CrazyCall

JANUARY 14, 2020

People are the secret to the success of any great customer service and support operation. Whether your team exclusively handles inbound calls or operates using Live Chat, the work and its challenges are the same all over the world. And the world over, call centers have busy periods. Staff get hammered with calls. Holiday and flu seasons are notorious for causing understaffing and a serious oversupply in call volumes.

Management 63

Management Customer Service Morale Contact Center 63

Contact Center Pipeline

JANUARY 14, 2020

According to Gallup’s recent polls, 87% of employees worldwide are not engaged. Think about that for a moment—that’s a staggeringly high number. If 50 people work in your contact center, that’s like saying only 6.5 of them actually care about what’s going on in your business. And yet all 50 are TALKING TO CUSTOMERS! Yes, […].

Contact Center 195

Contact Center Employee engagement Call Center Customer Experience 195

TechSee

JANUARY 14, 2020

The global drive toward digital transformation has made its mark on contact center processes and operations, with Salesforce predicting last year that the use of AI by customer service teams would see a 143% increase by 2020. AI-driven call center automation has had a significant impact on the efficiency and performance of individual agents, as well as on overall KPIs.

Call Center 124

Call Center Virtual Agent Self service Contact Center 124

Transparent BPO

JANUARY 14, 2020

Each year, new trends emerge that contact center executives must pay attention to, and 2020 is no different. For that reason, we thought it would be helpful to share our views on seven trends we believe will impact centers this year and the foreseeable future. Some, such as the use of AI, are perennial, having spanned several years, while others may have yet to appear on your radar.

Contact Center 62

Contact Center outsourcing Average Handle Time Chatbots 62

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Cut complexity and boost efficiency while empowering your customers with Nextiva's unified communications platform. Nextiva streamlines workflows and centralizes customer interactions, all while simplifying business collaboration, increasing productivity, and reducing employee burnout.

inmoment

JANUARY 14, 2020

With two-thirds of companies currently competing on customer experience (nearly double the 36% that reported competing on customer experience in 2010), it’s no surprise that organizations are targeting CX initiatives as top priorities in 2020. . But the development and execution of a successful CX strategy can present serious organizational challenges.

Best practices 40

Best practices Metrics Upselling outsourcing 40

Monet Software

JANUARY 16, 2020

To blend or not to blend—that is the question for today’s call centers. Blended agent assignments have been a staple of the contact center since the advent of automated call distribution (ACD) systems. Enabling outbound agents to fill in on inbound lines when call volumes spike, for example, has offered valuable options for enhancing call center metrics, like service levels and abandonment rates.

Contact Center 77

Contact Center Abandon rate Outbound sales Average Handle Time 77

TeleDirect

JANUARY 17, 2020

Any business relies on its call center to handle customer communication, field inbound calls, execute market-friendly outbound strategies, and more. But how do you know everything is working as intended? It all starts with a call center quality assurance system. Without these metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs), it’s hard to tell if you need to make minor tweaks or implement a major overhaul.

Best practices 93

Best practices Call Center Business Process Outsourcing Entertainment 93

ChaseData

JANUARY 17, 2020

When you’re building a more successful outbound contact center, which KPIs are really worth your time when it comes to tracking? Which ones mean the difference in success and failure for your facility and which ones are just nitpicking for the sake of perfectionism? Here, we’ll examine the most important outbound call center KPIs and help you and your team make sense of how - or if - they apply to your center.

Call Center 52

Call Center Contact Center Management 52

NICE inContact

JANUARY 14, 2020

2020 holds massive potential for planning and achieving your CX goals! Why? Because we have access to tremendous insight on what customers are looking for in service and brand experience in the coming year. We also have access to research on what sales, service, and support organizations across the globe did (and did not) do successfully in 2019.

