Scott Rader's Freelance Articles

Call Centers are Calling

Call centers are big business in our area. Companies providing "teleservices", the term often used to describe call center activity, employ over 5,000 people at 14 facilities located in the Tri-Cities area. The backbone of call centers are the employees who communicate with thousands of customers each day, solving their problems, collecting their payments and keeping them from becoming ex-customers. While teleservices companies strive to find the best people to perform these tasks, job seekers look for ways to best meet that demand. This article explores the challenges that exist for both call centers and prospective employees in the Tri-Cities.

THE BUSINESS OF CUSTOMER SERVICE

Customer service is no longer just an after-thought or orphan department within large companies. Customer relationship management, a fancy buzzword for customer service, is big business in and of itself. Many companies use customer service to distinguish themselves from competitors and spend significant resources to take care of their customers, often through call centers. Despite recent aversion among investors toward "pure play" technology companies, customer service, the core business of call centers, continues to flourish. Market trends come and go, but existing businesses always have customers who need assistance with their products and services. Although an assortment of "self-help" outlets like touch-tone menus and web page tutorials attempt to help the customer help themselves, complete customer service frequently requires intervention by a live, trained expert.

This is where call centers step in, processing inbound and outbound contacts for their clients. Inbound contacts include helping customers with product questions, billing inquiries, service issues and reservations/ordering. Outbound processing involves telemarketing (sales), follow-up support and customer satisfaction surveys. Starting wages for entry-level positions range from $7.50 to $12 per hour and benefits often extend even to part-time workers. Most call centers administer round-the-clock coverage for their clients and the flexible hours provide ideal work for students and individuals looking for a part-time supplement to their main job.

If the number of local call centers is any indicator, the Tri-Cities has historically been seen as a desirable place for the teleservices industry. In just over a decade, our area has gone from having one call center to over a dozen. Some call centers are part of and operate exclusively for their parent companies. Most, however, are companies existing solely to contract ("outsource") teleservices to many different clients. In either case, skills acquired working in any call center environment typically transfer nicely to other call centers as well as customer service functions like hotel and restaurant management, public relations and sales.

RECRUITING CHALLENGES

Are local job seekers prepared for the opportunities in customer relationship management? To remain competitive, call centers face the challenge of finding the best people, optimizing their investments in training, and preventing severe learning curve adjustments that adversely affect initial performance. Kay Thomas, a local call center manager with over 15 years of experience in the industry, talks about the desirability for customer handling and call control techniques among job candidates. "Workshops on these soft skills would greatly benefit people going into the call center environment. Engineers and computer technicians are a small percentage of our employees. We need people who are ready to handle customers on the phones. We can teach them the proprietary knowledge they need to know about the product. We're looking for folks who understand basic Windows desktop operations and know how to communicate well and deal with people on the phone." Starting out helping customers on the phones herself and moving on to fill a wide variety of operational and management roles over the years, Kay is aware of the demands on a call center professional, as well as the opportunities for those who decide to make it a career.

Hiring regionally takes precedence, although looking outside the area for prospective candidates is not unheard of, explains another manager who works in the human resources department for a large local call center. "We have a specific skill set in mind and we try to look for people here who have cultivated that. Articulation when dealing with often unhappy customers, the ability to compose effective written communication, and good old-fashioned business sense are key assets." Although seemingly fundamental precepts, many local business graduates complete a curriculum that only gives a nod to the idea of good customer service. "We need more than just an acknowledgement of the importance of customer care -- or acceptance of the old cliche that states 'the customer is always right'," says the manager. "We need someone who knows the specific operational processes involved in delivering efficient customer service in today's information age."

PREPARING FOR CALLING CUSTOMERS

"We have a great relationship with the human resources departments at local call centers," advises Dan Emmel, Director of the Office for Career Placement and Internship Services at ETSU. Aside from a resume database of current and alumni students used to match candidates with local job requisitions, Dan talks of a hands-on exchange between call centers and the university. "Speakers come from places like [Gray-based call center] Citi Commerce Services to conduct seminars and workshops, letting current students know what the job market is like in the customer service sector and what kind of people they are after. This allows students who are a few years away from graduating to tailor their educational pursuits to fit the demand, which our department helps them do."

At the same time, Dan describes his frustration in keeping pace with the changing management structure at call centers in our region. "More and more, the people that make the big decisions at area call centers are located hundreds of miles away. I am constantly on the road in an effort to market ETSU's offerings and make employers aware of our majors. Since decision-makers are becoming increasingly more remote, I often find myself dealing with people who are not familiar with ETSU's reputation and what we have to offer since they didn't grow up here and didn't go to school here."

