The Readerboard

The Hope for Haiti telethon was a success. The Los Angeles Times reported that more than 83 million people tuned in Friday night with an average audience of more than 24 million viewers, leading to at least $61 million in to help survivors of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Those viewers generated massive call volumes. TeleTech was one of several companies assisting in taking donor calls. Its volunteers handled over 80,000 calls alone.

There are other and continuing ways to help the victims. One of our readers, named Simon, wrote to me with the following:

"I read your post today mentioning how to donate for disaster relief to Haiti. I don't know if you've seen this, but the international non-profit group CARE already has over 100 of its workers on the ground in the country and the organization is also raising money to deliver aid to the 3 million people affected by the disaster. The group has been there since 1954 and they have the infrastructure in place to begin giving aid immediately:

Here's an important way to help relieve the distress and suffering of the Haitian people from the recent earthquakes: watching, and donating for The "Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief" telethon to aid the victims will air tonight at Friday, January 22, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.

CBS reports that an estimated 200,000 people were killed in the disaster. It and other networks and a host of other channels is broadcasting the event.

CBS says the two-hour concert telethon will air from New York, London, Los Angeles and Haiti. Among the performers are Beyonce, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake and Keith Urban.Others participating include Denzel Washington, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and former President Bill Clinton. An after a powerful earthquake struck Haiti last week, devastating the nation.

Helping to make the telethon a success is TeleTech. It will be providing technical infrastructure and 5,000 employees from around the globe to take calls from telethon viewers who wish to make donations to support the people of Haiti.

TeleTech will utilize 42 existing global service delivery centers located in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Philippines, South Africa, and Costa Rica. In addition, the company will use its TeleTech@Home workforce as well as its headquarters location in Englewood, Colorado to take calls and pledges for the telethon. TW Telecom will be joining TeleTech in this effort by donating telecommunication services.

TeleTech has a longstanding tradition of assisting those impacted by a crisis, including support of the American Red Cross' "Shelter from the Storm" telethon in 2005 to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina. TeleTech and the TeleTech Community Foundation are committed to being a driving force for change in our local and global communities.

"On behalf of our employees around the globe, we want to express our sincere sympathy to those impacted by this tragedy," said Kenneth Tuchman, TeleTech's chairman and chief executive officer. "I'm proud and honored to announce that TeleTech will play a role in this important fundraising event. It is highly rewarding to be able to repurpose our global infrastructure, technology, and human capital to aid others during a crisis and I am overwhelmed by our employees' consistent drive to help others in a time of crisis and their generosity to give of their time and resources."

The almost incomprehensible destruction and loss of life and immense suffering from the earthquake that struck Haiti--alas another disaster amidst the economic and political turmoil that for decades if not centuries that have ravaged the people of this nation--also serves as a warning for companies in their site selection decisions: wherever they locate.

The message is this: if you want your contact centers and other back offices to survive disasters in locations whether offshore, nearshore, or onshore then be prepared accordingly because the chances are increasingly excellent that no one else i.e. governments will protect you beforehand, during, or afterward. IOW you're on your own. To change and correct that last situation is--where politically feasible--up to you: to make sure that the authorities are doing their jobs in protecting your firm, staff, and their families.

[Full disclosure: I am author of books on site selection and teleworking (Designing the Best Call Center for Your Business, Home Workplace, on electrical safety standards (Understanding Regulations on OSHA...) and co-author with Joseph Fleischer of one on customer support (The Complete Guide to Customer Support)]

Haiti may not be a high-tech hub--though it has the strong potential to be one thanks to its hardworking, imaginative, and determined populace--but there are other struggling nations like it which are, have cities in hazardous locales, and which are also ill-prepared for calamities. Think India and the Philippines in particular. Many of these nations that are homes to and/or being circled for contact centers and back office work, utilizing their low-cost labor share the same ills: no or poorly-enforced building codes, corrupt officials, inadequate infrastructure, and poor preparation. On top of that there is political instability and terrorism amidst economic extremes make these societies fragile at best.

Then again one can make the same point about developed countries. They i.e. ours are a sadder case than developing countries when it comes to disasters because we have the money and the smarts but we don't use them right to prevent, minimize, and properly respond to major disasters. Stupidity knows no borders. Think Hurricane Katrina. Is there that much difference between what happened in New Orleans and in Port-au-Prince? Bad planning in the face of predicted disasters, inadequate infrastructure, a woefully pathetic-bordering-on-the-inept government response amidst unbelievable human loss...

Now here's something scary to think about--and I do as I live on the West Coast, shake-rattle-and-roll-country with a view of a dormant (not extinct) volcano from my apartment--California is dead broke. So what happens when the next mag 8.0 or worse hits the Bay Area or the L-A basin? Where would the money come from? The emergency services? How will those pieces be literally picked up? Who will pay for the cops, the medics, the firefighting gear, the shelter and food, and to reconstruct what was lost?

There's many more other unnecessarily shortened lives and unmitigated suffering in the works also right here at home thanks to bad decisions and incompetent and greedy officials. Like the buildings and inadequate roads constructed in flood plains. Or on the slopes of volcanoes, like the sprawl that is inching up the southwestern slopes of Mount Rainier in Washington State on top of past deadly mudflows. When Rainier blows--and it is when not if--the scale of loss and outright destruction would be unlike anything ever seen in U.S. recorded history.

