Pam Treanor

Pam Treanor, an Associate Consultant, began her career in the telephone industry, crossing a variety of fields such as employee management, sales, finance and budgets within the contact center operation. Besides the telephone and cell phone industries, she has participated in a variety of projects within the airlines, healthcare, insurance, credit card and fitness centers industries.  She has more than 20 years experience in the Contact Center Arena. Her areas of expertise include: Project Management, Process Improvement and Quality Management, Training Development and Delivery, Contact Center Assessment and Optimization, Contact Center Design and Implementation, Functional and Gap Analysis, Budget and Financial Analysis.

Pam enjoys volunteering her time with children’s programs, local fun runs and bike events, reading and working on a community farm.

Key Competencies

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  • Training Development and Delivery
  • Knowledge Management
  • Contact Center Workflow
  • Contact Center Organization Design
  • Operational Assessments and Observations
  • Process Analysis

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Bill Maikranz

Bill Maikranz is a senior consultant with an expertise in call center technologies, focusing on the both the new VoIP voice solutions and the traditional TDM architecture. He begins engagements focused on the client’s business requirements when evaluating existing and required technical solutions and their ROI. Bill’s particular areas of emphasis are working as the technical architect with a focus on Telephone networks and ACDs, IVRs, Predictive Dialers, CTI, work force management and CRM solutions. As a consultant for the past 25 years, he has demonstrated strength in the purchase and implementation call center supporting technologies. During the time Bill has been employed as a consultant, he has been involved in over 200 individual client projects within the call center industry.

Bill’s professional consulting projects include the following:

Avis Rent a Car, Federal Express, Home Shopping Network, American Heart Association, LL Bean, First Hawaiian Bank, Pacific Gas & Electric, British Telecom, Bank of America, Bank of Portugal, US Census Bureau, US Postal Service, BC Hydro. Sprint Cellular, Ohio State Univ. Hospital, Dominion Power, DirectTV, City of Dallas, Presbyterian Hospital NYC, TD Ameritrade, Verizon Wireless, Children’s Hospital Boston, CIBC Canadian Bank, Wells Fargo.

Key Competencies

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  • Architecture planning for VoIP
  • Network assessment for VoIP
  • Call center technology assessments
  • Vendor management and RFPs
  • Staffing and forecasting
  • Technology budget planning
  • ACD and voice call flow design
  • IVR self service design
  • CTI design and ROI analysis
  • Outbound predictive dialing

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Contact Center 411 Emerges in Consulting Field

Phoenix, AZ – August 1, 2011 Contact Center 411, a tailored and comprehensive resource for all customer‐service needs, today announced its launch. Partnered by Industry experts Noel Colaco, Brian Golden, Kirby McLennan, David Raia, and Elliott Winit, the company aims to provide high value while mentoring and sharing knowledge and tools to build longterm capabilities for repeated project success.

From the unique needs of cloud computing to social media, Contact Center 411 combines a distinctive approach of modern demands and traditional needs while enabling clients to effectively manage customer traffic and optimize customer experience. Co‐founder Elliott Winit stated, “We help clients improve or restructure their contact center operations and that helps their bottom line. When I’m talking to someone about their operation, I’ve walked many miles in their shoes. We have extensive experience running contact centers and we absolutely understand and relate to the challenges they face today.”

Contact Center 411 provides several unique advantages including:

Industry Experience – Each of the Partners at Contact Center 411 have been active in the industry for more than 20 years. The Company provides expertise in all critical areas including workforce management, performance management and metrics, telephony
architecture, training, quality management, business continuity planning, technology innovation and platform integration, productivity improvement, quality management, multi‐channel integration, expansion/consolidation and project management for strategic initiatives.

Best Practices – Providing consistency and ownership from start to finish, a Contact Center 411 partner will remain involved in each project. The Company has developed comprehensive Best Practices and applies them uniquely for each client to ensure successful implementation every time.

