Surviving Leadership

OCTOBER 29, 2018

This would include a day spent with an installation tech and a day spent with a call center agent – preferably, in a market other than your own. .” Basically, if you worked in corporate, you were encouraged (and at director and above, required) to do a quarterly visit in the field.

CFO 58

CFO P&L Call Center COO 58

Steve Farber

MARCH 20, 2017

And this weekend the music industry will celebrate itself by taking over the Staples Center, handing out Grammy Awards, and jamming along with the likes of John Legend, Lady Gaga, Adele, Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, and … well, you get the idea. Find ways to get them involved in the celebration.

Letter 74

Letter Budgeting Cost Call Center 74

Strategy Driven

DECEMBER 19, 2016

In some areas, like customer base and advertising, your budget will simply be too small to compete. This is a great benefit for budget operations, as it allows you to create something that looks good from very little. Companies like this offer customised call answering and call redirection from a business number to a mobile phone.

Power 50

Power Brand Budgeting Merchandising 50

Strategy Driven

JANUARY 2, 2015

‘Customer care’ means that customer service is palmed off on some call center. . ‘Right now’ is a vendor term for what they’re peddling, rather than what the marketplace really needs. Expect to render good business all the time.

Strategy 50

Strategy Strategic Planning Budgeting Risk Management 50

Terry Starbucker

JULY 23, 2018

“Bossman” I was trained by a hard-charging boss to be a “ spreadsheet assassin ” – sitting in the corporate ivory tower, firing staff, cutting budgets, raising rates – all for the cause of profit. He was surely what I called a “bossman”, with these traits ( see more, and the opposites of “bossman”, here ).

Leadership 181

Leadership Learning-by-Doing COO Follow-up 181

Strategy Driven

OCTOBER 7, 2016

If problems are handled only through form letters, subordinates or call centers, then management is the real cause of the problem. The more that one sees poor customer service and customer neglect in other companies, we must avoid the pitfalls and traps in our own companies.

Management 70

Management Hostile Takeover Management by Objectives Objective 70

Strategy Driven

DECEMBER 15, 2010

What will happen if you add a channel, trim budget for another or initiate a new contact policy? The millions of customers in its database represent the gamut of buying histories, buying propensities, profitability, demographics and cost to serve.

Resources 50

Resources Process Constraint Objective 50

Strategy Driven

DECEMBER 18, 2015

If problems are handled only through form letters, subordinates or call centers, then management is the real cause of the problem. The more that one sees poor customer service and customer neglect in other companies, we must avoid the pitfalls and traps in our own companies.

Hostile Takeover 50

Hostile Takeover Management by Objectives Objective Scientific Management 50

Harvard Business Review

MAY 2, 2012

My client Janet already had her laptop open when I asked how many versions of the budget report were on her company's SharePoint drive. Everyone from product managers, to call center reps, to the front-line worker in the branch or store uses information to make decisions. It's a hidden cost, and a growing one.

Business Intelligence 13

Business Intelligence Budgeting Report Library 13

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 10, 2011

At one financial services firm, for example, call center analytics showed spike after spike of negative customer satisfaction numbers. Have you ever successfully buried your outliers in your aggregated analytics to boost your budget? Hold times and "problem resolution" times had noticeably increased.

Call Center 12

Call Center Proposal Budgeting Reputation 12

Harvard Business Review

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

By analyzing data from six sources—the web, postpurchase surveys, its customer relationship management (CRM) system, call center, email, and live chat—Lenovo ascertained why customers were phoning the call center and what actions they took before calling.

Metrics 8

Metrics Marketing Call Center CRM 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 19, 2013

What is markedly different about the company is these rates are only available through the Getaroom.com call center. Others travel sites outsource their call centers overseas and really push all interactions to be electronic. How will you market your product or service to the intended audience on a reasonable budget?

Entrepreneur 8

Entrepreneur Hotels Travel Call Center 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 7, 2016

They don’t democratically add a percentage to each department’s previous year’s budget (nor do they make indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts). They are likely to view their department budget as the main indicator of their power and influence. Instead, they focus only on their small piece of it.

Bureaucracy 8

Bureaucracy Short-term Budgeting Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 28, 2015

For example, a call center may pride itself on completing X percentage of service calls within 30 seconds, but that’s not a valuable metric for determining overall customer satisfaction – or what the customer then does after that service interaction.

COO 8

COO Planning Metrics Call Center 8

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 27, 2015

call centers). That reflects the needs of the company: different departments with their own budgets running accounts for different purposes. We have come a long way from the era of unconcerned shop assistants and unaccountable call-center workers.

Company 8

Company Airlines Brand Analysis 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 24, 2016

Not only are customers better informed and call center volume decreasing, these actions open up new marketing channels for retailers to reach an already captive audience. When they work in tandem with the appropriate resources, budget, and metrics in place, retailers will be poised for success.

Retail 8

Retail Supply Chain Loyalty Reis 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 14, 2016

For instance, Sanders’s staff sent volunteers personalized calling lists, as is done in most campaigns. But unlike past campaigns, which set up temporary call centers that cost a lot of money, Bernie 2016 volunteers were asked to contact voters from their own smartphone, saving the campaign millions of dollars.

Bond 8

Bond Early Adopters Technology Politics 8

Harvard Business Review

JULY 1, 2013

Step 5: Invest in Your Frontline: Put budget behind it. Too often, companies reserve big budgets for senior management training while spreading funding thin for front line personnel. At Zappos, it''s not unusual for someone interviewing for a $13-per-hour call center job to meet with 15 people before being hired.

Mayo 8

Mayo How To Banking Budgeting 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 20, 2014

While marketing budgets have been steadily rising as a percentage of firm budgets since 2011, many CMOs still lack real authority over decisions that most affect the customer, since most are delivered through touch points not owned by marketing. “He’d warn me at the right time and place, and say, ‘Hey Dorkas, look out.

CEO 8

CEO Marketing Hotels Long-term 8

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 16, 2015

For the organization that has a severe noise problem (think call centers or co-working spaces that are becoming very popular among entrepreneurs and startups), there are a few surprising and stylish fixes that can be installed to reduce sound. Bring in sound absorbing materials without sacrificing design.

Bottom-up 8

Bottom-up Environment Productivity Products 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 27, 2013

And 55% have dedicated innovation budgets. Consider the multinational auto insurance company that invested in a new mobile app and expensive back-end integration to connect customers in an emergency with a call center agent. Sixty-four percent have allocated time to innovation activities. Are their investments paying off?

Innovation 8

Innovation Forrester Business Model Long-term 8