The hard truth is that the smart people--the engineers and planners in developing and developed countries alike--know the risks of calamities and what needs to be done to plan for and minimize the damage from them when they do strike. They also know just how to varying degrees their governments will actually listen and do something about them, which in some cases they are e.g. building a bored tunnel to replace the 'quake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle, an underground reservoir in San Francisco, but too often they are not.

So what are firms to do? Perform a hard-headed risk assessment of locations. That includes loss of staff as well as outages and damage/repair expenses. Weigh these factors in onshoring versus nearshoring versus offshoring decisions, and the communities inside those nations. Look at evacuation routes. Office parks are more vulnerable than traditional downtowns because for them there is only one way out, and those have been inadequately i.e. cheaply planned whereas cities are on grid systems with multiple escape paths.

Regardless of site, pick/build structures to the best standards not just the local ones (remember, all standards are minimums) and ensure they have proper backup voice/data/power in minimal-vulnerable sites. If there is more than one location then securely network them.

Or better yet, don't build at all. Locate functions that need only computers and phones to provide them in employees' homes i.e. teleworking. Having people work from home--in countries where there is the infrastructure--minimizes losses while providing business continuity.

Wherever one locates make sure the means are there to communicate with employees and their families before, during and after, as well to contact and stay in touch with customers. Also make sure you look after your staff and their families. People are much harder to replace than buildings, computers and phones.

Lastly, monitor and ride the tails of government officials on taking the right steps to avoid and minimize and plan for disasters like proper building standards and tough penalties (i.e. attempted manslaughter charges for those who deliberately take potentially deadly shortcuts). Tie such standards as a condition of rebuilding infrastructure in places like Haiti.

The prime purpose of governments is to protect their populations with whatever it takes. If the politicians and bureaucrats don't do that then they're not doing their jobs and they should be tossed out. It's as simple as that.

I've just been appointed as a citizen rep on my city's infrastructure committee. Trust me: I'll be raising disaster preparedness with my colleagues.

Disasters happen. People will suffer and die. More do so in poorer nations and cities than in richer ones. What you are responsible for as businesses and as individuals is doing the right thing including prompting others to do likewise. Helping to prevent is far cheaper than helping to pick up the remains.

In the case of Haiti I hope that there are large companies out there who have been considering it as a back office location--for the advantages mentioned earlier--and if they are that they work behind the scenes with the countries active in the rebuilding efforts: the U.S. and Canada, to see that the country obtains a stable political and physical infrastructure including proper building codes and security. The payoff will be immense, and in more ways than one. Win-win all around.

The tough, dedicated professionals who staff the 9-1-1 contact centers, and those equally stressed pros who handle claims calls for health insurers who have been worried that the distracted driving laws being rolled out in the U.S. and Canada will result in fewer calls--and possible layoffs--can breathe easy.

That's because the automotive and tech geniuses have managed to come up with exciting new ways for motorists to maim and kill themselves and others that should compensate for the fewer injuries and deaths resulting from the new regulations.

The New York Times reports the new gizmos, which are being rolled out at the Consumer Electronics Show this week include "10-inch screens above the gearshift showing high-definition videos, 3-D maps and Web pages."

Yes, the devices do "prevent drivers from watching video and using some other functions while the car is moving, but they can still pull up content as varied as restaurant reviews and the covers of music albums with the tap of a finger."

Sure sounds like safety first to me. 'Hmmm...now where's that Roadkill Bistro... look, it's a truck driving, like she's in England or Japan...nice grille...'

And as far as that ability to 'prevent' goes...just how long (wink-wink) will it really take for someone to come out and spam-market disabling gear so you can watch 'Final D' while meeting your own or that of your loved ones.

The Times article, appropriately titled 'Driven to Distraction Despite Risks, Internet Creeps Onto Car Dashboards' describes one system on the way this fall from Audi that lets drivers pull up information as they drive.

"Heading to Madison Square Garden for a basketball game? Pop down the touch pad, finger-scribble the word "Knicks" and get a Wikipedia entry on the arena, photos and reviews of nearby restaurants, and animations of the ways to get there." A notice that pops up when the Audi system is turned on reads: "Please only use the online services when traffic conditions allow you to do so safely."

"The technology and car companies say that safety remains a priority. They note that they are building in or working on technology like voice commands and screens that can simultaneously show a map to the driver and a movie to a front-seat passenger, as in the new Jaguar XJ."

"We are trying to make that driving experience one that is very engaging," said Jim Buczkowski, the director of global electrical and electronics systems engineering at Ford told the Times "We also want to make sure it is safer and safer. It is part of what our DNA will be going forward."

Engaging???? What's more engaging than doing what you're supposed to be doing behind the wheel: scans to the front, sides, rear, quick glances at the speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge, temperature, ears alert to noises that shouldn't be there, and nose to smells that don't belong either.

The Times article says "Safety advocates say the companies behind these technologies are tone-deaf to mounting research showing the risks of distracted driving -- and to a growing national debate about the use of mobile devices in cars and how to avoid the thousands of wrecks and injuries this distraction causes each year.

