Wed.Apr 01, 2020

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The Boss Can Kill the Customer Service Buzz

ShepHyken

Back in my high school and college days I worked at a gas station. We were a self-service station, so our role was that of cashier more than anything else. One very cold morning I noticed an elderly woman drive into the station. She was probably 80 years old. When I say it was a cold morning, I mean it was record-breaking cold. I walked out to her car and asked if I could fill her tank with gas for her so she could stay in her warm car.

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Keeping Workers Safe and Productive (When the Contact Center Can’t Close)

Taylor Reach Group

by JD Fairweather. If you asked any contact center manager two months ago about their business continuity plan, they’d likely opine on their facility’s readiness to address just about any emergency scenario. These same managers have seen their expertise and resolve put to the test in recent weeks due to COVID-19. And with effects of the virus being felt worldwide, contact center leaders are scrambling to support higher-than-projected call volumes in the wake of an ever-increasing risk of higher

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Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Contact Center Pipeline

You can’t get anywhere unless you’re willing to take a risk. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “This idiom dates back to Chaucer (c. 1374) and is similar to the late 14th century French proverb, Qui onques rien n’enprist riens n’achieva (“He who never undertook anything never achieved anything”). The proverb was included in John Heyword’s collection […].

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Top 3 Tips for Handling Customer Support Issue Surges

UJET

The world has gone digital. From on-demand food delivery, e-commerce purchases, telehealth, and more, customers are looking for great digital experiences that not only mirror the experiences of speaking with someone face-to-face or visiting a brick and mortar location, but that goes above and beyond. The reality is, with many consumers now staying at home, digital support requests are increasing and the need to provide streamlined support that can not just resolve issues in a timely manner, but

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Strategic CX: A Deep Dive into Voice of the Customer Insights for Clarity

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.

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Why VPN is a poor choice for enabling a remote call center staff

Talkdesk

In my previous blog , I stressed the importance of using cloud technology to quickly move call center agents to a safe, work-at-home environment, to continue support for their customers during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. In this blog, I explore the challenges and pitfalls of a common alternative tactic many companies are employing to enable remote agents: using Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections to their legacy on-premises phone system.

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COVID-19: How Knowledge Base Management Enables Call Center Continuity

bold360 Blog

Knowledge is power, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when both individuals and organizations alike are struggling with uncertainty. We’re all experiencing daily disruption brought about by social distancing as we stay, work and learn at home. No matter what happens next, your employees and customers will continue to have questions they need answered (and fast), even as your call center struggles to maintain operational continuity.

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Experience Management In A Crisis: Shift From Trending To Sensing

Customer Experience Matters

Experience Management (XM) is critical for reacting to changes being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn. But organizations need to shift from a rhythm of tracking to an obsession with sensing. The post Experience Management In A Crisis: Shift From Trending To Sensing appeared first on Experience Matters.

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Top 3 Tips for Handling Customer Support Issue Surges

UJET

The world has gone digital. From on-demand food delivery, e-commerce purchases, telehealth, and more, customers are looking for great digital experiences that not only mirror the experiences of speaking with someone face-to-face or visiting a brick and mortar location, but that goes above and beyond. The reality is, with many consumers now staying at home, digital support requests are increasing and the need to provide streamlined support that can not just resolve issues in a timely manner, but

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Increase customer loyalty through strong agent engagement solutions

Tethr

What if the secret to driving customer loyalty was engaging your call center reps? Would you then spend more time and resources improving call center morale? While this might not be the sole key to a loyal customer base, it is a fact that engaged agents produce higher quality experiences for customers because they feel compelled to do so. . An already challenging job requires more incentives.

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SME Relationships: Proven Solutions for Seamless Collaboration and Success

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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How to Set Quarterly Customer Service Goals that Prove Contact Center ROI in 90 Days

SharpenCX

In our previous Sharpen HQ office building, my team sat dispersed through a few separate rooms. We had floor-to-ceiling windows where we could peer out at the bustling Mass Ave corridor in Indianapolis. But time spent in the office, chewing on new goals and new priorities, quickly turned our floor-to-ceiling windows into whiteboard space where we mapped out ideas and phrases that inspired us.

