Beyond Philosophy
JUNE 22, 2018
When I need work done at the house, I always get three quotes. I never go with the highest or the lowest, but instead, I choose the one in the middle. This shortcut, called Extremeness Aversion, helps me make an important decision—and it helps your customers make buying decisions, too. We discussed Extremeness Aversion on our podcast earlier this month.
Myra Golden Media
JUNE 25, 2018
Too many hiring managers focus on candidates’ work history when filling customer service roles. They get excited when they read that the candidate has six-plus years working in customer service. But past work in customer service is not a reliable indicator of future success in serving your customers. To consistency deliver the best possible customer interactions, you need to hire for emotional intelligence —hiring people with empathy, friendliness, and connection, and then train those peop
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ShepHyken
JUNE 1, 2018
This week we feature an article by Jason Grills who discusses the importance of integrating an effective customer support system and how to decide upon live chat software for your organization. – Shep Hyken. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” – Bill Gates , Microsoft Founder. Every business aims to delight their customers.
Callminer
JUNE 18, 2018
Research is making it clear that when it comes to business interactions, tone matters. And if you’re not taking advantage of these insights in your contact center, you might be left behind.
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Contact Center Pipeline
JUNE 6, 2018
The 2018 SWPP Annual Conference in Nashville kicked off on Sunday, June 3rd. I love the all-WFM-all-the-time format of this conference. Every break, every lunch, and every session is devoted to forecasting, scheduling, real-time adherence, staffing models, power-of-one, net staff, Erlang… and this goes on for three days. I can’t wait to get out on […].
Customer Contact Central brings together the best content for Contact Center and Customer Service professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Beyond Philosophy
JUNE 4, 2018
Each of us has a time when we decide and a time when we act. Once we act, we pass the point of no return on our decision. In other words, once we take action on a decision, we are less likely to change our decision—even when we run into challenges. It’s all a matter of mindset. The Rubicon model is a psychological principle that distinguishes our decision-making method or deliberative mindset from our execution course or implementation mindset.
Myra Golden Media
JUNE 8, 2018
Studies show the average business call lasts 2 minutes longer than it needs to. Customer service employees struggle with call control for a variety of reasons, including they don’t want to be rude to the customer, they aren’t sure how to move to closure or because the customer is rambling or angry. Using the principles of harmony, assertiveness and leading from the martial art Aikido, Myra walks your employees through the steps to politely and confidently control conversations.
ShepHyken
JUNE 13, 2018
What does a good customer experience look like at your company? What does good customer service look like? Ask everyone on your team and listen to the answers. Will they be the same, or different? It will be interesting to see if your team recognizes the difference between experience and service. Many people don’t understand the difference between customer experience and customer service, but does it really matter.
Callminer
JUNE 4, 2018
We’re always looking for new ways to incorporate machine learning into speech analytics. I ended up with some interesting findings that really show the power of machine learning.
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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
Steve DiGioia
JUNE 11, 2018
…here’s 3 skills every customer service actor must have This original article was written by Steve DiGioia. Ah, the life of a call center agent. A cushy job, right? You do nothing more than talk to customers on the phone and punch some information into a keypad. Sounds cool, sign me up! But wait a minute, there’s more…much more. You get to sit in a cramped cubicle wearing a scratchy headset and stare at a screen for 8 hours a day.
CX Global Media
JUNE 23, 2018
While meeting with Brad Cleveland at the Contact Center Expo in Orlando we explored a bit of the future of what’s to come in contact centers. For some, what we explored in the realm of channels is going to be somewhat of a shock. But for us to be customer-centric and relationship focused, continuing to manage in a channel-centric manner has to finally be declared as a company-centric approach.
Beyond Philosophy
JUNE 15, 2018
Pricing is fundamental to your business. It also has an enormous influence on Customer Experience outcomes. You should understand Mental Accounting as it pertains to customer behavior before you set the price and before you ruin how your customers feel about your experience. This was a great topic of discussion in our recent podcast. So, What is Mental Accounting?
Myra Golden Media
JUNE 12, 2018
One of the easiest ways to make your conversations with customers more conversational, and friendly, is to speak in complete sentences. It is so familiar to hear interactions like this: Last name? First name? Zip code? It’s undoubtedly efficient to ask customers questions in this manner. However, it’s not the friendliest approach. In this article, I’ll talk to you about instantly improving your ability to connect with customers and sound friendly by just speaking in complete sentences.
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.
ShepHyken
JUNE 20, 2018
The concept of disruption is interesting. If you ask most business people to name a company that is known for being a disrupter, you’ll hear answers like Amazon, Uber and Walmart. Walmart disrupted local businesses when they came into a community. Uber disrupted the taxi-cab industry. And, Amazon started out disrupting bookstores and eventually moved on to disrupting the entire retail world.
