This week we feature an article by Ricardo Saltz Gulko, managing director and co-founder of Eglobalis. He shares 5 habits of companies that went through dramatic transformation and still managed to improve the customer experience. MORE

Recently I ordered a product online. The experience was safe, easy, price competitive and the item wa s de livered right to my door step. It occurred to me how many things had to go right to create this great custo mer experi ence. Their website had to function well in various browsers. Their payment portal had to work properly. They needed to have my item in stock and be able to ship it by the promised date. MORE

Little successes added together make for large success down the road. Small successes add up. To put it in baseball terms, you don’t need to hit a home run every time it’s your turn at bat. MORE

Patient access teams and contact center agents have more in common than some think. Both represent the front line of customer service; interact with customers at multiple touchpoints of their experiences; and, most importantly, both require mission-critical technology that supports their core functions and priority objectives MORE

Throughout 2020, many new trends arose and call center solutions continued to evolve to meet fresh challenges in the space. MORE

Since the beginning of time, one thing has remained the same when it comes to consumerism: we naturally gravitate towards personalized products and services. It’s why most of us would rather buy a shirt with a logo or design, verses a generic tee. It’s why some of us would even go so far as to have a shirt custom made if we can’t find what we’re specifically looking for. customer experience MORE

There’s no denying that every business today, regardless of size or industry, is driven by two simple words: customer experience MORE

As children, we’re asked by our teachers and parents what we want to be when we grow up. As adults, however, we know the answer to this question isn’t so easy—especially in today’s working world, where it’s common for employees to wear multiple hats and balance interdepartmental responsibilities. Just consider the evolving relationship between sales and marketing, where roles and dependencies are progressively converging MORE

Every business leader should tell you that honesty and integrity is vital for success. In Part 1 of this series, we explored how contact center managers can promote a culture of transparency and trust via quality monitoring. Now, let’s take a look at how managers can promote this culture internally by embracing openness, honesty and truthfulness with agents MORE

Less than one week before the release of my new book, The Convenience Revolution: How to Deliver a Customer Service Experience That Disrupts the Competition and Creates Fierce Loyalty , so I thought it appropriate to share some thoughts on how being easy – or convenient – can give you a competitive advantage over your competition. When your customers can buy what you sell from others, that’s called competition. That also makes it a commodity. MORE

Many contact centers have a goal of completing a number of quality evaluations per agent per month. What is less often talked about is the timeliness of those evaluations and how long after a call agents typically receive feedback. agent performance agent coaching contact centers call center WFO quality assurance coach Quality monitoring MORE

If you’re just checking in now, Parts 1 and 2 of this series explore specific areas where contact center managers can embrace openness and honesty with customers and employees. Companies looking to foster a culture of transparency and trust, however, cannot overlook the most important area of business they must be honest about: finances MORE

This week we feature an article by David Olson who shares tips on how to use live chat software correctly. – Shep Hyken. The modern marketplace offers many different ways to make your business and employees more productive. From automation to artificial intelligence, now is an exciting time to explore all the possibilities. One of the most promising methods for improving your conversion rates is through live chat software. MORE

Ask any business owner and they’ll agree that the millennial generation (born between 1980 and 2000) is challenging organizations to redefine their values, internal processes, retention strategies and more. Unlike former generations (Gen X, Baby Boomers), this group tends to care less about income and more about organizational transparency; less about benefits and more about buy-in; less about PTO and more about work-life balance MORE

Every year I write my customer service and customer experience (CX) predictions in my Forbes.com column. This year, I thought I would share a brief version of them with our Shepard Letter subscribers. So, here are my Top 10 Predictions for 2021: Customers continue to get smarter. MORE

Today’s best-in-class organizations know that delivering world-class customer service is no longer a value-add, but a must. After all, it’s impossible for a company to survive without its customers. Still, some believe that great service is just too costly, so they do the bare minimum. But, what these businesses fail to understand is that poor customer service actually costs more. How much more exactly? MORE

