Customer Service is important for a myriad of reasons, such as retaining customers, building customer loyalty, getting customer referrals, improving employee happiness, and remaining competitive. However, as a company grows, the focus may be on sales and production, with customer service efficiency and effectiveness being seen as an overhead…

With the rapid advance of e-learning, the online peer help is playing increasingly important role. This paper explores the application of MAS to an online peer help system (MAPS). In the design phase, the architecture of MAPS is proposed, which consists of a set of agents including the personal agent, the course agent, the diagnosis agent, the DF…

I present a selective history of the evolution of the study of altruism and helping behavior, using a series of questions and answers. Some of the topics covered include the motives for helping, the origins of helping and altruism in evolution and child development, the relationship of organizations to helping, and the psychological and health…

Presents an updated summary of the basic propositions of a relationship-centered approach. Places this approach in the larger context of current counseling research and suggests implications and recommendations for theory, research, and practice. Findings from process and outcome research support the relationship-centered integration. Discusses…

Models of telephone crisis intervention in suicide prevention and best practices were developed from a literature review and surveys of crisis centers. We monitored 2,611 calls to 14 centers using reliable behavioral ratings to compare actual interventions with the models. Active listening and collaborative problem-solving models describe help…

Presents a framework and principles for counseling belligerent counselees, integrating moral reasoning and behavior contracting. Counselees move from the punishment stage to a trade-off and socially responsive stages through contracting aimed at improved behavior, recognizing that behavior causes consequences, inducing positive behavior through…

Discusses types of authority (bureaucratic, personal, technical-rational, professional, moral, cultural, and ideological) and their implications for teacher supervision. Supervision is a helping profession, in service of the teacher. The heart of supervision lies in its relationships and its mission to improve the total teaching/learning…

When students help teach one another, active learning, listening, and a spirit of cooperation flourish. A reciprocal tutoring program in three New York City high schools allows all students to be tutors and learn through teaching and has all tutors experience the tutee/apprentice role. This experimental program had better achievement results than…

A methodological framework is presented for representing tradeoffs among alternative combinations of training and aiding for personnel in complex situations. In general, more highly trained people need less aid, and those with less training need more aid. Balancing training and aiding to accomplish the objectives of the system in a cost effective…