"This is irresponsible at best and pernicious at worst," Nicholas A. Ashford, a professor of technology and policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of the new efforts to marry cars and computers. "Unfortunately and sadly, it is a continuation of the pursuit of profit over safety -- for both drivers and pedestrians."

I'd like to take the whizz-bangs who dreamed up and greenlighted this stuff to experience Christmas Carol-style some of the 'MVAs' I've been at, as a newspaper reporter and have witnessed as a private citizen...Or better yet, I'd like to have them ride along with my son, who is a paramedic...

I had an old friend named Steve that I knew in my college days and with whom I once rented a black Camaro that we decided to drive up to Whistler from Vancouver on the now-slightly-improved-but-still notorious 'Sea to Sky Highway'.

I let him drive--I did the navigating--for his skills were far better than mine would ever be, and I've driven from mountaintops on logging roads to potholed Manhattan streets.

Steve told me, as he nimbly took one sharp turn at slightly over the speed limit, "driving is like a video game. Make one mistake and you die."

This is the time of year for predictions and trends forecasting in the coming year, so before the famous lit bill drops in New York City's Times Square I'll offer a few of mine for 2010 and beyond:

1. The arrival of web/videoconferencing

Videoconferencing especially has long been regarded even by me as a 'tomorrow technology' ranking somewhere up there with jetpacks and hovercars i.e. cool to have, but horrendously expensive and complicated to implement.

No more. The tools and the pipes are there, they are easier to use with both more innovation and lower prices on their way prompted by Cisco's acquisition of Tandberg, forcing competitors to become even savvier. And thanks to a combination of cost crunches and the need to extract more productivity, increased awareness of the need to go green, and more travel hassles such as new security restrictions put in place after the botched bombing of Flight 253 so is the motivation.

Will there still be a need for face-to-face? Yes. But that will be the purview of those echelons who can justify flying business class or on corporate jets. With air travel for most consisting of being poked and prodded at security then being into squeezed into girdle-like seating for hours on end while attempting to digest wolfed-down 'airport food', will employees really miss this 'perq'?

2. Going home, literally

As organizations pick themselves up the smart ones, realizing that their staff and customers communicate much more electronically than face-to-face are at last figuring out that leasing, buying, and fitting out offices is a waste of scarce money in this slow growth era, and are sending more of their employees home. They're getting it that resources poured into such 'overheard' are resources that could have been used to find ways to improve or create new products and services or lower sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution costs resulting in greater profits.

The Telework Coalition and others estimate that a home working strategy can create gains from cost savings and productivity improvements between $10,000 to $20,000 per/employee per year. Add that up and the result in plenty of green in more ways than one. A truly green i.e. eco-friendly office is no office at all.

3. The live agent perq

What will be the true sign that you've made it? When you get a live agent when you call a company. The middle class, long in trouble for the past decades, underwent a serious meltdown in the collapse of the 'Ponzi Economy' and it isn't coming back for many years with the kinds of income that enabled it to buy the cool stuff that they did 5 years ago. That leaves an economy with a stark two-class system that mirrors the so-called Pareto principle of 20 percent of one's customers are going to generate 80 percent of revenues.

That's exactly how firms are going to gear up their CRM systems, which they did before the 2001 downturn. Only this time it will be with more affordable speech rec systems and web self-service rather than the infamous IVR menus from Hades for the hoi polloi. After all where are they going to go when every firm offers the same level of service?

And those live agents, where will they be based? Either in agents' homes in North America for English or French speakers or Central or South American contact centers for Spanish speakers as long as they continue to hire workers from the middle/upper-middle class elites. Upper-middle-class consumers and businesses of all sizes won't tolerate agents who can't understand them ASAP.

4. Analyzed up the tailbone

Forget astronauts. Contact center agents are the ones who are monitored and their performance analyzed up the tailbone, with every last minute scheduled. Expect more of this via performance analytics and workforce optimization tools as organizations seek to extract last penny of efficiency and to uncover ways to sell more to that hallowed 20 percent of customers. Expect too that self-service systems will be analyzed more thoroughly to find ways of keeping more customers in that low-cost channel.

5. Ignore social media at your peril

Social media has become the darling of marketing departments, a playground for branding. Yet if they are not careful they will find themselves being bitten and hard. That's because the 'inmates' are in charge i.e. us consumers rule the new channel.

Don't believe me? Just ask Simon Cowell.

As reported by Lyndsey Parker's Reality Rocks blog, carried on Yahoo! and reported in this blog the single from the winner of his X Factor reality show, a cover of Miley Cyrus's 'The Climb' sung by Joe McElderry has been beaten out for Britain's top Xmas pop song by a 17-year-old Rage Against The Machine track, 'Killing In The Name' 500,000 copies sold, compared to 450,000. RATM fan Jon Morter instigated the drive in what the blog reported was "a protest effort to stop Simon Cowell's empire from dominating the music industry--since Simon is the main X Factor judge and X Factor winner McElderry just signed to Simon's SyCo record label."

The upper middle classes--the key 20 percent-- are also known as the 'chattering classes' and that chatter is taking place online. Listen and respond effectively, including paying heed to their suggestions and your firm may win their loyalty. Ignore it and you risk being tomorrow's recyclables.

