Brendan Read
TMC
September 2008
You are browsing the archive for September 2008.
IP-enabled iPhone: The Ultimate Contact Center Handset?
September 25, 2008Imagine being able to take and make calls, receive e-mails, IMs, and SMS, and at the same time manage web-enabled applications like hosted CRM and workforce management in a convenient, go-anywhere, user-friendly wireless appliance.
Imagine no more being tangled up in cords, or fiddling with multiple (and expensive) gadgets.
Imagine having at last a truly usable phone for home workers, including contact center agents and supervisors.
The hard reality is that when you are working from home you do get interrupted, like for deliveries, plumbers, other contractors, family responsibilities: which beats productivity and cost-wise having to leave early/arrive late to handle when working in a traditional office. Such a device would enable you to stay in touch and keep on the go while signing documents, giving instructions, etc.
The reality of having such a tool may be closer than you may think: in the form of an IP-enabled iPhone that acts like a mutant cordless handset.
Opportunity Knocks in Canada?
September 23, 2008While at ITEXPO West in L-A last week I saw a headline in USA Today "Opportunity Knocks in Canada". The story discussed how the petro-rich province of Alberta is recruiting skilled Americans to work there.
The other side of the picture is that US-serving contact centers located there are closing, such as Convergys' shuttering of its Red Deer site because of the high Canadian dollar that is largely fueled by the resource sector that has made services less competitive.
At the same time despite the widespread investments in predominantly nearshore contact centers throughout Canada over the past 12 years, there has not been the rapid expansion in IT and the subsequent movement up the skills and technologies food chain on any signficant scale there like that which has occurred in Ireland and is now taking place in India.
That shift has enabled the Irish economy, once Europe's basket case, to shrug off the loss of contact centers as it becomes less competitive than that in other nations, with former contact agents have moved on to become IT developers and help desk specialists. India is taking the same route.
Canadians have lost the puck as it were on the great opportunity that contact centers have provided elsewhere in laying the basis of a strong high-tech economy, which overall has long been fairly dismal with the exceptions of a few bright lights like RIM, Nortel, Mitel, and CRM vendors like Maximizer.
For when the oil runs out, what else is there going to be left especially in Alberta? While there has been much talk and a few high profile projects on technology, Canada, especially the West, is still a nation that 'hews wood and draws water'.
Home working, customer care insights from ITEXPO West
September 17, 2008While managing the SIP in the Contact Center Certification track at ITEXPO West yesterday I came across two excellent insights courtesy of the speakers and the attendees.
In a discussion following TDI CTO Mark Moore's session on enabling home-based agents arose the issue of how to manage bandwidth at home agents' premises, what with everyone else in the household tapping into wireless networks unbeknownst to the agents.
The concern is to make sure the demand on the pipe at home is not constricted to the point where agents cannot access applications they need. This can be an issue in many households, especially with teenagers...one that I will be looking into...and reporting back on.
I don't have that problem in my household as the cable feed, base set phones (we have IP for residential too as well as for my work) the wireless hub are in my office, and I know exactly how many devices are on it. It helps that my peak usage times (daytime) are not the same as other users: my wife and a tenant, both of whom are full-time students at a local college.
Are You Prepared for the Next Disaster? Probably Not
September 12, 2008In every journalist's career one comes across a piece of research that makes one's head shake followed by a jaw drop and scream either silently or out loud if no one is around: "Are these people [fill in the blank] ???!!!"
The paper "Business as Usual? A Benchmarking Study of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity for Contact Centers ", published by DMG Consulting and sponsored by Empirix shockingly shows, if the survey sample is any indication, just how badly prepared contact centers to handle something as relatively minor as an ACD failure, let alone managing catastrophes like fires up to major events like hurricanes and yes terrorism.
The study, appropriately enough, arrived on my desk days before the seventh anniversary of 9-11 and in the middle of what is turning out to be the deadliest and most destructive hurricane season in three years, with Ike now at this writing threatening to destroy the Texas coast...
Here are the highlights, if you can call it that:
* Less than 37 percent of companies are confident that their operations can withstand a disaster or business disruption
* 60.2 percent of firms are not routinely testing their core contact center infrastructure. This leaves them open to unexpected but avoidable failures
* Only 4.7 percent of firms test their disaster recovery/business continuity plans monthly, leaving 95.3 percent at risk of a serious meltdown in an emergency situation
* 20 percent of contact centers do not even have a disaster recovery plan
I've had a lifetime dealing with, preventing, preparing for, avoiding, responding, evacuating in advance of, and writing about disasters...including accidents, earthquakes, fires, storms (including tornadoes), and terrorism. I've been a security guard in factories, at construction sites, and offices. I've written about 'events' from building fires to the first World Trade Center bombing, along with stories and books on electrical safety.
Lessons From 9-11...No More 'Are You OK? E-mails'
September 11, 2008Seven years ago at about this time I am writing this, around 4pm, I was at a police station in New Jersey, waiting for a friend of my wife's to pick me up to take me to their home...
I had just gotten off a free-ride all-stops NJ Transit train from Hoboken, fed by shuttle buses from the New York Waterway ferry terminal in Weehawken...upwind from the plumes of smoke arising from Ground Zero.
My goal was to walk across one of the bridges that linked New Jersey to Staten Island, where we lived, and get my car and drive out to see my wife at a hospital where she was with my sister-in-law, who had suffered a heart attack while we walked from our then-midtown Manhattan offices to the ferry. But the police said they weren't even letting pedestrians through...
Meanwhile we hadn't heard from our son, a paramedic. He had called my wife after the towers were attacked, saying that he was being told to go in...
When my firm, Call Center Magazine/CMP closed its offices I left with my assigned laptop.
There's No Place Like Show...Like ITEXPO West
September 10, 2008There is a wealth of ways to find out and learn more about new products and services. The Internet has proven to be an exceptionally versatile channel for this information, with online demos and the ability to interact with suppliers.
Yet when all is said and done there is still nothing like going to a conference/trade show floor and checking out the solutions and the exhibitors one-on-one, face-to-face, to get realtime information and answers to your specific needs via your multitude of senses.
For those reasons I strongly encourage you to attend ITEXPO WEST and make time to visit the show floor to visit the exhibitors to see what's new and what will be new in the way of solutions that could help your organization be the best it can be. To learn more I invite you to peruse our Show Guide via TMC President and Group Editor-in-Chief Rich Tehrani's blog. You will find the Guide informative and enlightening that inspires you, like a good travel magazine...to get there and see for yourself.
Come to Class at ITEXPO West!
September 8, 2008
One of the coolest aspects of ITEXPO WEST is TMC University. The reason: nothing beats testing and certification on hard topics to drive learning and retain information that you can use and impart to others when you return. TMC University, along with finding out about the latest in solutions, offers high ROI from attending ITEXPO WEST for both time and for travel budgets.
TMC University provides full day training courses that validate and test your knowledge of key subject areas such as Microsoft OCS, FMC/Mobility, SIP, SaaS, and SIP in the contact center.
I have been to and have been involved with countless conferences and trade shows in my career. And I've yet to come across a concept as unique and worth while as TMC University.
I'll be moderating a couple of lessons.
