Adsum Insights Blog

Did We Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater on Rank & Yank? managing call centers

Don't worry. This post is not a recommendation to bring back Rank & Yank carte blanche.

I am really excited about the paper my colleagues and I just published in the Journal of Consulting...

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The Future of Call Center Outsourcing and the One Question that will Determine the Winners managing call centers

I don't have a crystal ball, and I don't know who will be the largest and most wildly profitable Call Center outsourcer in the next five or ten years, but I do know the one question the winner will...

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Deming Not DiMaggio leadership: delivering operational outcomes managing call centers

Call Center quality is abysmal.  And it has been for the entire forty years the call center industry has been in existence.  We can make cars with near perfect quality, but after 40...

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The AHT vs. CSAT Debate: A Possible Reframe managing call centers

There was a recent discussion in the Customer Experience Management group in response to an article by Ondra Synek entitled Why AHT is dead and how to do better.  

I would link to it, but...

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The Horse/Cart Problem in Call Centers managing call centers

There are horses and there are carts and getting them ordered properly makes all the difference.  

Unfortunately, when it comes to improving center-wide outputs, call centers often have the...

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The Futility of Call Center Coaching managing call centers

One-agent-at-a-time coaching is the go-to method in call centers for trying to improve center-wide output measures. But it is less valuable than many believe. Through the use of...

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The Two Widely Held and Deeply Flawed Mental Models Perpetuating Call Center Mediocrity managing call centers

It is no secret that call center industry performance is mediocre at best.  High error-rates are tolerated (see What is an Acceptable Contact Center Error Rate?).  Employees...

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Yellow Smiley Balloons & Laminated Cards: Cutting Edge Call Center Quality Improvement Strategies managing call centers

I wish this story wasn't true, but you can't make this stuff up.

We were at an outsourcer's offshore location recently, where they had tied yellow, smiley-faced balloons to the agents' cubes.

When...

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Not So Young Frankenstein managing call centers

Let's say you were a modern day Dr. Frankenstein and you decided you wanted to bring an organizational creature to life.  Let's further say you were a nefarious Dr. Frankenstein and the...

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