July, 2021

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Is Outsourcing Your Customer Experience Really A Good Idea or Just Wrong?

Beyond Philosophy

Sometimes your Customer Experience requires you to outsource a portion of it to a third party. Maybe it’s an installer or a tow truck service, or even an entire call center, but whatever or whoever it is, this part of the experience is not under your control. Today, we will examine whether this is a good idea or not. We discussed this topic of outsourcing on a recent podcast , where my co-host shared a story about his friend who ordered a trampoline.

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The Role of Contact Center Agents in Product Innovation

Contact Center Pipeline

As we turn the page to a new year, and in the spirit of new beginnings, I’d like to challenge managers and leaders to consider alternative approaches to drive innovation and business change. Change must bubble up from within an organization, not merely cascade down from above, because in the next two years we’ll witness […].

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11 Customer Service Leaders We Can All Learn From

Steve DiGioia

Back in 2018, I had the pleasure to interview some of the nicest people I have ever come across. I was amazed at how warm and welcoming they were and their willingness to embrace, support, and welcome me into their fold. To say the least, they’re all leaders in their respective fields of customer service, hospitality, social media, consulting, coaching, podcasting, and keynote speaking.

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The Shortest Customer Service Keynote Speech Ever!

ShepHyken

I’ve written about today’s topic before. The idea I’m about to share is really common sense. Even if you didn’t read my past articles or watch my videos about this, you still know and understand it. Yet, it’s worth bringing up again, as I have a new twist on it. In my latest book, I’ll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again , I share a story about the shortest customer service keynote speech I’ve ever delivered.

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The 2023 Verint Experience Index: Retail

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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These 20 Empathy Statements Will Straight-up Make You a Customer Service Boss!

Myra Golden Media

Download the empathy statements PDF and practice your first five empathy responses to customers. Grab your empathy sheet!

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Is Customer Experience Really The New Marketing? Join The debate!

Beyond Philosophy

In a discussion that echoes the age-old chicken vs. egg conversation sentiment, we engaged in a debate. After meeting a fellow Customer Experience proponent on a new social media platform called Clubhouse, we invited author and speaker Stacy Sherman to debate. The topic: Is Customer Experience the new marketing, or is it an entity on its own? Sherman and I have a difference of opinion.

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Embracing Agility in the Contact Center

Contact Center Pipeline

Agile thinking became the key to business survival during the COVID-19 crisis. Companies that could adapt quickly and creatively in the face of complex and unpredictable challenges proved that breaking with convention often can lead to a giant leap forward. It has been 20 years since a group of software industry thought leaders created the […].

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These 10 Phrases Will Make Someone’s Day Better

Steve DiGioia

Along with all the responsibilities of your job and the myriad of tasks you must do each day, I want to add a few more things to that list by asking you to use these 10 phrases that will make someone’s day better. Most everyone we come across has their own issues that lurk under their sometimes-false façade. They deal with anxiety and health issues that weigh heavily, financial and personal matters that keep them up at night, and a host of other problems that make their day more stressful

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How to Say YES – Every Time

ShepHyken

How do you say Yes to every customer request ? Is it possible? Is this customer service utopia? My friend Christine Trippi wrote a book titled Yes Is the Answer. And Cameron Mitchell, about whom I’ve written before, wrote a book with a similar title, Yes is the Answer. What is the Question ? Both of these authors have a hospitality background. Trippi is a world-class, award-winning hotel manager and Mitchell is a super-successful restauranteur.

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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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Say Hello to the Cloud-Based Contact Center Solution to Drive Customer Delight

Nextiva

Are you taking calls, or are you helping customers? If you're honest, you likely struggle to meet the demands of today's customers — until now. This week, we've debuted the Nextiva Contact Center, which closes the gap between rising customer expectations and the hybrid workplace environment that many companies now embrace. We've integrated it closely […].

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10 Key Metrics and KPI’s for Contact Centre Performance

Call Design

The contact centre industry is the backbone of brands all over the globe. It provides the necessary contact point for customers to connect with brands, whether that be troubleshooting, simple questions or administrative needs. Understanding how to make a profit on the double bottom line (DBL) involves employing a broad range of KPIs and key metrics to ensure a contact centre meets every need that a business may have in supporting their customers.

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Is Outsourcing Your Customer Experience Really A Good Idea or Just Wrong?

Beyond Philosophy

Maybe it’s a towing service. Perhaps you use an interior designer. It could be that you needed to outsource your call center. Whatever the reason may be, you have outsourced part of your Customer Experience. There is an inherent risk involved, of course, if there are problems. After all, customers do not distinguish between the part of the experience you provide and the part your third-party does.

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Why Customer Service Is Not an “Entry-Level” Position

Contact Center Pipeline

My 10-year-old son thinks I am so old, I roamed the earth alongside the dinosaurs! He is right in one way: I started in the contact center industry when things were very primitive. In fact, I began as an agent in the “Phone Age” (rhymes with “Stone Age”). Phone calls accounted for 99% of customer […].

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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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7 Call Center Empathy Phrases Every Agent Should Use With Their Customers

Fonolo

Every company needs strong customer service to set them apart from its competitors. After all, customers are more loyal to businesses that treat them with respect, kindness and that support their needs. Customer service in a contact center is especially important. Most call center agents are familiar with the rage of angry customers, frustrated with long wait times, and other problems.

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The “Always” Concept: What We Must Always Do For Our Customers

ShepHyken

One of the big concepts we teach in our customer service training programs is the concept of Always. This is the backbone of creating customer amazement. When the customer uses the word always followed by something positive, you are creating a predictable experience, and even more important, you are operating in the zone of amazement. For example, your customers might say: “They are always so helpful.”.