I wish all of you a prosperous, happy, and healthy 2010

If there is ever a demonstration that social media can make or break a product--and why enterprises should wrap tools and training with CRM strategies to effectively tap this new channel via their contact centers as presents to themselves-- then a recent U.K. Facebook-organized campaign to deny the debut single from the recent winner of Simon Cowell's X Factor reality show the hallowed position of Britain's top Christmas pop song should be it.

Lyndsey Parker's Reality Rocks blog, carried on Yahoo!, reports that the song, a cover of Miley Cyrus's 'The Climb' sung by X Factor champion Joe McElderry has been beaten out by a 17-year-old Rage Against The Machine track, 'Killing In The Name' 500,000 copies sold, compared to 450,000. RATM fan Jon Morter instigated the drive in what the blog reported was "a protest effort to stop Simon Cowell's empire from dominating the music industry--since Simon is the main X Factor judge, and X Factor winner McElderry just signed to Simon's SyCo record label.

"Eventually some big-name rockers--including the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl, Sir Paul McCartney, and Rage's own Tom Morello--pledged their support to the campaign, the goal of which was to make RATM's 1992 political anthem "Killing In The Name" Britain's Christmas number one, instead of the expected X Factor single," says the blog. "For the first time in five years, an X Factor champion has not snagged Britain's coveted Christmas number one spot, thanks to Morter's Facebook campaign."

What makes the Facebook-driven move all the more interesting is that the RATM's song has a political bent and language that does not exactly offer the warm and cuddly ambiance that one expects for Christmas, or from Simon Cowell's pop music machine. That is unless one wants to become a more successful successor to the famed English icon, Guy Fawkes with the warmth coming from the ensuing firestorm.

McElderry could not have said it better, reports the blog: "Joe recently told British newspaper The Sun that he hated the RATM song, saying: "They can't be serious! I had no idea what it sounded like. It's dreadful and I hate it. How could anyone enjoy this? Can you imagine the grandmas hearing this over Christmas lunch? I wouldn't buy it. It's a nought out of 10 from me. Simon Cowell wouldn't like it. They wouldn't get through to Boot Camp on The X Factor--they're just shouting."

(OK, I confess I have a fondness for the Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedys, DOA, The Clash, and Green Day, hired local punk bands for community fundraisers, one of my favorite movies is Repo Man, and I helped carry the student association banner to a massive protest at the legislature buildings against provincial restraint policies that we had hoped [alas!] would turn into a general strike, so you can see where my bias lies.)

Not that there has been any hard feelings from Simon Cowell, whose typically British calls-it-as-he-sees-it commentary, occasionally laced with sarcasm for those who deserve it both offends and thrills Americans, capturing their churchgoing/'shine-swilling/Puritan-and-pleasure dichotomy. Reports the blog:

"As for Simon Cowell's reaction, he is probably taking the news in stride, judging by a recent conversation he had with campaigner Morter. Morter told the British music paper NME that Simon personally phoned him the night before the chart numbers were released, to wish him well in this bizarre sales battle. "Simon was very sweet and it was lovely to talk to him," said Morter. "We had a good chat about music in general and just wished each other good luck. I've got total respect for him. That was a really nice thing to do."

Then again Mr. Cowell, as an extremely savvy businessperson, was more likely quick to recognize a smart campaign. A tip of the hat to the new order.

And that's the lesson with social media. If individuals can topple the best efforts of an industry giant like him--with the lovely touch of beating the musical equivalent of saccharine with Semtex--imagine what those who believe or dislike other products and firms can do if they can gain support for their campaigns via the social channel.

Developing customer loyalty through card/membership programs is a good idea, in theory and for the meantime in practice. Yet is this a short-term gig, about as effective cash/gifts/other goodies-based performance incentives, with the same inherent flaw?

Canadians (yes I'm one) especially are big on loyalty cards. You can't go into a store or gas bar or most any other business and not be asked for one here. I have two in my wallet; I used to have four.

The key reasons for loyalty program popularity in 'our home and native land' is that we Canadians, perhaps because of the Scots ancestry of many of us or the tough (except for southwestern British Columbia) survival-oriented climate, for whatever reason are cheap and love bargains. Our unofficial currency is 'Canadian Tire money': the scrip handed back when buying at an omnipresent (like Tim Hortons) Canadian Tire store.

Yet an excellent story on Yahoo! via Bankrate Canada, written by Peter Diekmeyer, the Montreal Gazette's management columnist calls into question the long-range value of such loyalty programs regardless of country.

He points out that the costs of being loyal to one business in many cases appear to outweigh the benefits. "For example, Indigo's [a leading Canadian bookselling chain, similar to Barnes and Noble in the U.S. ] iREWARDS card costs $20 a year and provides a discount of 10 per cent on book purchases. That's not bad, but it's hardly a savings that would justify a 30-minute trip across town if there is some place closer you can find what you're after."

Also, "More and more loyalty programs also have fees attached to them, which make them less attractive to consumers. One Aeroplan [Air Canada's frequent flyer program] -affiliated credit card, for example, charges $120 a year. That doesn't sound like much, but if you hang onto the card for five years while racking up points, your supposedly free plane trip will actually have cost you $600."

Mr. Diekmeyer is dead on. The stores I have loyalty cards for are ones I would shop at anyway. Would I go out of my way for any of them? No. The added time and gas isn't worth it. When the weather is exceptionally lousy I'll go to two other competing stores that are even closer to me even though the prices are sometimes higher.

