Beyond Philosophy

MARCH 27, 2017

Uber’s woes continue to escalate, and the ridesharing company is scrambling to get back on track. A few days ago, company president Jeff Jones decided to quit after just six months on the job. He cited the company’s culture as a reason, saying in a statement to Recode : “the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber, and I can no longer continue as president of the ride-sharing business.”.

Airlines 339

Airlines Consulting Consulting Engineering 339

ShepHyken

MARCH 8, 2017

Customer service is what I’m all about. It is my life’s mission to help companies create a customer service experience that customers think is amazing. So, I thought it would be nice to own the domain name CustomerService.com. But, surely some company that is totally focused on their customers would already own it. So, I typed the URL into the Internet browser and found out… it was for sale.

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Customer Service Banking Sales Marketing 281

Callminer

MARCH 20, 2017

Managing call centers today involves much more than scheduling agents to staff the phone lines. Working as a call center agent is a stressful endeavor, and it’s up to you as a manager to cultivate a positive working atmosphere, foster a sense of ownership, and motivate your team to succeed. Of course, technology advances now […]. The post 100 Call Center Management Tips: Expert Insights and Advice for Hiring and Training Call Center Agents, Motivating and Engaging Your Team, Workforce Mana

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Call Center Metrics Management Technology 260

Contact Center Pipeline

MARCH 16, 2017

My flight just got canceled, and I have to make it home tonight to attend my daughter’s holiday dance recital. Or maybe, after 17 years of paying premiums, I have to file my first claim. Or, maybe my PC is all locked up, and I’ve got a key client deliverable due in two hours. I […].

Customer retention 172

Customer retention Customer Experience Customer Service 172

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Steve DiGioia

MARCH 27, 2017

This original article was written by Steve DiGioia. Following in his father’s footsteps as a baker, and at the age of 23, Armando Leyva and his wife Lorely, started their own bakery business. Still a novice to the bakery world, Armando leaned on his father’s many years of experience as a bread master and, much to his surprise, realized the bakery was much more than just bread.

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Personalization Customer Service 150

Beyond Philosophy

MARCH 22, 2017

To be honest, I’m not lovin’ McDonald’s food! However, I’m lovin’ their plans to overhaul their Customer Experience to regain the 500 million lost customer visits. McDonald’s plan to upgrade to the “Experience of the Future “ has much to teach us all about how to adapt to the changing expectations of today’s discerning (and demanding) customers. McDonald’s rolls out the new experience to 2,500 U.S. locations by fourth quarter 2017.

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Entertainment Consulting Consulting Customer Experience 319

ShepHyken

MARCH 29, 2017

Just last week I attended Social Media Marketing World in San Diego. So, what does a social media marketing conference have to do with customer service? Plenty! It’s been said that customer service is the new marketing. If that is true – and it is – then social media customer service is the updated version of that. And, if you’ve been following my work, you’ve heard me talk or write about how social media is a viable way to deliver amazing customer service.

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Customer Care Marketing Accountability Customer Service 250

Callminer

MARCH 10, 2017

Watch our own Brian LaRoche present at the upcoming coming CCW Online Event focused around Customer Experience Game Changers. This event is an online preview to CCW Digital’s premier event, the 18th Annual CCW, taking place June 26-30 at The Mirage in Las Vegas, NV. CCW Online Customer Experience Game Changers “The Efficient vs. The […].

Customer Experience 238

Customer Experience Best practices Call Center 238

Contact Center Pipeline

MARCH 9, 2017

The home security market has undergone a considerable evolution in recent years. The emergence of smart home technology has introduced a variety of new players to the field—from consumer electronics manufacturers selling do-it-yourself home security products to cable and telecom providers that have expanded home automation packages to include add-on security services.

