The open nature of social media conversations means that contact center leaders will need to think through their social customer service strategy separately from their engagement strategies for other channels, says Elaine Carr, manager of Training & Development at ICMI (International Customer Management Institute). Social Customer Care call center contact center social customer service training MORE

CCNG is working through our network of colleagues and resources to help share information, insights, and ideas on maintaining strong customer care, employee support, and business continuity during this challenging period. We will continue to update this contact-center-centric resource as new information becomes available. COVID-19 for Contact Centers Member Response to COVID-19. Contact centers during a crisis: An action plan from experts. MORE

Sheila McGee-Smith is a leading communications industry analyst and strategic consultant with a proven track record in new product development, competitive assessment, market research, and sales strategies for customer care solutions and services. Her insight helps enterprises and solution providers develop strategies to meet the escalating demands of today’s consumer and business customers. More online activity—improved customer access to digital interaction channels. MORE

The Solution: Our solution was contingent on establishing a clear view of what success would look like for our new client and a carefully crafted Statement of Work. Case Studies Contact Center Outsourcing Customer Service Outsourcing Kim Campbell MORE

Great companies are regularly assessing the ongoing value of their partnerships – but how do you measure the true value your contact center outsourcer is delivering? Is your partner focused on metrics that help you assess and elevate customer loyalty or promotion and advocacy? MORE

We deal with a lot of buzzwords and phrases that saturate the customer service industry, some of which have become a little bit tired. One in particular that we really detest here at Fonolo is “Delight your customer”. These words hold true sustenance and can dramatically impact the success of your contact center team: customer care and customer satisfaction. Why Fuss Over Customer Care? Customer Satisfaction = Customer Loyalty. MORE

Vicki Brackett has been leading both virtual/work-at-home and brick-and-mortar contact centers for over twenty years. In 2001, after managing her first virtual contact center, Vicki realized that different leadership strategies and tools were needed for the at-home environment. MORE

During a recent member town hall Pam Plyler of The Northridge Group led a discussion around the changes and successes contact center leaders have shared with her as they decide how to return to customer support operations. MORE

Fonolo has many events on the horizon, but is especially excited to be a first-time exhibitor at SOCAP’s Re-Imagine Customer Care Conference , October 21-24, 2018, at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The conference will host more than 500 attendees, feature over 35 speakers, and offer multiple breakout sessions on a range of relevant subjects including customer care design, gamification, automation, and culture-building. MORE

I would like to share some thoughts pulled together in discussions with developers, customer care system integrators and experts, along one of the many possible journeys to unleash all the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into a modern customer care architecture. ” AI in the Contact Center. CISCO and AI in Contact Centers. Don’t miss the 10th Annual Cisco Contact Center Summit in Florida . MORE

Are Your Customer Care Metrics Customer-Centric? Customer care metrics are a barometer of performance across a variety of customer interactions such as chat, text messages, email, social media and communities. Traditionally, these metrics have been cost-center oriented , intended to drive efficiency and productivity. Both of these orientations tend to be company-serving rather than customer-focused. Customer wait time during chat. MORE

Do customers care about which contact center platform a company uses? If not, then how can a vendor promise theirs is the one that will improve the customer experience? [.]. The post Do Customers Care About Which Contact Center Platform You Use? appeared first on Sharpen Contact Center Software. Customer Experience MORE

Social Customer Care call center contact center social customer service trainingWhile a good social service training program provides agents with a basic understanding of how social media works and the differences for engagement among the various social networks, it’s also important to provide them with guidelines on how to handle the various types of situations they are likely to encounter. You’ll have to do some homework […]. MORE

The modern contact center must be highly attuned to the emerging technologies that drive customer satisfaction today. By making strides to be an early adapter to emerging technologies, you set your contact center apart from the competition and put yourself in a position to continue exceeding your customers’ needs. The leading contact centers today already leverage chatbots, SMS and intuitive IVR systems, simply making these tools the new status quo. MORE

The second step ( the first step ) in the contact center agent journey comes with the on-boarding process. In my experience seeing many contact center operations, I see this area of the agent journey being full of improvement opportunities. Many organizations attempt to focus on the customer experience while neglecting to focus on their own employee experience. A several Expert Sessions are dedicated to the topic of on-boarding contact center agents. MORE

Signs.com is leading the way, and their stellar work earned them the recognition of the ICMI Global Contact Center Awards for Best Customer Care in 2017. chat customer careSo, what’s the secret to delivering exceptional live chat support? MORE

Customer Engagement artificial intelligence automation call center contact center customer engagement customer experience empathyCold shoulder” is defined as “deliberate coldness or disregard, a slight or snub” (American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms). The term first appeared in writings by Sir Walter Scott in the early 19th century and remains a common idiom today, for good reason. MORE

What were the biggest technology-related concerns for customer care and contact center leaders in the past year? Technology call center contact center technologyAdvances in technology continue to accelerate an exponential rate. If you blinked in 2018, you may have missed the latest developments in today’s digital B2C and B2B environments. MORE

But you’re ready to implement and transition into your new outsourced customer care program so you’ve got to buckle up and buckle down. Here are the milestones you can expect along the way of implementing your outsourced customer care program. MORE

