Strategic planning

I’m going to start this month’s column with one of my life’s greatest mysteries, which I have yet to figure out. How can there be 240 channels on my television, and most nights, there’s nothing...

The closure of non-essential shops, remote working and online social gatherings has been the norm for over a year. However, while it might have felt like the pandemic was driving us closer to some...

The idiom strike while the iron is hot may be traced back at least to the 1500s and is a reference to the art of blacksmithing. When a blacksmith works iron, he heats it...

The expression keep the ball rolling is an American variation of an older British expression keep the ball up, which people used idiomatically early in the 1700s to mean continue something,” according to the...

For those of you expecting an introductory dissertation on Elton John’s song “Rocket Man” from the 1972 album Honky Chateau, or even a review of the 2019 biopic movie about the life of Elton...

Welcome, 2021! The new year always brings hope for new beginnings. Although COVID-19 is still the central focus of our everyday lives, the contact center industry appears to be moving forward with optimism, lessons...

Get the ball rolling” is an idiom that means to start the action, to make the opening move.” Its origin gives America credit for bringing the idiom into general use, starting in the 1840s....

I’ve been on my soapbox for years touting the importance of aligning the business strategy, the contact center operations strategy, and the contact center technology strategy. Strategies are aligned when: You can map the relationship...

As contact center leaders plan for the post-pandemic recovery—both short- and long-term—where can they turn for reliable insights for informed decision-making? Contact centers that emerge from the crisis understaffed may find that their previous...

We are now into the final quarter of a year that will surely be remembered as one of the most chaotic in history. Many of us would like nothing better than to simply fast...

In this final installment of our three-part series on COVID-19’s impact on contact centers, our panel discusses how the rapid move to adopt or expand automated solutions will effect agent training and development in...

Our three-part series on COVID-19’s impact on contact centers and the shift to more flexible human and automated models continues with a look at the gaps that the pandemic exposed between digital and human...

WFH… work from home. Everyone knows this acronym by now. Just about everywhere you look, people are “working from home.” Yet, this is not the way it was intended to happen! While many folks...

As the global economy gradually reopens under evolving guidance and safety protocols for companies, employees and customers, business leaders are contemplating a vastly altered vision of the future of work from just a few...

Contact Center Pipeline’s AUTHOR WALL OF FAME Paul Stockford is Founder, President and Chief Analyst at Saddletree Research, a veteran-owned boutique research and analysis firm with a sharp focus on the North American contact center industry. Area...

As we prepared for 2020 six months ago, few (if any) had a crystal ball that anticipated the kind of widespread disrupted brought on by COVID-19. Hopefully, your center was able to respond to...

Everyone is talking about the way we’re functioning now as our “new normal.” But is this current routine just a short-term patch while we work through the COVID-19 crisis, or will it change the...

Contact Center Pipeline’s AUTHOR WALL OF FAME Kathleen Peterson is Chief Vision Officer of PowerHouse Consulting, a renowned management consulting firm specializing in operationalizing the Customer Experience; our consultants are recognized experts in the design and...

You can’t get anywhere unless you’re willing to take a risk. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “This idiom dates back to Chaucer (c. 1374) and is similar to the late 14th century French proverb, Qui...

Contact centers are among the fastest-growing segment in the healthcare industry. Since the 1990s, hospitals have been consolidating and forming “systems.” These systems have also been absorbing physician private practices and centralizing functions. It...