Digital Call Recording

2005-09-13T15:43:00.000-06:00

Back in the old days, we had a simple tape recorder hooked up to every phone and a piece of paper in front of every agent. When they began the call, the agent was to start recording the call. When the call ended, the agent stopped the recorder and wrote the customer ID number down on the piece of paper. At the end of the shift, the agent would wrap the paper around the cassette tape and give it to the supervisor. The supervisor would keep a master log of each cassette. These could be then used for training, for quality assurance, or for verification.

If the client wanted to hear a specific call, it was quite a chore to find the right day, find the right shift, and then find the right agent's cassette and then find the right spot on the cassette to play that call. Some clients then wanted all the cassettes shipped to them.

Today, this whole process is so much simplier. It can also be much more expensive. Today, digital call recording allows each call to be recorded either automatically or through a simple click of a mouse. Those files are stored as .wav files and can be easily accessed, emailed, or listened to. Quality assurance monitoring becomes very easy with digital recorded calls. We set up a process where a certain percentage of calls were randomly monitored as well as ensuring that we monitored every agent over some defined time period.

One provider of digital call recording is Data Collection Resources (DCR), who is a provider of affordable call center quality monitoring and recording.

Do Not Call Compliance Issues

2005-09-12T18:43:00.000-06:00

This is from a series of Q&As from the FTC about the Do Not Call law. This part is about compliance. The FTC is serious about this law and have been handing out large penalties ($11k PER violation). Call 100 people illegally and you can add up a big bill quickly. Why waste your time calling someone who doesn't want to talk to you and put your company at such great risk?

Compliance

28. What happens to companies that don’t pay for access to the registry?

A company that is a seller or telemarketer could be liable for placing any telemarketing calls (even to numbers NOT on the registry) unless the seller has accessed the registry and paid the fee, if required. Violators may be subject to fines of up to $11,000 per violation. Each call may be considered a separate violation.

29. What if I call a number that’s not on the registry without checking the registry first?

It’s against the law to call (or cause a telemarketer to call) any number on the registry (unless the seller has an established business relationship with the consumer whose number is being called, or the consumer has given written agreement to be called). But it’s also against the law for a seller to call (or cause a telemarketer to call) any person whose number is within a given area code unless the seller first has subscribed to and accessed the portion of the registry that includes numbers within that area code, and paid the annual fee, if required.

In addition, it’s against the law for a telemarketer, calling on behalf of a seller, to call any person whose number is within a given area code unless the seller has first subscribed to and accessed the portion of the registry that includes numbers within that area code, and paid the annual fee, if required. Telemarketers must make sure that their seller-clients have paid for access to the registry before placing any telemarketing calls on their behalf.

30. What’s my liability if my company inadvertently calls a number on the registry?

The TSR has a “safe harbor” for inadvertent mistakes. If a seller or telemarketer can show that, as part of its routine business practice, it meets all the requirements of the safe harbor, it will not be subject to civil penalties or sanctions for mistakenly calling a consumer who has asked for no more calls, or for calling a person on the registry. To meet the safe harbor requirements, the seller or telemarketer must demonstrate that:

it has written procedures to comply with the do not call requirements
it trains its personnel in those procedures
it monitors and enforces compliance with these procedures
it maintains a company-specific list of telephone numbers that it may not call
it accesses the national registry no more than 31 days (starting January 1, 2005) before calling any consumer, and maintains records documenting this process
any call made in violation of the do not call rules was the result of an error.

Do Not Call Requirements

2005-09-11T22:13:00.000-06:00

If you are going to run an outbound telemarketing campaign, you need to register with the FTC for the Do Not Call list.

I have used DNC Solutions for several years. Don Holbrook and his team are great to work with. I give them my highest recommendation. They are fast, their processes are simple and their knowledge is extensive. They stay on top of every law, whether state or federal. I wouldn't run an outbound campaign without them.

There may be other quality firms providing these services. I just haven't used them. You can find DNC Solutions online.

