May 2021 was packed with virtual industry events. The Pipeline blog also welcomed a steady stream of contact center professionals interested in trends and instructional content for navigating the months ahead as vaccinations continue to rise, businesses restaff and leaders plan for post-COVID customer care operations. The following are our top 5 posts in May.
Live Chat Vs. Phone Agents: How to Find Top Performers at Scale
More and more consumer interactions are going to online channels, making live-chat support the fastest-growing business segment for contact centers and business process outsourcing providers worldwide. As businesses digitize, the pace of this growth can only be expected to quicken and outpace other forms of support, such as phone and email. Providing the quick, friendly and convenient experience that today’s on-demand customer wants requires top-notch live-chat agents with the right skills and disposition to tackle the unique demands of the role.
What Is Your Customer-Centric DNA?
The definition of a “truly customer-centric” organization is one that has mastered the ability to intentionally design and consistently deliver the ideal customer experience across all products, channels and brands. The processes to design, organize and oversee every interaction between a customer and an organization is managed through a disciplined customer experience management approach. A truly customer centric organization understands the value of integrating the voice of the customer into its vision and culture—and realizing results arising from that awareness and investment.
Strike While the Iron Is Hot
The idiom strike while the iron is hot may be traced back at least to the 1500s and is a reference to the art of blacksmithing. When a blacksmith works iron, he heats it in order to make it malleable and then places it on an anvil and hammers it into shape. Of course, iron only stays hot enough to work for a limited amount of time, so a blacksmith must strike while the iron is hot in order to be successful.
Top Seven Call Center Software Requirements for the “Now Normal”
2020 was already showing signs of being a transformative year for the call center industry—with growing interest in “all things cloud” due to the benefits of an OpEx model, zero-touch roadmap upgrades, and the beginning rumblings of moving away from the traditional brick-and-mortar facility to save on capital expenses and attract talent from a wider geographic area.
Three Steps to Acing AI-Human Interactions
In 2018, the Harvard Business Review wrote about how artificial intelligence (AI) and humans are “joining forces” across many industries. AI has gotten good at doing many jobs that we previously thought only humans could handle: “diagnosing disease, translating languages and providing customer service—and it’s improving fast,” they asserted. Indeed.
