Sat.Sep 23, 2017 - Fri.Sep 29, 2017

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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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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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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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Your Brand is Only as Strong as Your Weakest Link

ShepHyken

So, the other day I’m flying to a speaking engagement. While waiting for my flight to board I bought a yogurt parfait. After paying for it, I looked for a spoon. There were knives and forks, but no spoons. The little compartment next to the knives and forks was empty. I asked the cashier if they had any spoons. He pointed to where they weren’t. I told him they were out, and in an effort to get rid of me, he suggested that I could go to the restaurant next store and ask them for a spoon.

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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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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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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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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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The 2 Skills You Have to Master As a Manager Are Spotting Problems and Fixing Problems

Myra Golden Media

I got a job once when I complained about poor service. I was 17, and my mom and I were ready to check out at JCPenney. We couldn’t find a person anywhere in the juniors department. We walked over to lingerie and finally found someone in the boy’s department. That someone was a middle-aged man in a suit. With the boldness of a brash teenager, I said, “What do you have to do to get service around here?

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Amazing Business Radio: Robert Spector

ShepHyken

Robert Spector Shares The Nordstrom Way to Customer Experience Excellence. How would you like to be the Nordstrom of your industry? Well stay tuned and you’ll learn tips to help you do just that! Shep Hyken interviews Robert Spector, author of The Nordstrom Way to Customer Experience Excellence: Creating a Values-Driven Service Culture. Featured Interview: Shep and Robert discuss the impact Nordstrom’s values and culture have on their customer and employee experience.

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

Callminer

A Definition of Escalation/Incident Management In short, escalation management involves transferring calls to supervisors, managers, and other agents who have more experience than the agent who initially answers the call. 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 […].

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Coaching for Success: A Quick How To

Call Center Weekly

By Celia Pagliughi Let us first define who coaches are and what coaching is. W ho is a coach? It is very simple; we are all coaches. When we walk into our call centers we are all coaches. Whether you are a CSR, a Supervisor or a Manager you are a coach, or at least you have the opportunity to be one if you so choose. W hat do coaches do? That is an easy answer as well.

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Here’s a Training Activity for Empathy In Customer Service

Myra Golden Media

I’m giving you the actual exercise I gave to the employees in the customer service training I delivered this morning, along with the discussion questions I used. If you’d like an excellent training activity that helps employees convey empathy , print off this exercise and facilitate a short discussion with your team. Instructions: Read the following silently and once everyone in your group has read the Blue Apron response, discuss the questions at the bottom of this page.

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 Is Virtual the Next Reality for Contact Centers?

Aspect

The modern contact center must be highly attuned to the emerging technologies that drive customer satisfaction today. Tools like chatbots and SMS features are designed to facilitate superior service and mimic the same types of social interactions that consumers have in their own personal lives. By making strides to be an early adapter to emerging technologies, you set your contact center apart from the competition and put yourself in a position to continue exceeding your customers’ needs.

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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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Guest Blog: The Science of Business

ShepHyken

This week we feature an article by Doug Bell who writes about how leaders can optimize their company’s customer experience. It is important to have a plan in place for managing the customer experience and having a customer-focused culture. – Shep Hyken. A Simple Playbook for Managing Customer Experience. Every team inside a company impacts the customer experience.

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5 Top CX Trends For Survival in the Age of the Customer

360Connext

The way we create and deliver customer experiences is constantly evolving in this rapidly changing space. Keeping up with customer experience trends is now an essential part of running a successful business. It’s moving from a “nice to have” to a “must have” department in most organizations. Those with or without customer experience in their titles are considering how their daily work impacts the customer journey.

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How Artificial Intelligence Impacts the Contact Center

The Northridge Group

In today’s technology obsessed world, making life simpler, faster, and more seamless is a priority for both businesses and individuals trying to keep up with an always evolving digital landscape. Read any publication and you’re sure to find conversations revolving around Artificial Intelligence (AI) helping to power (if not completely replace, in some instances) human interaction.

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5 Advocate Marketing Success Stories All B2B Brands Can Copy

Influitive

Every year, we recognize some of the most engaging marketing campaigns through The Best Advocate Marketing Awards. Also known as The BAMMIES, these awards shine a spotlight on B2B companies who are using the enthusiasm of their customers, partners and fans to fuel business growth. Honors are awarded in 10 key categories that recognize creative excellence, innovation.

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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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Inside Customer Success: HelloSign

Amity

HelloSign is powering the future of intelligent business. The company’s software platform — which includes eSignature, digital workflow, and electronic fax solutions — converts process to revenue for over 60,000 companies around the world with HelloSign, HelloFax and HelloWorks. Amity sat down with Maranda Dziekonski , HelloSign's VP of Customer Operations, to chat about all things Customer Success: data, churn, team management, and much more.

