September, 2017

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20 Call Center Leaders and QA Pros Reveal the #1 Problem Keeping Call Center QA & Monitoring Teams Up at Night (and How to Solve It)

Callminer

Call center QA and monitoring teams are responsible for ensuring the quality of interactions between call center representatives and consumers. It goes without saying that this is an incredibly complex undertaking, particularly in large organizations with thousands of call center agents having many thousands of interactions with consumers every day.

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Guest Blog: How Does AI Marketing Help Drive Customer Engagement?

ShepHyken

This week we feature an article by Lindsay Tjepkema who writes about how artificial intelligence marketing (AIM) is becoming more important to our success in engaging with customers. Recently I have read and written a lot about AI and as technology improves and acceptance grows AI will have a strong role in customer service. – Shep Hyken. Artificial intelligence (AI) and all of its many uses have seen massive amounts of growth throughout the last year.

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The Secret to Training Seasonal Agents

Contact Center Pipeline

“They are just temps,” said one contact center manager describing his seasonal agents. “They will be gone in a couple of months!” That condescending attitude was reflected in the seasonal team’s environment. They were crammed into an abandoned conference room filled with computers, phones and wires. This “seasonal contact center” was separate from the “normal […].

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Unbelievable! Walmart Shopping Just Got Better!

Beyond Philosophy

Walmart is debuting a towering new kiosk that makes it easier to pick up online orders in your local Walmart store. Early reviews of Walmart’s “pickup tower” give it a thumbs up. In about 20 Walmart stores, you can scan a barcode on your phone at the bright red 16-foot-tall tower in the front of the store. A door opens, your item appears, and you’re done.

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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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20 Damn Good Ways to Express Empathy to a Customer

Myra Golden Media

When I hear an excellent, and genuine, expression of empathy from a company, I make a note of it. I’ll tell Siri to capture what I heard, or I’ll just type it out. I save ridiculously good empathy statements so that I can share them with my clients. In customer service workshops, like the one I delivered Friday in Columbus, I challenge my clients to use the empathy I’ve heard (and felt) to inspire them to come up with their own empathic responses.

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What Is Escalation/Incident Management? Prevention, Challenges, and How Real-Time Monitoring Can Help

Callminer

Because customer service is a top priority for organizations, escalation management is an important process to have in place to ensure customers’ calls are addressed efficiently.

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What Makes Good Customer Service

ShepHyken

National Customer Service Week is coming up the first week in October. This is a time to appreciate employees for doing a great job taking care of customers. There are many ways companies are celebrating. Everything from an employee appreciation event, like a lunch or dinner, to fun games that are about team building and comradery. And, of course, there is showing some love and appreciation to your customers.

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Building a Resilient Contact Center

Contact Center Pipeline

In the era of “five nines” of reliability, contact center leaders didn’t worry too much about the resiliency of their technology: It was always up. But with all the changes and permutations of technology, reliability can’t be taken for granted. You need to intentionally seek, implement and manage solutions to achieve your goals. Simple availability […].

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Unbelievable: Latest Airline Fiasco!

Beyond Philosophy

RyanAir, Europe’s largest airline, in my view are the epitome of a poor Customer Experience. Over the last few days, they have proven this yet again as the airline has begun cancelling hundreds of flights. Hapless travelers are stranded in far-flung cities or stuck at home when they expected to be on holiday. Ryanair announced last Friday that it would cancel 40-50 flights per day for the next six weeks.

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The Open CCaaS Advantage Report

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.

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Delivering Bad News to a Customer

Myra Golden Media

My course, “Delivering Bad News to a Customer” for Lynda.com and LinkedIn Learning is now live! If you struggle with how to deliver bad news to customers, you’ll want to take this class. Here’s a description of the course: Customer service is about providing the best experience to a customer—yet, a lot of the time customer service reps find that their hands are tied and that what the customer wants is not something the rep can deliver.

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5 reasons why call center AI will enhance, not replace agents.

Convoso

As technology advances, we all have that utopian dream of having all our problems answered at a click of a button. No matter the difficulty. No matter the medium.instant solutions and quality experiences. Many believe that for customer service, Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is the future of customer service and maybe the disruption of the entire call center industry.

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What Are Call Center Industry Statistics in 2017? Here’s what you Need to Know.

Callminer

Call center statistics cover a variety of other areas including technological change, changes in consumer attitudes, and competitive considerations.

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Big Mistake… Don’t Judge a Book Buy Its Cover

ShepHyken

There’s an old proverb that says, “Outward appearances are not a reliable indication of true character.” In other words, you can’t – and shouldn’t – judge a book by its cover. One of my favorite examples of this is from the movie Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. This classic movie from back in the 1990’s was about a wealthy man, Edward Lewis, on a business trip in Beverly Hills who falls in love with a prostitute, Vivian Ward.

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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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To a More Cost-Efficient 2018

Contact Center Pipeline

Many of you reading this are likely in the throes of it right now: the annual budgeting process. You are being pressured to “do more with less,” and you will be held accountable for everything you agree to during this period (and yes, even some things that you never agreed to). It’s a hectic period, […].

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Revealed: Why We Don’t Like Extremes

Beyond Philosophy

When you are making decisions, you carefully consider all the facts and factors that present in a logical and orderly process, right? Not so fast. You rarely make decisions this way—and neither do your customers. The truth is that psychological principles often influence the decision-making process; you might even say take over. But don’t feel bad that you didn’t know.

