Call Center Management on Fast Forward: Succeeding in Today's Dynamic Inbound Environment
- Book Review,
by Brad Cleveland
Ross M. Scovotti, Publisher, TeleProfessional Magazine
Call Center Management on Fast Forward is an outstanding treasure-trove, loaded with information critical to call center managers' successes. I keep my copy under lock and key.
Ian and Lis Angus, Co-editors, Telemanagement magazine
This book is an absolute must for every call center professional.
Ian and Lis Angus, Co-editors, Telemanagement magazine
This book is an absolute must for every call center professional
Mary Murcott, Vice President, Call Center Management, American Express Business Travel
You will never again be stumped for an answer or business case by your finance or technology folks
Tony Murphy, Chairman, Call Centre Management Association, United Kingdom
The winners in this book are our customers who will receive improved service through better informed call centre professionals
Ross M. Scovotti, Publisher, TeleProfessional Magazine
Call Center Management on Fast Forward is an outstanding treasure-trove, loaded with information critical to call center managers' successes. I keep my copy under lock and key
Steve Pollack, U.S. Customer Support Center Manager, Hewlett-Packard Company
A must for call center managers. A thorough and practical guide to successful management in today's dynamic call center environment
George R. Walther, author of Phone Power, Power Talking, and Upside-Down Marketing
You'd be nuts to run a call center without devouring Fast Forward. This well-written and eminently usable guide addresses every arcane aspect of call center management in a readable way
Book Description
This is the only book available today that provides a very readable, step-by-step guide for managing an incoming call center. The book combines theory with practical advice and is filled with over 100 charts and graphs, several case studies and an extensive glossary and index.
From the Publisher
With more and more companies recognizing the impact a well-run call center has on competitiveness and customer retention, it's no wonder that incoming call center management has become one of the fastest growing professions in North America. It has also become one of the most complex to understand. Brad Cleveland, a well-known consultant on call center management, and Julia Mayben, a writer for Service Level Newsletter, have compiled one of the best books available to help managers succeed in today's increasingly complicated call center environment. The book has been incorporated into college and corporate training programs in over 15 countries.
About the Author
Brad Cleveland is perhaps the best-known name on the call center industry speaking circuit and has taught seminars on call center management throughout North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim. He is president of Incoming Calls Management Institute(ICMI), based in Annapolis, Md.
Excerpted from Call Center Management on Fast Forward; Succeeding in Today's Dynamic Inbound Environment by Brad Cleveland and Julia Mayben. Copyright © 1997. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
From Chapter 1: It was the turn of the century and the dawn of a new age in communication. The telephone had been invented a few decades earlier in 1876, and telephone service was proliferating rapidly. The public was beginning to depend on, and even expect, reliable service. As the subscriber base grew, telephone companies were contending with new resource planning problems. Automated central offices hadn't been invented yet, so human operators were required to establish connections for callers. One big question was, how many telephone operators are necessary? Too few, and service levels would be unacceptable to callers. But too many would be inefficient for telephone companies and would drive up costs for subscribers. Further complicating the issue: calls arrived randomly, driven by a myriad of motivations individual callers had for placing the calls. In the years that followed, many bright people would grapple with these resource management challenges. One of the first was A.K. Erlang, an engineer with the Copenhagen Telephone Company, who in 1917, developed the queuing formula Erlang C. The formula is still widely used today in incoming call centers for calculating staffing requirements. Others who followed Erlang focused on developing disciplined forecasting techniques, scheduling methodologies and system reporting parameters. The advances continued. Things have come a long way since the early 1900s. Today, there is no need for operators to connect calls since the process has been automated. But if you manage a modern call center, there is at least a ring of familiarity to the challenges the early telephone pioneers faced. Forecasting calls accurately, staffing appropriately, and getting the right people and other resources in the right places at the right times continue to be key objectives.
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