Tips on making your call center a genuine profit center In North America, call centers are a $13 billion business, employing 4 million people. For managers in charge of a call center operation, this practical, user-friendly guide outlines how to improve results measurably, following its principles of revenue generation, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. In addition, this new edition addresses many industry changes, such as the new technology that's transforming today's call center and the location-neutral call center. It also helps readers determine whether it's cost-efficient to outsource operations and looks at the changing role and requirements of agents. The ultimate call center guide, now revised and updated The authors have helped over 60 companies improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their call center operations Offers comprehensive guidance for call centers of all sizes, from 20-person operations to multinational businesses With the latest edition of Call Centers For Dummies, managers will have an improved arsenal of techniques to boost their center's bottom line.

This book gives an accessible overview of the role and potential of mathematical optimization in call centers. It deals extensively with all aspects of workforce management, but also with topics such as call routing and the scheduling of multiple channels. It does so without going into the mathematics, but by focusing on understanding its consequences. This way the reader will get familiar with workload forecasting, the Erlang formulas, simulation, and so forth, and learn how to improve call center performance using it. The book is primarily meant for call center professionals involved in planning and business analytics, but also call center managers and researchers will find it useful. There is an accompanying website which contains several online calculators.

As the cost of doing business increases, call centers and help desks are frequently moving overseas. How can your center remain competitive? Is pooling the best way to slash your wait times? James Abbott concisely answers these questions as he leads you through the world of process-centered customer service. Strategic and tactical terms, how to choose metrics to measure, and the miracle of Queuing Science are covered thoroughly, using easy-to-grasp anecdotes to explain the key technical topics.

This book is for people who work in a call center and common traits the call center location must offer. It contains practical observations about how to use particular technologies, and ideas about how to run the call center, which has become its own corporate discipline.

Need to know how to buy a phone switch for your call center? How to measure the productivity of agents? How to choose from two cities that both want your center? No problem. The Call Center Handbook is a complete guide to starting, running, and im

Customer Service For Dummies, Third Edition integrates the unbeatable information from Customer Service For Dummies and Online Customer Service For Dummies to form an all-in-one guide to customer loyalty for large and small businesses alike. The book covers the fundamentals of service selling and presents up-to-date advice on such fundamentals as help desks, call centers, and IT departments. Plus, it shows readers how to take stock of their customer service strengths and weaknesses, create useful customer surveys, and learn from the successes and failures of businesses just like theirs. Karen Leland and Keith Bailey (Sausalito, CA) are cofounders of Sterling Consulting Group, an international consulting firm specializing in quality service consulting and training for such clients as Oracle, IBM, Avis, and Lucent.

Give your front-line call center staff the training they need With How to Be a Great Call Center Representative, call-center staff will learn what technology-based customer service is all about, including the history, terminology, legislation, and technology options. This book is designed to supplement and enhance the industry-specific policies and procedures plus local, state, and federal guidelines to which a call center staff must adhere. Filled with exercises and self-assessments, the course presents specific, practical strategies for improving listening skills, building trust with customers, problem solving, and decision-making--all within the context of a busy call center. How to Be a Great Call Center Representative provides all the tools needed to be confident in handling customers and building a foundation for future growth and advancement. Readers will learn how to: Identify the roles and responsibilities of a call center staff Prepare yourself to deliver quality service Learn to communicate successfully Identify current legislation, terminology, and technology affecting call center staff Develop skills for building trust Enhance telephone verbal skills and vocal quality Build problem solving and decision-making skills Learn to handle difficult customer situations Improve your time-management and multitasking skills Identify ways to control your stress level Learn to recover from mistakes-yours and your customer's. This is an ebook version of the AMA Self-Study course. If you want to take the course for credit you need to either purchase a hard copy of the course through amaselfstudy.org or purchase an online version of the course through www.flexstudy.com.