What a difference a year makes. At last week’s Call Center Demo Show and Western Telework Conference in Dallas, the telework/virtual call center sessions were packed, and the CEOs of the companies that launched this niche, misunderstood market eight years ago - Willow CSN, Alpine Access, Working Solutions, ARO Outsourcing - walked around like rock stars.
Google OS could put squeeze on other flavors of Linux
07/09/09
Much of the discussion around Google's new PC operating system has focused on a looming battle with Windows, but the biggest losers could be other Linux OSes that have been enjoying some moderate success on netbooks, industry analysts said.
Google lists HP, Acer among Chrome OS partners
07/09/09
Google is already working with several companies to develop devices around the new Chrome OS, including Hewlett-Packard and Acer, the company said in a blog post late Wednesday.
Cyber attack in South Korea set to resume, says AhnLab
07/09/09
A denial of service attack that took down some of South Korea's highest profile Web sites on Wednesday is set to resume Thursday evening, according to computer security specialist AhnLab.
Last year, the show was dead. Budget constraints hurt attendance, and businesses that did make the trip wanted to hear how they could pay Indian agents $2 an hour. But now most have since realized (with help from Lou Dobbs) that it’s a bad idea to have foreign agents care for U.S. customers, and they’re circling back to the states, and to home-based agents.
It was like watching a light bulb go off in everybody’s head. Most organizations have a customer-care element of one kind or another, a bunch of employees who spend all or most of the day answering calls. On a good day the work is stressful and tedious. On a bad day, irate customers and long queues of on-hold calls can bring you to tears.
Bookend a phone-based job with a long commute and you’ve got some pretty miserable workers; workers who nearly always quit. The typical turnover rate for brick-and-mortar call centers, (or “contact centers” that include e-mail and instant messaging), is around 60% or 70% - many report much higher, 100% or more.
And that’s not just with entry-level call center jobs, either. There’s this misperception that call centers by definition are powered by twenty-somethings with bad attitudes set to jump when something better comes along. In big traditional call center operations that’s true. But there are vast and growing segments of phone-based workers who are well-educated professionals - HR professionals, nurses and insurance agents. People you don’t want to lose over a miserable work environment or a long commute.
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