Chris Crosby

Now that you’ve gone through and completed your Reports Inventory, it’s time to start looking at where the report data comes from. This will be an exercise in evaluating just how spread-out your data really is.Next to each report, list out where the source data resides. This is most likely your ACD, Quality Monitoring/Recording System, Workforce Management Application, Human Resources Database, and a customer service/sales database of some type.

You may even have more than one source of each type. For example, you may have more than one ACD, and from different vendors; notate each source separately. 

The last step is to add a wishlist at the bottom. There may be sources of information out there that you are not currently pulling from, but wish to; talley these up as well.

Depending on the size of your operation and breadth of your reporting, the final count may vary between 4 and 14. Feel free to post the count here, we’ll make it an informal survey.

-Chris

-part of the 60 ideas in 60 days series-

Heres one of the first steps in starting your company’s Business Intelligence strategy: Take an Inventory of all of the reports that get distributed throughout your organization, and who they go to. Next to each report put how many man hours are required to generate that report. This should be an eye opening experience.

Look for reports that can be simplified, consolidated, or completely eliminated.

Also go through your vendor’s reporting tools, such as your ACD, WFM, QA, etc. Odds are there is a long list of "Custom" Reports; many of which are redundant and due to their custom nature may render inconsistent data. This can be frustrating and confusing to your end users. Go through and eliminate unnecessary templates. This will ensure everyone has access to consistent data.

By taking these simple steps and streamlining report access, you will save your staff a great deal of time and annoyance.

-Chris

-part of the 60 ideas in 60 days series-

In the IVR design world there is a common phrase referred to as "Hiding the Agent". This is when you make it impossible, or near impossible, for someone to zero out for an operator. The theory behind such practice is that you will somehow magically increase your IVR call completion rates. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. This practice will only aggravate your callers.

You certainly don’t want to make "Press 0 for an operator" the first option on the menu tree, but not allowing customers to speak to an agent when they are having difficulty maneuvering the IVR is a surefire way to send them packing to your competition.

-Chris

-part of the 60 ideas in 60 days series-

Whether you subscribe to the Global Warming and Climate Change doctrines or not, a great deal of your customers either are, or will be in the near future, paying attention to your company’s environmental friendliness. Being a “Green Company” will soon be worn like a moral badge of honor that consumers will be conscious of.

I personally think that global warming is a reality and if we don’t act quickly the face of our planet will look much different for our children than it does today. Other people however will look at “greenification” merely as a marketing ploy to stay consumer friendly. I would also expect that with recent power shifts on Capitol Hill there will some legislative initiatives slanted towards regulating carbon emissions and fuel efficiency. Several states have already started moving in this direction on their own.

Regardless of your motive, now is the time to start educating yourself on things like Green data centers, carbon neutrality, renewable energy and formulating plans about what your company will do to support the movement.

The last decade of my life has been spent more or less “on the road”. The companies I have worked for, and most recently the one I own, have taken me to every corner of this country and most places in between; and I have accumulated more Marriott points than I’ve had vacation time to redeem. Once upon a time, some of these Marriotts even knew me by first name…

These innumerable business trips have yielded experiences ranging from my very first sea food instigated gout attack in 1999 (god bless Boston lobster) to watching the snow “fall” horizontally in Fargo, ND.

What I’ve learned is that regardless of where you are in the world you have two basic requirements:

• Food
• Directions

One thing that I’ve come to appreciate when traveling to see a prospect, customer, partner, etc. is when they email me their Visitor Packet. This usually includes directions from the airport to their office, a listing of local hotels and restaurants. Some even include local attractions incase you choose to stay the weekend or take in local sights.

It is truly hard to articulate in words the positive impression you can have on your prospects, customers or vendors if you provide them with a personalized visitor guide to your city prior to their arrival.

If you really want to make an impression on that special person, find out their favorite cuisine and the best place in town for it. Cough up the 15 bucks for the local Zagat Guide, highlight your personal choices and present it to your customer or prospect when they arrive at your office. This small gesture will leave a lasting impression that lends itself to building a long term relationship…

-Chris

-part of the 60 ideas in 60 days series-

It happens to all of us, no matter how organized we are. You’re laying in bed, your mind is racing, decompressing from the long day… and BAM.. "damn, I forgot to send so and so the email about that one thing…"

Fill in the blanks with your own personal scenario here. But a couple of things can happen when your head hits the pillow at night:

• Your mind starts to reconcile the day, and you often remember tasks that were forgotten through out the day when you got distracted by something else
• Even more importantly, your mind is freed-up to be creative and think of new, fresh ideas. Some of the ideas that have been posted in this forum were "dreamt-up" while laying in bed when my mind was free from the day’s chaos.

When these ideas hit you, turn on the bedside lamp and write them down. Otherwise they will more often than not be forgotten by the time you hit R.E.M.

Here’s another tidbit. You solve problems in your sleep. How many times have you awoken from a deep sleep and had an idea or solution to a serious problem that was weighing on your mind?

Usually sometime between hitting snooze on the alarm clock and getting out of the shower you will have a pivotal idea that will be lost for good unless documented almost immediately…

-Chris

-part of the 60 ideas in days series-

Studies show that if you take notes during seminars, lectures, conversations, training classes, etc. you are more likely to retain the information. Even if you never look at the notes again…

Obviously reviewing your notes later increases retention even more. So next time you are on the phone with a prospect, customer or colleague, take notes about the conversation.

Even better, record any relevant information in your CRM database to share with the rest of the team. Keep detailed notes about your key contacts as well. The more you learn about people the better relationships you build.

-Chris

-part of the 60 ideas in 60 days series-

One of the things I like about marketing is grabbing people’s attention and imprinting a lasting image in their mind about who I am and why they need to remember my company and what we do. One way to do this is to gratuitously exploit the cheese factor. In other words, don’t be afraid to be cheesy. Why? Because people remember it…

I am traveling this week and happened to take notice of a couple of signs that reiterated this to me:

• "Shrimply Fabulous" – A Seafood Restaurant
• "Go Ahead, Get Sauced" – Back of T-Shirts at a BBQ Restaurant
• "Steak Out" – Sign outside the Take Out line at a Steak Joint

Here’s a couple that I use with customers and prospects that seem to help cement our branding:

• "BlueRue" – A BlueVue Guru
• "RePortal" – Our proprietary Portal for Reporting

-Chris

-part of the 60 ideas in 60 days series-