There's also another issue with loyalty programs in the case of frequent-fliers, one which could doom them and that is "substantial evidence that the vast majority of frequent-flyer tickets issued are not declared as employment income, which means the government is cheated out of millions of dollars."

Well we know in this era of revenue-short governments attempting to fund job-creating stimulus programs where this one is heading...

Good riddance, for frequent-flier programs have the appearances of a scam what with all the hassles entailed in using the points. Moreover the story points out that it benefits those who can afford to fly business class and above, not the hoi-polloi who endure airborne steerage. Or as the article says the "general public is, in effect, subsidizing the vacations of the rich."

I am jealous of our cat that had recently travelled on an airline whose name will not be mentioned; they're all sinking to a common denominator of mediocrity. She had a warm comfy protected compartment to herself with no one's knees in their backs or tray tables in their guts, and a much easier time through security...

Employee loyalty programs have been criticized with some justification because they focus on the carrots and getting staff to chase them like other animals in a cage rather than on doing fine work and being rewarded by that ultimate incentive: encouraging words from their supervisors. Consumer loyalty programs fall into the same trap by aiming at the goodies rather on quality products and services.

If companies spent more time and resources on the latter--delivering solid items and experiences--reinforced by quality customer care including easy-to-navigate web sites and IVR menus and well-trained and attentive contact center and in-person i.e. retail, ticket counter, checkin staff--at the right price than on gimmicks like the cards, cutting out the programs' expenses and the profits to the middlepeople--they may amaze themselves in seeing how loyal customers can be.

While Americans were stuffing themselves with turkey, the turkeys that are brooding over the maggot-infested remains of Canadian-HQ'ed Nortel have decided to munch on what meat is left.

Canada's CBC reported Thursday that Nortel's management approved a plan earlier this fall to reward themselves with salary increases, investments or bonuses. An internal document obtained by the broadcaster outlines a new compensation scheme for 72 Nortel executives that will see them get a total of $7.5 million on top of their current salaries in 2009.

Of those 72, 14 will be getting compensation of $500,000 or more. The fattest feaster is former treasurer John Doolittle, who took over from its last CEO Mike Zafirovski. Doolittle's total compensation has been bumped to $1.68 million this year, an increase of 1.12 million over 2008, when he earned $390,000 in salary and an estimated $170,000 in investment and bonus money.

This greedy self-serving, yet not surprising move given Nortel's record of incompetent, questionably ethical governance--one whose carelessness, shortsightedness and stupidity is matched only by its board who failed in its duties to properly oversee this outfit--comes out at a time when those that actually did their jobs well--its pensioners and long-term unemployed--are being denied what is rightfully theirs.

"I am shocked," Melanie Johannink, who worked for Nortel for 18 years before being laid off in the spring, told the CBC. "It kind of makes you wonder where the money is going."

Former Nortel president Bob Ferchat told the CBC he was also surprised at the extent to which executives at a company in bankruptcy protection were rewarding themselves.

"My reaction, frankly, to the document is 'Here we go again'," said Ferchat. "It's another round of people dividing the proceeds, eating the carcass of the company before it's even dead."

If there is any justice the cretins responsible at Nortel will never see another management-level paycheck or other forms of compensation for the rest of their miserable lives, that they will be forced to live at a standard that the ones they've discarded have to survive on and that their holiday stockings be laden with coal, which at least they could burn for heat.

Alas such endings are for storybooks. Such successful practitioners of the Peter Principle usually find gainful employment in other outfits who are eager for their 'expertise' with expectations for short-term stock profits before the long-term pain of having these fine individuals aboard sets in.

Leave it up to Nortel to make Ebeneezer Scrooge look good. If the famed Dickens character had been a Nortel senior exec he would have 'borrowed' Tiny Tim's crutches and sold them for firewood.

Happy Holidays!

Here's a budding new and potentially more profitable and much less costly option to those hated (and in turn heavily regulated) cold-call telemarketing calls: paying people to pitch goodies via their social networks i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.

A story published in the Nov.21 New York Times reports that Amazon.com will start "paying commissions to individuals who refer buyers to the site via Twitter messages. (People must first sign up for Amazon Associates, a program in which Amazon pays Web publishers for referrals to its site.)".

But the bigger opportunity, it says "may be in matching advertisers with so-called influencers -- the more popular users of services like Twitter."

The Times story opens with how Vancouver, B.C., Canada blogger and Web entrepreneur John Chow earned $200 by telling his 50,000 Twitter followers, amidst a discussion of his city's typically wet, miserable weather where they could purchase M&Ms with customized faces, messages and colors.

Those numbers add up. In October, reports the paper he made about $3,000 from Twitter spiels. "I get paid for pushing a button," he said.

The benefits of social media for marketing in this fashion are enormous. The messages get through because the de facto marketers are known and trusted, unlike underpaid agents confined to crowded noisy cubicles, located in the middle of nowhere, and often in another country, hooked up to dialers that spit calls that make them work like chipmunks on amphetamines. The Times points out consumers "increasingly ignore nearly ever other kind of ad message in print, on television and online."

Another benefit is very low costs i.e. no dialers, PCs, and offices, and no wages/benefits. Just the virtual piecework.

