Service Level Agreement:

Content Related to Service Level Agreement



• 1 800 Flowers - Undercover Boss Draws Wrong Conclusions The latest episode of Undercover Boss was for 1-800-Flowers. Jim McCann (founder and CEO) and Chris McCann (President and COO) are brothers and seem to treat each other in that older brother-younger brother dynamic. This episode takes us on a journey through flower shops and a candy factory. [eventpdf] Chris McCann’s visit to the candy plant was the most revealing. I’ve watched conta....Read more

  Contributor:  Tripp Babbitt Tags: contact center | call center | management 12/31/2010  12:00:00 AM EST

• 	Straight Talk with Call Center Extraordinaire Art Hall Art Hall is a call center expert. As manager of Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting, he believes we are no longer in the service economy, but rather the experience economy; however, he sees that companies are currently struggling because most are not delivering on this experience. In this podcast,
  Contributor:   Blake Landau Tags: people management | voc | voe 04/08/2009  12:00:00 AM EDT

• Service-Level Targets: One Size Doesn’t Fit All Throughout my years managing call centers and global service operations, there has been ongoing debate over service-level targets. Some propose a “gold standard” in setting service level targets. However, recent research indicates that service levels must be established based on specific business needs and customer requirements for the call center: What happens on the call is more imp....Read more

  Contributor:  Andrea Ayers Tags: Andrea Ayers | convergys | call center representative 11/09/2009  12:00:00 AM EST

• Does A Slow Growth Economy Affect Service Levels? Several months ago a friend sent me an article with the headline, “Providing good service is the key to surviving the down economy.” I have seen similar headlines in articles, blog postings and on-line discussions repeatedly since the start of the recession, all claiming that a bad economy threatens service levels, and that we must remain focused on serving our customers, now more than e....Read more

  Contributor:  Peter Gurney Tags: service | service levels | service delivery 05/11/2010  12:00:00 AM EDT

• The Best Service is No Service
  

  By Bill Price and David JaffePublished by Jossey-Bass on March 21, 2008.With customer satisfaction and customer loyalty levels flat or declining in most industries, companies are scrambling to find solutions that meet short term necessities and provide lasting change. In The Best Service is No Service, Bill Price and co-author David Jaffe describe a paradigm shift that moves the emphasis from accepting dema....Read more
  

  
  Contributor:  Book Review
  Tags: David Jaffe | Amazon | Bill Price
  02/17/2009  7:03:00 AM EST

• 	Gulf Bank's Winning Ingredients Russ Sandlin, Executive Manager at Gulf Bank in Kuwait, spends some time with CMIQ to discuss Gulf Bank's success through technology, fitting your budget and concentrating on training. Gulf Bank was recently named Best Contact Center in the Middle East by Banker Middle East, as well as
  Contributor:   Gina Scanlon Tags: Gulf Bank | Russ Sandlin | Kuwait 09/30/2010  12:00:00 AM EDT

• 3 Call Center Metrics that Need to Be Knocked Off Their Pedestal Conversations about contact center metrics often cause controversy – especially if you are having that conversation with me, and especially if I’ve been drinking at a conference cocktail reception. Drinking brings out the bold truth in me, and the bold truth (ok, my bold opinion) about metrics tends to stir things up amongst contact center folk. It’s one of the main reasons why I’....Read more

  Contributor:  Greg Levin Tags: customer experience | customer service | AHT 10/15/2010  12:00:00 AM EDT

• Celebrate People Skills for National Customer Service Week National Customer Service Week brings well deserved attention to dedicated customer service and technical support reps and all that they do.  To that end, I pledged a few weeks ago to write at least one customer service post each week to honor the people and the field of customer service. This post is the 2nd in the series in preparation for National Customer Service Week. Celebrate People-Skill....Read more

  Contributor:  Kate Nasser Tags: National Customer Service Week | Kate Nasser | people skills 09/09/2010  12:00:00 AM EDT

• 5-Step Plan to to Get Employees Invested in Your Metrics Shyam Kumar is the Client Engagement Manager at UP! Your Service, a leader in building service cultures for companies. Kumar has recently been writing about engaging employees in service metrics. In this article, he outlines a five-step process to get employees invested in your service metrics. The original post can be found here. Employees often don't care about service targets because....Read more

  Contributor:  Shyam Kumar Tags: Customer Service Metrics | Customer Service | Employee Buy-In 06/02/2011  12:00:00 AM EDT

• Key Considerations for Implementing an Online Knowledge Base “The shortest distance between Point A and Point B is a straight line. The shortest distance between a customer with a problem and a customer with a solution to that problem is Google." What’s a Knowledge Base? Simply stated, a knowledge base is a searchable repository of information. As the Web has evolved, the phrase has generally become understood to mean a Web page that all....Read more

  Contributor:  Jay Grady Tags: knowledge management | customer relationship management | CRM 04/22/2009  12:00:00 AM EDT