Tell Don that you were sent by Tim Stay and FreeCallCenterQuotes.com!

Teleplaza

2005-09-09T20:30:00.000-06:00

Part of the challenge of running a call center is trying to find continual work to keep your ops running at some stable level. I mentioned brokers in a previous post as one source to find new work. Another method that we successfully employed is being listed in every directory that related to call centers. There were a number out there and most you can create a basic listing for free. Some would allow you a more extensive listing for a fee.

While we used a lot of different listings, we got the most traffic from TelePlaza. We listed in the Inbound and Outbound sections and got some great leads and closed some good business from this source. I would recommend listing here.Teleplaza Directory Call Center Software Services: Contact Center Customer Service software, call center outsourcing, contact technology, consultants, call management solutions for International centers.

ICMI - The Best Training Seminar I Ever Went To

2005-09-09T17:21:00.000-06:00

Brad Cleveland, CEO of ICMI

When I first started my call center back in 92, I knew very little about the specifics of what it took to run an inbound call center. One of the philosophies I have tried to follow in the various businesses I have run and started is that I try to become as knowledgable about the fundamentals of my industry as possible.

I had heard good things about ICMI and our inbound business was really growing. I really felt that a small improvement in our efficiency would easily pay for the cost of the training session. The major costs in an inbound call center are labor and phone expenses. If we could take more calls with the same number of people, then that just adds to the bottom line. But, on the other hand, if you commit to a service level that is too aggressive, you need a grundle of people sitting idle to hit those service levels and that kills your labor costs.

So anyway, I went to the ICMI seminar. Brad Cleveland was the instructor (Brad is now the President and CEO of ICMI - way to climb the corporate ladder Brad!). There were call center managers from around the country there and we were all given a big manual.

The instruction was clear and very practible. Brad was a dynamic and extremely knowledgable instructor. They gave us a bunch of tools that we could take back home and use. They broke down the math and explained such things as Erlang C and how to calculate staffing needs at a half-hour basis based upon call volume and length of call (talk time). We learned how to configure our ACD, how to properly schedule, how to forecast, how to communicate with others about call center realities and limitations, and a myriad of other useful items.

Besides training, ICMI also has an extensive library for call center managers as well as conferences and forums.

I have been to dozens of trainings for various things, but at the top of my list was the training I got from ICMI. They knew their topic and they knew what was important to us and they knew how to teach. I know I saved tens of thousands of dollars from being a more efficient manager scheduling my agents better because the training I got from ICMI. I got a return many time what the seminar cost me.

If you are a inbound call center manager, you are being neglegent in your progression if you don't attend one of these seminars. I guarentee you that you will find it valuable!

ICMI - Call Center Glossary

2005-09-03T11:09:00.000-06:00

ICMI - Call Center Glossary

Just like any industry, the call center industry has plenty of acronyms and unique phrases. What does CTI, DNIS, ANI, or T1 mean? To an outsider trying to work with the industry, it can be difficult to understand everything.

The ICMI, the Incomoming Calls Management Institute has published a glossary of common terms used in call centers (specifically related to inbound call centers.)

Here are a few common terms that you may want to be familiar with in relation to an inbound call center:

Abandoned Call. Also called a Lost Call. The caller hangs up before reaching an agent.

Automatic Call Distributor (ACD). The specialized telephone system used in incoming call centers. It is a programmable device that automatically answers calls, queues calls, distributes calls to agents, plays delay announcements to callers and provides real-time and historical reports on these activities. May be a stand-alone system, or ACD capability built into a CO, network or PBX.

Automatic Number Identification (ANI). A telephone network feature that passes the number of the phone the caller is using to the call center, real-time. ANI may arrive over the D channel of an ISDN PRI circuit (out of band signaling), or before the first ring on a single line (inband signaling). ANI is delivered from long distance companies. Caller ID is the local phone company version of ANI, and is delivered inband. ANI is a North American term, and Calling Line Identification (CLI) is an alternative term used elsewhere.