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Enabling Your Newly Remote Sales Team with Knowledge Management

Guru

After a few weeks of adjusting to the “new normal” of working from home temporarily, it’s becoming clear that this situation we all find ourselves in won’t be quite as temporary as we had hoped.

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Staying Close to the Voice of the Customer

Totango

Hi, In the last two weeks we have all acclimated to a new reality where we have to work from home, meet online with our colleagues and learn how to drive every aspect of our life: fitness activity, meeting friends, school, etc., all online. The way we meet face-to-face changed, and very quickly, we learned to do everything remotely. Now, you must focus on locking in your core business, your current customers.

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Different types of contact centers- Which group are you in?

InGenius

As technologies have evolved and customer expectations have increased, the contact center has become a much different place than it was 20 years ago. From email marketing to social media engagement and chatbots, there are now so many ways a customer can interact with a business. As a result, it makes sense that contact centers would change their approach to how they service their customers.

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Your Expert Guide to CX Orchestration & Enhancing Customer Journeys

Speaker: Keith Kmett, Principal CX Advisor at Medallia

Join Keith Kmett, Principal CX Advisor, in this new webinar that will focus on: Understanding CX Orchestration Fundamentals: Gain a solid understanding of what CX orchestration is, its significance in the customer experience landscape, and how it plays a crucial role in shaping customer journeys. This includes the key concepts, strategies, and best practices involved in CX orchestration. 🔑 Connection to Customer Journey Maps: How to effectively integrate customer journey mapping into the

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3 Reasons the Customer Experience is Overrated

Andrew Mcfarland

Over the last 5 years business journals have [mistakenly] exhorted companies to improve their customer experience. Even though a variety of companies, consultants, and other professionals will benefit handsomely from this purported “wisdom” they’re wrong! Here are 3 reasons the.

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Burning Questions: PCI Compliance in the Contact Center

NICE inContact

The news cycle is full of stories about data breaches and cybersecurity threats, including massive attacks on well known enterprises such as Marriott, Equifax and Yahoo. In most cases, it is personal information that is leaked, but those problems compound for both users and companies when payment information is exposed.

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March Writing Roundup

Jon Arnold

I don’t think we’ve ever had a month like March 2020, and am sure we’re all happy to move on, and hope better times are ahead. Things are not good, and it’s early still to see what kind of impact Corona will have on our space. That said, the stars sure have lined up for collaboration players, and it’s kept me quite busy, and I’m thankful for that. On that note, here’s what I was writing about last month, and I hope you find some of this of interest.

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The Power of Expectations

Horizon CX

By Peter Swaim, MBA, CSSGB, CX-PRO, VP Marketing, HorizonCX. Several years ago, before the term Customer Experience (CX) had become mainstream, I attended a lecture on Customer Satisfaction and why measuring it was important for businesses. The presenter told a story about a fictitious restaurant, whose name in the story turned out to be an actual diner in Massachusetts.

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Contact Center Dialers Demystified

Dive into the realm of contact center dialers with our infographic! Explore the various types – Preview, Predictive, Automatic, and Progressive Dialers – and unravel their roles in boosting call center performance.

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Key factors to consider when choosing a cloud contact center for remote agents

Talkdesk

The rapidly evolving health crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) is disrupting the lives of millions around the world. As cities and entire countries shelter-in-place to slow transmission, companies large and small struggle to quickly equip employees with the right technology to work from home. In the midst of this chaos, customer service operations are particularly vulnerable.

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SmartAction Responds to Pandemic with a No-Fee Rapid Response AI Solution to Rescue Contact Centers from COVID-19 Hold Times

SmartAction

SmartAction is responding to the current crisis with a Rapid Response Virtual Agent that intercepts callers with a seamless channel switching experience to answer commonly asked questions and even screen callers to create an escalation path (e.g. COVID-19 triage questions for healthcare providers). Los Angeles, CA – April 01, 2020 – SmartAction®, a leading provider of AI-powered Virtual Agents for contact centers, today announced the release of its Rapid Response Virtual Agent to combat ex

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Transitioning Your CS Team to Work Remote: 7 Must-Read Blogs

Playvox

Figuring out how to transition your CS teams from a brick-and-mortar environment into a work from home job can prove to be a daunting task. As more companies turn to remote work as both a short- and long-term solution, the challenge of how to maintain excellent service quality becomes pivotal.

