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| A "Frank" Conversation | |||||||||||||
| By Peter J. McGarahan, Founder and President, McGarahan & Associates This article presents a fictional conversation between a Senior IT executive and a help desk manager names Frank. The conversation shows the challenges the help desk face when dealing with senior management and shows the importance of strong leadership. | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Feb-14-2008 | |||||||||||||
| Are You Taking Care of Your Employees? | |||||||||||||
| By Rosanne D’Ausilio, Ph.D. It’s reported that customer service/technical support positions are one of the 10 most stressful jobs in America today. As a matter of fact, 45% of all manager and 75% of all workers say “my job causes me stress.” Further it’s estimated that employee absenteeism costs companies $660 per employee per year, up from $610 in 2004. And, low morale continues to take its toll in higher costs and rates of absence. What are companies doing? This survey found that 67% of companies have programs for work-life balance, absence-control programs (leave for school functions), alternate work arrangements, etc. as compared to 16% in the past. | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Feb-13-2008 | |||||||||||||
| Calculating Support Center Staff Requirements | |||||||||||||
| By Penny Reynolds, Founding Partner, The Call Center School Running a successful support desk operation means managing by the numbers. And the most important number of all is the number of bodies in seats each hour to respond to incoming calls. Since over two-thirds of operating costs are related to personnel, getting the “just right” number of staff in place is critical in terms of both service and cost. This article outlines the step-by-step process to calculate support center resource requirements and evaluate the most important service and cost tradeoffs. | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Feb-13-2008 | |||||||||||||
| Emergence of Quality Management/Liability Recording Suites for Small and Mid-Sized Enterprises | |||||||||||||
| By Donna Fluss, founder and President of DMG Consulting LLC Quality Management (QM)/Liability Recording (otherwise known as Workforce Optimization, or WFO) suites have been growing rapidly in both popularity and breadth of functionality in recent years. Given the traditional cost and complexity of these suites, many of the early adopters of capabilities beyond recording tended to be large (250+ seat) contact centers. Now that pattern is changing. Sales to small and mid-sized enterprises are expected to be a significant trend for the WFO vendors in 2008. | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Feb-13-2008 | |||||||||||||
| Forecasting Fundamentals: The Art and Science of Predicting Support Desk Workload | |||||||||||||
| By Penny Reynolds, Founding Partner, The Call Center School The basis of any good support center staffing plan is an accurate workload forecast. Without a precise forecast of the work to be expected, the most sophisticated effort to calculate staff numbers and create intricate schedule plans is wasted effort. The purpose of the forecast is to predict workload in order to get the right number of staff in place to handle it. There are many different situations in the support desk environment that require a forecast to be done. Whatever the reason, it's important to understand the basic principles behind workload forecasting and how to apply them to accurately plan support center resources. | |||||||||||||
| [Full Article] Jan-18-2008 | |||||||||||||
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