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The numbers are in, and the truth is out: the American workforce is pretty underwhelmed these days. Only 30% of American workforce says they’re engaged and inspired at work, with the other 70% identifying as ‘disengaged’ employees who do the bare minimum. MORE
Stress Test Your Business to Prepare for the Bad Times. How to Identify Market Opportunities that Your Competitors Miss. Shep Hyken interviews Dr. Jeffrey Magee, one of today’s leading Leadership Strategists. He is the author of Your Trajectory Code and more than 30 other books. MORE
Chicago’s first hit “Make Me Smile” broke into Billboard’s Top 10 in March 1970. The song was written by founding member James Pankow as part of a song suite consisting of several movements. MORE
Skim your inbox today and you might find a message from a company that does business with you asking for help in the form of a referral request. MORE
Are your survey response rates way, way down ? Do you struggle to find out what your customers actually think about your product or service? If your insights feel empty and you’re starting to feel more and more disconnected from your customers, you’re not alone. MORE
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I downgraded one of my online subscriptions recently. I noticed in the process that not only did the platform tell me about all the features and benefits I would lose access to by downgrading, but they put it in red typeface AND had me check off a box for each item I was losing. MORE
The Rise of Hybrid Pricing Strategies in SaaS SaaS companies implementing usage-based pricing strategies continue to outperform others in customer success measurements. For customer-focused SaaS companies, a hybrid pricing strategy using both billing methods will be key going forward. MORE
The following Q&A is part of a series on creating a sustainable work-from-home contact center. Each post examines a vital technology that supports contact centers in the transition to a permanent remote-work model. MORE
Step-By-Step Guide: How To Write A Brilliant Customer Service Essay. Customer service essays are quite unusual for educational institutions. However, some teachers still ask students to write about it. What does a customer service essay mean? MORE
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Did you know that, in large contact centers, as many as 30% of all calls can have voice quality issues? And that figure was from a study before COVID-19 and the fast, forced mass transition of agents moving to at-home operations that happened as a result. MORE
Companies often exhibit a failure of imagination when implementing new technology. Leadership can readily imagine the power of the new tools but can’t extend that vision to the people who’ll use and derive value from the tools on a daily basis. MORE
Look around your call center. Do your agents seem tired, frustrated, or fed up with work? Call centers have a reputation for being difficult places to work, especially for front-line agents. This results in high agent churn or disengaged employees. MORE
Am back for Year 3 as Chair of this event, which runs under the much larger ITExpo banner, which is TMCnet’s flagship event. This is the first in-person event I’ve been involved with during the pandemic, and it’s difficult to say what the turnout will be. MORE
Artificial intelligence (AI) shows incredible promise in 2021, but the experience of interacting with an AI chatbot is more like talking to a distracted toddler than it is to Tony Stark’s Jarvis. Still, using AI chatbots for customer service makes plenty of sense. MORE
As part of the release of our Advanced Call Reports feature, we have created our new Advanced Call Reports Whitepaper that displays its capabilities in a helpful portable format you can easily share with members of your team. MORE
52 In my early career, I never thought I could fire a customer. I felt like if a customer wanted to be a customer, I should let them. However, I have changed my opinion over the years. MORE
Anyone who’s worked in customer support knows it’s best played as a team sport. Strong individual contributors matter, but the real magic happens when working together. MORE
Each week I read many customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too. MORE
The following Q&A is part of a series on creating a sustainable work-from-home contact center. Each post examines a vital technology that supports contact centers in the transition to a permanent remote-work model. MORE
Note: The following is an excerpt from The Guaranteed Customer Experience. You can download Chapter One to read the rest of the story about Buc-ee’s. Imagine driving cross-country on a road trip. You need gas, and you need to use the restroom. Choosing a place to stop is a big decision. MORE
You might not realize it but the failure of the European Super League in soccer, the pros and cons of vaccine passports, and a brand that took a political stand and paid the price for it all have something in common. MORE
The sudden shift from on-premise to work-from-home (WFH) last year was an eye-opening experience for contact centers and employees alike. MORE
A former colleague recently sought out some advice about a relationship she had with a customer. I provided some ideas to think through how much she should invest in that relationship. This piece sets a framework to “codify” that advice. MORE
This is a guest blog post by Jeff Galowich, CEO of Blue Horizon Software. In a world seemingly obsessed with hyper-growth, this may sound like heresy, but when evaluating a B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, the most important metric we look at is retention. MORE
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It’s no secret that truck rolls are a necessary evil for the service industry. Yes, they cost a lot. Absolutely, your customers aren’t happy to wait for service. Of course, in-person contact puts employees and customers at risk. Sure, they divert your workforce from more strategic tasks. . MORE
8 Tips for Optimizing Schedules and Enhancing Contact Center Workforce Engagement.at the Same Time. We all love a win-win. A two-for-one. A prize in the Cracker Jack box. Getting a little extra can be amazing. MORE
The other day I got a voicemail message from someone who sounded like they had a mouth full of marbles. I couldn’t understand most of what she said, and she spoke so quickly that each word just bled into the next. I even played the message back hoping to catch what I missed the first time. MORE
Managing a call center team isn’t easy. Call center agents are customer service providers 24/7, which means they need to deal with customers with varying moods all day. Due to the nature of their work, it’s common to see call centers struggle with low agent engagement. MORE
The world of contact center training is complicated. Trainers are responsible for helping the onboarding process run smoothly for new agents by delivering the best possible training program tailored to the training class and industry. MORE
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