At Northeast State Technical Community College, recruiting relationships with call centers operated by Sprint and Cendant are augmented by advisory panels held twice yearly that bring local employers and university officials together. "This allows Northeast State to understand the needs of employers and make additions or changes to our curriculum as necessary," says Pat Sweeney, Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs at the college. "In addition to keeping information on hand about local call centers, we also distribute a list of contact information to recruiters for all of our upcoming graduates."

Local universities and colleges have implemented parts of their curriculum designed to help meet the needs of call centers, but more can be done. Moving beyond the generally accepted maxims of good customer service, call centers consist of many unique operational procedures, refined over the course of two decades during which the concept of teleservices has risen to become its own multi-billion dollar business niche. Quality control, training, performance metrics, and online venues such as electronic mail and chat rooms all have unique characteristics from the perspective of a call center. Hundreds of books, case studies, multimedia presentations and computer-based training modules are available for use in the classroom to demonstrate the particular techniques of the booming call center business. It is in search of someone who possesses knowledge in these areas that call centers most often have to look outside the area.

PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE

Call centers are an integral part of the "knowledge economy" in the world at large and here at home. The most powerful asset any call center can have is a strong base of knowledgeable employees. The more know-how a new employee brings with them, the more valuable they are to the call center "out of the gate" and the more likely they are to excel at a career within the organization. The future of customer service will indeed involve more self-directed options that exist online, via automated telephone services, web pages, or ATMs. But nothing beats a friendly and competent voice, as anyone who has ever tried to use self-help facilities can attest. Customer service and the call centers that provide it are here to stay. Getting them to stay and continue to grow in our area requires ongoing close coordination between employers, educators and employees.

Don't Spend More on Coffee than Computer Security

January 2003

Small businesses are increasingly exposed to computer security risks as "always on" Internet access and network computing become more affordable and pervasive. Computer security, defined as preventing malicious data loss, is no longer the domain of IT experts. Today, it is everyone's business and for the small business without a dedicated "IT department", computer security may seem like a daunting issue to tackle. The most common risks, viruses and hackers, each require a different approach for prevention.

Viruses receive the most media attention, but actually account for the least risk and loss. They are also one of the easiest and cheapest security risks to manage. Conventional wisdom, often ignored, says that all computers should have anti-virus software installed, active, and updated on a regular basis. To be effective, anti-virus software must have a list of the most recent viruses in circulation. Often called "definition lists", they can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website and configured to update automatically. Most viruses are spread through email and typically exploit Microsoft products like Outlook and Exchange. Good anti-virus software includes an option for scanning incoming email attachments. However, as with all computer security solutions, technology is only part of the answer. Assertive management -- having and enforcing a policy of not opening unknown or unusual file attachments -- is crucial and often just as effective as software.

Hackers are malicious intruders bent on destroying, manipulating or stealing data. Small businesses might not think they would make ideal targets for hackers, but any business having sensitive customer data or proprietary information is at risk. Unlike the elusive wizards they are imagined to be, hackers are more often regular employees, not outsiders, and not necessarily computer experts. Most data theft and loss comes from recently terminated employees who have an axe to grind with the company. They already have convenient access to sensitive computers and networks, making clandestine break-ins unnecessary. Stopping these "inside hackers" from doing damage requires proactive management. This includes ensuring that departing employees promptly have their credentials (IDs and passwords) revoked and are not allowed unsupervised access to computers. Less common are "outside hackers" who attempt to break in to unprotected networks via the Internet. Preventing outside hackers is relatively straightforward. Make sure all networked computers sit behind a firewall. Firewalls prevent unauthorized entry into a computer or network from the outside. They are relatively inexpensive and come in one of two forms: as software installed on networked computers that "watches" Internet traffic or as hardware that physically sits between a company's computers and the Internet. In either case, it is important to configure firewalls properly. Most firewalls include "plain English" instructions on how to block certain Internet traffic, restricting use to downloading web sites and email.

Computer security, like any security, is a trade-off between convenience and safety. No system is completely foolproof and 100% security can never be achieved. Finding the right balance means understanding the options and implementing them in a way that makes sense for a given business's situation.

