Voices February 2008 - CallCentreVoice's monthly newsletter
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CCV is the UK’s largest on-line community for call centre professionals, not only in the UK, but across the world. Our aim is to help keep you in touch with what is happening in the Call Centre industry across the world, and our regular newsletter will bring you a round up of the past month’s highlights.
This month the forums have been busy. Why not click here to see for yourself and visit the latest posts?
If you would like to see a focus on anything specific let us know by contacting sarah@darrylbeckford.co.uk. We will do our best to include your requests.
Monthly Roundup
Welcome to the Valentine's issue of Voices. So, is love in the air
this February? According to The Telegraph office romances are commonplace
among call centres in India, with long unsociable hours and even the
prospect of promotion being blamed. Is this romancing restricted to
India? I don't expect that it is. See The Telegraphs full story here.
So, CCV has had another busy month in the forums. Why not view the
latest posts here, and take a
look at Darryl’s comments below for some of his favourite threads.
CCV membership is currently at 9245, and January saw 99882 hits. Our
new advertising options have been released, with some fantastic offers for
CCV members. If you would like more information about advertising with
CCV you can click here.
In the News
Two undersea cables severed
causing massive disruption
Two undersea internet fibre-optic cables off the coast of Eygpt were
severed by the anchors of ships. India reported that half of its
broadband bandwidth had been disrupted, and there was also widespread
failure of the internet system in the Middle East. A number of companies
normally direct calls over the internet as it is cheaper, and call centre
workers had to deal with furious UK customers facing long delays not only
in getting through but then also dealing with their queries.
10 day strike at call centre in
Tours
Workers at Teleperformance in Tours went on strike for 10 days
demanding a pay rise. The company operates 281 contact centres in 45
countries through a number of subsidiaries, providing customer service,
technical support and sales outsourcing.
N
ew software can detect when callers tempers are rising
Software developers in Japan have launched a product that can analyse a
speaker’s emotions during a phone conversation and can automatically
detect when tempers are rising.
Swazilands first call centre
An investment of $1million is likely to secure Swazilands first call
centre. The 1000 seat call centre has secured an address in Mbabane after
some difficulties finding a landlord prepared to be flexible with their
operating hours. The call centre will mainly be dealing with overseas
markets operating mostly at night to catch up with the market time.
Views on off shore call centres
Blog with several views on the positives and challenges of
offshoring.
Professional Planning Forum
Outbound Planning Seminar - 26th February 2008
There is something for everyone involved in outbound contact at the
Outbound Planning Seminar on 26th February 2008.
There will be case studies from people aiming to deliver a level of
service expected by their customers, information on the technologies
available to assist with outbound contact, results from benchmarking
research conducted by the Professional Planning Forum, and details of new
legislation.
The event is being held at East Midlands Airport and attendees will
have the chance to ask those burning questions in the panel discussions,
network with fellow professionals facing similar challenges, and speak to
key suppliers in the Expo area.
For further details go to the Professional
Planning Forum's website.
Focus On...Learning on the job
So you’ve done the TNA and you know what message you need to get
across, to whom, and by when. What methods are there of getting this
information across? Written material, a hard or soft copy, is great if
you have a large audience size (say 1000 plus), but there maybe pitfalls
if agents lack the self motivation to actually read it and absorb the
information. This is where classroom learning can pay dividends, with
plenty of opportunities to ensure learners are engaged and understand.
Classroom learning can be costly and time consuming as trainer pre-work is
required, and any widespread geographical location of learners just adding
to difficulties. Other options include a pre-recorded video or audio
message which is most suited to short messages, but how can you be sure it
has been understood?
A simple web based learning program can be cost effective and quick and
easy to produce, but it is important to consider how you will capture the
learners’ attention to ensure sufficient thought and attention is given.
Otherwise, is there any difference to supplying the information in a
written format as we mentioned above? An interactive web-based program
can target any number of learners, geographical location is no problem,
but must be imaginatively designed to ensure attention. Of course though
this is a costly option and not suitable if the message needs to be
delivered quickly.
Don’t forget that any number of learning options can be considered
together, each supporting each other.
And finally, Darryl's thoughts...
The benefits gained from being able to send voice and video over IP
networks have been huge - but it's very easy to forget how much we now
rely on these types of data connections. That is until it goes
wrong. Most organisations consider business continuity when it comes to
the last mile, but it's not so easy to work out how to get your data to go
via different a different cable under the
sea...especially when one doesn't exist!
We know that some organisations can make offshoring work very well, but
it's clear that there are many more problems to be considered than most
people think about - and just keeping the call centre online
is one of those. You business continuity plan must be able to deal with
your whole offshore operation going offline, and your offshore partner
should be able to help you put this plan together.
We've had one of the busiest Januarys that we've ever seen...proof that
the CallCentreVoice community continues to grow strongly. Why not take a
look at a couple of this months most interesting threads:
How should you identify and treat your most valuable customers? Read here.
Only the real techies get fired up about Avaya reports. Geek out here.
Finally, the promise of a little refreshment got Justin a little
excited. Click here.
Darryl