Milgrom also visits APAC's call center in Cedar Rapids, IA, every month, and conducts focus groups among APAC employees to encourage open-forum discussions.
"No one will know who will be in the focus group until I get there," he says. "Then they sit in a room with me and tell me what's on their minds."
Suggestions that Milgrom received from focus groups include corrections to factual or grammatical errors in catalogs, and training agents to provide Web-based customer service.
DMSI created corresponding Web sites for each of the print catalogs that they produce in 2000. But when customers called in with questions about a given catalog's Web site, APAC agents couldn't go on-line and help customers. Agents now have Internet access so that they can access the Web sites and receive customers' e-mails from DMSI's e-mail system to respond to their on-line inquiries.
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Outsourcer Resources
To discover more about how outsourcers can help you, we've included contact information below for the outsourcers mentioned in this article.
American Customer Care
800-267-0686
www.americancustomercare.com
APAC Customer Services
800-OUTSOURCE
www.apaccustomerservices.com
ClientLogic
877-93-LOGIC/615-301-7100
www.clientlogic.com
Telvista
800-563-9699
www.telvista.com
Virtual-Agent Services
847-925-2343
www.vagent.com
