Call Center Weekly

OCTOBER 17, 2017

By Sean Hawkins Employee development is very important to me. As a leader, it is my obligation to create a culture that aids in the personal and professional growth of my staff. In my career, I've had the opportunity of starting training and development programs with two companies. I have also utilized alternative training methods with regularity. Whenever I am asked how to implement an employee development program, my answer is always the same, “begin at the beginning”!

Government 136

Government Contact Center Consulting Consulting 136

Contact Center Pipeline

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Employee engagement is more than just a buzzword. Successful customer service organizations create a culture that encourages it. Engaged employees are more enthusiastic about their contribution to the business and, ultimately, increase the level and consistency of service provided to their clients. Senior executives, as a result, are increasingly targeting employee engagement as a significant […].

Employee engagement 127

Employee engagement Agent Empowerment Customer Service Multichannel 127

ShepHyken

OCTOBER 17, 2017

James Dodkins on Putting the Employee First, the Customer Second. It is common belief that the customer’s needs should always come first, but what if employees’ needs were put first in order to ensure customer satisfaction? Shep Hyken interviews James Dodkins who shares his ideas on what a company looks like when the employees are made top priority, so that in return they can be best prepared to treat customers as their main focus.

Customer centricity 128

Customer centricity Customer Experience Customer Service 128

Aspect

OCTOBER 17, 2017

The other day I was nursing a cold and bi nge watching Modern Family re-runs. One of the episodes from season 2, titled Unplugged, originally aired in 2010 but its plot is still extremely relevant when it comes to consumer engagement and interactive voice response (IVR). We find Phil (father), Claire (mother) and the kids trying to improve their communication skills by giving up their electronic devices, including mobile phones, laptops, etc.

Interactive Voice Response 88

Interactive Voice Response Self service Technology Personalization 88

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Cut complexity and boost efficiency while empowering your customers with Nextiva's unified communications platform. Nextiva streamlines workflows and centralizes customer interactions, all while simplifying business collaboration, increasing productivity, and reducing employee burnout.

Andrew Mcfarland

OCTOBER 17, 2017

The concept of fast firing is flawed (or at best, half the story). An article about Uber’s beleaguered former CEO and his firing philosophy struck me as symptomatic of their problems (too fast and loose). His energy and enthusiasm in.

Best practices 70

Best practices 70

The Center for Client Retention

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Are you struggling to retain customers once you get them in the door and they make an initial purchase? Well, it could be that your business is not succeeding in making customers feel as welcome as they should be. It goes without saying that all businesses and their owners/managers understand it is important to make customers feel welcome, but welcoming them can quickly fall to the wayside when attention is being directed towards increasing profits or cutting costs.

B2C 67

B2C B2B Management Customer Experience 67

AskNicely

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Not all software launches are created equal. On one end of the scale are the simple launches. You know, the ones where you pay someone — in some cases a large sum of — cash to get your shiny, new software up and running. On the other end of this invisible scale you have the launches that require serious project and change management, ongoing communication and a commitment to company-wide culture change.

Surveys 60

Surveys Feedback Metrics Advertising 60

The Northridge Group

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Poor customer service doesn’t just impact the consumer; it also can hinder your brand. Northridge’s annual State of Customer Service Experience 2017 report studied the ramifications of poor customer service on business growth, customer retention and word-of-mouth brand referrals, with emphasis on the financial pains businesses face when they fail to meet customer expectations.

Customer Service 58

Customer Service Customer retention Customer Experience 58

Fonolo

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Join Fonolo, the Greater Toronto Area Contact Centre Association (GTACC), and three amazing keynote speakers for a day of interactive workshops, engaging panel discussions, and lots of networking! On Thursday, November 2nd, 2017 at Pearson Convention Centre in Brampton, Ontario, GTACC will bring together call center professionals from across the country.

Abandon rate 57

Abandon rate call center professionals Contact Center Benchmark 57

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Reports of the death of in-store shopping have been greatly exaggerated. This year’s retail survey found that more than 60 percent of consumers start and end their journey by visiting a store. Retail customers value price above everything, but the importance of other factors varies for different brands. In-store shopping is valued highly by grocery and home improvement customers Technology retail customers place less importance on in-store experiences – for them it only ranks sixth Digital exper

Surveys

NICE inContact

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Have you ever excitedly anticipated a birthday present, and been slightly disappointed when you got it? Maybe you had something in mind that you were hoping to get, and you thought to yourself, “I wish they’d just asked what I wanted, instead of guessing.” It would have been a better use of their money, and you would have been more satisfied. I’ve experienced this in the contact center, but in the role of the “gifter.

Customer Experience 55

Customer Experience Benchmark Contact Center Personalization 55

SharpenCX

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Your management team is the cornerstone on which your business is built. An effective, creative, and experienced management team will result in a well run, highly supported contact center with agents who are fulfilled and satisfied with their work. According to a 2016 survey by SHRM, 53% of employees say that their relationship with their [.]. Read More.

Contact Center 52

Contact Center Contact center software Management Surveys 52

Toister Performance Solutions

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a monthly update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. It's a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use. You can find past updates here. "We've implemented a customer service vision, now what?" That's a question I frequently receive from customer service leaders.