Outsource/Insource Advising – Well versed on the pros and cons of outsourcing, the Company can guide or lead client efforts to examine the options, negotiate with vendors, and implement successfully while avoiding pitfalls.

Vendor/Solution Neutral – Honoring each client’s unique needs, Contact Center 411 focuses on the services provided, business processes, the underlying technology and business objectives. Only then can appropriate and successful solutions be crafted.

Interim Leadership/Management ‐ Businesses often find themselves without operational management during various transition events. Contact Center 411 provides on‐site senior management professionals to bridge this gap.

About Contact Center 411:
Contact Center 411 is a leader in customer contact operations with experience applying knowledge and skills in a variety of environments across multiple industries. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona the Company works with clients globally across all
market segments. www.contactcenter411.com

Saving the Sale

Call me a sucker, but I saw an internet advertisement for a free sample of a dietary supplement that I wanted to try and I went for it…knowing that I had to give my credit card number and if I didn’t call them to cancel, they were going to start sending me a new supply of the product every month, and charge me for it.  I usually avoid things like this, but this was an interesting concept.  It was a pre-workout supplement that came in the form of a tablet, rather than a powder that had to be mixed with water.  I got my trial sample and of course, forgot to cancel before the first non-free one arrived.  I actually liked the product, but it was significantly more expensive than the powder alternatives.  Admittedly, however, I had found that the product was great for when I was traveling and didn’t want to have to mix something with water.  I actually kept it going for a few months to save some supply just for that purpose.  Once I had a couple months’ worth, I was ready to cancel.  Their phone number appeared on my credit card statement, so it was easy to find.  When I called, the agent on the phone asked me why I was cancelling.  I gave her my exact reasons.  I liked the product, especially for traveling, but I thought it was too expensive and even if it wasn’t too expensive, I was getting more of it than I could use.  She actually listened and obviously the management of this service center had ensured that they were prepared for these kinds of “objections” to continued purchase of their product.   First, she offered to lower the price of the product by 25% for me.  I told her that would help some, but that I didn’t need to get a 30 day supply every month…in fact that I already had two months’ supply saved up.  She suggested that they go ahead and take me off the monthly subscription.  This might be perceived as a failure, however, there was no way that they were going to convince me to continue that, so it was really good customer service.  However, she also secured my next order for another 30 day supply two months down the road.  We agreed on a date, she said I’d get it automatically at the discounted price, and from then on, I could just order it whenever I wanted.  So, they may have lost me as a subscription customer, but they got at least one more ordered…and I am pretty sure I will be ordering again, based on the way the whole thing was handled.

Preparing your agents for whatever objections or reasons for cancelling a service is critical to customer retention, but that’s only part of it.  Equipping them with the right tools and giving them the leverage to use them according to their best judgment is the best way to leverage those opportunities to keep customers, at least in some capacity.  Finally, ensuring that they are trained to listen and provide good customer service along the way will help them seal the deal whenever a customer or sale is still able to be saved.

Usually when I write about an experience like this that’s entirely positive, I like to mention the name of the company.  In this case I won’t, at least for now, because I’m not sure if they want all their customers to call them asking for a 25% discount!

Effective Call Routing Equals Faster Service for Customers and Lower Costs for Companies.

It was that time of year…I received the annual “escrow analysis statement” from my mortgage company. For customers in many states who choose to have their real-estate taxes impounded and paid by their mortgage company, this is the statement that shows their forecast of disbursements from these impound accounts, for taxes and/or insurance, along with the associated minimum balances and expected “low” points. They often communicate the resulting change in the monthly mortgage payment based on any adjustments to the monthly impound account contributions required. Sometimes customers have the option of increasing their payment, or paying a lump sum that will cover any projected shortage so their payment can remain the same. The projected tax amounts on mine didn’t look right to me, so I placed a call to the customer service number, which was listed on the statement. I chose what seemed to be the most appropriate selection from the voice prompts and after a few minutes of waiting, I was routed to an agent. The agent indicated that I needed to talk to someone different, so she transferred me. I waited another few minutes, and the agent that I was transferred to told me that there was a separate group handling inquiries about these escrow analysis statements, and transferred me again. After another couple of minutes, I got to another agent, who was able to resolve my inquiry pretty quickly and seemingly without any difficulty.

