[mikael]

Would you describe yourself as a Customer Contact Center Professional?

If so, what makes you a professional? What qualifications do you have that suggest that you consider your work to be a profession and you worthy of consideration as a member of that profession?

The origin of the term "professional" was the root "profession." What is it that you profess?

In another thread, I suggested that a Director of a contact center, a member of the management team, who did not know what an Erlang calculator was, is unworthy of being considered a professional. I would make the same assertion about a contact center manager, perhaps even down to the supervisory level.

Do you know what it costs your company to operate your contact center on a daily basis? How can you make solid operational decisions without this most basic information?

If contact center staff are seldom accorded any real respect by their companies, might that situation in part be their own fault? If you want to be respected as a professional, isn't it necessary to have first earned that standing? To have demonstrated your commitment to the profession? How are others to distinguish you as a professional from a mere job-holder?

I'm being deliberately provocative here, trying to push the buttons of the community -- but are my arguments and challenges without merit?