May 28, 2012

E&J Gallo Winery Achieves Its Certification as a Center of Excellence


BenchmarkPortal recognizes the exceptional efficiency and effectiveness of the E&J Gallo Winery Contact Center by awarding it Certification as a Center of Excellence. The granting of certification is based on a company’s operational metrics, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction.

The E&J Gallo Winery customer contact center has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization. “Only the top 10 percent of those benchmarked annually achieve this distinction,” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore. “Achieving Center of Excellence certification is an acknowledgement of strong management and leadership in the call center industry.”

To achieve certification as a Center of Excellence, a company must undergo a rigorous benchmarking process, which compares the organization’s operational metrics to those of its peers, using the world's largest database of contact center metrics. During this process, BenchmarkPortal experts audit and verify key data from the contact center applying for certification.

Factors (called key performance indicators) such as first call resolution, cost per call, call waiting time, customer satisfaction, agent satisfaction and utilization of human resources are taken into account. BenchmarkPortal is able to scientifically gauge how the contact center being studied compares to other centers in the same industry, and if the performance of the contact center is superior. Customer satisfaction, which relates to customer loyalty and business growth, is the goal, balanced by financial metrics which show that the center is being operated efficiently.

“Center of Excellence certification indicates that the contact center delivers superior customer service within a responsible cost structure,” said Belfiore. "A great contact center operation reflects its management's passion for balancing the demands of high quality and low costs. E&J Gallo Winery has shown its ability to achieve that balance through its objective performance metrics. We have validated its metrics and have certified that E&J Gallo Winery is, indeed, among the best in its industry. I congratulate E&J Gallo Winery on a job well done.”

“Benchmarking delivers a crackerjack profile of a contact center’s operations that can inspire management to move forward aggressively, even in a less-than-robust economy,” added Belfiore, who has been with the company since 2000.

About E&J 
Gallo Winery Established in 1933 in Modesto, California, by Ernest and Julio Gallo, E. & J. Gallo Winery has become the world's largest winery and the foremost winery in the art of grape growing, winemaking, distribution and marketing of wines. With seven wineries strategically located in California’s wine regions and access to grapes from vineyards in all of the premier grape-growing areas of the state, Gallo produces wines in every category, to suit every taste. Gallo imports wines from eight of the major wine growing countries in the world. Some of the brands in Gallo’s wine portfolio include Gallo Family Vineyards, Barefoot Cellars, Louis M. Martini, MacMurray Ranch, Bridlewood, Mirassou Vineyards, Frei Brothers, DaVinci, Martin Codax, Don Miguel Gascon, Ecco Domani, McWilliam’s Hanwood Estate, and William Hill Estate. Recently, the Winery has expanded its portfolio to include distilled spirits with the introduction of New Amsterdam Gin and Familia Camarena Tequila.

May 23, 2012

Complimentary Webinar: Side-by-Side with Your Customer: Leverage Co-Browsing Technology to Create Customer Intimacy and Success for Your Center


Please join BenchmarkPortal and LiveLook for a complimentary live webinar about leveraging co-browsing technology to create customer intimacy and success for your center.

Technology often separates you from your customer and creates frustration for those anxious for a quick, successful, one-and-done contact.

Find out where technology meets hand-in-hand service. Co-browsing can help you and your customer by creating a "do-it-together" experience that will leave them impressed with your focus on serving them individually.

This webinar explains how co-browsing works and how it can help you to improve your service, increase satisfaction and close more sales.

Date: Wednesday, June 20th, 2012
Time: 10am PT / 11am MT / 12pm CT / 1pm ET
Duration: 1 Hour
Presenters: Bruce Belfiore, CEO, BenchmarkPortal & Dusty Stanford, Sales Director, LiveLook
About LiveLOOK: LiveLOOK is an innovator in visual sharing and real-time online interaction. LiveLOOK’s products enable instant-launch, universally compatible Web collaboration via screen sharing. Companies incorporate LiveLOOK’s solutions into customer experience and online sales strategies in order to guide customers through resolution of service issues and completion of purchases. For more information, visit www.LiveLOOK.com

May 22, 2012

Webinar on Technology Improving Contact Centers - iBenchmark - The First Automated Benchmarking Technology!

