iRobot Corp., maker of the Roomba vacuum and explosives disarming robots, has moved it call center to an outsourced operation. Maryellen Abreu, director of global technical support with iRobot and Josh Ward, call center supervisor with The Jay Group discuss best practices for working with an outsourcer and running a support operation.

In this 13-minute podcast, Abreu and Ward discuss:

• Why iRobot outsourced the call center
• The metrics they use in the call center and how they hold their outsourcer accountable
• Why they’re using on-demand software
• Integrating voice recognition with service
• Communication between iRobot and the outsources

 

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For more information on managing a call center:

Measure the costs and benefits of call center centralization vs. decentralization

Keep up with the latest call center developments with our Call Center Manager Learning Guide

Take a call center outsourcing quiz

Ed Abbo, Oracle’s vice president of CRM products, discusses in this podcast what’s to come in Siebel 8.0 and integrating Siebel with Oracle’s other CRM applications.

Abbo also shares his thoughts on the emergence of hosted call centers and where innovation will come from in the CRM market.

 

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John Ragsdale is the vice president of research with the Service & Support Professionals Association, a longtime industry analyst and call center manager.

In this podcast he discusses the future of customer self-service technology, its evolution from a tactical to a strategic imperative and how vendors in the self-service market are innovating. He also shares his take on highly customized “microsites” that allow companies to create personalized pages for customer e-service and the growing importance of “click-to-call” customer service technology.

 

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Our Voices of CRM podcast series continues with this conversation with Richard Feinberg, director of the Center for Customer Driven Quality at Purdue University. Feinberg shares his thoughts on call center technology, including speech technology, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), how companies are now paying for some of the mistakes of call center offshore outsourcing and the best way to measure customer satisfaction.

Feinberg, a PhD, is also a consumer psychologist and professor in the Department of Consumer Sciences and Retailing at Purdue. He teaches courses in consumer behavior, retailing, “e”-retailing, CRM and leadership.

 

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