Employee engagement 49

Employee engagement Surveys Feedback Customer Service 49

SharpenCX

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Insights – Bug Fixes and ImprovementsWhen building/modifying a report, options have now been added to quickly “Add All” or “Delete All” fields within the configuration panel.Additionally, a few bugs have been fixed within Insights, including:An issue where when a field had multiple filters, it would not correctly default to “OR” has been fixed.An issue where [.].

Contact center software 52

Contact center software Contact Center 52

Speaker: Nicholas Zeisler, CX Strategist & Fractional CXO

The first step in a successful Customer Experience endeavor (or for that matter, any business proposition) is to find out what’s wrong. If you can’t identify it, you can’t fix it! 💡 That’s where the Voice of the Customer (VoC) comes in. Today, far too many brands do VoC simply because that’s what they think they’re supposed to do; that’s what all their competitors do.

Customer Experience

NICE inContact

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Have you ever excitedly anticipated a birthday present, and been slightly disappointed when you got it? Maybe you had something in mind that you were hoping to get, and you thought to yourself, “I wish they’d just asked what I wanted, instead of guessing.” It would have been a better use of their money, and you would have been more satisfied. I’ve experienced this in the contact center, but in the role of the “gifter.

Customer Experience 48

Customer Experience Benchmark Contact Center Personalization 48

SharpenCX

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Customer service is the most important aspect of a company’s overall success. Regardless if your company is brick and mortar, completely online, sells a product, or a service, the impression you make on your customers is very clearly related to your success and revenue. When a company excels in quality customer service the impact is [.]. Read More.

Contact center software 52

Contact center software Customer Service Contact Center call center software 52

Customer Experience Matters

OCTOBER 17, 2017

We just published a Temkin Group report, State of Voice of the Customer Programs, 2017. Here’s the executive summary: For the seventh straight year, Temkin Group has benchmarked the competency and maturity levels of voice of the customer (VoC) programs within large organizations. This year we surveyed close to 200 large companies and asked them to complete Temkin Group’s VoC Competency and Maturity Assessment, which evaluates their capabilities across what we call the “Six Ds:” Detect, Dis

Benchmark 50

Benchmark Surveys 50

Comm100

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Before “customer service” was even a thing, the Seven Deadly Sins existed as a guideline for moral living. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, some of these “old school” lessons still have a place in the society of today, and have significant overlap with bad customer service practices. avaritia / Greed. acedia / Sloth. ira / Wrath. invidia / Envy. superbia / Pride. luxuria / Lust. gula / Gluttony.

Customer Service 49

Customer Service Morale Interactive Voice Response Banking 49

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Over the next 12 months, what do you think will have the biggest impact on your CX automation efforts? When asked the same question, only 10% of CX leaders surveyed by Verint chose telephony. It’s no longer the engagement channel leading CCaaS conversations. The customer engagement challenges facing organizations have changed – so a new approach is needed.

Self service

Jon Arnold

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Time sure flies, and the Fall 2017 MoNage event is next week in Boston Just doing another shout-out here for the conference, which is now starting to scale as messaging becomes more mainstream. More detail can be found in the Event Calendar section of my site, both about the conference and my speaking spot there next Wednesday. Also, if you haven't registered yet, I can share a 20% discount code, and maybe that will get you off the fence.

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Clarabridge

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Clarabridge released a report, Customer Experience in the Clouds , last month that looked at the airline industry through the lens of passenger expectations. One of the more surprising findings was that almost three quarters of travellers don’t bother complaining to airlines when things go wrong. With Ryanair and Monarch back in the news, the study received a fair amount of media attention and I had the opportunity to speak for Clarabridge on BBC World News where Aaron Heslehurst, presente

Airlines 40

Airlines Feedback Technology Customer Experience 40

Talkdesk

OCTOBER 17, 2017

In the contact center industry, Talkdesk is one of the newest players. Legacy solutions have been established for decades and Talkdesk’s best chance was to build faster than competitors. So that’s what we did. And we haven’t stopped. When Talkdesk was founded, it was the first 100% web-based contact center software, which was a startling achievement at the time.

Contact Center 40

Contact Center Contact center software Engineering Management 40

Verint

OCTOBER 17, 2017

I don’t think I’ll surprise anyone by saying that, as an industry, we sometimes tend to get a bit ahead of ourselves. Vendors try to offer products to a market that’s not ready for them, and buyers may postpone purchases of solutions today in favor of waiting for technologies and products that are nowhere near ready for delivery. And we’re not alone.

Contact Center 36

Contact Center Banking Customer Service Technology 36

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

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Comm100

OCTOBER 17, 2017

Introduction. In 2013, Amy’s Baking Company became famous overnight after premiering on a particularly dramatic episode of Gordon Ramsay’s “ Kitchen Nightmares ” – a reality TV series that followed Ramsay’s attempts to help struggling food establishments improve their business. Once a failing restaurant, Amy’s Baking Company now had a flock of new customers rushing to their location in Scottsdale, Arizona, eager to check out the only establishment that the renowned chef had ever walk

Customer Service 49

Customer Service Customer Care Feedback Surveys 49

ijgolding

OCTOBER 17, 2017

This is the not the first article I have written about the subject of Customer Effort. In 2014, I wrote a story that still makes me break out in a cold sweat today. On that occasion, Vauxhall provided the case study to bring Customer Experience ‘theory’ to life. You can read the story here…. In 2017, it gives me absolutely no pleasure to have to bring the subject to life once more, with an example that may be a surprise to many – especially in the UK.

Customer effort 158

Customer effort Customer Experience Customer retention 158