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Customer Service Principles ALWAYS Apply

Call Center Weekly

By Ana Simões I left the contact center in April of this year to embrace a new role at a start-up company as an IT Recruiter. Please note, my prior experience in the contact center is a reality for many in my region of Portugal. In my experience, the agents were usually treated as numbers, and were made to feel as if they are expendable. When you leave, you will quickly be replaced.

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Top 3 Trends in Contact Centers Today

CX Global Media

I met up with Justin Robbins at the opening Demo Hall Bash at the CCDemo in Las Vegas to find out about the top trends in contact centers today. “What are the top 3 trends in contact center today?” Click to Tweet. While there are several topics that are on the agenda for the event like Workforce Management, Metrics, Voice of the Customer, and Management – I asked Justin to share with me what he is experiencing as the top three trends.

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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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Call Center Training Tips: 51 Expert Tips on Training Technology, Agent Onboarding, Ongoing Training & Coaching, and More

Callminer

Call center supervisors must continue to monitor metrics, measure results, and tailor ongoing training to ensure that agents’ needs are met and that call center activity is in line with objectives.

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Simple Words and Phrases Can Enhance the Customer’s Experience

ShepHyken

The words you say, the way you act, and your attitude toward your job and your customer are sometimes the difference between satisfactory and amazing. This became evident as I was having lunch with Tracy Nieporent, one of the partners at Myriad Restaurant Group. They are the successful owners of the famous Nobu restaurants , Tribeca Grill , and several others.

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Planning for Disaster: 5 Tips for a Bulletproof Virtual Training Plan

Contact Center Pipeline

Nothing can short-circuit an online class faster than “technical difficulties.” I’ve seen so many talented facilitators prepped and ready to deliver their carefully planned content—only to lose control of the classroom due to a glitch. To be a successful virtual trainer, it’s crucial to understand the interdependence of technology and content. Your plan must include […].

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Beware! Don’t Make These Mistakes When Measuring Success

Beyond Philosophy

When you are improving your Customer Experience (CX), measuring your progress is crucial. Measurement tells you what you are doing right and, perhaps more importantly, what you are doing wrong. The analysis also helps you determine goals for your team and where to focus your efforts. It also helps you allocate proper resources. Fail to measure correctly, and you will have a tougher road to success—or miss the road altogether.

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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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THE MUSIC OF CONVERSATION

Victor Midgley

Over the many years of my teaching compelling conversation skills, I have come to appreciate that an effective conversation is much like an inspiring song. We all have favorite songs that we enjoy listening to. if you have heard a cover to that song performed by a “less than” talented or skilled singer, you might … Continue reading "THE MUSIC OF CONVERSATION".

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How to Help a Frustrated Customer

Call Center Weekly

By Sean Hawkins You know that moment when you take a call, only to be greeted with less-than-friendly (or even offensive) words from a frustrated, angry customer? How do you react? Do you: A. Hang up the phone, clock out, and leave your badge on the desk. B. Adjust your tone and attitude to match that of the customer. C. Reassure the customer you are committed to helping them.

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What is Service Delivery Optimization?

Callminer

This is the core of service delivery optimization: helping employees outside the contact center manage service delivery just as well as your contact center employees do.

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Amazing Business Radio: Matt Peterson

ShepHyken

Matt Peterson Shares Tips on Delivering Amazing Service. How would you like to know how to set yourself apart from the rest of your industry? Shep Hyken interviews Matt Peterson, CMO and co-founder of Jive Communications, a worldwide cloud based communication company that offers VoIP, video conferencing, and contact center support. Featured Interview: Shep begins the interview by talking to Matt about NPS (Net Promoter Score) and he made that an important focus in his company.

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The Rise of the AI Coaching System: Powering the Empathic Enterprise

Contact center leaders understand that frontline agents need in-call guidance to manage complex calls and drive higher levels of employee and customer experience. Real-time agent assist technology is enabling leading contact centers to accomplish these goals.

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Fast-Tracking Your Journey to Workforce Optimization: Tips for Mid-Sized Contact Centers

Contact Center Pipeline

Today’s mid-sized contact centers face many of the same business requirements as their larger counterparts, such as the need to drive sales, manage operating costs and deliver high-caliber customer experiences. But unlike large centers, they often address these challenges in an environment with fewer resources and a greater reliance on manual processes.

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Shocking! Telecoms Fail Again!

Beyond Philosophy

After Hurricane Irma’s recent march through Florida, millions of people lost internet, phone and cell phone service. Frustrated by an inability to contact loved ones, conduct business and get news, they looked for answers from their cable, cell phone and internet providers. Well, they didn’t get much. “I wish they would tell us what was going on,” complained one AT&T UVerse customer.

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How to Prevent Call Center Agents Fatigue by using Workforce Management Solutions

Aspect

In fulfilling their typical daily responsibilities, it can be all too easy for call center agents to become fatigued. They must transition quickly from customer to customer without letting down their friendly disposition, be prepared to work atypical schedules to meet changing demand and leverage technology deftly to provide seamless service. If contact center leaders fail to provide a working environment that eases agent fatigue, a number of serious problems may arise.