First call resolution 162

First call resolution Marketing Technology Analytics 162

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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

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Win the Customer

MARCH 8, 2017

In a year of lackluster Super Bowl ads, one brand that stood out was a spot for antioxidant infusion drink Bai Brands, recently acquired by Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. The ad featured Christopher Walken reciting the lyrics for the 2000 N’SYNC hit “Bye Bye Bye,” accompanied by N’SYNC veteran Justin Timberlake looking on quizzically. The commercial combined humor with nostalgia to appeal to multiple demographics, targeting both Generation X audiences old enough to remember Walken in his

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Customer Experience Coaching Marketing Sales 118

360Connext

MARCH 8, 2017

I get a lot of “what a cool job!” when I describe what I do. It sounds so glamorous. And everyone is a customer, so of course I hear about the worst customer service they ever had, or less frequently, the very best they’ve experienced. It is awesome. I love what I do. But as the idea of customer experience takes off, the mythology around it does, too.

Consulting 104

Consulting Consulting Customer Experience Sales 104

Beyond Philosophy

MARCH 13, 2017

When I was a kid, my teachers labeled me the class clown. I wasn’t one for long winded jokes, but I was always ready with a snappy comeback, a sarcastic comment or a funny observation. My classmates loved my wisecracks, but I have to admit that I spent more time honing my sense of humor than reading my textbooks. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve held onto my wisecracking ways and yet, I’ve been successful in business.

Scripts 314

Scripts Consulting Consulting Customer Experience 314

ShepHyken

MARCH 1, 2017

Some of you may be familiar with the 1970’s and 80’s hit TV show M*A*S*H, based on the novel and movie by the same name. The series premiered in 1972 and played for eleven seasons. While, most refer to the show as a sitcom, some view it more as a “dramedy” than a comedy series because of the heavy dramatic setting, which was a medical unit in the Korean War.

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Customer Service Customer Experience 236

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

Callminer

MARCH 27, 2017

American Coradius International LLC, a leader in 1st and 3rd party debt collection services, has partnered with Massachusetts-based CallMiner to launch CallMiner Eureka Speech Analytics companywide.

Analytics 182

Analytics 182

Contact Center Pipeline

MARCH 29, 2017

“Trinkets and trash!” That was the description a contact center agent used to describe their company’s sales incentive program. This company had recently mandated that every customer service agent had to upsell and cross-sell products. As a result, managers were throwing small prizes at anyone who attempted a sale. It was a Band-Aid approach. It […].

Sales 113

Sales Upselling Contact Center Management 113

Win the Customer

MARCH 20, 2017

The cost of poor customer service is going up, rising from $41 billion lost in 2013 to $62 billion in 2015 , according to research reported by NewVoiceMedia. The cloud service company reports customer experience is the key differentiator in driving retention and acquisition, as companies that thrill customers at every touchpoint of the buyer journey are the ones most likely to keep customers around.

Customer Experience 111

Customer Experience Analytics Surveys Personalization 111

PeopleMetrics

MARCH 30, 2017

What are the Top 5 Mistakes that limit the success of a Voice of the Customer program? 1. Not getting executive buy-in: Leadership at the organization has to buy-into and ideally sponsor the VoC program. VoC programs change the culture of an organization by putting the customer first and responding to customers who have poor experiences. If an executive is not sponsoring the program, the company will not pay attention to the data or invest in the right responses to the data and the initiative wi

Feedback 105

Feedback Metrics Surveys Customer effort 105

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!

Feedback

Beyond Philosophy

MARCH 8, 2017

We are fortunate enough to have two homes; one in England and one in the U.S. However, we are unfortunate enough to have two telecom providers; Virgin Media in England and Brighthouse, now Spectrum in Florida. Neither of them provides a Customer Experience worth mentioning—at least not in a positive light. Telecoms are bad at CX around the globe! Back in 2012, we did some research involving over 40 telecoms.

