The Ascent Group, Inc.

The Ascent Group, Inc. is a management consulting firm that specializes in customer service operations and improvement, performance benchmarking, competitive benchmarking, work management, and market research. As a small firm, we are able to offer clients the on-going attention and project management of a principal of the firm on each of its engagements, as well as the cost efficiencies associated with a firm with very little administrative overhead.

In addition to general management consulting services, we provide custom benchmarking to companies. Our past projects have included specific benchmarking and best practices research on such topics as Voice Response Technology to broader studies of complete customer service operations, including: Call Centers, Credit Practices, Revenue Recovery, Billing, and Remittance Processing. Within Credit and Revenue Recovery, we have focused on consumer and business credit as well as monthly collections. We have recently performed competitive analysis to investigate the feasibility of introducing new business ventures as well as tracked activities of companies to acquire expertise beyond their current capacities.

The majority of our clients have been electric and gas utilities or telecommunications firms, however due to the common customer service practices found within all industries, we have researched other industries such as: Banking and Financial Services, Transportation, and Retail.

We also conduct various research on an ongoing basis to support our publications. The Customer Service Quarterly offers a wide range of articles relating to leading customer service operations and practices. The Service Delivery Advantage is a bi-monthly publication in the format of a research report on the state-of-the-art in various customer service functions such as call center operations, marketing and sales, billing, credit and collection, and technological innovation. The Call Center E-Journal is a quarterly electronic journal designed exclusively for call center and customer care professionals of all industries.