tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45201678252625973782011-10-07T04:48:14.744-07:00What are the folks at IQ Services blogging about? Join the convo at our virtual watercooler.IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.comBlogger341100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-59246327722323149442011-04-22T11:50:00.000-07:002011-04-22T11:54:40.442-07:00

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IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-71566319768656015682010-11-03T08:33:00.000-07:002011-03-28T11:58:38.025-07:00

During internal meetings last week, we got side-tracked on the subject of “the customer satisfaction silver bullet.” As we all know, there is no such silver bullet. A lot of folks talk like they have the only answer. But at the end of the day, it takes a great deal of coordination, information and determination to manage and improve the technology, people and processes that influence

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-333317454711181642010-07-28T12:36:00.000-07:002011-03-28T11:59:35.891-07:00

It seems so logical. IVR and other communications technologies evolve all the time. Each new advancement offers cost savings, efficiency and/or end-user benefits that can’t be ignored. And hosted IVR providers allow businesses to take advantage of these advancements without huge upfront investments.In today's economy, if something isn’t part of your company’s core business, it is clearly a

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-89523340546900806622010-05-06T13:51:00.000-07:002011-03-28T11:58:38.027-07:00

Living with a writer for the last 36 years, one of my favorite books has become “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.” The cover of the book shows two pandas, the vegetarian whiting out the comma, and the NRA member walking to the right brandishing a handgun. The point is, of course, that punctuation matters. Why? Because punctuation establishes a context for words

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-47761828671453326122010-04-07T08:49:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:04:38.966-07:00

Whenever we start talking about our remote availability and performance monitoring services (HeartBeat™), like I did just a few weeks ago during a monitoring webinar, there is invariably a little confusion at the outset about the differences between remote availability and performance monitoring, call recording/agent quality monitoring, and voice quality monitoring. So I thought it might be

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-26252435152445164692010-03-29T11:39:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:04:38.967-07:00

Last week I had the opportunity to present a webinar called “Internal Monitoring Isn’t Enough.” It was an opportunity for me to educate attendees about a critical gap many companies haven’t bridged between internal performance stats and the true picture of how their contact center and communications solutions are performing – in other words, the customer experience. The simple method (or in our

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-68903761134834937962010-03-12T12:30:00.000-08:002011-03-28T12:04:38.968-07:00

Last week, we were talking with a few people from a well-known research institute. We were just introducing ourselves and one of the women started talking about quality and service assurance issues for the contact center. She talked about the value of bottoms up and top down metrics for the contact center. But she also talked about a lingering gap that still remains when it comes to the

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-43136763807574006722010-03-12T11:21:00.000-08:002011-03-28T11:52:45.949-07:00

We all know business is about generating revenue. In today’s era of social media, instant gratification and self-service, customer communications have a dramatic impact on revenue (just ask Toyota). Arguably, communication is the key to happy customers and a thriving business. And communication mishaps can ruin customer relationships!I observed an example of a communication mishap at lunch

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-82571208727207028232010-02-18T08:27:00.000-08:002011-03-28T12:05:50.945-07:00

Just for fun, I thought it might be interesting to talk about some of the exciting trends we’re seeing in the industry. If you work for a company that owns, supports, services or sells to contact centers, you no doubt have a similar list of your own. You’ve probably got a roadmap that identifies the trends appropriate to your market and how you can best leverage and evolve your product or service

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-66186374604879742522010-02-05T14:03:00.000-08:002011-03-28T12:04:38.969-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Gregg Williams kicked off a blog series about “Being a Small Business.” He wrote about a question that many small businesses hear from their prospects.Why should I do business with a small business?” Gregg talked about some of the advantages of working with small businesses and posed the very interesting and amusing question “Given all the great stuff small businesses can

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-77588290531866437522010-01-27T12:11:00.000-08:002011-03-28T11:52:45.951-07:00

One of the great things about being a small business is that you are never too far from your customers.When we started our company, we committed ourselves to delivering the best possible customer service. Sounds like many small companies, doesn’t it? We knew we could make it by always focusing on the customer’s need. For IQ Services, it was the customer’s need to have confidence in the end-to-end

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-84782202833289502852010-01-18T15:03:00.001-08:002011-03-28T12:05:50.946-07:00

The other day, an Account Executive and I were talking with a prospect about testing their voice systems. The customer asked an interesting question. Why should my company do business with a small company like IQ Services? Of course, we’ve heard this question before and we have a response (which we’ll share in an upcoming blog post) that usually allays any concerns our prospects might have.