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11 Ways A CRM Benefits the Remote Contact Center

LiveVox

11 Ways A CRM Benefits the Remote Contact Center As a contact center leader, your top priority when transitioning onsite agents to work from home is to keep them productive & connected. But that isn’t the only challenge. You’ll also need to keep security & compliance practices intact, maintain agent oversight for quality management, & The post 11 Ways A CRM Benefits the Remote Contact Center appeared first on Livevox.

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Customer Experience Management: Optimizing Your Strategy for Financial Success

Speaker: Diane Magers, Founder and Chief Experience Officer at Experience Catalysts

In the world of business, connecting the dots from experience to financial impact is an essential skill. Transforming customer engagement, Voice of Customer (VoC) insights, and Journey Maps into tangible financial outcomes poses a significant challenge for most organizations. To gain buy-in from the C-Suite and key stakeholders, it’s crucial to illustrate how Experience Management translates into clear, measurable business results.

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How to Bolster Your Customer Success Process to Properly Respond to a Crisis

ClientSuccess

For those of us keeping up with the recent news cycle, the questions surrounding COVID-19 and the impact this crisis will have on the economy keep coming. Outside of the obvious questions surrounding the health risks of your friends and family, there are new reports coming out daily on how industries are coping with this unprecedented crisis. For SaaS organizations, there are a few things to consider when thinking about the lasting repercussions of COVID-19.

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Get Additional Emergency COVID-19 Funding with the SBA Paycheck Protection Program

FiveStars

We previously wrote about how to apply for the Economic Injury Loans & Grants through the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). In addition to the $10 billion in funding for those emergency loans and grants, the CARES Act provides the SBA with an additional $350 billion to expand funding for its “SBA 7(a) loans” through […]. The post Get Additional Emergency COVID-19 Funding with the SBA Paycheck Protection Program appeared first on Fivestars Insights.

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Coronavirus and Call Centers - An Action Plan

Xaqt

COVID-19 has created a perfect storm for call centers as companies are being hit from multiple sides. Many are facing service disruptions to their core business that is driving call volume to unprecedented levels. Companies in hospitality, events, tourist destinations, health care, or reservations that need to be cancelled are being battered right now.

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How a World-Class Outsourced Call Center Will Help Your Company Comply With Customer Service Regulations

Advantage Communications

There are a number of reasons why an organization would outsource their customer service strategy to a world-class contact center. In fact, companies that do so will realize a huge number of benefits from a call center partnership.

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Decoding the Call Labeling and Blocking Process

Uncover the complexity behind call labeling and blocking with this infographic. Discover the intricate factors and entities that shape the fate of a call, from illegal activity to user feedback, and understand why numbers get labeled and blocked.

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The Customer Success Maturity Model

Education Services Group

Building a Customer Success Organization is no easy task. Let me rephrase. Building a proactive and predictive CS organization is no easy task. Make no mistake, there is big difference between adding CS to a company org chart vs. building a scalable operationalized practice. To accomplish this, here are just a few considerations to keep in mind. You’ll need to define, hire, train, and retain a spectrum of CS roles ( not just CSMs ).

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Make Great Customer Service Your USP

CSM Magazine

Businesses are always eager to set themselves apart from competitors. However, a crowded marketplace can make it tricky to differentiate your company. For retailers and service providers, in particular, it can be difficult to distinguish your brand from others in the market. According to the latest statistics, customer service is becoming increasingly important to consumers and business buyers.

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Increasing Productivity with a Blended Call Center Software

Calltools

Agent productivity is important when managing a blended call center. Finding the right way to train agents, assign leads, appropriately dial out, and route inbound calls are all key facets to optimizing your call center. But how can you seamlessly improve your blended call center and still ensure your agents remain productive? What is a Blended Call Center?