Naturally there is a very real risk that all too many marketers will get greedy and stupid leading to annoyed customers and prospects with social media---like they did with phone calls, faxes and e-mail---leading to these channels being washed out for business purposes and consequent legislation to restrict these practices. The mindset of these characters is slash-and-burn, roasting the golden geese they've strangled.

There are hopeful signs that in this space that they may have, at last "get it", that in a limited pool of buyers--who communicate to each other at light speed--you can't afford to tick them off.

"We don't want to create an army of spammers, and we are not trying to turn Facebook and Twitter into one giant spam network," Joey Caroni, co-founder of Peer2. told the Times "All we are trying to do is get consumers to become marketers for us."

OK contact center managers and execs, here's a winner of a tip to make money and not leave it on the table: clean up your automated voice a.k.a. IVR self-service and quit treating it as the back of the bus for all those 80 percent of non-elite customers who generate the 20 percent of revenues.

Because if you don't you're going to lose that 20 percent who can easily go elsewhere. And they may not come back when they do qualify to speak promptly to a live agent.

Don't believe me? Then check out this new report from Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, The Cost of Poor Customer Service. It estimates that lousy treatment of those who put money in the hands of businesses ding the U.S. economy to the tune of $83 billion. Where is this coming from? 71 percent of consumers have ended a relationship due to a poor customer service experience.

What is the impact to enterprises? How about an average value of $289 in one year of each customer relationship lost to a competitor or abandoned. Add those up and we're talking serious money.

So why do customers leave? The Genesys reports points to having them repeat themselves, being trapped in automated self-service, forced to wait too long for service, contact centers that don't their history and value and an ability to switch channels easily.

Which is the most problematic channel? You got it. Automated voice self-service, where 33 percent of respondents cited it as the most challenging mode. Moreover 38 percent said "it is critical to improve voice self-service to make it more intelligently integrated with human assisted service."

One reason is the nightmares of busy consumers trying to get out of automated Hades to reach live agents. The Genesys report revealed that spent more than 9.5 minutes trying to reach a person.

"As a result, even paper mail is preferred to poorly implemented voice self-service," says the paper. "Consumers say the biggest issues are that voice self-service does not recognize the value of the consumer, lacks context, and needs to recognize customer needs and intent better. Another consumer said: "I don't mind automated systems but...I hate it when I am unable to reach a human, and the automated voice continues to make me repeat over and over, and when I finally get close to being connected to a human, I am disconnected and have to start over again."

In contrast while not surprisingly most people are happy with live agents, more were satisfied with Web self-service than not. If anything they were neutral.

So what gives, folks? Why can't you make automated voice self-service as pleasing or at best not as offensive as web self-service?

The solutions are there. They include 'trimming the menu trees' and making it easy for customers to zero out: throwing obstacles in their way is only going to make them consider tossing your business into the recycle bin so don't be stupid. They also include going to user-friendly speech rec. Microsoft has an increasingly sophisticated and affordable array of premises-installed and hosted (via its Tellme subsidiary) speech products.

So what are you waiting for? Your competitors to take the money off your table?

Image via Wikipedia

In the piece, titled 'The sad illusion of happy customers' Mr. Lazarus takes a sharp look at electronics retailer Best Buy's new nationwide marketing campaign 'They'll be happy, you'll be happy, we'll be happy.'

"What they're saying is that the company will bend over backward to help you shop for gifts this holiday season and will do whatever it takes to ensure that gift recipients are pleased with what they get. This, in turn, will warm the hearts of Best Buy shareholders.

"Happy customers is a long-term strategy for us," Best Buy's chief marketing officer, Barry Judge, told me. "If they're happy, they'll want to buy more."

"That's the idea anyway. But after visiting a couple of Best Buy stores and chatting with customers, I'd say the company still has some work to do on the happiness front.

"The trade-off is that you get the selection and square footage, but you have to hunt to find someone to help you," said Glendale resident Howard Erickson after buying a mini-fridge at the Best Buy in Los Feliz.

So how'd he do?

"I had to hunt to find someone to help me."

"I had a similar experience in the computer section until I finally spotted a salesguy and asked if he could show me a computer for under $500. He steered me toward a Hewlett-Packard model. I asked if there was anything else. The salesguy pointed me toward a Dell model for about the same price. I asked which was better.

"I don't know," the salesguy replied. "I guess they're about the same."

"Not that I'm picking on Best Buy, even though this week's TV and print ads all but dare consumers to judge the company by the quality of their shopping experience.

Customer support, says Mr. Lazarus" makes you feel like an uninvited dinner guest. A general indifference among employees as to whether you'll ever shop there again. Sometimes it feels like companies are determined to chase us away, rather than do everything in their power -- especially at times like these -- to build customer loyalty."

"Customer satisfaction has always been a major concern for most companies," Lars Perner, an assistant professor of marketing at USC's Marshall School of Business told the L-A Times journo. "But it's fairly difficult to implement. It's pretty labor intensive."

"He said that as long as low-low-low prices remain consumers' main priority, and as long as turnover remains relatively high among workers at service-oriented businesses, most companies just can't afford to keep sufficient numbers of well-trained staff on hand to meet customers' needs," reported Lazarus.

Columnist Lazarus and Prof. Perner got that right. Great customer-retaining service is nice to have but not if it means having high prices.

