ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 - (Page 11)

O P E R AT I O N S a resurgence in the hosted solution approach that allows you to pay as you grow. In centers of any size, the technology won’t change anything by itself; you’ve got to create the foundation for success, streamline the processes and have the right people doing the right things. If done right, technology will make you more efficient, but if it’s done wrong, it can become both a crutch and the scapegoat for everything that doesn’t work. An advantage in small call centers is being able to create a community of help where agents continually share ideas and tips with others. Your knowledge base and improvement can come from the interactions and learning that agents have on a daily basis. Spend time with agents to get a better feel for their special skills and desires — you might just have someone that can create an internal Web-based knowledge tool that everyone can update and share. Once you begin the path of internal automation, the ROI for external tools becomes much easier to explain and achieve. PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER one very important mandate: They must spend the time to develop organizations that don’t see themselves limited by size. If done right, they will evolve into the opposite: an organization that is limited only by its service imagination. • Leaders of small call centers must not only master the fundamentals of running call centers, but they must also develop creative ways to do those things just a little differently. There is never a single-size solution — even small call centers can’t do everything exactly the same. But all leaders in small call centers share TIM MONTGOMERY is Founder of The Service Level Group. TimM@ServiceLevelGroup.com IT’S ALL ABOUT SPEECH: ATTEND ICMI’S SEMINAR ICMI PUBLICATIONS Improving the Effectiveness of Speech and IVR Through practical guidance, you’ll gain the knowledge and tools you need to plan, design and implement effective touch-tone and speech recognition self-service systems. Presented with: Join us May 13-14, 2008 at the Marriott Inner Harbor in Baltimore, MD! In this humorous collection of essays, exercises and puzzles, author Bruce Balentine offers a satirical insider’s perspective of the IVR and speech recognition industry. The most thorough, practical, step-by-step guide ever written about speech recognition, by experts who have been designing and developing successful applications for years. For more info or to register, please visit For more info or to order, please visit www.icmi.com/ivr icmi’s insight www.icmi.com/pubs www.icmi.com | APRIL 2008 11 http://www.icmi.com/ivr http://www.incoming.com/Pubs.aspx http://www.icmi.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 Operations: Small Call Centers, Big Potential Ad Index Contents Editor's Page Contact Center Spotlight People: Assessment Tools Recommended Reading Technology: Speech Recognition Special Feature: Best of Show Strategy: Service-to-Sales Success Expert's Angle - High Volume, High Stakes: A Better Strategy for Hiring Experts Angle - Secrets of Recruiting Success/Job Brands: Changing Applicant Reactions to Your Openings Experts Angle - Speech Analytics: Uncovering the Voice of the Customer

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

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