Callminer
JUNE 13, 2018
I had the pleasure of speaking on a webinar, Best Practices and Guidelines Purchasing Speech Analytics. But I wanted to share with you some of the questions, answers, and takeaways from the webinar.
CX Accelerator
JUNE 19, 2018
Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. For example, we show empathy when we put ourselves in the shoes of an elderly person and give them our seat on a crowded bus. Or when we share genuine excitement with a friend who received a job promotion. Showing this type of empathy often comes naturally to us, and is ingrained in how we act in our everyday lives.
CX Global Media
JUNE 26, 2018
I met with Justin Robbins at the Contact Center Expo and we shared some observations with each other on what is going on in the industry. Of course, we were unable to avoid discussing what’s going on with Artificial Intelligence in Contact Centers and what affect it is having – and may have on our industry. We started talking about all of the hype, hysteria and clickbait titles that we’ve seen and how outlandish some of them can be.
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!
Beyond Philosophy
JUNE 8, 2018
Businesses are in a rut. Speed, efficiency and convenience are all rational factors companies focus on when they think about customer experience. But good experience isn’t that simple. It involves more than you think. For years, research has indicated that the future of success for business is in customer experience. But recent PwC research shows that businesses have a customer experience disconnect.
Myra Golden Media
JUNE 1, 2018
In this video, taken from my online customer service training suite, I answer the questions I’m asked most often about what’s appropriate for business texting. We’ll look at everything from grammar in text, to emojis, to what to do if you get a prank text. Watch the short video, and use it in your own customer service training. Was This Helpful? I’m asking you because my newsletter offers ideas like this all the time.
ShepHyken
JUNE 6, 2018
In 1945 George Orwell published the literary classic, Animal Farm , which was required reading in my middle-school English class. I always remembered the line: All animals are created equal, just some animals are more equal than others. Someone recently referenced the book and this famous line, and it made me think about how customers are treated. Are all customers equal?
Callminer
JUNE 20, 2018
For many businesses, debt collection is an unavoidable necessity. But how can you improve your call center agent productivity while mitigating risk?
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.
Steve DiGioia
JUNE 25, 2018
…and 7 steps we can take to get there too! This original article was written by Steve DiGioia. The West Japan Railway Company has issued an official apology after one of its express trains left the platform at Notogawa station in central Japan 25 seconds early. Yes, you read that correctly; 25 seconds early. The commuter train left at 7:11:35 a.m., instead of the scheduled 7:12 a.m., on May 11, 2018.
CX Global Media
JUNE 25, 2018
Just when we think managing all of the different customer contact channels, and those customers that can never be satisfied is pesky – we now must add beg bugs to the list of contact center performance issues. While at ICMI’s Contact Center Expo I was walking the Expo Hall and spotted a vendor that caused me to pause. After a quick battery of internal questioning, I falsely assumed that they must be recruiting talent for themselves.
Beyond Philosophy
JUNE 29, 2018
We all have habits. Some of them aren’t very good habits, either. But we have them, nonetheless. Many of them form without our awareness. We have habits as customers, too, and habits are powerful things, especially for Customer Experiences. We discussed this problem on our recent podcast, and defined habits as any time your mind prepares you to respond in a certain way based on environmental cues or stimulant.
Call Center Weekly
JUNE 29, 2018
I have a friend who has recently begun working remotely for a call center. It wasn’t what he really wanted to do. He has held “bigger” positions, and it was a little hard for his ego in the beginning. I am a firm believer that everyone should be required to work as a server or bartender early in their careers. After all, where else can you learn sales, customer service, and the ability to suck it up to make a paycheck?
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ShepHyken
JUNE 25, 2018
Each week I read a number of customer service and customer experience articles from various resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too. Keys To Earning Sustained Loyalty From Your Employees by Charle Brown. (Chief Executive) Having strengthened millions of relationships for brands and causes worldwide, we’ve identified five critical steps to achieve the sustained loyalty your business needs.
Callminer
JUNE 24, 2018
Today we are excited to announce that CallMiner has been named a Leader in The Forrester New Wave™: AI-Fueled Speech Analytics Solutions, Q2 2018.
HGS
JUNE 28, 2018
Assessing Your Outsourcing Services Maturity. By Donna Martin, Senior Vice President, HGS Healthcare. In the healthcare market, there is increasing demand for outsourcing services that can bring strategic insights , optimization, and efficiencies to critical operations, particularly among health plans. These partnerships speak to the dramatic shifts in how health plans are sold and purchased today, but also to the maturity of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry itself.
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