Tales From The Cube

Quality starts with the recording of a call. Every time you dial into or get a call from a call center, you should know at one point, the call may be recorded for quality and training. Specific laws in the US and Canada govern how calls are to be recorded. Canada has PIPEDA, The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and in the US, each state has its own rules regar...

Most call centers do not have a union in them. Generally speaking, employers and some staff prefer not to have them on site. In this episode, I explain the rules and things one can expect during and after a vote to certify. Be advised that I am not suggesting one does or does not join a union. These are the facts; you need to make informed decisions before finalizing your choice. That is what this...

We all have an opinion about our boss and company. It is normal not to be happy with a policy or a corrective action. How you give feedback is very important. Managers and other senior leaders in companies are highly sensitive to employee pushback. In a lot of call centers, management hates employee pushback. That is changing, but it is taking time. In this episode, I dive in and offer some tips f...

What do T1, 2, and 3 do in tech support? I explore this edition of the podcast. I also tackle the recent uptick in angry customer interactions with a message about the importance of being respectful on the call.

We cannot ignore the reality that AI is everywhere. Even in Call Centers, AI is having an impact. Good or bad whichever way you see it the fact remains that AI is changing the job and in this episode, I speak about AI and its benefits and drawbacks.

A CRM tool is software that helps you manage the customer relationship. In this episode I give a very basic idea of what a CRM is does and how to use it.

Premium rate, premium service, or 900 numbers. Whichever way you slice it, they are where billable services like adult chat lines, tarot reading, and special services, including tech support, are offered for a price, a very hefty one too. Back in the 80s and 90s, 900 numbers generated huge profits for companies and people. Some still exist, but for the most part, billable offerings are offered on...

The Operations Manager is a pretty important person in the call center. They intersect with Team Leaders and Call Center Managers. They have to have a lot of skills to do the work. The biggest among them is a keen eye for detail and the ability to manage many systems, and they should also be people-centered. That is a lot to juggle in a day, but a good OM can and does do it. Learn more about the r...

Call centers are magnets for bullies. It's a very serious problem, and so is dealing with customers on calls who are bullies. This is a frank discussion about the problem and what can and should be done to address it. Guy Winch, Ph. D. Author The Squeaky Wheel is quoted in this episode. https://www.guywinch.com/ Blog post-Last Frontier Bullying in call centers

This episode is about humor on and off the call and some of the humor that you may encounter in a call center.

In this episode, I drop some tips about what you should and should not do on a call. From the Agent and customer side of the call. It's important to think about who you manage the call, whether you are the agent or the person calling. Below is the webpage I got most of the list from. It's called Helprace. https://site.helprace.com/blog/30-dos-and-donts-in-customer-service The article is 30...

In this episode I jump on the soapbox a bit and tackle customer satisfaction surveys.

This episode features a talk about call center terms that are commonly used. There is a blog that has 50 terms in it that relate to call centers the name of it is, VCC.live. here is the exact link. https://vcc.live/blog/call-center-terminologies/

In this episode, I explore the four types of customers that agents get on calls. They are as follows: The babbler, Relationship Oriented, Detail Oriented, and Opportunity customers. Each is unique, and we have to work with them in different ways. As I mentioned, in the podcast, there is a really great podcast out there called The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week, created by Popular Science. This...

Working from home has become a bit of a battleground, pitting employees against employers. In call centers, there is pushback being felt by managers as staff rail against the return to the office.  I discuss the issue in this episode of Tales From The Cube.

In this episode, I speak about telemarketing and how it works.

In the first of hopefully many podcasts this year I speak about the different types of Call centers that are out there.  Internal, external, in and outbound an of course specialty centers that handle just one kind of caller or business / consumer class.  

A brief history of how I got to where I am in the call center industry.

In this short episode I explain what the podcast will be about.  The topics that will be covered and the goal of the podcast.

This episode is the introduction to the podcast and what it is about.