The Real-Time Contact Center: Strategies, Tactics, and Technologies for Building a Profitable Service and Sales Operation [Paperback]

Donna Fluss (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0814414435 | ISBN-13: 978-0814414439 | Publication Date: August 26, 2005 | Edition: First Edition

"To get a competitive edge in a world of commoditized service, companies have to convert their reactive, cost-oriented contact centers into predictive, engaged, revenue-generating, real-time profit centers. A real-time contact center provides an outstanding customer experience, enhances loyalty, increases sales, reduces expenses, and streamlines information flow between the center and the company at large -- all of which adds up to substantial bottom-line improvement. The Real-Time Contact Center is a practical guide to building a service infrastructure that will simultaneously exceed your customers' expectations, and build revenues. This timely book will help you: Establish the business case for transforming your contact center into a real-time profit center. * Sort through the technologies and systems that enable real-time contact centers, and learn the best ways to use them. * Build profitable relationships with sales and marketing. * Strengthen your self-service applications to improve their efficiency and to reduce dependence on service representatives, enabling significant cost reductions. * Hire, train, and motivate staff to keep your contact center at the top of its game. * Make smart, ethical decisions regarding offshore outsourcing. The book is packed with step-by-step implementation plans for migrating from your current model to the real-time contact center, and offers a complete package of winning strategies, practical guidelines, and best practices. Each chapter includes self-assessment checklists for use by all the crucial players in your contact environment. The Real-Time Contact Center analyzes the business trends that are driving change in the contact center market, and provides vendor names and a market overview of key call center technology, systems, and applications. The book also discusses how to optimize management and processes to ensure your people are well positioned to deliver extraordinary service with every interaction. Most importantly, The Real-Time Contact Center will show you how to make this crucial transformation without disrupting your current service initiatives. With the powerful tools and practical recommendations in this book, you will transfer quickly and seamlessly to a world-class contact center that's designed to generate substantial revenue, delight your customers, reduce expenses, and make your organization the envy of its industry."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Call Center Magazine: "...a book that makes a powerful argument for turning your call center into the kind of corporate asset that executives only dream about."

Review

"""Donna Fluss really gets it. She knows firsthand how to get the most value

out of that under-appreciated asset, the contact center. Whether you run a

contact center or run a company, in this very practical book, Fluss

brilliantly guides you to the best use of your most precious resource:

customer contacts."" -- Keith Dawson

Editorial Director, Call Center Magazine

& CallCenterMagazine.com

""The Real-Time Contact Center is a great resource for helping contact centers take a proactive approach to sales and service, while reducing operating costs. This book covers all of the hot topics in the industry, and helps readers find the most profitable course for their company. If you're going to read just one book on contact centers, this is the one you should choose."" -- Art Schoeller

Senior Analyst

The Yankee Group

""I truly welcome The Real-Time Contact Center for its comprehensive coverage of the complex web of technology, service, and people that makes up the contact center. In my 25 years in the industry, I have never before come across a book that so thoroughly explores and provides such practical guidance on the crucial areas of contact center strategy and deployment."" -- Aleksander Szlam

Szlam Enterprises, Inc. (formerly the founder and CEO of Melita International)

""Not only is this the definitive book on the 21st century model for contact centers,

but Donna's extraordinary expertise and writing style make this both

important and fun to read! Not a bad combination for something so good for

your business."" -- Paul Greenberg, author, CRM at the Speed of Light"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; First Edition edition (August 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814414435
• ISBN-13: 978-0814414439
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #501,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strategy and Operations Both, September 9, 2005

By 

Margaret Schroeder - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Real-Time Contact Center: Strategies, Tactics, and Technologies for Building a Profitable Service and Sales Operation (Hardcover)

Having been involved in the call center industry since the 1980's, I've read lots of books on call/contact centers. While most have provided nuggets of valuable information none have been able to effectively cover both the strategic and operational issues in such a comprehensive, easy-to-understand manner as Real-Time Contact Center. Every chapter of the book is well written with lots of valuable information. I thought it was so exceptional that I ordered copies for each member of our management staff around the world. Their feedback matches my assessment. Read it yourself, I'm sure you'll agree too.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your competition does not want you to read this book, August 11, 2005

By 

Mei Lin Fung "CRM Pioneer" (California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Real-Time Contact Center: Strategies, Tactics, and Technologies for Building a Profitable Service and Sales Operation (Hardcover)

Imagine if you could really get the service you would like to get:
Your request or inquiry quickly and comprehensively serviced.
And it happens time after time after time.
And it's useful, valuable and believe-it-or-not personally enjoyable to be in touch with the companies who enjoy your business.

One day it will come to pass.

Donna Fluss paints a new world in which person-to-person contact rules!

Sure there's automation but only when its faster and more convenient.

And it all starts with the up-to-this-point lowly call center.

The rules of business are changing drastically. To keep up with the pack:

1. Read this book
2. Then think about what it means if your competition reads it and acts quickly to get a real time contact center underway.


How can your business possibly respond to this double-edged sword, both a threat and an opportunity?

As a customer, I can't wait for that day to come to pass!

Read this book. Please!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything You Wanted to Know About Contact Centers and Were Afraid to Ask, September 10, 2007

By 

JAMES WETTERAU (Garner, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Real-Time Contact Center: Strategies, Tactics, and Technologies for Building a Profitable Service and Sales Operation (Hardcover)

When someone sent me a copy of this book a year ago, I thought it was going to be light reading for a technologist's coffee table. Then I started to read it. This book truly runs the gamut of all the issues that customer service contact centers face today. The book provides a great introduction to contact centers, their technology and both the business and people issues that contact centers face in the 21st century.
People complain with increasing frequency about poor customer service. With great dissatisfaction about call center jobs moving overseas, and service suffering, this book examines all those issues and each chapter gives a list of helpful steps to take to overcome all the obstacles to good customer service.
This is a must read if you need to know about these issues or are working in any part of this exploding industry and need to do your job better.