Pimp Yo Call Center
The advertising image on the left appeared in my email
inbox the 15th of May. At first I thought it was a joke,
a spoof, just something silly. Then, after clicking on
"Push dis 4 info" it took me to a more typical bland
looking e-commerce site for the Checkmate company. I
want to applaud the Checkmate company for thinking
outside the box for their advertising, for drawing my
attention, and for making me smile and laugh at an ad.
Our industry is only a few decades old but at times it
behaves like it has been around for centuries with
boring, bland, and worn out phrases, slogans and ideas.
We behave as if we are old, established and ready for
the rest home when in fact our industry is still very
young, youthful, full of verve, pizzazz and energy.
Thank goodness Checkmate had the guts to try and tap
into this youthfulness of our industry with such a fun
advertising message. I hope they sell millions of their
products.In
return for them making me smile and exemplifying the
youthfulness of our industry, If you click on the ad to
the left it will take you to the Checkmate site where
they call show you how to Pimp Yo Call Center.
Call Center
Regulatory Standards?
The
American Teleservices Association (ATA) has released a
series of self-regulatory standards for the call center
industry in early May 2007. They are seeking support
from the industry, including the NACC, for these
standards.
Why does the call center industry need a set of
overarching standards within the United States? Good
question. If this voluntary set of standards is adopted,
is it enforceable? Well, no, it's voluntary. So, why
adopt them? All good questions.
Here is my take. At any given time there are no short of
10 US states that have legislation pending regarding
call centers. Most of this legislation revolves around
two main issues, jobs and disclosure. The job issue is
related to call center jobs leaving the state and
causing problems in local communities that counted on
those jobs for local employment. From a public sector
side, elected officials do not like the fact that state
taxpayer dollars are being spent to hire and operate
call centers out of the state, much less nearshore or
offshore. So many of the provisions of this pending
legislation has keeping call center jobs in the local
state as a driver.
The second issue, disclosure, is one where many can
relate. Over ten years ago when call center offshore
outsourcing began in India with UK companies (followed
by American businesses), there was a fear of backlash by
customers. To stop this problem teachers from the UK
were hired to help the local Indian agents speak more
proper English and sometimes create false identities
allowing the call center agents to mask the fact that
they were in India. Well, this practice has morphed over
time, but suffice it to say that many people desire to
know where people are calling and desire to have the
choice to choose if they want to speak to someone in
their native state, country or region for cultural
preference reasons. So state legislators, hearing this
cry from their citizens (I hear this cry each day as
well) sponsor legislation that requires a call center
agent to identify where they are calling from, Boston,
Bakersfield, or Bangalore, before the call can begin.
Moreover, the customer, if not satisfied with the
location of the agent has the right to request an agent
in another geographical location.
There is not time or space in this essay to discuss the
philosophies of protectionism, free trade, consumer
choice and the rest of the issues bundled up together in
this debate (we can do that in later essays if you
wish). I will put this issue before you as a call center
professional. Who wins if call centers are not
restricted by state legislation? Who loses if such
regulation is adopted? Who would the adoption of such
standards by the ATA serve? Who would be hurt? With that
in mind, I encourage you to read the proposed standards
and offer your feedback to me and the ATA. A copy of the
standards can be viewed at www.bryancave.com/ata-sro.
What I am Reading
A Canticle for
Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, is a book with which
I have an interesting history. First, in a undergraduate
literature class, this was one of the three books I read
even though there were 8 or 10 books assigned for the
class. After the class, I sold the book back since as a
college undergraduate I needed the money for food. The
book stayed with me, in my mind, and I thought of it
often. I could not find a copy at a bookstore in 1996
(out of print) so I checked it out of the local library.
On the second read, more interesting ideas kept coming
back to me. I returned the book to the shelf after
reading it and then left it again. A month or so ago I
was traveling and stopped into an airport bookstore to
pick up another book since I had finished mine on the
last flight. There it was, sitting on the shelf, the
book, almost 10 years after I had checked it out of the
library. This time I read the book in just a few days,
338 pages. I enjoyed it immensely again. This time I am
not selling it back.
The book in essence follows the work of a group of monks
in an abbey in Utah after the world has been devastated
by a nuclear war. All that is left of cities are rubble,
with rural people and mutants trying to survive in a
hostile land. The first section is about a young order
of monks trying to find, keep, and restore knowledge of
a civilization that all but destroyed itself with the
nuclear war. Bits and pieces of books, technologies, and
insights are found, recorded, and stored for
safe-keeping in the hope that one day the population of
the world will once again rise from the ashes to be able
to understand the information locked within these books
and artifacts like math, electricity, and a circuit.
In the next section of the book, the Order of Saint
Leibowitz is several hundred years later, with new monks
in charge and the rise of city-states with horses,
gunpowder, and a thirst for conquest. The once backwater
abbey has preserved the information from before the war
is attracting interest as leaders are sponsoring their
own scientists to unlock the secrets of nature to help
them become more powerful militarily.
Skip ahead a few hundred more years and the abbey of
Saint Leibowitz has expanded, there are aircraft,
automatic cars, spaceships and even some colonization of
other worlds. However, there are also arsenals of
nuclear weapons and leaders who are none to pleased with
one another. Seeing the world come again to the brink of
war through the generations of monks at the Leibowitz
abbey is moving.
Though the book is not so subtle about the dangers of
nuclear war, written in 1959, the overall message is
quite interesting. Do we learn from our mistakes or do
we continue to destroy ourselves in some vicious cycle
until none of us are left?
If you are interested in purchasing this book, I have
linked book the image to the left to Amazon.com.
To view past issues of In Queue, please
click here.
If you would like to contribute to
In Queue, please reply to this email with "Contribute" in the subject
line.
Copyright 2007 National Association of Call Centers
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