The Challenge of the "Last Mile"

The "last mile" is an industry term describing high-speed data services that are installed right to a customer's home or office. Getting a reliable, fast Internet connection wired all the way to an end user's physical location has proven to be more challenging than building the "back end" network necessary to support said data traffic. The "last mile" has become the Holy Grail for service providers who intend to meet the high demand for broadband services (i.e. faster than 56k dial-up) that exists even in the current volatile market. Tri-Cities companies that provide "last mile" services include Sprint, Charter Pipeline, PeerCom, XTN and KMC Telecom. Pricing is similar among the providers, with installation, additional services, and customer support often being the primary differentiators.

Sprint, the incumbent telecom provider in our region, offers its FastConnect DSL service, which uses existing copper phone lines for high-speed data transmission. DSL, an acronym for Digital Subscriber Line, is one of the most popular forms of "last mile" broadband connectivity. Speeds of up to 3 megabits per second (mbps), over 500 times faster than a 56k dial-up modem connection, are available from the local switch to the customer location on existing copper telephone wires. DSL has matured to the point of being relatively easy to set up and cheap to install. "The majority of installs can now be done by the customer with plug-and-play installation kits using their existing phone lines," explains Tom Matthews, Media Relations Manager for Sprint in the Tri-Cities. "DSL is a proven technology that we will continue to invest in for the near-term."

Cable is the primary competitor to DSL, both in terms of maturity and ubiquity. The largest "last mile" cable provider in the region is Charter Pipeline. Using standard coaxial cable lines that are already wired to most locations, Charter offers not only traditional television and entertainment services, but also high-speed Internet connectivity. The desktop cable modem is a relatively inexpensive and consumer-friendly piece of hardware installed by the end user and, connected to the existing coaxial cable that probably already runs into the home or business, completes "last mile" connectivity up to 4 mbps. Charter requires a subscription to basic cable television in order to use data services, takes a few days to activate, and is available everywhere cable is present.

Bypassing the need for wires and cables, Blountville-based PeerCom transmits wirelessly across the "last mile" via radio waves. "Wireless provides us with two main advantages: the ability to avoid digging as well as a model for profitability," explains Woody Boyd, Chief Executive Officer of the company. PeerCom provides wireless broadband access up to 6 mbps via radio transmission hardware that can be mounted easily in the home or office. They can bundle regular telephone service, monitored security and long distance all in one package on one invoice. "Our entire platform, including voice service, is state-of-the-art, packet-based IP technology," says Boyd. PeerCom operates in all three of the Tri-Cities.

Another homegrown company, XTN, succeeds in providing last mile services for the Tri-Cities as well as many outlying "county" regions that are often underserved. Brian Cutshall, XTN's News Director, talks about the company's focus on being the local reliable provider. "We're smaller and therefore more efficient than larger corporate organizations. We have always concentrated on being the local solutions provider that gets to know their customers, even face-to-face." XTN has also started to provide wireless broadband service to more remote parts of the area. "We strive to go into places that are not adequately serviced by other carriers," explains Cutshall. XTN, offering Internet services in East Tennessee since 1996, recently announced expansion of offerings to include local, long distance, toll free and business trunk services, as well as data transfer networks, frame relay systems, ISDN, and DSL. "We're the only locally owned company to be providing such a complete array of telecom services," adds Cutshall.

New Jersey-based KMC Telecom has offered voice and data services in the Tri-Cities for nearly two years, specialising in understanding the needs of medium to large businesses through "consultant-like" service. In addition to regular telephone service, they provide ISDN, T1, and DS3 high-speed data connections, including their newly announced dedicated connection via AT&T's Internet Protocol (IP) backbone. Sammy Fertitta, City Director for KMC Telecom in the Tri-Cities, points to the company's proven infrastructure and individual analyses of client needs as their strong suit. "We look at the specific requirements of the customer's business on a case-by-case basis to determine what is best for them, and then build a solution and service level agreement from there."

The many options for "last mile" service can sometimes leave shoppers bewildered with technical jargon and no real answers. Each of the providers encourages customer contact to discover the best solution. As Fertitta of KMC Telecom explains, "We won't sell a customer something they don't need or won't utilize". Regardless of all the acronyms and technical terminology, in the end providers are selling a data connection at various speeds, prices and service levels.

Reaching Your Customers In An Audience of Millions

Driving traffic to your web site can be challenging. Driving high quality traffic -- real paying customers -- can seem nearly impossible. How do you get your web site in front of the right audience? This article provides tactics for marketing on the World Wide Web by exploiting search engines like Yahoo!, Google and AltaVista.

Search engines use two primary methods for building and organizing their collection of web pages. The first is a technique known as "spidering", which uses scripts that scour the Web, gathering and indexing web pages automatically. The second method involves manually entering web pages into the search engine based on selected words and phrases ("key words") and preferred sort order. As a web site owner, you have control over both of these methods.