Please watch this complimentary webinar about the hottest innovation in benchmarking technology - iBenchmark!



In this webinar, you will learn how iBenchmark will:
  • Greatly improve customer service and pinpoint areas of potential cost savings
  • Automate the data entry process for benchmarking - leaving you more time to manage and improve
  • Provide monthly reports comparing your center's metrics to the industry and averages over a one-year period
  • Uncover performance gaps compared with the industry
  • Quantify and monetize gaps to show impact
  • Point toward issues and insights regarding people, processes, technology
  • Provide basis for improvement roadmaps and goal setting
  • Help you determine the competitive impact of improvements in metrics before you invest time and money (using the unique interactive "Sandbox Tool")
  • Provide hard evidence of value you bring to the enterprise
​...and this all comes with a BenchmarkPortal expert! The low price includes one hour of analysis, tracking and discussion each month with your own expert.

iBenchmark automated benchmarking puts technology and advanced processes to work for contact center managers without the hassle of finding and inputting the metrics manually. Thanks to secure, easy-to-install technology that is hosted and managed by BenchmarkPortal, iBenchmark provides managers with a powerful, actionable tool, operated with our patented benchmarking methodology. View iBenchmark Website

Duration: 1 Hour
Presenters: Bruce Belfiore, CEO, BenchmarkPortal & Chris Rouse, Marketing Director, Symmetrics

May 21, 2012

Management Certification in Minneapolis, MN. June 19-21, 2012 + Includes a Site Tour of GE!

3 Day Training with a Bonus Site Tour- Located in Minneapolis, MN at the General Electric Center
Date:June 19-21, 2012
Location:Minneapolis, MN @ the General Electric Capital Fleet Services Center
3 Capital Drive, Eden Prairie, MN 55344
Link to Map
Hours:8am - Meet & Greet Continental Breakfast provided each day
8:30am - 5pmTuesday, June 19th
8:30am - 5pm, Wednesday, June 20th
8:30am - 5pm, Thursday, June 21st
Price:$1995 - Includes course, breakfast and snacks (lunch is open), course handbook, site tour of the GE Capital Fleet Services Center and a call center benchmarking survey/report with a follow-up web-ex style presentation of your benchmarking results.
Register Now

Our Call Center Management Certification course is composed of ten information-rich modules that include learning activity "case studies" that focus on practical problem solving and current call center best practices. The curriculum, which was originally developed by Dr. Jon Anton of Purdue University, has been expanded and updated by Bruce Belfiore, Dean of the College, Dayne Petersen, Lead Instructor, and their staff of industry experts. Typically participants include Call Center Managers, Directors and Vice Presidents. These courses will help you better manage your call center and strengthen relationships with other departments (for example: Marketing, MIS and telecommunications).
Call Center Management Certification Training Workshop Agenda:
  • Organizational Leadership
  • Human Resources
  • Quality Monitoring and Coaching
  • Customer Satisfaction
  • The Basics of Call Center Workforce Management
  • Call Center IT Management
  • Knowledge Management
  • Caller Self-Service
  • Analytics & Reporting
  • Benchmarking
Discounts:
$200 Discount to attend theMinneapolis, MN workshopPromo Code: MNJUNE200 | Expires 5/25/12

Sample of companies who have attended our courses »

May 17, 2012

MAXIMUS Call Centers Achieve Certification as Centers of Excellence

BenchmarkPortal recognizes the exceptional efficiency and effectiveness of the MassHealth and Georgia Families Customer Service Operations Centers by awarding them Certification as  Centers of Excellence.  The granting of certification is based on a company’s operational metrics, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction.

The MassHealth and Georgia Families customer contact centers of MAXIMUS have been certified as Centers of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization. “Only the top 10 percent of those benchmarked annually achieve this distinction,” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore. “Achieving Center of Excellence certification is an acknowledgement of strong management and leadership in the call center industry.”

