Shaped Up, Shipped Out

And why not? Having risen from the bottom to the top of the telesales game, she's spearheaded many call center projects at J&L over the years, and has been at the core of such noteworthy numbers as a 1 percent call abandonment rate and all calls being answered within 20 seconds or less.

One of the only top managers at J&L not to join the company over the past few years, she patrols J&L's Southfield, Mich., call center like a hawk, but clearly all those she oversees love to see her and are inspired to heed the department's two primary goals: sell and service. She's particularly proud of the systems that support the center, such as Siemens switching technology. For instance, out of a given 3,000 to 3,200 calls received per day, 35 to 39 are abandoned. "We can see who those 39 callers are," she notes. "We could then call them."