It’s 2019, which means contact center metrics from 1999 are almost old enough for their first legal beer (and already knocking them back in Canada.) Those metrics were born in an era when customer service was a race, where whoever got to the finish line first (i.e. off the phone) – upsetting the least number of hurdles, extra points for a graceful gait – was the champion, the most successful, the most likely to win “customer service agent of the year.”. MORE

You may have pushed pause on your decision to find a new customer care outsourcer, but now’s the time to dive back in. Our updated list of customer care RFP questions keeps these facts top of mind. How many physical centers do you operate? MORE

Are your contact center agents increasingly late for work or calling in sick? Are quality and productivity declining while error rates and customer complaints escalate? Do bad moods and negativity dominate the contact center? Work environment agent burnout agent health call center contact center leadership stress management workplace environmentIf this is happening, your culprit may be BURNOUT. MORE

Service innovation has for years been a central part of my consulting practice, especially those industries with excessive customer contact: hotels, banks, hospitals, retail stores and call centers. If the innovation spotlight was put on a call or contact center, what would be the outcome. On the inside, call center leaders are focusing on the means—IVR, CRM, CTI, AHT, UCD, ACD and ASA. Customers hope for untidy and inefficient personalization. MORE

Digital transformation is one of the hottest topics among CIOs of companies that have mandated improving the customer experience as their top priority. Businesses that recognize delivering extraordinary customer experiences is a key differentiator have started to completely rethink their approach. Customer care today remains mostly reactive. Businesses wait for a customer to call into the contact center. Then we’ll cover why you should care. MORE

It’s going to be a big year in the world of contact center and in customer service technology. Will this be the year that messaging platforms from Facebook, Apple and others reach critical mass as a channel for customer service? The Inner Circle Guide to Cloud-based Contact Centre Solutions. If this topic interests you, you might want to check-out our post from 2 weeks ago The Hidden Power Structure of Cloud-Based Call Centers. MORE

As customer interactions continue to become more complex, the contact center industry is increasingly turning to mergers & acquisitions as an effective solution to expand scale, improve access to new technologies and enhance geographic coverage. Contact Center Industry Trends In February 2019, Century City-headquartered investment firm Skyview Capital completed its acquisition of customer care assets […]. MORE

How do we prepare customer care for crisis situations and ensure our capacity to serve customers? The post Redundancy: Preparing Customer Care for Crisis Situations appeared first on Blue Ocean. Contact Center Outsourcing Contact Center RFP Customer Service OutsourcingRedundancy. Business Continuity. Those are major check boxes in every RFP we’ve ever responded to. MORE

That certainly seems true enough in the contact center world where the pace of change has been accelerating exponentially—often with dizzying effects for the three key elements of the contact center operations framework: […]. Customer Experience agent role call center contact center customer experience CX design CX vision CX-UX alignment digital technology Gen Z generational trends proactive customer care training user experience MORE

For the majority of the year 2020, organizations have lost their ability to deliver in-person service to their customers. Meanwhile, customers endured increasingly complex scenarios requiring a high level of customer service. In case it was ever in question, this has been the year that call centers proved to be critical for doing business. Since [ ] The post How COVID-19 is Redefining the Contact Center appeared first on Poly Blog. MORE

Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) completely transform the consumer experience and bring contact center software out of the dark ages? It’s not surprising that many contact center leaders feel a little unsure of when, where or why to implement AI in their call center operations. Which contact center software applications are the best suited for AI? The post Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Customer Care appeared first on NICE inContact Blog. MORE

The fourth step ( Step 1 , Step 2 , Step 3 ) in the contact center agent journey is about leadership that engages agents. Employee engagement has always been a problem in contact centers. The most significant factor that differentiates contact centers in their struggle with employee engagement is the skill and strength of leadership. A several Expert Sessions are dedicated to the topic of on-boarding contact center agents. MORE

Cisco Webex Contact Center CCaaS honored for improving customer service technology and customer experience. I’m excited to announce that Webex Contact Center was among the 2020 Contact Center Technology Award winners, presented by CUSTOMER Magazine this month. MORE

Contact centers often see ebbs and flows. Customer preferences change, new tools emerge, and leaders are left with the challenge of dialing up or down specific channels to accommodate evolving customer behavior. MORE

The fifth step ( Step 1 , Step 2 , Step 3 , Step 4 ) in the contact center agent journey is about agent retention. Retaining contact center agents has always been a significant focus area in contact centers. With labor being the most significant expense in contact centers, labor is even more costly when you’re unable to retain it. A several Expert Sessions are dedicated to the topic of on-boarding contact center agents. MORE

After assessing how the pandemic had changed the call center in 2020 , we decided to peek over the parapet at 2021. We asked the contact center industry’s top influencers and business leaders what they thought the most significant contact center trends in 2021 would be. MORE

For companies who outsource (or are thinking about outsourcing) their customer care, there is simultaneously a large degree of uncertainty and urgency. Change at an already tumultuous time is risky, but the need to serve your customers well is critical. MORE

Here are three areas where AI will transform the world of customer care. Collaboration ai artificial intellegence chatbot contact center Customer Care customer serviceWorkflow applications are ripe for disruption with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). MORE

Wretched customer service! Social Customer Care call center contact center customer complaints customer experience customer feedback customer service empathy statements online reviews social channels writing skills MORE

With such a huge customer base, it becomes very important to provide high levels of customer service. Today, customers expect the same kind of effortless experience from their bank as they have with other leading retailers. All this leads to improved customer care service. MORE