To achieve certification as a Centers of Excellence , a company must undergo a rigorous benchmarking process, which compares the organization’s operational metrics to those of its peers, using the world's largest database of contact center metrics. During this process, BenchmarkPortal experts audit and verify key data from the contact center applying for certification.

Factors (called key performance indicators) such as first call resolution, cost per call, call waiting time, customer satisfaction, agent satisfaction and utilization of human resources are taken into account. BenchmarkPortal is able to scientifically gauge how the contact center being studied compares to other centers in the same industry, and if the performance of the contact center is superior. Customer satisfaction, which relates to customer loyalty and business growth, is the goal, balanced by financial metrics which show that the center is being operated efficiently.

“Center of Excellence certification indicates that the contact center delivers superior customer service within a responsible cost structure,” said Belfiore. "A great contact center operation reflects its management's passion for balancing the demands of high quality and low costs. MAXIMUS has shown its ability to achieve that balance through its objective performance metrics. We have validated its metrics and have certified that MAXIMUS is, indeed, among the best in its industry. I congratulate MAXIMUS on a job well done.”

“Benchmarking delivers a crackerjack profile of a contact center’s operations that can inspire management to move forward aggressively, even in a less-than-robust economy,” added Belfiore, who has been with the company since 2000.

BenchmarkPortal and Symmetrics Presents a Live Webinar on iBenchmark, The Latest Innovation in Call Center Benchmarking Technology



The BenchmarkPortal and Symmetrics live webinar entitled “iBenchmark - Latest Innovation in Call Center Benchmarking Technology” will be available by registering here - iBenchmark Webinar Registratrion.
iBenchmark, is an automated benchmarking product that puts patented technology and advanced processes to work for people who manage contact centers, providing benchmarking reports every month without the aggravation of manually finding and inputting a long list of metrics.
Participating centers receive easy-to-install software that transmits their ACD metrics securely and automatically to BenchmarkPortal's database, the largest in the world of contact center metrics. Managers are then able to access a series of useful, benchmark-related reports via their own, password-protected area of BenchmarkPortal's website.
The service includes time each month with a BenchmarkPortal certified expert, who is trained to help interpret the benchmarking results and guide managers through a process of discernment, decision-making and execution of improvement initiatives. This includes tracking the company’s metrics and calculating improvements in terms of costs, quality and customer satisfaction. In this way, iBenchmark will become a valued management tool on a continuing basis.
In this webinar, you will learn how iBenchmark will:
  • Greatly improve customer service and pinpoint areas of potential cost savings
  • Provide monthly reports comparing your center's metrics to the industry and averages over a one-year period
  • Help you determine the competitive impact of improvements in metrics before you invest time and money (using the interactive "Sandbox Tool")
  • Uncover performance gaps compared with the industry
  • Point toward issues with people, processes, technology
  • Quantify and monetize gaps to show impact
  • Assist with decision-making and provide management with insights
  • Provide basis for improvement roadmaps and goal setting
  • Become a key element in your manager’s toolbox
  • Provide hard evidence of value you bring to the enterprise
"iBenchmark represents a major step forward", noted Bruce Belfiore, CEO of BenchmarkPortal. "By automating the data collection process and providing a trained expert to help with interpretation, discernment of gaps and identification of practical solutions, iBenchmark is an exceptional management tool. Also, the ease of installation and monthly payment model makes it user friendly and extremely affordable. We can guarantee a positive ROI for those who use iBenchmark."

Monitoring call center performance on a monthly basis allows managers to make decisions and select improvement initiatives that will have measurable impact on the financial and operational performance of the contact center.

Join the CEO of BenchmarkPortal, Bruce Belfiore, as he explains how automated benchmarking can help you and your center. He will be joined by Chris Rouse of Symmetrics, creator of the secure software that powers iBenchmark. Chris will highlight the benefits of automation and the importance to management of accurate, timely data.

