James Abbott is the leading expert in the call center and helpdesk industry. His design and approaches have radically changed the call center and help desk landscape. Through his classes, books, advice, and projects he brought a science and design structure to the call center and help desk industry,James Abbott is an author, teacher, developer, and consultant, and the president of Abbott Associates Inc., based in Greenville, South Carolina. I graduated from Auburn University in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering. I was on the faculty of the College of Engineering at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. My distance graduate engineering class was the first and prototype for the Masters of Engineering distance curriculum at the University of Arizona.Since I founded Abbott Associates in 1982, there has been one constant—our commitment to helping businesses adapt and rapidly improve in a climate of constant change. For the last twenty-plus years at Abbott Associates I have taught corporate America that success lies in team motivation through understanding and applying principles and concepts—specifically, operational principles, management science, and metrics integrated to run businesses effectively. I am the author of thirteen books. My last four call center books are all on Amazon.com’s top twenty list for call centers. The Executive Guide to Call Center Metrics, has been in the top three call center books at Amazon.com since it publication in 2004. Other call center and helpdesk books I have authored include Designing Effective Call Centers, The Executive Guide to Six Sigma Call Centers, and Preparing Call Center Metrics.I introduced the concept of a metric dashboard for proactive decision-making. From this concept our company has developed and is marketing a real time metric dashboard system.Specialties: Design of sigma based operations