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-79170496376761583802010-01-06T07:21:00.000-08:002011-03-28T11:58:38.031-07:00

Remember trays of Hollerith punchcards & clunk clunk clunk clunk card readers? Fortran?Remember hearing (and saying) “…but I only changed one blessed card!?!”Remember the lesson that came from that exercise?You have to test the whole thing together, not just the pieces by themselves... that if the whole thing doesn’t work together, it doesn’t matter that the pieces individually are works of

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-38173544554937086572009-12-22T07:29:00.000-08:002009-12-22T07:47:34.773-08:00

We decided to spread some giggles this shortened holiday week - without putting an eye out - and thought we’d poke a little fun at ourselves in the process. Check out these videos that include many of the folks at IQ Services you deal with every day – anyone correctly identifying all of the IQ Services celebs in these vignettes wins an IQ Services coffee mug!Here’s wishing everyone out there the

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-57171087218417665282009-12-16T15:09:00.001-08:002011-03-28T12:00:19.709-07:00

So you probably tweet, right? I’ve got a couple of accounts so I can be myself (@bznbdad) & then also put forth the corporate persona (@mfrburke). But I’m a geezer and it’s just weird, that’s all there is to it. I’ve lived most of my life trying to fly under the radar, and now I’m supposed to let my peops know every time I buy a Powerball ticket, enjoy a walk in the sunshine or sip a Summit

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-79234450922007465022009-12-09T13:02:00.000-08:002011-03-28T12:03:23.713-07:00

So what if IT won…it still has to work, right? Remember Datamation’s voice & data are like oil & water cover from Spring of ‘86? What a difference a quarter of a century makes. Just ask Nortel or AT&T or even Cisco! Where am I going with this? Technological schizophrenia.Datacomm and data networks are truly wonderful things. They remind me of the analog computers of my misspent youth in the

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-30092497475357679922009-11-25T09:42:00.000-08:002009-11-25T09:45:09.925-08:00

It may be a bit cliché, but we can't help ourselves. It is Thanksgiving week. And despite everything we all seem to be worrying about these days, there is still so much to be thankful for. As you've probably heard one of us say before, everyone at IQ Services is thankful for our great customers and for the company environment that encourages us to do the best job we can for those customers.

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-6269632800084547722009-11-18T10:35:00.000-08:002011-03-28T12:05:50.947-07:00

For me, one of the more interesting aspects of a typical performance and load testing engagement is how much bad news we deliver and how often we hear in response “OMG – that was horrible. Thank you! When can we do it again?”As I think of it, the “can we do it again” sentiment describes the big picture when it comes to performance and load testing of a new contact center or communications

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-5010841781826427022009-11-03T09:11:00.000-08:002011-03-28T12:05:50.947-07:00

In my last blog, I talked about test setup and the value of collaborating during the early stages of test planning – even when you’re just talking about who needs to do what and when.Clearly the setup process has a lot to do with success. But the next question – the one I actually seem to get asked the most – is “So what am I going to learn? Why should we put ourselves through this when we’ve

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-69578344899713811982009-10-27T10:43:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:05:50.948-07:00

Launching a new contact center? Preparing to load test it to make sure it works? It isn’t just about throwing 100 or 1,000 or even 10,000 calls at a solution to see what happens. That’s taking the “let’s see if this breaks it!” approach, and like I’ve mentioned before, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.Many of our customers have been surprised to find that preparing for “the dreaded load

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-11581645610294062042009-10-20T06:59:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:05:50.949-07:00

Over the past four decades, I’ve worked with customers who purchase products and services from communication companies. One of the most important things I’ve learned from working with these companies and customers is what I call the “canoe approach” to customer service. It isn’t just a cute saying. It is a solid approach that takes the customer relationship to a deeper level. It works well when

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-60274810198584770232009-10-07T13:01:00.000-07:002011-03-28T11:52:45.953-07:00

So IQ Services would like to take a moment to honor and thank our clients who care as much about their customers as we care about ours. As experts in the contact center and communications solutions industries, customer service is at the very core of our clients' businesses and careers. It may sound sappy, but their efforts to improve the business practices, technologies, methodologies and

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-66108461285424061582009-09-28T12:41:00.000-07:002009-09-28T12:43:27.944-07:00

It’s easy to break stuff. Just ask the parent of any 3-year old and they’ll confirm it for you. Fortunately, a child’s toys are relatively inexpensive compared to, say, a Porsche. The hottest fastest cars in the world have a redline on the tachometer. It’s there for a reason. It says “Sure, you can act like a 3-year old & wind this baby up. But if you overdo it, you’ll have junk on your hands.”

