Casey Stengel once said, "Never make predictions, especially about the future." In that spirit, perhaps it would be best to stay away from predictions for 2008, tempting though it may be. Instead, let's focus on what we know now. After visiting numerous call centers over the last several years, one thing I know is that behavior occurs in the call center that you'd never want to encounter in real life. Perhaps 2008 will be the year some of these practices are finally put to rest. Let's describe several:

1. Unscrambling the Eggs: When contact center managers attempt to change scripts, adjust agent profiles, or make other "fixes" to real-time customer service based upon the post facto metric known as Service Level.

2. Shouting Fire in a Crowded Theater: Where routing treatments often feature multi-queuing, priority routing, and multiple check back-ups. Not only a First Amendment issue, but a bad idea in the customer routing process.

3. Averaging the Averages: Essentially what occurs when (ASA) Average Speed of Answer is used to declare success on the voice channel. Customers feel the exceptions, not the norms.

4. Stacking the Deck: When abandoned contacts are subtracted from contact center metrics to improve Service Level performance. Not the best way to gain friends at the poker table.

5. Objects Are Truly Closer than They Appear: In the contact center, these words reflect how much focus is placed on what "has happened" versus what "will happen" or what is "about to happen." While predictive technologies have existed for years, when "carbon" (people) gets involved, what "has happened" often becomes the pivot point.

Look for us to explore beyond the contact center in our 2008 posts, to the broader area of customer experience and enterprise operations. 2008 and the years ahead will be an exciting time from a people, process and technology perspective in the world of customer contact. And there I go, making a prediction!