Sat.May 11, 2019 - Fri.May 17, 2019

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Improve AHT: here’s how top contact center decision makers do it

TechSee

Analysis of Average Handling Time is deeply entrenched in the customer service field and almost every contact center manager wants to improve AHT. Measuring – and reducing – the duration of each call has long been seen as the most important way to ensure efficiency, plan headcount and reduce operational costs. AHT = Total Talk Time + Total Hold Time + Total Post-Call Work/Number of Calls Handled.

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High Absenteeism? Consider Your Agents’ “Breaking Point”

Contact Center Pipeline

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty frustrated by clients, prospects and some contact center managers who think that the only reason agents are absent from work is because they are lazy. Not only is this conclusion frequently detached from the facts of what’s causing the absenteeism, but it also abrogates a level of […].

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3 Ways to Expand Channels and Not Risk

LiveVox

Consumer demand for multichannel engagement continues to accelerate and its impact on the bottom line is more substantial than ever. In fact, a recent report from Aberdeen Research* noted that companies with extremely strong omnichannel customer engagement see a 9.5% year-over-year increase in annual revenue, compared to 3.4% for weak omnichannel companies.

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Five Elements that Create Service Stress for Customers

Strikedeck

Andy shares what causes stress for the customer, and what you can do to assuage it.

SaaS 73
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Reimagine Your Communications With A Unified Platform

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.

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Being the Bearer of Bad News

ShepHyken

It’s never fun to share bad news with a customer. Many people are scared to be the bearer of bad news. There are plenty of examples of bad news – an order didn’t ship, something was damaged, a deadline is not going to be met, etc. It doesn’t really matter what the bad news is; the key to managing the customer experience is how you deliver the bad news.

More Trending

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Three Ways To Fix the Escalation Problem

Myra Golden Media

Escalated calls are frustrating for everybody – the employee who knows she could’ve done the exact same thing the supervisor did, the supervisor whose hair is on fire, and for the customer who has lost time. It’s time to fix the escalation problem. Here are three ways you can prepare your employees to de-escalate so you can take a little stress out of everybody’s life. 1.

Coaching 243
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You Need These 9.5 Skills to be Friendly Enough for the Customer Service Industry

Steve DiGioia

I watched her smile at everyone who passed her. Her gaze fell naturally on each person and she took the time to acknowledge the children. Waves, “high-fives” and plenty of thank-yous always seem to be around her. No wonder why the customers love her. How does she do it? Good question? Is her friendly demeanor something she’s learned or was taught, or is she just “naturally friendly”?

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Amazing Business Radio: Jill Nelson

ShepHyken

Being Human in a Technology-Driven World. Why Connections Matter More Than Ever. Shep Hyken interviews Jill Nelson. They discuss her company, Ruby Receptionists , and how to use both technology and humanity to deliver an amazing customer experience. The Interview with Jill Nelson: The driving force behind good customer service should be human engagement and connection.

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3 Potential Pitfalls of DIY Speech Analytics

Callminer

Let’s look at why it’s attractive on the surface to undertake DIY speech analytics and the pitfalls companies we work with have encountered when they have tried.

Analytics 182
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The 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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How to Prepare Your Employees to Get An Angry Customer to Back Down

Myra Golden Media

Imagine your newest and most timid employee’s next call is from an irate customer. The customer is ranting so loudly that the person across from her can hear his voice. But your employee is calm and confident. She’s saying things like, “Umm…hmm,” “I see….” and “I realize this whole thing has been frustrating for you.”. She’s leaning in toward her computer and listening to the customer.

Coaching 235
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Speech Analytics in 2019 and Beyond: With Change Comes Opportunity

Contact Center Pipeline

If you’ve been lucky enough to be in the audience when an engaging speaker hits the stage, you know that his or her first words come with authority. Because of that, everyone else’s ears perk up a little bit, the notebooks and pens come out to scribble down the firehose of information being shared, and […].

Analytics 145
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5 Top Customer Service Articles for the Week of May 13, 2019

ShepHyken

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. Bad Experiences Aren’t Always The Problem for Companies by Mary Drumond. (LinkedIn) When it comes to the strategic decisions that will help you thrive as a company, a positive experience is not the only factor that will make customers choose you, or stay with you.

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Show and Sell: 3 Ways Customer Service can be Used as an Effective Marketing Tool

Fonolo

Customer service is often not seen as the effective marketing tool that it is. It’s no surprise: on the surface, the two departments and their goals seem distinct from one another: Marketing is all about customer acquisition (or, attracting new customers), while customer service is all about customer retention. And yet, limiting customer service’s definition to that superficial definition ignores a big part of its potential.

Marketing 124
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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 I Wish Everyone Knew About Getting Angry Customers to Back Down

Myra Golden Media

Anger Can’t Be Ignored. We’ve all chosen to not dignify a person’s absurd comment with a response, or perhaps you’ve stepped over a toddler sprawled on the floor in a tantrum, letting them scream. Dismissing fits of anger can be a healthy response in some situations – unless the infuriated person is your customer. Let me unpack this.

Coaching 204
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Tips and Techniques for Coaching Success

Contact Center Pipeline

Coaching agents is arguably the most critical responsibility for frontline contact center management. Effective coaching is known to foster agent engagement, reinforce and expand critical skillsets, boost productivity and deliver higher performance for the individual, operation and company. It is also an important element for strengthening the all-important agent-supervisor relationship—a key to retaining top-performing talent […].

