From time to time we get inquiries which strike a tangent with call centers. These can be incoming help desks, catalog sales, or outgoing sales and surveys.

Most of the time, we note some controversy surrounding the "MBO" (management by objective) mentality of the folks who want to measure the effectiveness of the call center, including the personnel training, scripts used, empowerment, decision as to whether the customer or client is satisfied when the call is concluded.

Here's an interesting link discussing the metrics involved
Survey Reveals that Computer Desktop Drains Agent Productivity

Two hundred multi-national corporate call centers were surveyed about the factors that severely affect contact center performance and customer satisfaction objectives. The results of the study, conducted by Winn Technology Group Research, provide industry metrics on agent performance.


Get a FREE copy of the complete survey results at:
http://www.jacada.com/callcentersurvey/survey107 (http://www.jacada.com/callcentersurvey/survey107)
Survey Results Identify Agent Desktop As Productivity Drain
This nine-page white paper examines the factors that severely affect contact center performance and customer satisfaction objectives.
All fields marked with “*” are required to send this form.
**Jacada respects your privacy. Information provided on this form will remain
the sole property of Jacada. It will be used to provide the information you requested
and will not be sold or released to other companies.


(after registration, Jacada emails a link to the white paper)
I have no idea how long the link will remain "live."
Once registered, here is the list of current white papers available from this source:
Free White Papers & Research
Customer Retention Strategies in Action: A Communications Industry Report (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#33)
Call Center Survey: Survey Results Identify Agent Desktop As Productivity Drain (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#11)
Peppers & Rogers Group: How to Optimize the Customer Experience in Your Contact Center (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#12)
Enabling the Next Generation Contact Center (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#13)
Frost & Sullivan White Paper for Call Center Management (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#14)
Butler Group Research: Integration Strategies - Jacada Fusion (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#15)
eBizQ Jacada Product Spotlight (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#16)
Jacada Fusion Technical White Paper (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#17)
ZapThink White Paper: Untangling the Application Morass - Building Agile Composite Applications with SOA (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#18)
Jacada WinFuse - Service-enable Any Windows Client/Server Application (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#19)
Peoplesoft-Certified Legacy Integration with Jacada: White Paper (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#20)
Using Jacada HostFuse with Siebel eBusiness Applications (http://www.jacada.com/apps/publications.htm#21)

Please note: Jacada is a For Profit company which wants to sell you stuff.

Wes - Is this a product endorsement by you?

The point is strictly to look at how the folks who DO make their living from call centers continue to pay lip service to "customer satisfaction" but continue to look at almost everything else BUT customer satisfaction when they set up centers, run them, and reimburse folks who work at them.

Certainly, Jacada and others make software which purports to do have concern for "customer satisfaction," but their bottom line is still "how many calls can you handle with the least amount of well-trained and knowledgeable personnel."

Customer relationship management is a big buzzword phrase in today's call center world, but the concept is really to reduce customers to manageable bits of information rather than look at them as a source of business that can get ticked off and buy someplace else. The worst offenders in the CRM rush to dehumanize customers are the monopolies or near monopolies.

I found it ironic that the new editor of CRM magazine (the trade journal for the call center industry) went off on a rant after an airline sent his luggage on to the next city. His call to the airline to track his luggage lost a mere 250 miles from him got him transferred to an operator in India who was unintelligible to the editor and the editor was unintelligible to him. The editor knew the same airline had a flight coming back in two hours from the city where his luggage was probably circling the baggage carousel and he could reclaim his luggage if only he could get a local who would just throw it on the plane - upshot was that it took a flurry of emails and 3 days to reunite him with his luggage - no apology from anyone at the airline.

We often talk about customer-centric thinking in ISO9k2k, but somehow the communication gets lost just like the poor guy's luggage - talking to someone 10,000 miles away because the master plan refuses to give a local phone number to connect with a human on the ground at the site.

The point of the white paper is slanted toward consolidating multiple softwares into one, but my point and one easily seen between the lines of the white paper is that common sense seems to be erased from the corporate memory. Some mid-level satrap trying to build his own empire finds it "expedient" to use powerless drones 10,000 miles away because he can show the corporate bigwigs he can handle a call for 6 cents instead of 25 cents, never mind that it takes 5 six cent calls to accomplish what 1 twenty-five cent call could.

I don't care a fig about jacada - they just have free white papers.