Press Room

Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 21, 2002 -- Spherion Outsourcing Group of Spherion Corporation, a leading provider of outsourcing services, announced today that Jim Ziaja, vice president of complex products, and Teresa Guerrero, corporate quality care manager, presented at the Call Center Demo & Conference West on October 17-18 in Arizona. The winners of the first annual Customer Care Leadership Awards, for which two Spherion call center associates were nominated, were announced at the conference.

The conference, produced by CMP Media and Call Center magazine, included hands-on product demonstrations and seminars from the thought leaders in call center technology and methods.

Spherion Outsourcing leaders presented in two sessions “Better Management Through Better Measurement,” and “Managing the Customer Experience: A Case Study” along with Oscar Alban, principal market consultant, Witness Systems.

Jim Ziaja: Managing the Customer Experience

In a complex customer care environment, managing the customer experience means significantly more than answering the phone in record time. In this case study, Ziaja illustrated how Spherion has tied together the monitoring and management of all customer contact channels and methods in order to create the environment for an optimal customer experience.

As Spherion Outsourcing’s VP for complex products, Ziaja manages sales, implementation, operations and financial results for contact centers including pricing, technology, voice and data hardware and software selection, telecommunications, and site selection for the retail and consumer product industries.

Ziaja spent 11 years in engineering management at IBM®, HTI Communications and ROLM Corporation. Ziaja served the United States Department of Commerce as an examiner and was appointed to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Examiners. He holds a bachelor of science from the University of Missouri and an MBA from St. Edward’s University.

Terry Guerrero: Better Management Through Better Measurement

Traditional contact center performance metrics emphasize efficiency, e.g., how many customers, how many calls, how quickly agents get customers off the phones. In her remarks, Guerrero shared best practices in call center quality monitoring and training to improve both efficiency and customer satisfaction.

As corporate quality care manager, Guerrero manages more than 50 million customer contacts a year on behalf of Spherion clients. Focused on continuously improving the customer experience, Guerrero also takes the lead in maintaining quality initiatives that include the Spherion “Quality Ambassador Program,” recognized as a best practice in innovation by Peppers & Rogers Group. In addition to her Spherion responsibilities, Guerrero serves as past president of Witness Systems Customer Advisory Committee.

Customer Care Leadership Award Nominees

Two Spherion call center employees were nominated for the first-ever Customer Care Leadership Awards. Recognizing the “Best of the Best” in six categories of call center performance, the award winners were announced at the conference. Patty J. Mahurin, senior site manager for Spherion customer development solutions, and Wendy Najvar, operations escalation agent for Spherion, were nominated in the best manager and agent categories, respectively.

About Spherion

Spherion Corporation provides recruitment, technology and outsourcing services. Founded in 1946, with operations in North America , Europe and Asia/Pacific, Spherion helps companies efficiently plan, acquire and optimize talent to improve their bottom line.

In outsourcing, Spherion assumes total accountability for critical customer-centric business processes, helping clients maximize business performance and enhance shareholder value through customer development, employment process solutions and administrative services. Spherion Outsourcing Group manages and operates customer contact centers both domestically and internationally for Fortune 1000 companies.