Average Speed of Answer (ASA). Also called Average Delay. The average delay of all calls. It is total Delay divided by total number of calls. See Average Delay of Delayed Calls.

Calls In Queue. A real-time report that refers to the number of calls received by the ACD system but not yet connected to an agent.

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). The software, hardware and programming necessary to integrate computers and telephones so they can work together seamlessly and intelligently.

Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS). A string of digits that the telephone network passes to the ACD, VRU or other devise, to indicate which number the caller dialed. The ACD can then process and report on that type of call according to user-defined criteria. One trunk group can have many DNIS numbers.

Erlang C. Calculates predicted waiting times (delay) based on three things: the number of servers (reps); the number of people waiting to be served (callers); and the average amount of time it takes to serve each person. It can also predict the resources required to keep waiting times within targeted limits. Erlang C assumes no lost calls or busy signals, so it has a tendency to overestimate staff required.

Handled Calls. The number of calls received and handled by agents or peripheral equipment. Handled calls does not include calls that abandon or receive busy signals.

Longest Available Agent. A method of distributing calls to the agent who has been sitting idle the longest. With a queue, Longest Available Agent becomes ñNext Available Agent.î

Longest Delay (Oldest Call). The longest time a caller has waited in queue, before abandoning or reaching an agent.

Predictive Dialing. A system that automatically places outbound calls and delivers answered calls to agents. When the dialer detects busy signals, answering machines or ring no answer, it puts the number back in queue.

Private Branch Exchange (PBX). A telephone system located at a customer's site that handles incoming and outgoing calls. ACD software can provide PBXs with ACD functionality. Also called private automatic branch exchange (PABX).

Queue. Holds callers until an agent becomes available. Queue can also refer to a line or list of items in a system waiting to be processed (e.g., e-mail messages).

Screen Pop. A CTI capability. Callers' records are automatically retrieved (based on ANI or digits entered into the VRU) and delivered to agents, along with the calls.

Service Level. Also called Telephone Service Factor, or TSF. The percentage of incoming calls that are answered within a specified threshold: "X% of calls answered in Y seconds." See Response Time.

Skill-Based Routing. An ACD capability that matches a caller's specific needs with an agent that has the skills to handle that call, on a real-time basis.

T1 Circuit. A high speed digital circuit used for voice, data or video, with a bandwidth of 1.544 megabits per second. T1 circuits offer the equivalent of twenty-four (24) analog voice trunks.

Talk Time. The time an agent spends with a caller during a transaction. Includes everything from "hello" to "goodbye."

Toll-Free Service. Enables callers to reach a call center out of the local calling area without incurring charges. 800 and 888 service is toll-free. In some countries, there are also other variations of toll-free service. For example, with 0345 or 0645 services in the United Kingdom, callers are charged local rates and the call center pays for the long distance charges.

Voice Response Unit (VRU). Also called Interactive Voice Response Unit (IVR) or Audio Response Unit (ARU). A VRU responds to caller entered digits or speech recognition in much the same way that a conventional computer responds to keystrokes or clicks of a mouse. When the VRU is integrated with database computers, callers can interact with databases to check current information (e.g., account balances) and complete transactions (e.g. make transfers between accounts).

Workforce Management Software. Software systems that, depending on available modules, forecast call load, calculate staff requirements, organize schedules and track real-time performance of individuals and groups.

Katrina and Disaster Recovery

2005-08-31T11:44:00.000-06:00

First, my deepest sympathies to those who are suffering losses because of Katrina. I was heartbroken at the devastation we are seeing in the news. Our prayers are with you.

A catastrophic disaster like Katrina will significantly interrupt business for months. If your call center was located in Biloxi or New Orleans, it will be months before they would be operational. If you didn't have a functioning business continuity plan in place, it could significantly impact your business.

In my experience, most call centers have disaster recovery plans, but few have really taken the necessary steps to make them truly functional.

We would categorize the business interruption based upon the severity of the interruption.