Register here for BenchmarkPortal’s complimentary webinar on Thurs., May 31, 2012 at 10am PT/11am MT/12pm CT/1pm ET.

May 16, 2012

BenchmarkPortal Announces a New Show on CallTalk Discussing The Myths About Social Media and Call Centers

BenchmarkPortal will air a new online radio show onCallTalk, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/calltalk-online-radio-show) discussing the myths about social media and call centers.

The host for this show will be Bruce Belfiore, CEO at BenchmarkPortal. The guest speaker Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, Social Business Strategist and ROI Expert, with CallTalk co-host Dee Buell.

The online show will discuss a few of the common myths with social media and call centers.
Myth 1: Social Media Doesn't Affect Customer Service
Myth 2: There's No ROI for Social Customer Service
Myth 3: My Customers Aren't on Twitter

Dr. Natalie is the Director and Instructor of the UCLA Social Media Business Course at UCLA. Dr. Natalie’s applies her unique perspective on business and social media via her social media assessments and ROI calculators that help clients to develop social business strategies, tactical plans and real-world execution capabilities so that social media can be integrated into the business to increase the bottom line. She develops custom training programs for social business/media, leadership, employee motivation and organizational change.

Dr. Natalie’s four business books and many white papers are the subject of hundreds of articles in publications like USAToday, Adage, BusinessWeek, Fast Company, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Peppers and Rogers 1-to-1 Magazine and CRM Magazine as well as national television and radio. President of the Los Angeles Social Media Club, Dr. Natalie has held positions as a Forrester Analyst, Chief Strategist for a Weber Shandwick PR/Marketing Agency, management consultant at PWC and Hitachi and in management at Hughes Electronics, GM and GE. Dr. Natalie also teaches Social Media, PR, Marketing and Leadership courses at USC and Pepperdine University.

The free online radio show will air Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET. Click here to listen to CallTalk, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/calltalk-online-radio-show)

About CallTalk
A fun and exciting online program for education and learning, for the customer service industry. Once a month, broadcast directly over the Internet to your desktop, covers informative and educational topics impacting the contact center and customer service today.

May 11, 2012

Corporate Reimbursement Services, Inc. Contact Center Achieves Certification as a Center of Excellence


BenchmarkPortal recognizes the exceptional efficiency and effectiveness of the Corporate Reimbursement Services, Inc. Contact Center by awarding it Certification as a Center of Excellence The granting of certification is based on a company’s operational metrics, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction.

SANTA BARBARA, CA (May 11, 2012) The Corporate Reimbursement Services, Inc. Contact Center has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization. “Only the top 10 percent of those benchmarked annually achieve this distinction,” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore. “Achieving Center of Excellence certification is an acknowledgement of strong management and leadership in the call center industry.”

To achieve certification as a Center of Excellence, a company must undergo a rigorous benchmarking process, which compares the organization’s operational metrics to those of its peers, using the world's largest database of contact center metrics. During this process, BenchmarkPortal experts audit and verify key data from the contact center applying for certification.

Factors (called key performance indicators) such as first call resolution, cost per call, call waiting time, customer satisfaction, agent satisfaction and utilization of human resources are taken into account. BenchmarkPortal is able to scientifically gauge how the contact center being studied compares to other centers in the same industry, and if the performance of the contact center is superior. Customer satisfaction, which relates to customer loyalty and business growth, is the goal, balanced by financial metrics which show that the center is being operated efficiently.

“Center of Excellence certification indicates that the contact center delivers superior customer service within a responsible cost structure,” said Belfiore. "A great contact center operation reflects its management's passion for balancing the demands of high quality and low costs. CRS has shown its ability to achieve that balance through its objective performance metrics. We have validated its metrics and have certified that CRS is, indeed, among the best in its industry. I congratulate CRS on a job well done.”

“Benchmarking delivers a crackerjack profile of a contact center’s operations that can inspire management to move forward aggressively, even in a less-than-robust economy,” added Belfiore, who has been with the company since 2000.
About Corporate Reimbursement Services, Inc.

