Creativity Comes Alive
The words of the author/theologian/educator/civil-rights leader Howard Thurman stopped me in my tracks: Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself...
Eco-Friendly Operations
Given that interest in global warming is heating up and that fuel costs have risen considerably in recent years, many companies are seeking ways to be...
A New Look at the Top 20 Contact Center Metrics
The evolution of a simple call center into a multichannel contact center doesn't happen overnight. You may need to add or upgrade technologies, and certainly...
Getting a Read on Operations
Eric Cohen is the vice president of operations and merchandise planning for Delray Beach, FL-based Levenger, which describes itself as selling tools for...
Four Steps to Internal Benchmarking
Benchmarking is the process of drawing meaningful comparisons between a company's performance and the performance of identified best practices. Internal...
Lost Shipment Recovery: Reward Outweighs the Effort
For every shipper, staying in control of lost merchandise is vital. Packages sent but never delivered are costly—not just in strict financial terms, but also with respect to maintaining customer satisfaction. Because the process for claiming missing packages can be cumbersome, monitoring carrier inefficiencies often result in lost leverage and the waste of valuable dollars for shippers. But by using an external service for Lost Shipment Recovery (LSR), clients can see that the reward for keeping a closer watch on lost merchandise far exceeds the effort....
Ask the Fulfillment Doctor:
Question: I’m looking for a low-cost way to sample my customer service. What would you suggest? ...
Moving Toward the Talking Tag
You can’t pick up a supply chain journal today without reading about the monumental productivity advances promised by RFID. By allowing complete and accurate life cycle-tracking of a product, analysts claim that RFID will create faster shipments, fewer errors, and cost savings that more than justify the expense of these systems. ...
The Case for Employment Testing in the Contact Center
According to a survey released in April by Philadelphia-based career-consulting firm Right Management, replacing a bad hire can cost as much as five times the employee's salary. Yet many hiring managers have neither the training nor the time to adequately interview job applicants. As a result, bad hires are made, followed by high turnover and escalating costs for the company involved. That can cripple any business. But employment testing can improve your bottom line....
Five Technologies to Leverage for Increased Customer Satisfaction
As a contact center professional, you’re well aware that many company consider the contact center a necessary cost for appeasing customers. But innovations in technology are enabling companies to transform their contact centers into a strategic tool for managing customer relationships personally and proactively. With the right architecture and the right strategic approach, businesses can put their focus on making their customers feel like what they truly are--important....
Eight Steps for Conquering Holiday Scheduling Dilemmas
With the holidays right around the corner, are you prepared for last-minute changes that are sure to occur with agent scheduling? This is a problem that all contact centers face during holidays, and the ramifications can be significant. If staffing is just 2% below where it should be, the percentage of calls answered within 30 seconds, or any other established performance objective, will typically drop by 10%. If 10% of the seats are vacant, half of the center’s incoming calls will likely not be answered in the desired time interval....
Live from ECMOD: N Brown’s Internet Centricity
London--N Brown Group is as traditional a catalog company as you can get. It has roughly 20 catalog titles, among them J D Williams, 50 Plus, and Simply Be, most of which target women 45-65 years old. ...
Live from ECMOD: Prospecting The U.K. Way
London--Although it was moderated by an American, one of the two opening sessions at the European Catalogue and Mail Order Days conference here offered a primer of sorts to multichannel marketing in the U.K....
WERC Study: Higher Transportation Costs and Tighter Capacity Alter Distribution Operations
Shippers and carriers continue to experience the effects of rising transportation costs and constrained capacity that include changes in rates, service levels, and, in some cases, how they do business together, so says a study from the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC). ...
Examining the Realities: An Analysis of Today’s Call Center Metrics
Contact centers are data-rich environments, with detailed information available from a multitude of systems on every minute step of each interaction’s progress. In fact, the vast quantity of available data is one of the industry’s key challenges, since it is often quite difficult to link the various data elements together to get a coherent picture of how well centers are being managed. ...
UPS' Eskew Letter: Don't Blame Us
In a letter obtained by the O+F Advisor, United Parcel Service (UPS) chairman/CEO Michael L. Eskew says his organization is being incorrectly depicted as the villain in the postal reform issue. ...
WERC Salary Survey: VP Logistics is Tops
If you're a vice president of logistics, chances are you're walking around with a few more dollars in your pocket than your counterparts, at least according to 2006 Warehousing Sales and Wages guide from the Warehousing and Education Research Council. ...
President Signs SAFE bill into Law
As expected, President Bush signed the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act (SAFE) into law on Oct. 13. Congress passed the legislation on Sept. 30, by a vote of 409 to 2 in the House of Representatives. In May, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to pass H.R. 4954, the Security and Accountability for Every Port Act. ...
New Feature! Industry Insight
This month we introduce Industry Insight, courtesy of NextAction, a Westminster, CO-based database marketing services provider. Each month NextAction will share sales and channel data compiled from more than 1,100 multichannel merchants...
Holiday Search Help for the Giving-Impaired
Don’t think of FindGift.com as a shopping search engine. It’s a gift engine, and that’s a very different animal. ...
Cost-Effective Alternatives for LPL Shipments Offered by UPS and FedEx
Many businesses are unaware of how much they could save by choosing UPS Hundredweight or FedEx Multiweight when sending merchandise on partial pallets, or less-than-pallet loads (LPLs). ...
5 Steps to Shape-Based Postage Compliance
You've probably heard that the U.S. Postal Service has filed to raise rates again in May 2007. But the proposed rates follow a more complex pricing structure than the flat 5.4% increase implemented last January. For the first time, the rate structure will rely on shape, as well as weight. ...
USPS Releases Details of Rate Case
Last week the U.S. Postal Service released details of its pending rate case, which if approved will be implemented in mid-2007. ...
USPS Releases Proposed Parcel Standards
The U.S. Postal Service has released its proposed mailing standards as part of the rate case introduced on May 3. While much of the focus has been on what the changes will mean to catalog production and circulation...
Breaking Down the Walls: Leveraging a Virtual Contact Center for Skilled, Global Customer Service
There’s a dramatic change taking place in the way businesses view customer service operations, how agents work, and the skills required. In fact, many businesses are moving toward virtual contact centers which provide a better work environment for agents and can greatly increase service levels for businesses. ...
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