Customer Experience 313

Customer Experience Customer centricity Engineering Consulting 313

ShepHyken

MARCH 15, 2017

Every day I get an email from RetailWire.com, a daily publication that is read by thousands of people in the retail industry. It’s the number one forum for discussions about hundreds of important issues in the industry. Now, before we go further, even though RetailWire.com focuses on the retail industry, what I’m about to share is relevant to every business in every industry.

Banking 233

Banking Sales Technology Customer Service 233

Callminer

MARCH 13, 2017

Voice analytics are the use of a voice recognition tool to analyze a spoken conversation. Not only does voice analytics software translate speech to text.

Analytics 182

Analytics Best practices 182

Contact Center Pipeline

MARCH 30, 2017

March definitely came in like a lion in many parts of the country. But when the weather is lousy, it’s a good time to catch up on your reading. Many of our Pipeline readers did just that over the past few weeks. Scheduling was a hot topic this month, as was culture, how to handle […].

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Call Center Contact Center Customer Experience Management 100

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.

Contact Center

Teresa Allen

MARCH 7, 2017

Much of current investment in customer service is focused on expanding capabilities in digital service channels and artificial intelligence. Recent customer service studies, however, have illustrated the need to focus on the human element of customer service. Read on to find out the important findings of these studies. Accenture Strategy’s Global Customer Pulse Research found that 88% of customers use digital channels at some point in their shopping journey.

Customer Service 101

Customer Service Employee engagement Surveys Marketing 101

Influitive

MARCH 10, 2017

B2B marketers can learn a thing or two about mobilizing advocates from our B2C cousins. Think about the products that you use every day. For me, it’s my iPhone, Sennheiser headphones and Altra running shoes. I didn’t go straight to a store or the vendor’s website to buy these products. Instead, I decided to purchase.

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B2C B2B Marketing 103

Beyond Philosophy

MARCH 15, 2017

My first manager had a poster on his wall that said, “There isn’t a lot of traffic on the extra mile,” a tenet of Customer Service. Today, that poster might read, “Why meet customer expectations when you could exceed them?” Exceeding expectations and going the extra mile are still important concepts for front-line employees, but not for the reasons many like to think they are.

Average Handle Time 304

Average Handle Time Self service Consulting Consulting 304

ShepHyken

MARCH 24, 2017

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post my colleague, Manuel Grenacher, writes about how using bots can help manage and improve the customer experience. Used properly, I believe bots can be an customer service excellent tool. – Shep Hyken. Booking an appointment—say, a plane ticket—used to be so easy. Just pick up the phone, dial a number, and speak to a friendly person on the other end to arrange everything.

Customer Experience 228

Customer Experience Airlines Chatbots Personalization 228

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

Longer sales cycles. Increasingly discerning buyers. More meetings. Intensifying competition. Economic uncertainty. Go-to-market teams of every size, in every industry, are grappling with these challenges firsthand. Thankfully, there’s an answer. We’ve developed an entirely new way for GTM leaders to identify and execute proven, data-driven strategies that drive revenue.

Sales

Callminer

MARCH 26, 2017

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act was enacted by Congress in 1991 to restrict telemarketing calls and the use of automatic telephone dialing systems

Telemarketing 182

Telemarketing 182

Contact Center Pipeline

MARCH 28, 2017

“We want to make people more accountable.” Well, amen to that. As a concept, accountability has enormous appeal. It is discussed in relation to government, education, non-profits and every corner of the business sector. Strategically, it has almost no downside. An increase in accountability, done properly, is welcomed by executives, management and engaged staff at […].

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Accountability Contact Center Government Education 100

PeopleMetrics

MARCH 1, 2017

If you’ve been keeping up with this series, you're familiar with the idea of gathering continuous customer feedback. But it's important to note the changing environment for how that feedback is handled. Traditionally, customer satisfaction surveys have focused on collecting aggregate data. In the world of market research, this approach makes sense. It’s statistically accurate, high-level, and shows trending data—all great things for market researchers.

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Feedback Banking Surveys Management 99