This wasn’t a bad experience for me, although the various transfers and conversations did turn result in a total of more than 15 minutes on the phone, when it could have been significantly less. My inquiry was resolved, so I was satisfied. However, this was a much costlier interaction for the company than it had to be because it actually turned into three calls (one each with three different agents) instead of just one. The annual mailing of these statements is most likely one that generates a lot of calls. Presumably these go out to a large portion of their customers, at least within certain states. According to the last agent that transfers me, these statements generate enough call volume that they have set up a special group to handle the calls. This can be a smart step on the part of the company because if they have a large customer service staff, it can save them a lot of training costs by only training a portion of them. However, that savings can only be realized if they are able to get the calls to that specialized group efficiently. In this case, given that the majority of these calls happen over a short period of time, a company should consider adding a special option in the voice response menu specifically for callers inquiring about those statements. This could catch a significant number of these callers, provide them with faster service, and help to ensure that the training dollars they save aren’t offset by the handling of misdirected calls. Making a temporary change like this to the menu can often be done relatively quickly and easily.

Welcome

Welcome to my customer experience blog. Here I write about the kind of experiences we all have as customers every day. Some of them are good, some are bad. Regardless of that, there’s always a lesson to be learned…either from what an organization did that resulted in a good experience, or what they could have done to prevent a bad one. This can be a good source of tips for a customer service or contact center manager, or just something fun to read. Feel free to comment on the posts or even post your own customer service stories and I can respond with some “lessons learned” from those. Give as many details as you want…but please keep in mind that as a rule, I only publish the company name if the story is positive. However, in the case of negative stories, it’s helpful for me to know who the company is. I always try to alert customer service managers in those companies of the stories so they can be aware of what their customers are saying. Brian Golden, Contact Center 411

Lilly Cho

 

Lilly Cho uniquely combines strategy and execution in implementing enterprise wide initiatives that improve her customer’s return on investment and increases in their bottom line results. Lilly has enabled her clients to report record growth and profit within very tight turnaround times.

Lilly’s vast experience in many different sectors has proven valuable in providing a compelling and diverse viewpoint on effective operations and processes within organizations

Lilly’s key competencies include creating executable business strategies that provide immediate business results. Lilly’s basis for business measurement is to identify clear key performance indicators that are actionable, measureable and trackable.

Along with having a MBA from Rice University, Lilly continually increases her knowledge by attending several national conferences in healthcare, project management and adult learning.

Lilly spends a lot of her free time volunteering with Project Open Hand, Stop AIDS Project and Share Our Strength. Lilly’s other passions include international travel, food and wine.

Key Competencies

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  • Program and Project Management
  • Business Analysis
  • Business Process Reengineering
  • Telephony and CRM Technology Implementation
  • Change Management
  • Training Design and Development
  • Performance Management
  • Learning Strategies and User Adoption
  • Leadership Development
  • Quality Assurance
  • Computer System Validation
  • Facilitation
  • Telesales Operations

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John Fahrnkopf

John Fahrnkopf is a contact center technology consultant with more than 20 years of broad technology consulting experience, focusing the past 14 years delivering benefit to customer service centers through technology and operations optimization and improvement, including roles as technical architect, project manager, and systems and business analyst. He specializes in telecommunications and has experience with most contact center technologies and leading product vendors.

John has worked for eLoyalty, Capgemini, and IBM in their Contact Center Optimization practice areas where he has delivered tactical and strategic planning, and managed technology implementations to such companies as TXU Energy, Washington Mutual, Providian Bank, MoneyGram, Wells Fargo, Kaiser Permanente, Vision Service Plan, NiSource Energy, Sprint, as well as many others.