Level 1 - This was some interruption that was under an hour. Maybe there was a temporary power or phone outage. Maybe there was bomb threat and the call center needed to be evacuated.

Level 2 - This was some interruption that was several hours in length.

Level 3 - This was some interruption that was at least a day in length. Maybe it was a major storm that prevented people getting to work that day.

Level 4 - This was some interruption that was several days to several weeks.

Level 5 - This was some interruption that made the building uninhabitable for the foreseable future.

If you are the client and contracting with a call center, you should have them walk you through what they will do in each of these 5 levels. Again, my warning is that many call centers have plans in place, but in reality, they would be very difficult to implement. Press for specific details and don't let them get away with smoke and bluffs.

If there was a call center in New Orleans, then they would be at a Level 5 for business interruption as a result of Hurricane Katrina. There is no way that that call center will be able to operate in the foreseable future. That means that if inbound calls were going there, they would need to be rerouted to another call center (who has the same long distance carrier) who can access the correct computer applications to properly capture and transmit information to the customer. The agents at that new call center would need to be properly trained to receive those calls. The supervisors and trainers and quality teams would have to be all brought up to speed to ensure the proper quality. Again, the steps to accomplish all of this are complex and complicated and few call centers really are prepared for that level of detail.

May God bless those suffering from Hurricane Katrina.

Working with Brokers

2005-08-30T07:02:00.000-06:00

One of the biggest challenges for a call center is the challenge to have enough work to keep a stable workforce occupied and engaged. This means having a pipeline of work continually flowing in to replace those projects that are ending.

We followed a process of a mixed channel approach. We had a sales team out beating the bushes, we did advertising (primarily internet pay per click), we exhibited at targeted trade shows, and we used brokers.

There are several types of brokers - from those that simply refer work to you and they never talk to the client again to those that have an ongoing management relationship between the client and the call center. I always preferred to work directly with the client, because if we had the broker in between us, it was one additional break-point where information could get corrupted as it passed between the client and the call center.

Brokers usually charge on a percentage of gross revenue. Most brokers seem to work between a range of 3% to 10% of gross revenue. So if a call center billed $100,000 in a month and the broker was getting a 10% commission, he would get $10,000 in commission.

The contract between the broker and the call center should include how the commission is calculated, ability for the broker to audit billing and collections (to ensure he is getting paid correctly), and the length of term of the contract. Some brokers will demand a fixed commission for the life of the contract. Others will go along with the approach of a decreasing commission rate. For example, year 1 might be at 6%, year 2 is at 4% and year 3 is at 2% and then stops. Others drop to a lower level and stay there for the life of the contract. It all depends on what you can negotiate and what makes sense.

Most brokers will require that they get paid within some many days of when the call center gets paid. Some will push to get paid the same day every month, whether the call center has been paid or not, but I never had one that didn't back off on that point when I pushed it - that really plays havoc with cash flow if you have to write a big check and haven't received that payment yet from the client.

There is a tendency of call centers that brokers have to deal with. This tendency is to be excited about the project when the broker first brings it in and is happy to pay the commission. After some time passes, the call center forgets the broker's contribution and can start to feel resentment at writing a big check every month to someone who hasn't been in the trenches with them.

One way to combat this is to help the call center remember that none of this revenue would be there if the broker hadn't brought it in. Another point to bring up is that they need to know the true cost of their in-house sales and marketing efforts as a percentage of gross sales. If you add in the salary, taxes, benefits and commissions of the inside sales team, plus the expense of their sales trips, hotels, per diem expenses, marketing efforts, advertising costs, trade show expenses, etc., you find that 4-5% of gross revenue may be a good deal.

I have a friend that has no direct sales team and relies almost entirely upon brokers to bring work in. He pays out $400-$600k in broker commissions per year, but he is happy to do so. He says that doing this lowers his fixed overhead and he only pays if revenue is generated. If the brokers aren't bringing in new work, then they don't get paid.