Designed to engage, encourage social connections and maximize attention levels, video games have a certain special appeal. Filled with attractive graphics, challenging levels and exciting storylines, it can be difficult to put a controller down once you’ve started playing MORE

Since the advent of the cloud, there has been an ongoing battle between software licensing and Software as a Service (SaaS). The former involves a company signing a licensing contract that permits them to operate a physical piece of software onsite at their location. Meanwhile, the latter involves no physical software product and no licensing contract; rather, the product is available to the company on the cloud as a platform that is hosted by a third-party SaaS provider MORE

We’ve all heard the age-old saying, “Honesty is the best policy.” We live in a world, however, where the truth is that honesty isn’t always promoted. Just consider the U.S. presidential candidates this election season. FBI director James Comey deemed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton “extremely careless” in the way she handled classified information on a private email server as secretary of state. MORE

Emotions rule your customers’ buying decisions. Sure, their rationality weighs in sometimes, too, but often, it’s the emotional side that drives customers to buy. MORE

I was recently interviewed by Yigal Adato for his mastermind group, all entrepreneurs and owners of pawnshops. We were discussing how important it is to “bake” customer service into the culture. MORE

Each week I read a number of 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. Carole McCluskey: Create Memories That Count by SMG Events. MORE

Is your Quality Monitoring program the right fit for the Knowledge Workers in your contact center? With advances in technology, previously disparate teams of Knowledge Workers are now often working together as part of a contact center that was traditionally comprised of the Task Worker. agent coaching agent performance contact centers call center quality assurance WFO coach Quality monitoring MORE

It seems that most of the companies that customers love to do business with have something in common. They focus more on the customer than they do the sale. Sure, they want to make the sale, add more revenue and get higher ratings. What company doesn’t want that? MORE

As we close out the year, I thought I’d break from the traditional customer service and experience topics and get a little personal – maybe even a little motivational. I’m very optimistic about the future. But the word very doesn’t mean I’m overly optimistic. There’s a difference. MORE

How we share information is affected by the medium that we use to communicate it. We can see this concept manifest in customer reviews and advertising response behavior. MORE

It’s been almost a year since my last business trip. I’m excited as I’m writing this article because I’m about ready to take the first trip since the COVID-19 lockdown. I reflected on what I love about travel, and even some of what I don’t love. MORE

I've recently purchased a new software application for my business. The tool has been helpful in making our team and myself more productive. There is of course a bit of a learning curve and a few areas where I've struggled to figure things out but not enough to contact the provider’s help desk or customer service line. agent performance agent coaching contact centers call center WFO quality assurance coach Quality monitoring MORE

Call me boring, but I want the same thing every time—at least when it comes to customer experience. I want it to be good. I want it to be consistent. I want to predict the experience I’m going to have with the people and places I do business with. MORE

I recently received a letter from a listener on our podcast asking us to cover how a small business with limited resources can improve their Customer Experience using the behavioral sciences in their business. MORE

Have you ever had a coach or manager offer such helpful, or not so helpful, advice? Did it make you want to jump right in to the conversation and ask for guidance or did you, as most of us do, get defensive and try to explain your actions? agent coaching agent performance contact centers MORE

Who could ask for anything more? Patents, awards, contracts and customers! There are times when you are so grateful, you just have to shout it out and tell all your friends. This year has been especially productive and rewarding making all of us at Envision so incredibly honored and proud. customer experience contact centers call center WFO coach Quality monitoring MORE

No matter what type of contact center, we all have agents with different levels of tenure, skill and motivation that inevitably leads to a bell curve of agent performance and effectiveness. We all desire our agents move to the upper end of the curve where that magic combination of high productivity and quality exists. agent coaching agent performance contact centers call center quality assurance WFO MORE

I recently wrote an article in Forbes about how to get customers to pay more. The focus, of course, was on customer service and experience. Research has irrefutably proven that customers will pay more for a better experience. MORE