Top 10 Signs You Work in a Call Center
Letterman-style list for your next manager meeting (although the last one may be a little
10. You supply your spouse with a daily quality performance report and analysis.
9. You end your date with the question, “is there anything else I can do for you?”
8. After a romantic evening with your spouse, you send him or her a satisfaction survey.
7. Your kid’s names are acronyms.
6. You find yourself calculating the average talk time after an argument with your spouse.
5. When you watch your son play soccer you keep yelling that the other team is out of adherence.
4. You keep losing bets by insisting that “Shook Me All Night Long” was sung by the mega-rock group “ACD”
3. At Halloween, you answer the door and say: Press one for Snickers, Two for Butterfinger, Three for Almond Joy, Four for Kit-Kat, or press 0 to opt out for an apple.
2. When choosing a line at the grocery store, you run a quick intra-day forecast.
1. Your dates always seem to go downhill because you keep bringing that your last date said you did not meet service level.
Thanks to Scott Thomas for co-authoring this. He is one of a kind!
Reflecting on the Possibilities and the Blessings
If you don’t mind, I would like to take a moment for some personal reflection. If you have known me for several years – or heard me speak, you may have heard me talk about the even that occurred on this day in 2008.
I was conducting a workshop in Las Vegas with a great group of call center leaders. At about 5:10pm Vegas time (7:10pm Memphis time) I received a call from my wife. She said she was in the closet with my daughter because there had been tornados in the area. She was taking shelter with my daughter. She also said that she had been texting with my son when he stopped responding. Of course, my response was to say I am sure everything is OK. I talked with here and asked her to please keep me updated.
Ten minutes later she called to tell me that he was still not responding. She also said that there was a report of a tornado touchdown in Jackson TN. My son was a Junior at Union University in Jackson. We again tried to make each other believe that “everything was OK.” Of course it was not. At that moment my son was buried under what the first responders described as two to three tons of concrete and steel. He had been in the main commons area when the tornado “imploded” the building – burying him and six of his friends. Over the next four and one-half hours, he lived out an event that I am still not sure I understand.
But, today is an amazing anniversary because at 11:30pm Memphis time, he was pulled from the ruble “alive and breathing on his one.” The rest of the story is told in a blog that we created during the ordeal to update our friends. www.kevinstatus.blogspot.com/ As I write this update, I realize that the story could have been so different. The first responders also told us that the initial estimate for deaths was about 75 and the expectation of pulling out the seven trapped in the commons area was about 5%. Yet, on that night they pulled over 200 students out of the ruble and I am blessed to report that NOT ONE STUDENT died that day. We are very thankful to the first responders and students who literally removed the building piece by piece. You can see some incredible photos at the site also.
My son is now planning his life and we are excited to see what it will include. As we reflect back on this day, we know that we are forever blessed.
So here is your assignment for today (or whatever day you are reading this) – go hug your kids (or someone you love)!
One other assignment if you are a parent with college-age kids (but I guess it also applies to high-school): Begin to develop a list of your kid’s friends. Ask for their cell-phone numbers (you can swear to only use the info in an emergency). When the tornado hit in Jackson we very quickly realized that we did not have enough information about his friends - so we had no way to contact them to ask for their help in finding Kevin. It took us over two hours to confirm that he was in the “pile.” We now have more than 15 friends listed in our cell phone with numbers - to act as back-up just in case….
Power of One - One Little Note….
Today is the first day of a great new decade. If you are like me you may feel like your life is on fast forward. I have always been a person who sends out thank-you cards. I guess I can thank my sweet mom for this habit. But, I recently read an article about the power of writing thank-you notes. Mike Bowen is the President of Champion Awards in Memphis, TN. He has a great company and I love his perspective on life and business.
Business Advice From A Grown Up Kid
From the desk of Mike Bowen
Power of One
You know that light bulb moment. You know, when you just became conscious of something so simple that you say to yourself ” I can do that!” Thank goodness we all have these ideas. It’s the “action” part that has to take over next. Because if your like me, you have a tendency to think and analyze and rethink way to much. I can still remember so clearly one such moment that happened to me over 25 years ago.
I was a decent young salesperson but had a really deep inferiority complex. I was in my early 20’s and still didn’t think I was worthy of being ultimately successful. I went to the Memphis Chamber meetings, was a Memphis Jaycee, joined Sales and Marketing Executives. I even even listened to all the sales tapes. Zig Ziglar, Art Linklerter, Fred Herman, Tremendous Charlie Jones, Tom Hopkins, Don Hutson. Now mind you, all this greatly helped in some measure, but I wasn’t necessarily getting the satisfaction out of selling stuff that I should.
Then I met a man; Mr. Carl Carson was a great man. He single handedly invented the truck leasing business with Carl Carson Leasing. Was one of the first in the 50’s and 60’s to have uniformed logo’d trucks. He even advertised on television of all things. He was in his 80’s when I finally got a chance to meet him at a Sales and Marketing meeting. He had sold his company to Saunders Leasing, which became Ryder Leasing. He was a gracious humbled man. He was wealthy with not only money but friends as well.
After I first met him, I received a simple ” thank you” card. I can still remember the words, ” Mike, It was a great pleasure seeing you. Thank you so much for your time. Hope to see you again soon. All the best, Carl.” It made me feel so good. You know what? Every time I spoke with him at any event, I would receive another card!
One day, I stopped and asked him why he sent me a card every time he saw me. I’ll never forget what he said next. He said, Mike because you have given me the greatest gift anyone can give an old salesman. “A little bit of your precious time.” I was floored and wanted to know more. “Mr. Carson, you attend dozens of functions a month and meet 100’s of people. How do you do it?” He responded, “well son, I’m up every morning at 5:00am and I can whip out 30 to 40 of these by 6:00am.” He went on, ” I started with one card a day and now it’s a habit that gives me a great start to the day.” Then he leaned over and whispered, ” It makes me feel gooood.” I still wanted to know more. He said, “writing letters and notes was a lost art, but don’t you always get a little tingle when you open the mailbox and you have a personal card written to you.”
That very moment is when the “Power of One” hit me. If I write just one card a day each working day a week that is 260 cards a year, WOW! To this day I still try very hard to send a Thank You card to people that have given me the most precious thing they have, a little bit of themselves.
(©2009 Mike Bowen - used with permission)
So how cool was that idea? So starting today, I have taken the challenge – I am going to see if 2010 can be my official “year of the card.” Care to join me on the journey?
You can find out more about Mike’s company here: www.gochampion.net
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Bob Furniss
As founder and President of Touchpoint Associates, Inc., Bob Furniss has more than 25 years of experience in the customer service field - assisting organizations to increase productivity and profits by bringing out the best in their people. He has shared his experience in the areas of leadership and service with some of the top companies in America - companies like FedEx, Corporate Express, DePaul University, Delta Airlines, Hanley Wood and more.
Click here to email Bob direct -
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