Two brokers I have worked with in the past have been Andy Paulsen and Bill Samuels. They were good to work with and had a good flow of business for us to look at. It is important to help the brokers know what your expertise is and where you will succeed. They have a vested interest in placing work where the client will be happy - it reflects on their reputation as a broker and on their commission. If they place work with a call center that drops the ball, they don't like having to hear back from the client wondering why the broker sent them to a call center that didn't perform and they lose out on that ongoing commission stream. If you treat the clients right that come through a broker, pay the broker promptly and timely, and keep the lines of communication open, you can develop a long-term stream of business through the broker.

Having a Closed Loop

2005-08-29T09:18:00.000-06:00

I mentioned this in my last post, but wanted to expand this some more.

As a call center manager, you need to think of potential breakpoints in your process.

Simplified, the process is the following:

Gather information from the Client
Transmit information to all relevant parties within the Call Center
Transmit and gather information from the customer
Transmit customer and performance information to the Client
Evaluate performance
Improve performance

I want to talk specifically about the second step in the process. Assume you are the Account Manager. You need to make sure that the information that you gathered from the client is accurately transmitted and absorbed by:

- the training department
- the operations department
- the quality department
- the telcom department
- the it department

This is a lot of possible breakpoints where information can get dropped or understood incorrectly. We found it to be the most effective if we created multi-function teams that included people from all these departments when we were doing a new project set-up. If you keep each of these departments in a silo, the errors increase and the time to get anything done is extended.

What you want is a closed feedback loop. The client transmit info to you. The information you give to the various departments is the same and verified. That means that the trainer is training on the same things that the quality team is looking for and the supervisor is managing to. If the quality team sees a consistent problem, that information if conveyed to the training team and a heads-up is given to the floor supervisor about the issue. If these steps are taken, in conjuction with your calibration sessions, you will have much more consistent quality and a better service to offer your clients.

More on Calibrated Call Monitoring

2005-08-27T23:02:00.000-06:00

I was looking through some old stuff and found this link to an excellent article by Marcia W. Hicks on Calibrated Call Monitoring.

This is a much more extensive review of the subject that I gave it and is a good resource if you really want to do Calibrated Monitoring.

This is a piece from the article:

Calibration means standardizing a process by determining its deviation from the standard, in order to determine the proper correction factors. In a call center, calibration is the process by which you limit variation in the way performance criteria are interpreted. Calibration is a critical element of improving call-monitoring performance.

Calibrated Call Monitoring

2005-08-27T10:12:00.000-06:00

Call monitoring is an essential tool for a client to hold a call center to a certain quality standard, but it is also a critical tool to help both parties view what those standards are in the same way.

Quality of a call is a subjective measure at best. Unlike a manufacturing process where you can precisely measure the size or strength of a component of the final product and each component is exactly the same each time, a call is a performance and each performance is slightly different each time. So you want to calibrate those subjective evaluations so they are as close as possible for all parties.

Calibration is the process where there is increasing alignment between the client and between the call center of the evaluation of a call.

A client tries to communicate their expectations of quality to the account manager. The account manager then has to make sure those expectations are accurately communicated to the training department, the operations team who manage the agents on the floor, and to the internal monitoring team. Sometimes there isn't a complete transfer of communication between the account manager and these other groups.

So, if a client can have a monitoring session that includes both live monitoring and taped monitoring, you can try to close that broken loop and make sure that the people responsible for call quality are on the same page as you.

We would have the clients listen to some taped calls at the same time we would have our training team, our monitoring team, our floor supervisors, and even sometimes, some of our agents. The client would complete a monitoring quality sheet at the same time we would have our monitoring team fill out the same sheet independently. Then we would compare scores and see where there was misalignment between how the calls were evaluated. Sometimes we would back the tape up and listen to it again. This allowed us to be very accurate in knowing and measuring quality in the same way the client measured quality.

Why work in Call Center Management?

2005-08-26T12:22:00.000-06:00

I don't think anyone went to school thinking, "I want to grow up and work in a call center", but a lot wind up working in call centers.