Corporate Reimbursement Services, Inc. (CRS) designs and administers vehicle reimbursement programs and expense management solutions for companies with mobile employees. https://www.crsinc.com/

May 10, 2012

At-Home Agents - The “Silent Boom”

With the volume of communications between customers and companies rising every year, agent-assisted contact deflection through self-service and social media cannot absorb all of the new volume. At-home agents can be perfect to help you deal with rising levels of agent-assisted contacts.

Within the pool of people available for at-home contact agent work are individuals who belong to the so-called "silent generation" as well as older baby boomers who are entering retirement. Together I think of them as the “silent boom for at-home assignments.” These older workers often have exactly what managers are looking for in customer service agents. They are mature, polite, and respectful, and they use less jargon than younger generations and tend to live in homes with fewer distractions - for the agent and for the customers. The children are grown and gone, so there are no babies crying in the background, and cats predominate over dogs, and do not make a lot of noise. There are quiet empty-nest bedrooms available to turn into home offices which are perfect for home-agent use. Those over 65 are covered by Medicare, which can take the expense of health care coverage out of the equation.

The unfortunate fact is that the market movements of recent years have left more of these older people in need of supplemental income. In addition, many are happy to work, as it gives their retirement years more meaning.

The combination of availability, superior work ethic, good work spaces and need for additional income make these population groups ideal targets for many at-home agent operations. It can be a win-win-win for you, your customers and the agents. 

To discuss best practices in designing or optimizing an at-home agent operation, please contact  
Bruce BelfioreBruceBelfiore@BenchmarkPortal.com
http://www.BenchmarkPortal.com

May 3, 2012

BenchmarkPortal Announces: Bright Horizons Achieves its Certification as a Center of Excellence


BenchmarkPortal recognizes the exceptional efficiency and effectiveness of the Bright Horizons Contact Center by awarding it Certification as a Center of Excellence. The granting of certification is based on a company’s operational metrics, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction.


About the Center of Excellence Certification:
The Center of Excellence recognition is one of the most prestigious awards in the customer service and support industry.The certification process is management's best path to a World Class Quality Call Center. Contact Centers achieve the Center of Excellence distinction based on a best-practice metrics drawn from the world’s largest database of objective and quantitative data that is audited and validated by researchers from BenchmarkPortal.

A contact center that has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal has met and/or surpassed rigorous standards of efficiency and effectiveness. This certification is unique in that its achievement is ascertained strictly “by the numbers.” This means that the BenchmarkPortal team audits and verifies the center’s key performance indicators and compare that data to data from other peer organizations. This is different from other types of contact center certifications that typically focus on less results-oriented measures, such as process handling methods and procedures.


BenchmarkPortal awards the "Center of Excellence" designation to customer service call centers that rank in the top ten percent of the call centers surveyed. They are judged against a Balanced Scorecard of metrics for efficiency and effectiveness. Those contact centers that demonstrate superior performance on both cost-related metrics and quality-related metrics compared with their industry peers earn the award. 

May 2, 2012

BenchmarkPortal Introduces iBenchmark - Automated Benchmarking Tool The Latest Innovation in Call Center Technology Best Practices