• Customer Service Excellence Within a Call Center Environment: A Discussion with Derek Bishop In the current economic crisis, ensuring that your company is operating its call center effectively is critical. Derek Bishop, the former Head of Customer Service for the global financial security firm AXA, speaks about the challenge facing call centers today. With his extensive experience in the financial services industry, Bishop explains why now more than ever it’s crucial to listen to the voice....Read more

  Contributor:  Derek Bishop Tags: customer | call center | call center representative 04/20/2009  12:00:00 AM EDT

• Build a Knowledge Management System You Can Be Proud Of Let's face it. People are busy. Many customers nowadays prefer to hunt down the best solution for themselves. Some don’t actually want to speak to a customer service agent on the phone. Nor do they want to wait days on end for an e-mail response. The logic here is simple: Your customers are thinking that in the time it takes them to locate your phone number, place a call, navigate thr....Read more

  Contributor:  David Ciccarelli Tags: centralized knowledge repository | customer service | centralized knowledge sharing services 02/17/2009  12:00:00 AM EST

• 	How Field Service Management has Impacted Business in the Past 5 Years Tim Ryerson from Fieldforce Services answers questions at the second annual Field Service Management event in Sydney such as how far the field service management industry has come in the past 5 years, including the largest issue of safety. Priya Radhakrishnan of GE Energy discusses automated
  Tags: Fieldforce Services | GE Energy | Australia

• A Solution to the Social Media Call Center Conundrum If you are like me, and so many other people today, you’ve connected through LinkedIn, set up your profile on Facebook, Twitted your Tweets and MySpace’d your favorite music performers to view road schedules. But what business opportunities are there around social media, and how do you integrate it into your call so that it's a media, marketing or call center channel for interac....Read more

  Contributor:  Keith Fiveson Tags: social media | call center | social media strategy 11/11/2009  12:00:00 AM EST

• Improving Customer Service Experiences through Business Intelligence and Employee Satisfaction Customer Feedback Is Critical Today’s customer is offered a variety of ways to provide feedback regarding the customer experience with products or services. Leading companies use this customer input to continually enhance service delivery to improve the customer experience. In order to drive continual customer service improvements, companies need to focus on four areas regarding the customer f....Read more

  Contributor:  Jeremy Whyte Tags: good customer satisfaction | customer satisfaction | customer feedback 05/04/2009  12:00:00 AM EDT

• 	Customer Service Institute of Australia Director on the Future of CEM IQPC Sydney's Arthur Chan interviews Brett Whitford, Executive Director of the Customer Service Institute of Australia (CSIA), on the subject of social media and CEM, as well as how companies can create ‘touchpoint maps’ and key strategies to customer experience staff. Whitford will be
  Contributor:   Arthur Chan Tags: 4th Customer Experience Management | CEM | social media 01/14/2011  12:00:00 AM EST

• 	Ask the Contact Center "Expert" I haven’t always been an expert on contact center management and customer care. Some might even argue I’ve yet to start being one. That’s okay, though – I never react emotionally to critics or naysayers. Besides, most of them have been “quieted” by my “assistant” Tony.    Instead of telling people about my knowledge and experience in thi....Read more
  Contributor:  Greg Levin Tags: humor | agents | service level 01/20/2011  12:00:00 AM EST

• Service Level - The Indispensible Call Center Metric Show me a call center that does not bother to measure Service Level – and do so correctly – and I’ll show you a call center that likely struggles in practically every key area of customer contact management. Service Level is THE metric for gauging accessibility, and as such it is tied to and has an immense impact on customer satisfaction, workforce management decisions, call center budg....Read more

  Contributor:  Gregory Levin Tags: Call Center Strategy | Call Center | Service Level 04/18/2011  12:00:00 AM EDT

• How to Find Your Customer's 'Why' Today’s competitive marketplace drives the need for higher levels of service while reducing costs. According to TARP’s “Understand Customer Behavior and Complaints” Report, for every service contact a company receives from a customer, there are 5 – 10 other customers who experience the same problem but don’t make contact.  [eventpdf] This is a terrible....Read more

  Contributor:  Rosanne D'Ausilio Tags: customer complaints | customer behavoir | service levels 11/19/2010  12:00:00 AM EST

• 5 Mistakes Contact Center Managers Make I hope that contact center managers will take to heart the issues I have identified below.  If they challenge your current thinking, I am hopeful that upon reflection you will find some pearls of wisdom. I am challenged on these five items with frequency. Many are controversial, but they have worked miracles in many organizations I have engaged with and reflect knowledge gained from application.....Read more

  Contributor:  Tripp Babbitt Tags: IVR | Technology | call centers 10/01/2010  12:00:00 AM EDT

A glossary of keywords, acronyms and general terminology used in day-to-day professional work, Customer Management. If you would like to add to, edit or comment on this page, please drop us a line at info@customermanagementiq.com