I know a lot who started on the floor and wound up working their way into management and making a career from it.

I also know a few who have tried to leave the field several times and keep coming back to it.

One of the things that I really enjoyed was working with a lot of very interesting people. I also enjoyed the variety of projects that we worked on. We saw hundreds of different marketing campaigns, and it was interesting to see the different business philosophies. Some companies were brilliantly run companies and some you just knew that they wouldn't last through the year.

I think having some call center management job can be beneficial to your career path. You know what it is like on the front lines, you know how to motivate and manage people, you know how to use metrics to guide your decisions, you know the importance of quality in your product. Those skills are transferable to other areas of the company.

Outbound Disposition Report

2005-08-25T22:11:00.000-06:00

A common report you might get from an outbound call center is the disposition report.

This report will usually show the following:

Lead used
Calls attempted
Calls Completed
Calls Dropped
Answering Machines
Messages Left
No Messages Left
Busy Signals
No Answer
Do Not Call Back
Network Intercept

It is important that you have a clear understanding of what the call center defines as a call completed, for it may be different than what you might think it means.

Calls dropped means that a customer picked up the phone and the predictive caller couldn't find an available agent so the dialer hung up on the caller. The new DNC Telemarketing rule from by the FTC requires that a center can not exceed 3% for dropped calls.

More on Outbound Reporting

2005-08-25T21:35:00.000-06:00

I thought more about reporting and how knowing what is on the typical outbound call center report is helpful for the client to better manage his or her project.

The typical predictive dialer report has at least the following:

Agent Name
Agent ID
Hours Logged in - that this is hours logged into the predictive dialer, not
hours that they work - work includes breaks, lunch, training, etc.
Talk time
Talk time % - 50% means that the agent is talking 30 minutes out of every hour
Contacts
Contacts per hour
Talk time per call
Completes - this might be a sale, a completed survey, a message delivered, etc
Completes per hour

Many call centers keep this report to themselves. This allows them to know how to manage their people. Usually if you ask for this report, they will give it to you.

Some things to watch for are:

Talk time % - if you have really low talk time, the list may be bad or dead.
- if only a few agents have really low talk time, then they might be
hanging up on customers
Contacts per hour - if you also have really high contacts per hour by a few agents,
then that agent might be hanging up as soon as the customer comes
on the line.
Completes per hour - You will see some with very strong cph (also called SPH) and a
clear group with a very low cph. If you can convince the call
center to either train those low performing agents or move them
off your project, you can get your cph to increase.

If you don't understand a report, ask the client service rep to explain it to you. If you visit the call center, ask the supervisor to show you the reports he or she uses to manage his/her team.

Waterskiing thoughts

2005-08-24T15:47:00.000-06:00

I left the house this morning with some friends and went down the the lake and we were in the water by 6:30am. That wasn't cold - just very refreshing. We didn't get great water but found some flat spots near the edges. The mountains were just shadows in the early morning pre-sunrise light. A flock of pelicans and then later a flock of Canadian Geese flew by.

It is so refreshing to go out and be waterskiing early in the day. It has made the rest of the day so much better.

I found that a call center could be so consuming. It is important for the managers of the call center to keep a balanced life, so they don't burn out. I know too many call center veterans who did burn out and lost their effectiveness.

Take time to balance work, family and recreation.

Explaining SPH

2005-08-22T19:57:00.000-06:00

SPH stands for sales per hour. That is per agent hour.

If one agent can make one sale per hour, the call center will tell you that they are getting a 1.0 sph (sale per hour) for that agent. So usually, you will have multiple agents working. Then, in your report, you will see an average sph across all the agents. It is important to ask to see the agent specific detail. You will generally find 3 groups - above average, average, and below average. What you want to do is help the call center either improve the performance of the below average group or remove those agents from your project. You need to look over several days of data, because every agent will have a bad day from time-to-time.