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CX Pros Share Their Repeat Business Tips – Free eBook

The Center for Client Retention

Are you finding that your business is doing alright but is plagued by one-time-only shoppers? This is a problem that many businesses, no matter the size or industry, suffer from and we are here to help you turn those one-time shoppers in repeat customers. In our eBook “CX Pros Share Their Repeat Business Tips,” we reached out to experts from across many industries, all of whom are well respected in their fields, and asked them to offer one tip on how businesses can commit themselves to increasin

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Opentalk 2017: Building Trust between Customers and Startups

Talkdesk

Opentalk 2017 was packed with thought leadership from some of the most customer-centric leaders and companies of our time. The Opentalk 2017 Video Library is your team’s chance to re-experience those speaking sessions. Here’s more information on one of the videos available in this library. How To Build Trust Between Customers and Startups: A Fireside Chat Between Handy and TechCrunch.

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Top Tips From ICMI Contact Center Demo

Customer Centric Support

Highlights from one of the top contact center / customer service events in America. Las Vegas hosted another fantastic ICMI (International Customer Management Institute) production this week. While the time seemed to pass by in the space of a blink, I’m coming back to Nashville with several key learnings. Here are the biggest themes and take-aways from The City of Lights: Culture And Employee Engagement Are Still Number One – These two topics dominate so many conversations and fill conference

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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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The Future of Business Travel Is Customer Experience Innovation

Nexmo

Enterprises in the traditional hospitality industry are facing a serious problem: on one side, online aggregators like Kayak and Trivago are pushing to own the relationship with the customer, treating the hotels themselves as wholesalers to be squeezed on price. On the other side are alternative, startup providers, such as Airbnb, whose more personal offering […].

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Chatbots – Reigniting the Spark in B2C Engagement

Aspect

Chatbot technology has already made an everlasting digital footprint when it comes to customer engagement. With the advancement of technology, including artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language understanding, customers don’t always know if they are talking to a computer or a live agent. While voice will always have its place in B2C engagement , customers frequently prefer to interact with businesses the same way they do in everyday life, through messaging apps, SMS and social media.

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3 Top Skills to Succeed in the Customer Service Industry

Taylor Reach Group

ProProfs recently asked me to contribute my point-of-view for tips on succeeding in the Customer Service Industry. While my advice on this topic is endless and typically specified towards and aligned with clients’ goals, needs and objectives, here are 3 general tips that every Customer Service professional should follow for success: 1) Empowerment : We are the experts, that is why the customer is speaking with us.

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The Vital Role of Customer Success Operations

Totango

Today’s customer success executives are being challenged to use unprecedented amounts of customer data to build more predictable revenue outcomes and run more efficient operations. That’s on top of their existing efforts to manage an entire customer base. If you are a VP of Customer Success, it is time to go beyond defining strategy and start ensuring the execution of your strategy across the organization.

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The Truth About Customer Journey Mapping

Speaker: Dave Seaton, CEO of Seaton CX

Is Customer Journey Mapping a tired fad from 2013? Or a critical tool for sparking customer-centric change? 💥 The answer lies not in the map itself, but in the mapping process. When crafted with precision and insight, journey maps emerge as powerful catalysts, transforming customer experiences and steering businesses towards profitable growth.

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3 Brands Doing Customer Experience Right

CustomerGauge

In the spirit of Customer Experience (CX) Day, this year happening on Oct 3rd, we’d like to celebrate some of the brands that create great experiences for their customers. Multiple research and advisory firms like Forrester and Gartner have proven that customer experience is at the top of everyone’s priority list – from CEOs to […]. The post 3 Brands Doing Customer Experience Right appeared first on CustomerGauge.

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New Survey Reveals Shifting Cloud Contact Center Preferences

Aspect

If Ben Franklin were alive today, his famous quote would read something like this, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes and cloud software.” The world of contact center solutions is just a microcosm of the myriad of software applications used by enterprises moving inexorably to a Software as a Service (SaaS) model in the public cloud.

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Do ‘captive customers’ deserve customer service excellence?

Vonage

A government employee questioned whether my service teaching had any value for his department. After all, he reasoned, why bother providing customer service excellence to “captive customers” who have no choice? I’ve got many answers to this loaded question. These three pack a punch: First, captive customers may have no choice about whether or not to work with an internal department or government agency, but they have plenty of choice about the attitude they bring to the interactions.