To take advantage of spidering, you can designate specific key words that describe your site by adding special META tags to the underlying HTML code of your web pages. For example, if you own a pet store, your best key words (those most frequently entered by potential customers) will be things like "dog", "cat", "pet food", etc. Add these words to all of your web pages using META tags. There is no guarantee that you will be placed optimally in search results, and some search engine spiders do not acknowledge META tags, but it's a small price to pay for additional control over your site.

Want even more control? For a fee, many search engines will proactively include your page and key words in their index. This new form of web marketing, known as "pay-for-placement", allows web site owners to get their site listed higher up in the search results for the key words they select. This improved visibility increases the chances of your link getting clicked on in the often overwhelming list of search results. You can be charged for the better placement as well as the clicks on your link. Although it sounds like fees might stack up quickly for this type of service, pay-for-placement can actually be more cost efficient than wayward clicks from banner advertising.

A tip on choosing key words for either META tags or pay-for-placement: Think of generic as well as unique terms that are relevant to your niche. Using the pet store example again, although "cat", "dog" and "pets" might seem to be the most obvious key words to use, "pet food", "grooming supplies" and "flea collars" will drive more qualified traffic to your site based on your core business.

Despite the brouhaha over crumbling "dot com" companies, the Internet still serves as a powerful venue for marketing your business. Being smart about your marketing means the difference between paying customers and random surfers.

Bristol Virginia Utilities Broadband Offering Meets With Mixed Reactions

With the closely watched court case now a victory, Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU) is ramping up to provide state-of-the-art high-speed commercial and residential telecommunications services starting July 1. This article looks at the impact on businesses in the BVU coverage area, where reactions are ranging from enthusiastic to indifferent.

"It definitely allows us to move ahead on several e-commerce projects that have been stifled due to inadequate access to the Internet," claims Jackson Dale, network manager for Bristol Compressors, manufacturers of piston compressors. "Although we have not yet signed a contract for new services, if additional local bandwidth is offered it would allow us to bypass our reliance on our corporate backbone, which is too slow for our current needs." Supply chain management, an important aspect of Bristol Compressors' business, is directly impacted by available bandwidth. A faster connection, or "wider pipe" for throughput of data, provides more efficient connectivity and increased transactions between the servers of buyers and vendors.

Several Bristol companies echo Mr. Dale's positive assessment. Access to BVU's high-speed fiber services is expected to improve performance as well as save money. "Their rates are very, very competitive," advises Larry Bowman, Director of Information Technology at Electro-Mechanical Corporation, makers of electric motors, transformers and mining equipment. "Although we have existing services for our WAN (Wide Area Network) and connectivity to the Internet for our locally housed e-commerce servers, Bristol's offering provides us with much-needed redundancy -- a reliable backup that is necessary to ensure business keeps running in case one provider goes down." Bowman welcomed the competition that BVU brings to the market of current telecommunications providers. "I've already noticed a [downward] price restructuring, probably as a result of Bristol's bid to provide data services."

Other businesses are proceeding with a more reserved approach. John Ross, Director of Information Services at The United Company, a Bristol-based financial services firm, regards the prospect of additional fiber-based services as promising, but does not have an immediate need for increased data facilities. "We will take a measured approach to utilizing any additional services that are offered. Our current connectivity, a T1 line that is provided by BVU, is sufficient for our current and foreseeable business needs." Rather, Ross sees an opportunity in wiring more remote satellite offices that are "out in the county" of Washington. "We are currently restricted to dial-up at some of our locations and faster connectivity there would definitely be a benefit." According to the recently passed legislation, Bristol will be able to provide telecommunications services within a 75-mile radius of the city proper. Ross views increased offerings from BVU as generally opportunistic. "The competition is certainly welcomed. The price, service and quality of our previous provider left a lot to be desired."

Small and medium-sized businesses, which typically take advantage of "consumer-grade" Internet services such as dial-up, cable or DSL, are being targeted by Bristol Virginia Utilities as well. "We're not only interested in the '500 plus' employers. We're looking directly at the businesses that have 15, 30, 50 employees who need dependable e-commerce capabilities," says Jim Kelly, Director of Fiber Services for BVU. Kelly points out that, unlike other providers in bigger cities that rely on existing aging copper services already connected to offices, BVU's effort uniquely wires the "last mile" loop with reliable high-speed fiber right up to the location of the business. "We intend to deliver all the local infrastructure necessary to provide a complete package of everything from broadband Internet connectivity to regular telephone service, long distance and cable television, as well as point-to-point ethernet services." This turnkey packaging will provide smaller businesses, which might not ordinarily have the resources to qualify for 'higher tier' telecommunications services, with an opportunity for complete professional connectivity.

