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Call centers can be expensive as well as the source of lots of consumer angst. But companies can get more bang for their buck by doing a better job of coordinating marketing decisions that drive customers to call centers with operational ones about handling them once they get there, says a new study from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.
The study, co-authored by Professors Philipp Afèche and Opher Baron in the Rotman School's Operations Management and Statistics Area, and Mojtaba Araghi, an assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, provides an integrated marketing-operations framework to help companies design more effective service policies for their call centers and other service channels.
[...] Getting things right at the call center has been shown to be vital to businesses. Previous research has shown that companies use call centers for 80% of their customer interactions and 92% of customers base their opinion of the company on what happens during their call. Four out of ten customers who end their business with a company place the blame squarely on a customer service call that went badly.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171002112343.htm
[Source]: How much is that call worth?
[Abstract]: Customer Acquisition, Retention, and Service Access Quality:
When quarterly results matter the most, do you think that companies will follow this advice ?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:21PM (2 children)
If you're referring to Android, then there's a market segment where Apple does have an effective monopoly: 4" to 5" Wi-Fi-only tablets. Google appears to have seen no interest in competing with the iPod touch, as the Android CDD initially required a working cellular radio. The Archos 43 Internet Tablet in particular ran AOSP without Android Market because it lacked a cellular radio. Late in the 2.x era, Google was somehow convinced to drop cellular as a requirement, allowing Samsung to release the Galaxy Player. But I never saw that product in U.S. electronics showroom chains when I looked in the Samsung section. Nor did it ever officially get Android 4, either OTA or through a successor device.
Or would you recommend buying an Android phone on a prepaid plan and just not renewing cellular service once the trial expires?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:33PM
A couple of years ago, I would have recommended equipping all of your cost-conscious family members with $200 Nexus 5 and later 5x phones on GoogleFi and for those who didn't want the $20/month cellular service, just stop paying for it when they were done. $220 for a Nexus 5 or 5x was a hell of a deal, at the time. Not sure if these made it to the international markets or not.
Lately, that bottom end seems to be drying up. We had a iPod Touch back around 2008, unfortunately it fit too well down the toilet, didn't last long. Never had an urge to replace it, not when $99 7" tablets were so readily available.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Wednesday October 04 2017, @02:23AM
I would recommend buying an unlocked phone, which you can do from reputable major retailers like B&H, and then never get cellular service for it. On Android at least, everything works as you would expect for the phone part - which would still work if you needed to call 911 on your MP3 player in a pinch. That's almost certainly why you don't see many 4-5" Wi-Fi only tablets for Android. They would be a niche product, and the added cost of the cellular radio is likely negated by the economies of scale that phones would have. In Apple-land where they maintain a tight control on prices, they can offer the iPod touch which is basically an iPhone sans cellular radio at a carefully picked price point that's somewhere below the iPhone.