This way, you might be able to move your average SPH from a 1.0 to a 1.25 sph. When you are doing hundreds of hours per day, that can really make a difference.

Let's see how that might play out financially.

For simplicity, let's say that you get a hourly rate of $25 per hour and you are running a campaign that run 100 hours per day. Your daily expense is $2,500. Let's say that the call center runs at an average of a 1.0 SPH. For the day, you would get 100 sales, with each sale costing you $25 each. If you could get the call center to improve their SPH to a 1.25, then the daily sales would equal 125 sales and your cost per sale would be $20 each. That becomes a significant savings over time.

Outbound Telemarketing 101

2005-08-22T19:31:00.000-06:00

People often asked me what why it was called Outbound Telemarketing.

Outbound Telemarketing gets its name from the fact that an agent is placing a call out to a consumer as opposed to Inbound, where a customer is calling in to the agent.

The outbound industry has been greatly impacted recently by two significant events, governmental regulation and off-shore competition. The Do-Not-Call, and the related Telephone Sales Rule legislation has greatly altered the landscape for outbound telemarketers. Outbound telemarketers also have to aware of ever-changing state legislation as well.

Outbound Call Centers encompass many of the other vertical categories, such as Lead Generation, Sales, Appointment Setting, etc.

Outbound calling is categorized based upon who the caller is. The two basic categories are calling businesses or calling consumers.

Business-to-business agents need to know how to deal with gate-keepers, the secretaries or administrative assistants that filter access to the target of the call. You want to be careful in making sure that the call center is using the right mix of agents as matched to your target customer. If you are trying to reach a high-level CEO or senior executive, you don’t want your callers to be the average high-school grad telemarketer or off-shore agent that speaks broken English.

Predictive dialers are generally not very effective when calling senior executives in a business-to-business type call. Check with your outbound call center to see what kind of technology they are using. I found that the most effective type of tool was a platform that allowed the operator to keep notes about each attempt (things like secretary's name, email address, best time of day to call, when that executive might get back in the office, etc.) Sometimes this is called preview dialing, because you can preview the customer's information before you talk to them. Sales Management packages like Goldmine and ACT! are a good option if you want to do this in-house.

Most outbound call centers experience very high turnover rates, exceeding 100% per year. Finding and keeping qualified and trained agents is a big challenge for most outbound call centers.

Most outbound call centers prefer to bill on an hourly rate, rather than on a pay-for-performance basis. They still have the expense of paying for the agent’s time and for the long-distance and the overhead and if they do it on a pay-for-performance basis, they expose themselves to the risk that they will not make enough to cover their cost.

Some call centers will do a hourly test first and then evaluate the results and then offer a pay-for-performance rate. You may see hourly tests from anywhere from a 50 hour test to a 500 hour test.

If you do agree to a hourly rate, make sure you define exactly what constitutes an hour of billable time. Does it consist of break time, of down-time, etc? Or do they only bill for time where the agent is actively calling.

US-based outbound call centers generally seek to make $24-$26 per hour, but will go as low as $17 per hour if the volume is great enough.

Near-shore outbound call centers will bill between $16-$20 per hour. Near-shore includes Canada and the Carribean and Central America.

Off-Shore call centers will bill from $8 - $18 per hour. Most off-shore work is done out of India, but the Philippines is rapidly developing as a major supplier. Other off-shore call centers are located in South America, South Africa, Europe, Israel, Pakistan, etc.

I will explain more about SPH later.

With the Do Not Call legislation, both the outbound call center and the client has to register with the FTC. The outbound call center will need your SANS number that you get from registering with the FTC. Compliance to these regulations is critical as it can carry very severe fines for violations.

I will talk more about the DNC rulings later.

Free Call Center and Telemarketing Quotes for Call Center services.

2004-08-24T01:35:00.000-06:00

Free Call Center and Telemarketing Quotes for Call Center services.

This is the website that I publish about the Call Center Industry. I have made it so call centers can add their info into our directory for free and clients can fill out an easy to use form to request quotes on their services. I have also listed the various types of verticals that call centers serve and some relevant information about each vertical.