The message for contact centers and their parent or contractor organizations are really very simple. Your customers care first about price, second about products/service, and third about service. Therefore orient your business strategies and investments accordingly.

For contact centers that means more automation, and home agents (let the creepy-crawlies take over millstone bricks-and-mortar centers), on finding ways with analytics to reduce headcount, and less on customer loyalty, retention, and satisfaction programs. When it comes to hiring and training worry less about smarts and filling them with knowledge--you won't keep let alone attract them into all but the high-paying tech support centers anyway--but who can smile, sell, and do more than speak a.k.a. multitask.

Also focus your CRM initiatives on tracking customer interactions by channel to avoid pouring away money on asking customers to repeat themselves, and on cutting sales and service costs. Customers don't want except for the most sensitive products relatiobnships with your company. You are only as good as your last pricepoint.

Forget total customer lifetime value. With the way many businesses are going--the slow upturn is going to unlock mergers and consolidations to grow by acquisition rather than the more expensive and financially shakier approach of growing organically--the customers are going to outlive them.

Image via Wikipedia

The most moving words that have written about those who fought and died in war, and who continue to do so is arguably the poem 'In Flanders Fields'. It was written, reports Wikipedia by a Canadian military physician, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae on May 3, 1915 during the infamous 'War to End All Wars' i.e. the First World War, after he had watched his friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, only 22 years old, die in battle the day before in Belgium.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--Lt.-Col. John McCrae

The poem is all the more moving in that the same grounds would see some battle 25 years later, underlining the often senselessness of war. It underscores one of the most brilliant, sensitive, and respectful remarks I've heard, read, and witnessed on the issue of sending men and women into battle whose ultimate sacrifice which we remember today.

For when former Canadian federal Liberal party leader Stephane Dion was asked whether he supported the Canadian troops fighting in Afghanistan he replied: "the best way to support the troops is to make sure you have properly thought out why you are sending them, to risk their lives for their country."

Sound words indeed to consider...and remember.

About a dozen years ago I heard a comment ascribed to a longtime CEO of a leading global teleservices firm who reputedly said: "I don't care where in the world you go, self-service will always be cheaper."

Well thanks to technologies such as electronic order entry, improved IVR, speech recognition but more importantly web self-service and more recently outbound notifications there is a growing realization that automation could doom many jobs, such as in contact centers, even in India, long the land of low-cost offshore outsourcing.

A blog entry that appeared in the New York Times last week by Vikas Bajaj says that India too is worried about where the jobs will come from in future (thanks Rich for the tip) 
 

S. Gopalakrishnan, the chief executive of Infosys, told the Times blogger that "he worried that over the next 20 years to 30 years, smarter computers and increased automation could do away with many of the back-office jobs that companies have moved to his country to take advantage of lower labor costs and greater economies of scale.

"He recalled the example of an outsourcing deal his company took on to enter orders into an electronic system for a customer. When the contract started, Infosys put 300 people on the job, but after a short while it dropped that to just 100 people, even though the workers were processing more orders, faster and more efficiently.

"What happened? I asked.

 
"He said that a greater percentage of the orders were now being submitted electronically by the customer's customers. In other cases previously separate computer systems were connected to each other, so more orders were flowing electronically with no human intervention. And finally, he said, Infosys itself had found ways to streamline its processes so that it needed fewer people to complete the work."

What makes Indian contact centers offshoring especially vulnerable are two factors. One, India is moving up the IT food chain, with better paying and higher skilled jobs such as in programming. Two, offshoring-serving contact centers' hours are deeply and understandably unpopular with employees because they must work unsociable (and unsafe) graveyard shifts to match the corresponding daytime hours in North America. That is on top of the typical contact center stresses from demanding and sometimes obnoxious customers while meeting stringent performance targets in very confining spaces at low pay.
 

Does this mean that offshoring will end? Well...no. As India's companies and employees become more expert and proficient with technology, expect them to develop and refine automated solutions...at less cost than their North American counterparts.

Ask anyone who works in the service sector: contact centers, hospitality, retail, and transportation especially, the one thing besides lousy supervisors and managers that drives them up the wall and that is wild scheduling--days, times, even locations worked changed on a moment's notice--resulting in fewer hours and less income.

Too often employees apply for and are hired for jobs that employers tell them will pay X for a given number of hours: 20-30-40/week. What happens though is that many of these 'hours' become 'on call' i.e. they have to be 'Janey or Jimmy on the spot' but they don't get paid.

These practices, often undertaken (you guessed it, by incompetent supervisors and managers) wreak havoc on workers' lives, especially in today's tough economy where both pay, and the money for job-related clothing and transportation, and for child care expenses are tight.

Staff can't afford to waste these outlays to go in for an eight-hour shift only to be told to go home after four or even two hours. They have little leeway, being at the bottom of society's pecking order, to get doctor's appointments changed or find alternative child care when their boss suddenly calls them in. Yet because they are poorly paid they have little choice except to pull their hairs out and pray.

So why should contact centers and other employers care? After all it is a difficult economy, business is scarce, and costs have to be tightly managed, which means only having workers on the clock when they need them.

Here's why: turnover and quality. It costs money to hire and train staff and productivity is lost--and customer retention and revenues can drop--until the newcomers are brought up to speed, when they can deliver the same if not better performance compared with those who have left.