Nearly all businesses, and consumers for that matter, will benefit from enhanced network infrastructure, whether "inter-office" connectivity from one physical location within Bristol to another, or out to the Internet at large. In general, by having more "pipe" available for connectivity, there is less congestion to slow things down.

Although a core goal of the BVU fiber project is to solicit new business to the area, particuarly in the information services sector, existing Bristol businesses will begin to be able to take advantage of the offerings starting in July. Kelly advises, "Simply contact Bristol Virginia Utilities with a request for services. A team will be sent to analyze the requirements of the business and provide solutions for service. Our turnaround is typically 30 days, depending on the customer's specific needs." Pricing schedules and further information for signing up are being finalized by BVU and will be ready for potential customers by July.

Getting the Most Out of Your PC

The potential of the personal computer for business is rarely maximized. Although the PC has no doubt revolutionized the way business is done, and we are now undeniably tied to the contraption we so lovingly decorate with stickers and photographs, we stop short of fully exploiting the productivity potential of our personal computers. With enough computing power to operate a Boeing 747 and cheaper than a copier, it would seem that the workhorses of modern industry would be asked to do more than what they are.

Personal computers are most commonly used in business for email, spreadsheets and word processing. Most of us can hardly imagine what it would be like to operate without these relatively nascent applications. As important as they are, these duties are often all the PC is expected to do and optimal use is not achieved.

Optimal use means increasing efficiency and productivity by tapping into what most computers already have "out of the box", or can have with low or no-cost upgrades. Optimal use applications include:

• productivity software
• "search-ability" of information
• archiving via CDR
• voice recording
• document scanning
  
  

Personal computers are often overlooked for their potential to help us organize. Personal information managers (PIMs) are applications that include a calendar, address book, and "to do" list that help us keep up with day-to-day events, people, and action items. PIMs usually include a reminder function, which alerts the user to meetings and scheduled tasks by sounding an alarm or popping up a note on screen. PIMs can integrate with email for further increased productivity. Ironically, many people find PIMs counter-productive at first and stop using them prematurely. Like many organizational tools, PIMs can require a change in habits that some may find inconvenient. Getting the most out of a PIM means choosing one that suits you, keeping it running on the desktop all the time, and making a disciplined effort to use it.

Another great advantage of PIMs is note-taking, especially via laptop or portable computer. Even without an elaborate productivity software package, keeping notes in a simple word processing program can be more efficient than writing on paper, especially when it comes to finding and retrieving those notes later. The popular Post-It note serves as the only "PIM" for many businesspeople. The obvious disadvantage is their uncanny knack at getting lost, despite their adhesive characteristics. But the biggest disadvantage is indexing them. In other words, struggling to find that one Post-It where we jotted an important number can mean more than just frustration -- it also means lost time and productivity. Using your PIM or word processing program's "Find" or "Search" feature allows an efficient electronic search of your notes. Your data can also be easily archived.

One of the best ways of archiving data is on CD-ROM. The CD-ROM "burner" (CDR) that comes installed in most new computers is often used only for making copies of other CDs. CDRs also allow us to make our own CDs, not just copies, and they provide an efficient way to back up old email, personal documents, and last year's projects. Archiving is also a great way to "clean off" the PC's hard drive, freeing up resources and improving PC performance.

Another frequently overlooked function of the PC is its ability to capture sound, and in business that means capturing voice recordings. Most personal computers have a built-in microphone or place to plug one in. Whether recording the minutes of an entire meeting or simply capturing quick ideas and memos, the PC can replace expensive recorders and actually has better editing and archiving capabilities. The quality of recordings can be adjusted to allow an enormous amount of audio data to be stored and archived using relatively little hard drive or CD-ROM space.

Efficient storage can also be accomplished using scanners, which are often associated only with digitizing photographs. This is an underutilization of such an inexpensive and versatile piece of hardware. Through technology known as optical character recognition (OCR), scanners can scan and store paper forms and documents to avoid manual data entry. The software that makes OCR happen has greatly improved over the years and is especially useful in "paper intensive" businesses such as the medical and legal professions.

Take an inventory of your personal computers' functionality. Peripherals like printers are often over-used, at considerable cost, while the potential of optimal use applications like those mentioned here are ignored. Uncovering hidden value is imperative for all good managers and can start with the box sitting right on the desk.