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-20269162267954454782009-09-18T14:07:00.000-07:002011-03-28T11:55:15.527-07:00

I was fortunate enough to have an idea for a webinar accepted by the Contact Center Performance Forum (CCPF) a couple of months ago & the event came off without a hitch on August 6th. The topic was “Great Customer Experiences Start with Consistently High Performing Technology,” the expected audience call center managers – the people managers, not the IT wonks. I’m used to talking more about the

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-11362095931342211662009-09-02T06:52:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:05:50.950-07:00

One of the things that’s really cool about working for IQ Services is the customer experience we get.Because we test systems remotely – from the outside in, just like your customers use them – we very rarely go on-site. Not that we haven’t. But the vast majority of the time we just don’t do it because we don’t have to. The upside to this methodology is our customers don’t have to do anything to

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-61100788978462370052009-08-18T06:32:00.000-07:002011-03-28T11:56:14.319-07:00

The folks here at IQ Services live in a world of contact centers, communications technologies and business solutions. When we think about customer experience, our brains jump to images of the good but harried people who install contact center solutions and our desire to make them more successful. Visions of IVR performance spreadsheets, speech analytics dashboards, agent training programs and

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-62530626928263899062009-07-16T14:57:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:03:23.713-07:00

When it comes to telecom, I’m more than a little abnormal – it’s in my blood. My dad retired from AT&T Long Lines after 42 years (he had one of those “Ma Bell is a Cheap Mother!” shirts during one of the CWA strikes), and my mother was one of those ladies on roller skates working the cordboards back in the 40s. My first real job was Co-Op Engineer for GTE AE Labs in beautiful Northlake IL – when

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-20506055568491732092009-07-08T10:03:00.000-07:002010-03-29T11:55:36.968-07:00

Forgot to mention…I attended INNUA - the annual Nortel User Group meeting in Pittsburgh last month. Bad enough Nortel’s on the edge of mortality, but then you throw in the economy in general and it got really weird. We were exhibiting, and it was amazing how happy and grateful they were to have us there. Thank you from the committee! Thank you from Nortel! Thank you from Pittsburgh!But it was

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-82977659802227827022009-06-29T09:20:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:03:23.714-07:00

In my last post, I wrote about overhearing some folks talking about how voice telecom has become passé. Their basic point…why bother to dial someone in your company when you can IM them? So I started thinking about how much of a pain in the neck IM and SMS really are when I have contacts scattered about on Yahoo, Skype, AIM, Windows Live, etc. I run IM IDs on my box almost all the time to

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-51239260709273006312009-06-19T08:36:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:03:23.715-07:00

Heard at an InAAU session in Orlando a couple of weeks ago (that’s the Avaya User Group meeting)…An Avaya distributor was talking about a client he’d been courting for a few years – a big one – 4,500 to 5,000 desktops. They’d done the Y2K thing last round, so they’re ripe for a new switch, right? All that new technology out there, IP’s mature now, lots of new features, UC, OCS, etc. Guess again!

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-6793820986553362812009-06-09T08:12:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:05:50.950-07:00

Mike Burke likes to share the spotlight with his co-workers so Tom Ring - IQ Services' Information Security Manager - is stepping in to let you know what he is thinking about these days.You’re in your local coffee shop, and they are nice enough to provide free WiFi for the use of their patrons. You fire up the laptop and see that there are multiple access points available there. You pick one and

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-74017391392767731382009-04-03T06:49:00.000-07:002011-03-28T12:05:50.951-07:00

Red River keeps on rolling…There’s a lot going on around the world this week – wars, tourists in space, North Korean rockets, Bear Market bounces, greed grief, and, of course, weather.But here in the Upper Midwest there’s really only one story – the Red River of the North.The Red’s unconventional in that it flows north, ultimately to Hudson Bay, which means it’s melting & wants to flow out

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-49186449445992071882009-03-23T13:15:00.000-07:002011-03-28T11:52:45.956-07:00

Why do contact center managers test their systems? So they don’t get fired when it all goes sideways 23 minutes into peak busy hour?So their customers won’t be inconvenienced when they use that new self-service, speech reco- enabled, web services-fed hosted IP voice portalSo their customers won’t be frustrated when they opt-out and get CTI-MPLS-transferred to Krissy in

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4520167825262597378.post-59090534533342539032009-03-16T12:57:00.000-07:002011-03-28T11:52:45.956-07:00

Don't you love it when something that seems like it should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer turns out to be right on the money? Literally?13 years ago, IQ Services was started by a couple of guys that had a really cool idea - if you could only figure out how good the user experience was going to be before you put a new contact center into production you could tune it before it went

IQ Serviceshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05588570719270141831noreply@blogger.com0