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The Bitterest Pill…
Running a little low on painkillers the other day for the family medicine cupboard, I thought I’d procure a few packets of ibuprofen and paracetamol. As you can buy a packet of 16 for about £0.35, a couple of quid would see the Frances household ok. So, a visit to the shop and 6 packets…
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The Real Hypocrisy
In a week (or was that a decade?) when the UK Electorate asked themselves whether Boris Johnson could be trusted, UK politicians are under the most intense scrutiny. It is a General Election campaign after all. But hang on a minute. Surely the supreme hypocrisy in politics is for a politician to profess to be…
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Service, Please…
Black Friday will shortly have been and gone, so brace yourself for more sales analysis and the inevitable laments about the demise of in-store retail. With a foam finger-sized finger being decisively directed at online. Er, no. Online is just another channel. Now I am no fan of contact centres, but they made the transition…
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What is Art?
My tender auricles twitched this morning at the propagation of that wonderful phrase, the art of the possible. In fact, I do hear it every other day, particularly from BPO contact centres. They hold it dear and squirt it forth it with blunderbuss abandon. But what does it mean, and why is it so appealing…
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A Dogma is for Life…
Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat. And there’re only one goose in the charlatan realm, and that’s the charlatan goose. But it’s the one time of year when charitable sentiment is front and centre, and all the reprobates have to don their metaphorical Santa suits and indulge in a little goodwill to…
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Levelling on Service
Back in the not so glorious days of the outsourced contact centre boom, we all had one objective in our crosshairs. And that was hitting the SLA. There was largely one channel (telephone) and an essential part of service meant that you picked up the call and did so quickly. Failing to pick up would…
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Imposturing
Imposter syndrome. Articles on it are seeping out of every social media orifice. impostor syndrome or im·post·er syn·drome [ im-pos-ter sin-drohm] noun anxiety or self-doubt that results from persistently undervaluing one’s competence and active role in achieving success, while falsely attributing one’s accomplishments to luck or other external forces. (Source: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/impostor-syndrome) According to psychologists, sufferers are…
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Disruption Rebellion
I suppose it was inevitable that I would encounter more sales folk, the moment I started to dabble with online products. Every leech under the sun trying to sell me services to get more hits, to get my sites out there. Of course, none of them offer any model reflecting payment by results. Clearly, they…
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The 6-Day War on Talent
Another little stunt being pulled out of the goody bag by volume recruiters is the job filled email. Hallelujah, Praise the Lord! At least they are getting back to candidates with something. And the ‘job filled’ email has been around some time, used mainly for ongoing volume campaigns when the hiring quota has been reached,…
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The War for Talent (continued)
As I mention in Freaking Hired! this is a beauty. Or rather the absurdity of its conceptual appropriation by mainstream recruitment bosses is a beauty. I’m sure that the recruiter bigwigs neck back some double comfort from the mention of McKinsey and the War concept. And nothing like a heavy blast of reflected glory from…
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Fighting the Good Fight…
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