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Your customer service “Oh Sh*t Kit”

Customer Service Life

Planning the bachelorette party for a dear friend, I knew that “Oh Sh*t Kits” are a must to include for the bride tribe. In each “Oh Sh*t Kit”, you’ll find things like Tylenol, lip gloss, a scrunchie, hydrating face mask, sunscreen, body lotion, an electrolyte beverage, mints, tissues, bandaids and more. You just never know what will happen and you want to be prepared!

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Pursuing a ‘Service-First’ View of Digital Transformation

Transparent BPO

Customer care providers should focus on clients, customers, and employees to achieve the right balance. By Jason Sterns, Vice President of Business Development, Transparent BPO The customer care industry has lost sight of a ‘service-first view of digital transformation.’ Too often, providers mention the term to prospective clients and then cloak it with rhetoric and […].

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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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5 Rules for Ensuring Behavioral Science Works for Your Business

Beyond Philosophy

I write about the behavioral sciences a lot. I advise on some first steps for you to implement strategies based on behavioral science findings. However, I haven’t written about what you should do to make sure it works. So, today I want to talk about ensuring that your implementations of the behavioral sciences works for your business and the five rules that will help you do that.

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Digital Customer Care: 10 Ways to Fix Not-Very-Good Tweets to Customers

Contact Center Pipeline

Many companies are “pretty much kind of OK-ish” at responding to customers’ questions or complaints in social media. They do respond to customers’ social posts, and they reply pretty quickly. Some companies are doing darn well at digital customer care. A few are good. A handful are excellent. But most companies can do better—a LOT […].

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6 Tips to Optimize Your Call Center IVR

Fonolo

You’re probably familiar with IVR, or Interactive Voice Response, is a menu system that connects customers to the information they need in your call center. Callers will use either a dial pad or tap-button options ( Visual IVR ) to connect with an appropriate agent or department to address their needs. An optimized IVR system is essential to call center software , as it reduces costs, improves customer satisfaction, increases first-call resolution (FCR), and increases overall call center efficie

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Guest Post: How to Use an LMS for Employee Skill Development

ShepHyken

This week we feature an article by Ehsan Memari, a blogger for SkyPrep. He writes about how using a learning management system (LMS) expedites employee skill development in your organization. We are in the middle of a skills gap crisis. According to a study from the Society for Human Resource Management , 83% of HR professionals noticed a decline in the quality of job applicants, with one-third citing a lack of technical abilities. .

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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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11 Types of Bad Customer Service (and How To Avoid Them)

Help Scout

Sometimes the customer service teams who are supposed to be solving problems somehow manage to make them so much worse instead. These are their stories — along with some tips to help you avoid ending up on this list next time we update it! 1. Running from responsibility The root of many terrible customer experiences is a company that is happy to collect money from a transaction but not to accept responsibility when things go wrong.

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From the Front Lines: Common Experiences with Recent Load Tests

Cyara

All around the world, Cyara's global Professional Services team has been busy running load tests. And regardless of the customer or the region, some things are common with these tests. Today, we're sharing a few details about types of load testing because, as Sir Francis Bacon once wisely said, "knowledge itself is power.".

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5 Rules for Building a Successful Customer Experience Team

Beyond Philosophy

My global Customer Experience consultancy, Beyond Philosophy, has been recognized by Financial Times as one of the leading management consultancy organizations for the past three years. People have asked me how I did it, to which I quickly reply, “loads of bribery.” However, the truth is I built an excellent team. So, today, we will look at the 5 Rules for building a successful Customer Experience team. .

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Top 5 Posts in July

Contact Center Pipeline

The post-pandemic recovery has begun, and Pipeline readers appear to be looking ahead to what the future contact center operation will be. Will work-from-home (WFH) make a successful transition to a more permanent model? Having the right remote-work tools in place to support WFH agents is key. Our Sustainable WFH Contact Center series filled most […].

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Maximizing Productivity in the Contact Center

In 2022, businesses recognized the value of optimizing their contact center operations to streamline processes, increase efficiency, and meet the rising expectations of their customers. However, only 10% of customers believe that experiences have significantly improved over the past year, making productivity a non-negotiable metric for success. To empower agents to do more with less, this report highlights the leading pain points that prevent efficiency and establish a framework for maximizing p

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What is a Net Promoter Score?

Fonolo

Companies use all sorts of metrics and techniques to evaluate their customers’ satisfaction with their products and services. Google reviews, social media activity, and customer service surveys all help companies learn about their customers’ experiences. Contact centers use a few different metrics to measure customer experience. Floor-level metrics assess the efficiency of the contact center’s operations, and include Average Speed to Answer (ASA), Auxiliary Time, Handle Time, and more.

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Amazing Business Radio: John Ball

ShepHyken

The End-to-End Customer Experience. Improving CX through Customer Workflows. Shep Hyken interviews John Ball, the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Customer Workflows at ServiceNow. They discuss how companies can create a great end-to-end customer experience and enhance productivity through process mapping. Top Takeaways: Customer service is traditionally focused on the engagement layer (how customers make requests) but not on customer operations (getting the job done).

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The Top Call Center Services to Outsource in 2021

Outsource Consultants

Every business leader is running one of two businesses, whether they know it or not: their business as it existed before 2020 or their business as it will exist in 2021 and beyond. If you’re in the former category, then you really should keep reading. That’s because the pandemic has created a historic sea change for how businesses operate, the impact of which will be felt for more than a generation.