We exhibited at the Internet Retailer Show (June 9-12) in Chicago for the first time.  There were about 5,000 attendees.  Our team was very pleased with the contacts we met, ranging from growing companies to Fortune 200 companies.  The need to outsource seems to keep on increasing.

Next year the show is in Boston - where are our corporate headquarters is based. 

The Internet enables every conceivable vertical market to be born.  We met  a woman who runs Toiletpaperworld.com. 

The most popular words used by exhibitors were; analytics, engage, conversations and optimize.

Chicago is a great walking city. There are many public places, enticing restaurants and beautiful buildings all around. Although there’s much happening, it all feels very orderly. One of the restaurants we enjoyed was the Atwood Cafe.

Customer Interaction Solutions magazine has ranked FFP Global as a Top 50 Teleservice Agency in their twenty-third Annual Top 50 Inbound Teleservices Agencies Ranking. FFP Global was recognized in both the domestic and international categories. The ranking appears in the Customer Interaction Solutions April 2008 issue.  FFP Global has call centers in California and Massachusetts, with over 500 agent stations.

From bringing home grade school report cards, to receiving job evaluations, throughout life, people are used to getting feedback on how they are measuring up to what’s expected of them. Likewise, at FFP Global, we routinely receive feedback, whether from business partners, employees or clients. 

However, we wanted to formally, objectively and proactively measure our performance in a wide range of dimensional ways by creating a comprehensive set of business metrics.    

As a result, over the last couple of months, a small team at FFP Global, representing all operating areas, has been working on such a project. The goal of these metrics is to provide FFP Global a foundation for making continuous improvements in the ways in which we serve our current and prospective clients along with all stakeholders we touch.

In a sense, it’s knowing how we are doing, long before somebody is going to tell us. In some cases, it can be a hard truth.  However, ultimately, based on this understanding, we can rapidly address areas that are not up to our standards.  And just as importantly, by setting metric goals, we can be true innovators.

In formulating our metrics, we learned a few interesting things:  For one, many companies only use financial results as their business metrics.  In addition, while much has been written about business metrics, too often it is presented in theoretical terms rather than specific recommendations.  A technique we at FFP Global employed to develop our metric sets was to use our business processes as a starting point. 

Not surprisingly, people can have different interpretations of what something means, so it’s critical to give precise definition to what you are measuring.  

More thoughts to come in future posts.

As the internet took off in the late 1990s, trade shows started being criticized as being “old school” and in some cases given an obsolete label as emerging technologies and associated applications such as email marketing, robust web sites and video conferencing were viewed as investments having better returns. At the time, trade shows were becoming quite costly and the share number of them, presented companies with difficult choices.

So it’s a bit ironic that that the technology that was supposed to make trade shows obsolete has been one of the biggest drivers of them. In June, we will be exhibiting (booth #226) at the Internet Retailers Conference in Chicago. This trade show has been experiencing significant growth every year. In fact, booth space for the show is already close to being filled.

For businesses, there is something to be said by “going out of your way” in order to make face-to-face contact. Technology can never replace the human touch, it only makes it more valuable.

Linda Manfredi, FFP Global’s Chief Operating Officer, provides some great insight into the benefits of outsourcing for growing companies in this podcast.

According to comScore, Inc, holiday season e-commerce spending for the first 57 days of the 2007 holiday season (November 1 - December 27) was $28 billion. This is a 19-percent gain versus the corresponding days last year.