More seriously, employers could be risking long and annoying queues and rushed service that really drives scarce customers--and their spending--elsewhere.

Why because what is happening on the employees' side is that the workers are taking on multiple jobs to make ends meet. If their 'principal' boss calls them in because a colleague is 'out sick' (like applying for another job) and they're not home, and no one else can come in, the roster falls short. The employees' reactions when they see the voicemails or texts is "tough tomatoes, pal."

Here's another consequence: any actual or perceived violation of laws and regulations--be fudging on payroll, blocked exits or loose wires, mouse droppings in the cafeteria, racial and/or sexual harassment--and your outfit will have a series of unwelcome visitors. When someone feels their back is against the wall and they may be going down, what is to stop them from taking they believe is responsible with them?

Employees aren't worried anymore about references. HR departments don't require them because they know their absence or presence on applications means nothing because people b.s. and of what goes on good and bad in workplaces. More seriously someone/some outfit can get sued for negative comments, and who needs to justify spending for lawyers for such HR matters? All employers are allowed to say therefore are the equivalents of 'name, rank, and serial number'.

And when the economy truly bounces back with new jobs well, it doesn't take a seasoned observer to predict what is going to happen next. Especially in contact centers where staff churn is rampant even slowdowns because of the job stress and the confining lab-rat-like/monitored-up-the tailfeathers environment.

Is there a solution? Yes. And that is for employers to pay for the hours promised. Suck it up. No on-call. No cutbacks. No 'we've decided to make this job temporary'. No games with benefits.

You hire someone for 20 hours a week at $10/hour you allocate for that. Period. Can't afford to do that? Then you don't know how to forecast and budget and therefore you shouldn't be in business.

Employees are like any other expense. If you don't pay the bills you won't get the service. No money? No voice/data, power, roof, or the people under them.

Having said that, and on the positive said there are a good many companies, including contact centers that do treat their people well. They get the message that in the service business your employees are your principal investment because it is they that interfaces with the end-customers i.e. the one who give you money. And, not surprisingly, these outfits have strong balance sheets, enabled by productivity-and-revenue enhancing loyalty.

The choice is clear: emulate these outfits and succeed. Toy with the people who work for you and fail.

Are contact center agents, which are still known as 'operators' in the answering service world going the way of elevator operators? For every contact center opening and expansion heralded there have been the understandably less trumpeted closures and cutbacks thanks to automation.

The automated trend is logical and seemingly inevitable. It costs less than $1 for a Web or IVR/speech-rec-handle transaction or outbound notification call versus $5 or more for that taken care or made by a live agent. While a home agent strategy can slice a guesstimated 50 to 75 cents or so from that sum and offshoring may chop that to say $4, with repeat and longer calls offsetting labor savings, they still do not effectively outbalance the savings from automatic tools.

The automated trend had been masked during the 'Ponzi boom' when companies added contact center staff and sites as demand and call volume bubbled. Yet these firms have also been slicing the rise with agentless solutions. Hiding the movement too have been downturn-driven call volumes resulting from financial and healthcare insurance worries, prompting these organizations to divert more calls into self-service and notifications.

Not surprisingly even live agent-designed contact center solutions are being aimed at and used to shrink headcount. For example presence/UC tools are being marketed to enable organizations tap idle 'available' counter and front desk staff to take calls, which avoids having separate agents and facilities to handle them.

There are many new self-service tools coming onto the market. One example is avatars which personalize and enable interactions with computers, which self service actually is. At the same time hosted offerings cut product capital costs and install times while permitting greater flexibility.

This trend most recently came to light at the tail end of a Globe and Mail article on Telus (full disclosure, I am a Telus wireless customer), which is one of Canada's largest communications firms on its plans to reduce wireless charges so it can remain competitive. An airwave auction in 2008 is letting more wireless carriers into the Canadian market.

"Two ways Telus plans to support [profit] margins is moving customers to electronic billing and bolstering its online customer support centre so that fewer subscribers need to contact a call centre, he [Joseph Natale, executive vice-president and president of consumer solutions at Telus] said."

Yes, there is no substitute for having individuals handle calls. One can argue that having them take care of customer care and purchases helps organizations stay competitive in today's and tomorrow's no-growth/slow-growth milieu. Yet with reliance on knowledge bases, tight scripting to comply with regulations, and a reluctance to empower and pay for agents who can think and act out of the software box, is there that much difference between live and automated service?

Telus has one of the sharpest contact center operations there is, employing speech rec and home agents. Its staff are well-trained and managed judging from the prompt excellent service I receive from them. If it can't justify keeping the level of live agents presently employed who can?

In today's environment price is equally if not more important as service. As long as the quality is liveable compared to similar offerings, most customers will put up with tolerable if not ideal care--if the sticker amounts match what they think the items are worth and can afford. The airlines, hardware/software firms, retailers, and yes communications including wireless firms have demonstrated proof of that. And if one or more firms can drive more customers to self-service and still maintain if not grow market share and profits others will quickly follow suit.

Does this mean that contact centers and staff will disappear? Not altogether. Only where there is a need for human intelligence, whose contacts can make or break customer relationships with benefits or losses that substantially outweigh the costs, then there will be, and the justification for, people to handle them.