Sales 62

Sales Best practices Contact Center Call Center 62

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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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Upstream Works

JANUARY 16, 2020

This is the last in a series of blog posts examining key contact center trends for 2020, and the first three lead up to this broader theme of innovation driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI). We began by looking at the impact of digital transformation , then the importance of personalization , and most recently the power of agent engagement for improving the customer experience (CX).

Chatbots 78

Chatbots Journey mapping Self service Contact Center 78

GetFeedback

JANUARY 12, 2020

About eight out of ten business leaders say they want to “improve” the customer experience (CX) to be more competitive. In CustomerThink’s recent study of 200+ CX initiatives, 74% agreed: “By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.”. And for good reason. Briefly, the argument is that leading CX brands outperform laggards by a lot.

Journey mapping 88

Journey mapping Airlines Feedback Customer Experience 88

Totango

JANUARY 16, 2020

Satisfaction is practical. Delight is emotional. That is the big difference in the customer delight vs customer satisfaction divide. One achieves what was expected, the other delivers additional value. Customer satisfaction is the process of achieving goals and consistently delivering the value you promised. Customer delight, on the other hand, is the “wow” factor.

Best practices 62

Best practices Metrics Feedback Personalization 62

CSM Magazine

JANUARY 16, 2020

Recent studies show that more than 80% of global customers feel that businesses should adopt sustainable practices and that 37% of them cite environmental impact as the main factor they consider before making a purchase. With environmental concerns at an all-time high and a worrying succession of natural disasters showing that climate change is indeed real, going green has now become a matter of urgency and businesses who fail to include care for the environment in their core values can see thei

Customer Experience 52

Customer Experience Finance Customer Support Marketing 52

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

Hello Customer

JANUARY 16, 2020

January typically is a month to forecast trends, and we believe customer retention will be an important one. Of course, this isn't a new strategy. But we see increasingly more organisations move their focus from aggressive acquisition investments to retention management. And as fashion shows us, every trend returns at some point in time. (Except for maybe Buffalo shoes, some things should stay forgotten.

Customer retention 92

Customer retention Feedback Customer Care Metrics 92

NUSO

JANUARY 15, 2020

It’s hard to believe, but we’re quickly approaching the last weeks of 2019. As you look at your company’s wins and losses for the year, you may be thinking how you can expand. MSPs looking to grow in 2020 and beyond should consider providing communication tools like SIP Trunking, UCaaS, and Cloud Contact Center to increase monthly recurring revenues.

Cloud contact 87

Cloud contact Contact Center 87

Taylor Reach Group

JANUARY 17, 2020

by JD Fairweather. For many contact centers, the road to 2020 is strewn with unfulfilled New Year resolutions from the previous decade, abandoned optimization projects and discarded digital transformations pave the way. The good news is it’s not too late to course correct. So, looking ahead to a simpler, resolute future, here are three areas for immediate focus that will position your workforce for success in 2020 and beyond.

Contact Center 111

Contact Center Employee engagement Consulting Consulting 111

Toister Performance Solutions

JANUARY 16, 2020

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. It took 12 emails to get a resolution. I was having a problem with my scheduling software, but the support rep couldn't replicate the issue.

Airlines 71

Airlines Advertising Customer Service Personalization 71

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

Talkdesk

JANUARY 16, 2020

Proper call flows are the foundation of an efficient contact center. If calls are not properly routed to the appropriate agent or department, the entire system breaks down. Customer frustration grows, and satisfaction plummets, as they sit on hold waiting for their call to be “answered in the order it was received” Agent frustration skyrockets as they handle a seemingly endless stream of angry customers, resulting in short-tempered agents interacting with equally short-tempered custo

Call flow 65

Call flow Contact Center Customer Experience Interactive Voice Response 65

SharpenCX

JANUARY 14, 2020

Every day you and your agents tackle the biggest problems your customers face. It can feel overwhelming to hear problem after problem. On top of this, you’re confronted with KPIs and metrics your team has to meet. And, the finance team tells you “There’s no room in the budget for that” whenever you mention getting more resources for call center improvements.