Key Competencies

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  • Technology Assessments
  • Contact Center Infrastructure/Architecture
  • Telephony/VoIP
  • Call Flow/Routing Design
  • IVR Self-Service
  • Vendor RFP
  • Vendor Selection
  • Technology Project Management

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Everybody Wins When You Offer Customers a Choice

On a recent trip to the Boston area, I was lucky enough to get a low rate to stay at the Le Meridién hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As I was settling into the room, I noticed a card advertising a program they’re offering. The program offered me the option of not having the regular daily housekeeping service for my room and, in exchange, they were offering a $5 voucher that could be used in the hotel restaurant or bar. Furthermore, if I didn’t want or wasn’t able to use that, I had the option of redeeming any of my vouchers at the end of my stay for 500 bonus points in their guest rewards program. As a loyal Starwood Preferred Guest program member, I was very excited about this. I knew I’d barely be using the room other than for sleeping and showering. I was only there for a two night stay and I often opt to not have my sheets or towels washed anyway. I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal at all for me to simply make the bed myself if I wanted it made, and the rest didn’t really matter. Besides that, at three points per dollar, I would be earning fewer than 500 points per night based on my nightly rate. It seemed like a great bonus and I jumped on the opportunity. I found myself hoping that the hotel that I’ve been staying in regularly for work on a client project would start offering the same thing.

This is a great example of how offering choices to a customer can really enhance customer loyalty and repeat buying. Because of this program, this will be the first hotel I look into the next time I travel to Boston. Interestingly enough, the $5 restaurant voucher or the 500 points probably even have a much lower cost to the hotel than that of daily housekeeping service for a room, especially when you take into account the housekeeping labor, laundry costs, and supplies. This is a great lesson that what something may cost an organization doesn’t necessarily translate dollar for dollar in terms of value to a customer. By offering customers a choice, you not only increase their satisfaction by giving them something that’s of value or important to them, sometimes you can actually save money because some customers will choose an option that has a lower cost than the standard service.

Noel Colaço

Noel Colaço is a senior-level consulting manager with more than 15 years of experience in contact centers, customer relationship management, business process improvement and information technology best practices with public sector (federal), Fortune 500, startup, and mid-market companies. He has been extensively focused in the last 10 years with clients in federal government, financial services and transportation industries looking at achieving strong bottom-line impact through contact center and CRM optimization.

Noel’s key competencies in contact center consolidation, contact center technology optimization, and contact center roadmap development and execution, as well as his deep knowledge of contact center tools from Alcatel Genesys, Oracle Siebel, Microsoft, and others – allow him to transform his clients’ contact center operations to better serve their customers, improve support for their internal staff and achieve their organizational objectives.

Key Competencies

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  • Strategic Planning
  • Contact Center Roadmap Development and Execution
  • Customer Interaction Management
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Analytics and Reporting
  • Contact Center Technology Architecture
  • Technology Development and Deployment
  • Multi-channel Service Delivery
  • Process Reengineering
  • Performance Management

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Noel has consulted for organizations both in the public sector as well as Fortune 500 companies, including Federal Express, Citibank, Cable and Wireless, the US Patent and Trademark Office, the US Department of the Interior, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. His breadth of experience across both private and public sector clients gives him extensive insight specific to these sectors and allows him to apply his industry knowledge towards solutions specific to these clients.

Noel has a Master’s Degree in Computer Information Systems from the School of Business at the University of Miami and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Computer Engineering from the College of Engineering at the University of Miami. Noel is also a graduate of Georgetown University’s Senior Executive Leadership Program. He is a Call Center Industry Advisory Council (CIAC)-Certified Management Consultant (CCMC) and is an active member of the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP).

Noel is an avid soccer player and spectator, enjoys travelling the globe and, more than anything, treasures his time with his two young children.

Download a PDF of the full biography.