BenchmarkPortal announces the launch ofiBenchmark, (http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-benchmarking/ibenchmark). This automated benchmarking product puts patented technology and advanced processes to work for people who manage contact centers, providing benchmarking reports every month without the aggravation of manually finding and inputting a long list of metrics.
Participating centers receive easy-to-install software that transmits their ACD metrics securely and automatically to BenchmarkPortal's database, the largest in the world of contact center metrics. Managers are then able to access a series of useful, benchmark-related reports via their own, password-protected area of BenchmarkPortal's website.
The service includes time each month with a BenchmarkPortal certified expert, who is trained to help interpret the benchmarking results and guide managers through a process of discernment, decision-making and execution of improvement initiatives. This includes tracking the company’s metrics and calculating improvements in terms of costs, quality and customer satisfaction. In this way, iBenchmark will become a valued management tool on a continuing basis.
iBenchmark reports can become key components of presentations to senior management; they will show the progress managers are making and the value they are adding.
"iBenchmark represents a major step forward", noted Bruce Belfiore, CEO of BenchmarkPortal. "By automating the data collection process and providing a trained expert to help with interpretation, discernment of gaps and identification of practical solutions, iBenchmark is an exceptional management tool. Also, the ease of installation and monthly payment model makes it user friendly and extremely affordable. We can guarantee a positive ROI for those who use iBenchmark."
Monitoring call center performance on a monthly basis allows managers to make decisions and select improvement initiatives that will have measurable impact on the financial and operational performance of the contact center.
iBenchmark Can Empower Call Centers in the Following Ways:
●     Uncovers performance gaps compared with the industry
●     Points toward issues with people, processes, technology
●     Gaps can be quantified and monetized to show impact
●     Assists with decision-making and provides management with valuable insights
●     Provides basis for improvement roadmaps and goal setting
●     Key element in manager’s toolbox
●     Produces hard evidence of value brought to the enterprise by the contact center
The Advantage of Expert Advice – BMP’s Certified Experts:
●     Have years of contact center experience
●     Are recognized leaders, instructors and authors
●     Provide monthly updates via WebEx-style conference call
●     Are available for on-site assistance
●     Provide just the right level of support for managers’ individual needs
●     Can demonstrate savings and ROI - even EPS calculations
Monthly Technology Solution
BenchmarkPortal will provide call centers with the iBenchmark data connector that allows the ACD (and eventually IVR and Workforce Management Systems) to automatically encrypt and transmit metrics to BenchmarkPortal's secure database. To do this, BenchmarkPortal partnered with Symmetrics, creator of proven software that is simple to install and which makes the transfer of data easy and secure. Currently iBenchmark is available for Nortel, Avaya and Cisco ACDs. Connectors for other ACDs will be made available during the course of 2012. A series of useful reports turns your metrics into rich management information that will allow you to monitor your competitive performance and make important decisions on improvement initiatives for your center.
Security of Data
BenchmarkPortal has been the trusted repository of confidential contact center data for over a decade. BenchmarkPortal takes their responsibility in this regard very seriously. The software developed with partner Symmetrics Business Intelligence maintains and enhances this tradition of data security.
For additional information on iBenchmark, visit: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-benchmarking/ibenchmark

May 1, 2012

QBE FIRST Contact Center Achieves its Sixth Certification as a Center of Excellence


The QBE FIRST customer contact center has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization.  “Only the top 10 percent of those benchmarked annually achieve this distinction,” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore.   “Achieving Center of Excellence certification is an acknowledgement of strong management and leadership in the call center industry.

To achieve certification as a Center of Excellence, a company must undergo a rigorous benchmarking process, which compares the organization’s operational metrics to those of its peers, using the world's largest database of contact center metrics.  During this process, BenchmarkPortal experts audit and verify key data from the contact center applying for certification.

Factors (called key performance indicators) such as first call resolution, cost per call, call waiting time, customer satisfaction, agent satisfaction and utilization of human resources are taken into account. BenchmarkPortal is able to scientifically gauge how the contact center being studied compares to other centers in the same industry, and if the performance of the contact center is superior.  Customer satisfaction, which relates to customer loyalty and business growth, is the goal, balanced by financial metrics which show that the center is being operated efficiently.

“Center of Excellence certification indicates that the contact center delivers superior customer service within a responsible cost structure,” said Belfiore.  "A great contact center operation reflects its management's passion for balancing the demands of high quality and low costs.  QBE FIRST has shown its ability to achieve that balance through its objective performance metrics.  We have validated its metrics and have certified that QBE FIRST is, indeed, among the best in its industry. I congratulate QBE FIRST on a job well done.”

“Benchmarking delivers a crackerjack profile of a contact center’s operations that can inspire management to move forward aggressively, even in a less-than-robust economy,” added Belfiore, who has been with the company since 2000.