Tim Stay
August 2004

What I Know About Market Research Phone Surveys

2004-08-24T00:22:00.000-06:00

My first introduction to the call center industry was that I worked for a Market Research Phone Survey and data firm to help put my way through college. Most of the surveys were taken by hand and we had a team of data entry people that would enter all the data from each and every survey all night long into a computer so we could have the results for the client the first thing in the morning.

We did both political surveys as well as commercial market research. We would do the phone surveys, compile the data, and at times even do some of the data analysis, which include cross-tabs and compiling and editing open ended questions. Most of the heavy analytic work would be done by a big full service Market Research firm. We would also usually have the survey designed by a Market Research consultant or by the full service Market Research firm.

If you are looking for a call center to do marketing research, there are two main areas within Market Research industry to consider. One is the Full Service Firms. These firms will do everything from create a unbiased survey, by their guy who has a PHd in survey design, to obtaining a statistically defensible sample, to running and managing a their own in-house call center. There are also firms that specialize in just the data collection aspect of this process and all they do is the interviewing and phone survey work.

You can also work with a Market Research consultant. He often will do part of the work of Full Service firm, but he does not have his own in-house interviewing staff. He will subcontract this work out, but he does the management and supervision of the data collection house (survey phone center).

The question is often asked: Can I use a traditional telemarketing company to do survey work? The answer is best determined by how rigorous and statistically defensible do you need your data. Most telemarketing centers that I am familiar with can do a decent job at collecting data, doing customer satisfaction surveys, etc. However, if I needed a project where I needed the results to be as precise as possible, few telemarketing firms have the discipline and strict procedures in place, and I would look to a Full Service Market Research firm or a Market Research Data Collection house.

These firms will know how to rotate questions and responses, they will know how to do unbiased probes for open-ended questions, they will know how to manage complex samples and quotas, and they will know how to edit and code the open-ended responses. They are also used to very tight turn-around times and very strict reporting requirements. And usually, Market Research firms will be very cost competitive with Telemarketing firms.

Most Market Research firms will be able to give you a cost per interview (CPI) range as part of their quote and bill. Most telemarketing firms will seek to get paid an hourly rate.

Reflections of a Call Center Owner

2004-08-23T23:10:00.000-06:00

I don't think that anyone that is in the call center industry sat there as a kid and thought - I think I will grow up and work in a call center. Through out my career, it seemed that everyone I met, wound up in the industry through some back channel.

I have a friend who is a veteran of the call center industry and he jokes that once you get into the call center industry, you can't escape. We laugh, because we both have tried to leave the industry behind us several times, but we keep coming back to it.

My background was a civil engineer. I actually worked for a few years as a civil engineer. One of the things that I loved, was the process of building something that didn't exist before. That was one thing that really surprised me about starting a call center - the immense satisfaction of building something of value that didn't exist before, except in my mind.

I started the call center because I knew a little bit about the industry and I knew the key numbers that I had to control to make it profitable. I had worked at a Market Research Survey House during college and I worked in the data center as well as helped with the books. I really got to understand the telecommunications requirements, the importance of watching labor and telcom costs and how to make money at the business.

I didn't start the call center because I was in love with the business - it just was a business that I knew. And I was in love with the idea of running my own business and having that freedom to create, to make mistakes, to become enriched, and most importantly, to learn. Above all else, I have the most incredible education. Sometime the education was incredibly expensive, enough to put a whole class of High School Seniors through Harvard it seemed, but other times the rewards were immeasurable.

So now, I have sold my call center and I am out of the business. Yet, I still publish a website called

http://www.freecallcenterquotes.com

that provides a lot of information for potential call center clients as well as information of the vertical industries served by the call center industry.

Overtime, I hope to give an overview of the types of work we performed, some of the lessons learned, and share some of that hard fought education that I have picked up along the way. Some days we were brilliant, some days we bumbled along, but we had a good time along the path.