If you’re trying to manage a call center workforce, we don’t need to tell you that accurate forecasting is critical to achieving the results you can. It’s not like understaffing or overstaffing are really all that different from each other in the long run, both stink.

A good recent blog post from Monet Software discusses this issue, pointing out that to avoid the twin bugaboos of under- and overstaffing, “you need methods that precisely predicts how many agents are needed to handle the center's contact volume.”

And to do that, here’s Madame Sosostris with her crystal ball. Yes, it’s a challenge.

 

End customers are increasingly aware of what CRM systems are capable of. So says industry observer Ian Whiting, who adds that in 2012, customers “will be even more insistent that businesses deal with them as they expect.”

Writing in CIO magazine, Whiting offers some CRM trends CIOs should watch for in 2012.

 

An essay published in Forbes recently detailed a British CRM industry insider’s efforts to explain to Americans “the role of CRM in protecting your brand.”

As Anthony Leaper of SAP notes, “it’s what happens after the sale that’s of interest to me today.”

He starts with the correct observation that it’s not enough simply to link your CRM system to your supply chain system to see if you can meet customers’ orders on time, your CRM system must also be how you “experience of your brand throughout the life of your relationship with your customer.”

He gives the example of a big-ticket item vendor with integration within the CRM system “so tight that the ordering and fulfillment systems have looked at existing stock levels, made commitments, and coordinated delivery,” and as a result are able to tell a customer “precisely when she can expect the truck to pull up at her house.”

And yes, at the appointed juncture sure enough, on a rainy day in London there is the truck. Only it’s not from the actual vendor, but a company acting for the vendor. All good -- but what if one of the items the person has been waiting for has been damaged somewhere along the line, after it left the Roland factory?

Read more here.

Funny enough, this reporter just completed an assignment looking at how many email marketers send to dead accounts -- defined as accounts where nobody’s clicked on an email for 40 months (the answer: 54 percent. That is a lot.)

Now I’m looking at Janine Popick’s list of ways to win back old customers via email.

Step #1: Make sure the account you’re sending to is a live one. It helps.

Popick is the founder and CEO of VerticalResponse. She knows her business.