In Your Ear: The Top Censored Contact Center News Stories of 2008
By Greg Levin

It’s that time of year again – a time when I reflect back over the past 12 months in our industry and realize what a journalistic coward I have been. You see, all these months that I’ve been writing fluffy, feel-good feature articles and case studies, there have been duplicitous scandals, great injustices, vendor cage fighting occurring all over the contact center world.

Most of you never hear about such unsavory stories because few trade publications have the guts and spunk to go up against the powerful industry leaders and establishment. But trust me, plenty such stories exist. If only I had a dime for every time a top contact center consultant wrote his own “client” testimonials, or every time a leading Fortune 500 company’ center genetically cloned one of its top agents, well, I’d be rich enough to cover the fee that major vendors pay to win “Product of the Year” awards.

Just like every year around this time, I’ve become disgusted by my own cowardice and, as a result, present to you now the top two censored contact center news stories of the past year. If you often become squeamish at the sight of naked, objective truth, you may want to bypass the remainder of this blog/article (blogicle) and instead turn on Fox News.


Speech Analytics Solution Removed from Market for Taking Advantage of Callers Who Aren’t Right in the Head

The power of speech analytics has been highly touted for several years now, but one vendor recently tried to go too far with its latest offering, which has been banned in the U.S.

Where typical speech analytics tools are able to evaluate key words and phrases to shed light on caller preferences and satisfaction levels, CallAmity Inc.’s new product, VoiceVasion, is able to analyze vocal patterns to determine such things as customer sanity, loneliness levels, and likelihood that the customer might be really stupid. Using such information, the system can then help companies take advantage of such poor saps.

For instance, if VoiceVasion’s highly sensitive speech technology detects a crazy person or a numbskull on the line, screen pops instruct the agent to tell the caller that if he doesn’t buy the company’s product or service immediately, the world will end within the next day or two, or a week at the latest. Or if the technology determines that a suicidal person is on the line, agents are told to lie about how every new purchase comes with a two-year supply of Zoloft or a free ticket to Disney on Ice.

Harry Skink, CallAmity’s director of marketing, acknowledges that the product is a bit controversial, but explains that it stands to make a real difference in people’s lives. “The number of wackos and idiots in this country is ever-increasing, but they are often overlooked and ignored. We saw a real opportunity to recognize these people while at the same time vastly increasing the revenues of our clients.”


Top Contact Center Consultant Suspected of Stealing Most of His Insights from Wikipedia

Carl Jeffries’ meteoric rise to fame as a contact center consultant all started in 2004 when he helped a renowned Fortune 500 company implement a VoIP platform, with only three fatalities reported. He received much praise and recognition, and word soon spread of Jeffries’ skill, innovation and full head of hair – helping him land scores of additional consulting clients.

It was recently discovered, however, that up to 99 percent of Jeffries’ ideas, approaches and advice may have come directly from Wikipedia – the online encyclopedia that is written and edited by users who are smarter than Jeffries but who receive none of the $10,000-a-day consulting fees Jeffries charges clients.

Sarah Johnson, director of customer care for CitiChaseAmerica Bank, was the first person to expose Jeffries. A colleague of Johnson’s – who was considering hiring Jeffries to help her call center hypnotize customers into thinking they were loyal and satisfied –
asked Johnson to take a look at Jeffries proposal and give feedback. While perusing the proposal, Johnson realized that much of the information had been lifted directly from a Wikipedia entry on Customer Hypnosis that Johnson had written while drunk a few months earlier.
Dozens of other contact center professionals have since reported similar incidents, greatly discrediting the star consultant. It should be pointed out that it is not illegal to steal information from Wikipedia, thus Jeffries will face no prison time nor fines; however he will likely face years of declining business and having nobody sit by him during lunch at industry events.