Devoted to the call center industry, the agents on the phones, and their managers

This week, we'll be talking with Ken Carlon,  Chief Executive Officer of Optima, the contact center and telemarketing unit of Omnicom's Star Marketing Group. His company manages call centers and telemarketing centers for other companies - he's an expert in outsourcing call centers. 

What are some of the easiest or simplest ways to make a call center more profitable?

Carlon: For insourcers it's almost certainly effective utilization.  Time and again when we're asked to review inhouse operations the amount of efficiency we see lost to ineffective utilization is the number one cost driver.  One of the ways outsourcers are able to consistently offer lower costs than inhouse operations is their focus on productivity.  The amount of unproductive agent time we generally see at inhouse vs. outsourcers centers can be as much as 200%.  While things such as corporate culture and policies have to be taken into consideration, staffing and agent utilization are usually where the greatest impacts can be made.