Coaching 113
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Video Games versus Customer Service

Taylor Reach Group

by JD Fairweather. There was a time where video games were purchased, played and completed with no reason to interact with their creators. The enjoyment to be had was contained within a small window of experience and replay-ability reserved for the most dedicated of fans. Post-purchase interaction with the game developers or publisher was limited to a P.O.

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Improve IVR to create a better customer experience

UJET

Interactive voice response ( IVR ) is a phone system that uses the phone keypad or voice recognition to direct customers through a company’s customer support system. Depending on the industry, customers might be calling about product support like a smart home device , subscription information or financial issues. IVR systems guide customers towards a specialized support agent or accessing a self-service solution.

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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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Post-Event Surveys: What is the Best Time to Send Them Out?

GetFeedback

The big event your team spent months planning for has finally come to a close, and it was a success. At least, you’re pretty sure it was. The only way to know for sure how well your event went is by sending out post-event surveys to attendees. Post-event surveys are a foolproof way to get direct, honest feedback about how you can improve your event for next time with valuable insights.

Surveys 107
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Demystifying artificial intelligence’s role in contact centers

Cisco - Contact Center

AI is shaping the future of customer experiences and the contact center. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is creating a lot of excitement and there are good reasons for this. According to Forbes, 50% of IT professionals believe artificial intelligence and machine learning are playing a role in cloud computing adoption, growing to 67% by 2020. This week I will be speaking at UC Expo about the role that artificial intelligence is playing in advancing contact center productivity and efficiency, and in

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The Most Important Customer Success KPIs You Should Be Tracking

Totango

Customer success initiatives are critical in ensuring your product gives customers the positive outcomes they’re looking for. But how can you tell if your customer success team’s hard work is paying off? One way is to use key performance indicators (KPIs) to make an abstract concept, like customer success, quantifiable. There are many different KPIs, and each evaluates progress toward goal completion from a different angle.

Metrics 93
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Build a Conference Call with the Nexmo Voice API and ASP.NET Core

Nexmo

This is the sixth tutorial on how to use Voice APIs with ASP.NET series. In the previous tutorial, we learnt how to forward a call via voice proxy with ASP.NET Core. In today’s tutorial, we will learn how to setup a conference call so multiple people can join the same call. Learning objectives. In this tutorial, we will: Create an ASP.NET Core app.

APIs 91
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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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Episode 51 – CX Expert Annette Franz Shares Her Insights on Journey Mapping and Success with CX

Kristina Evey

Episode 51 Shownotes… On this episode, we are joined by Annette Franz. Annette Franz is the founder and CEO of … Read More Episode 51 – CX Expert Annette Franz Shares Her Insights on Journey Mapping and Success with CX. The post Episode 51 – CX Expert Annette Franz Shares Her Insights on Journey Mapping and Success with CX appeared first on Kristina Evey.

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How to Conquer These 5 Retail Contact Center Challenges

Ansafone

The point of signing a contract with an outsourced retail contact center includes providing quality customer service in a secure and profitable way. Your company saves money by not hiring more employees to answer phone calls and expects that customers will still get the service they need to continue buying your products. These expectations are … How to Conquer These 5 Retail Contact Center Challenges Read More ».

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The Pitfalls of AI Automation in Customer Service and How to Avoid Them

Nicereply

Expecting an AI model to handle specific unique requests and solve complex problems that your customers might experience is simply unrealistic. AI automation has penetrated corporate life in more ways than even the most optimistic proponents dared imagine. One of the areas where it has definitely secured a foothold is in customer service, to varied success.

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Build a Conference Call with the Nexmo Voice API and ASP.NET Core

Nexmo

This is the sixth tutorial on how to use Voice APIs with ASP.NET series. In the previous tutorial, we learnt how to forward a call via voice proxy with ASP.NET Core. In today’s tutorial, we will learn how to setup a conference call so multiple people can join the same call. Learning objectives. In this tutorial, we will: Create an ASP.NET Core app.

APIs 91
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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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Why Your Business Needs Accurate Sales Forecast? Easy Guide to Sales Forecasting

CrazyCall

Accurately created and executed sales forecast can make your business grow, even in lousy market condition. Being prepared can make up for many unfortunate circumstances. However, despite the advantages, for many sales leaders, sales forecasting is a dreaded task. More notably since according to Aberdeen research 43% of sales leader compensation can depend on the accuracy of their sales forecast.

Sales 89
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What Is Customer Churn Rate, and How Do You Avoid It?

Ansafone

Businesses are obsessed with numbers like customer churn rate. They have to be. Performance numbers directly reflect the state of any particular business. Important numbers about material costs, inventory, logistics and production rates are all used to measure current company conditions. Hidden in among all the numbers, graphs, and charts is the most significant number … What Is Customer Churn Rate, and How Do You Avoid It?

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Is Your Chatbot Conversational? Here are 7 questions you need to ask

Interactions

What does it mean to be conversational? We’ve seen a rise in conversational marketing over the past few years. Conversational marketing is exactly what is sounds like, a marketing style the companies use to engage and interact with their customers in a way that feels natural, casual, and informal. Because of this demand in conversational marketing, we have seen companies introduce chatbots that speak to customers in a seemingly conversational way.