Call Center 76

Call Center Customer Service Morale Finance 76

ShepHyken

JANUARY 15, 2020

One of our Shepard Letter subscribers, Tom Korff, wrote in with an important question: how should customer support agents handle callers who are threatening to harm themselves and/or others? This is a serious topic. I will share my thoughts, but it’s important to note that the brevity of my answer does not diminish the importance of the question. If someone threatens to do harm to themselves or others, it cannot be taken lightly.

Customer Support 378

Customer Support Management Customer Service 378

Beyond Philosophy

JANUARY 17, 2020

1 in 4 Will Lose Their Job in 2020. At the end of 2019, global research firm Forrester predicted that 1 in 4 Customer Experience jobs will be cut in 2020. While we find this prediction grim, we do not disagree. We believe that this reality has been on the horizon for some time now. There are many reasons why it has come to this point. One of the most significant is a misconception about what Customer Experience is and how it affects the bottom line.

Consulting 301

Consulting Consulting Customer Experience Marketing 301

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

Callminer

JANUARY 12, 2020

We asked a panel of 20 call center pros about the most important call center metrics reps and agents should be aware of (but many aren’t) and what managers should be doing about it.

Call Center 226

Call Center Metrics Management 226

CX Accelerator

JANUARY 16, 2020

A customer-centric culture is the “make or break” component of any customer experience initiative. It was great getting to let loose on this all-important topic alongside Ryan Floersch of Gladly during our recent CXPA webinar. We discussed all kinds of ways to begin working toward an enhanced culture, or (if you’re lucky enough to have the beginnings of it in your organization already) how to accelerate the positive momentum you’ve already garnered.

Customer centricity 182

Customer centricity Construction Technical Support Coaching 182

ShepHyken

JANUARY 14, 2020

Simple is Transformative in the Customer Experience. Revolutionizing Communication So It’s Personalized, Secure, and Effortless. Shep Hyken interviews Matt Gillin. They discuss the secrets of driving customer loyalty and a good customer experience (CX). Here’s a hint: it’s all in providing a secure, personalized, and frictionless channel of communication.

Personalization 272

Personalization CRM Enterprise Customer Experience 272

Contact Center Pipeline

JANUARY 16, 2020

Whew! You made it. Your team made it. Another holiday season is behind you. Despite all the challenges, despite all the: Product inquiries Order status checks Incorrect orders Lost shipments Website problems Higher customer contact volumes Agent sickness and holidays Holiday season angst (yes, it’s real–for customers and employees, alike!) …and all the other topics […].

Self service 162

Self service Chatbots Contact Center Call Center 162

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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.

Self service

Peter Lavers

JANUARY 15, 2020

Peter Lavers has been named as a top blogger in the realm of Customer Service. The list has been created by Fonolo , who provide call-back solutions for contact centres. Peter is delighted to included in this list as it confirms his passion to help companies become more customer centric and thereby competitive in this world of ever-increasing customer empowerment and digital disruption.

Customer Service 130

Customer Service Customer centricity Customer Experience CRM 130

CX Accelerator

JANUARY 16, 2020

A customer-centric culture is the “make or break” component of any customer experience initiative. It was great getting to let loose on this all-important topic alongside Ryan Floersch of Gladly during our recent CXPA webinar. We discussed all kinds of ways to begin working toward an enhanced culture, or (if you’re lucky enough to have the beginnings of it in your organization already) how to accelerate the positive momentum you’ve already garnered.

Customer centricity 182

Customer centricity Construction Technical Support Coaching 182

ShepHyken

JANUARY 13, 2020

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. What Does it Take to Lose a Customer? by Anthony Cusumano. (CMSWire) Customer experience. It’s a term that meant little to organizations even 10 years ago, and even now might still elicit eye rolls from executives.

Customer Service 234

Customer Service Journey mapping B2C B2B 234