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Contact Center Pipeline Member Exclusives
Changing the Business Experience
Work from Home... Are You Sure of the Future?
Mining for Productivity
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When I ask contact center leaders about things that keep them up at night, a common concern is the ability to find staff that will succeed in the role of an agent.
Strategy Planning Strategic management
Attrition was again the No. 1 challenge. It’s an age-old problem that plays a major role in saturated markets with ample opportunities to go elsewhere, whether for a little pay bump, less stress or a new opportunity.
Strategy Industry Research Strategic management Research
It is absolutely critical to be able to articulate your performance, your contribution, and your needs in ways that resonate with business drivers.
Strategy Visibility Strategic management
Metrics can be misleading; first-call resolution means different things to different contact centers, and for a consumer, being transferred to a different department hardly feels like an issue has been resolved.
Strategy Service Delivery Strategic management
Your ability to compassionately work with your customers to help them through a difficult financial period, while also recovering monies, can set the tone for a lasting relationship.
Strategy Customer Experience COVID-19 Customer Retention
It’s time to take these tools, and the related processes and roles, to the next level; the market has us poised to do just that.
Strategy Industry Research Technology Workforce Optimization Research
Highly engaged customers are more likely to exhibit brand-focused behaviors that go beyond business as usual.
Strategy Customer Experience Industry Research Strategic management Research
To truly embrace customer-centricity, everyone in the organization needs to understand their role in delivering the ideal customer experience.
Strategy Customer Experience Strategic management
Some organizational leaders are fully bought into the long-term benefits of satisfied customers, but others need proof.
Predictive analytics isn’t yet a mass-market solution, but it’s only a matter of time before the mass market realizes the power of predictive analytics and that changes.
Strategy Planning
At some point in the not-too-distant future, you’ll probably find yourself with contact center employees who function somewhere on the autism spectrum.
Strategy Planning People management
Manage your future, your visibility and your value by contextualizing all contact center activities in the framework of customer experience—only then will the most senior levels of the enterprise recognize and fund the contact center of the future.
Operations Strategy People Technology Strategic management People management Operations management
When they analyze the number of customers at risk due to each outcome, executives are often shocked to see that the greatest number of customers at risk are among those who never requested assistance.
Strategy Operations management
One bad interaction can start a cascade of negative business and market impacts.
Strategy Customer Experience Strategic management COVID-19 Customer Retention
I believe that success in the contact center business is built on three things: building relationships, never stop learning and always be a coach.
Strategy People management
Connected devices are just that—connected—and the number of linked brands, services and products makes delivering support all the more challenging.
Strategy Service Delivery Technology Omnichannel Strategic management
The challenge is that contact centers in healthcare have emerged somewhat haphazardly. Think of it as evolution by default rather than by design.
Strategy Vision - Mission - Values
Instead of the leadership team trying to determine how to improve FCR based on data or observation, we developed a series of employee surveys and focus groups to involve them in designing new processes and tools.
The prioritization process can be viewed as a complex set of forecasts: what will we need most in the future, how much will this improve if we add that, will this technology stand the test of time, etc.
We believe that our agents are our most valuable resource— not just in terms of providing the customer experience, but also with the intelligence that they can provide about that experience.
Customer service staff tend to take their cues from their leaders. They model their behavior on what they see demonstrated each and every day.
Strategy Culture
Today, organizations of any size and budget can gain dramatic insights into customer behavior at a realistic price point for the contact center budget.
Keep in mind that the actions between the practice and the contact center are not handoffs. Rather, they are hands extended to achieve a hand-in-hand approach to making the new model work!
Strategy
Contact center communication must be more about empathy and less about apathy and disengagement. When observing calls, listen for what is NOT said.
This love story would have a much better ending if my churn score would have catapulted me to the front of the queue and routed me to a retention specialist.
Despite the never-ending seduction of new and emerging automation technologies to drive cost savings, customer care professionals must keep in mind the value of human contact.
Digital natives, it seems, do prefer the human touch when it comes to service interactions.
Many times, you won’t know how important the call is until you talk to me.
Having a community in the contact center is an excellent way to help improve communications, deflect calls, locate expertise and resources, improve efficiencies and gain insights about those integrations.
Strategy Strategic management
Since about 60% of your contact center costs are wages, you will need to be more deliberative in factoring the impact of minimum wage laws on your location decisions.
Strategy Customer Experience Technology
Contact centers may not sit around talking about the different sides of the brain, but each has a unique approach to management that favors one over the other.
Strategy Technology White Papers
We believe that we’re small enough to deliver the type of high-touch, personalized attention that lets our clients know that they matter, and we’re large enough to handle all of their requirements.
Strategy Planning White Papers
Remember—incentives do not make a better location, rather, they make a better deal.
Strategy Planning Operations management White Papers
Risk exposures exist at every point where the enterprise touches the customer.
Strategy Planning Technology
Customers communicate through online product and service reviews—they share experiences on which companies are worthy of our business and which ones we should run away from.
With every call, email, text or tweet, contact center employees make decisions and interact with customers in ways that directly affect—and reflect—the organization’s culture.
Strategy Culture Strategic management
Greetings, music and messaging on hold shape your customer’s first impressions.
Strategy Customer Experience Operations management
Culture is the heartbeat of the contact center. It’s the single, most important thing to drive.
Operations Collaboration Strategy Culture Strategic management
When evaluating urban areas for an existing facility, it is usually easier to find existing space. The amenities and the infrastructure are usually in place.
We are so frustrated and disappointed with customer service reps who don’t actually listen and project very little empathy. This concern was repeated often throughout the survey feedback
Having a rating system along with the option to provide longer, thoroughly explained answers can eliminate any confusion and allow customers to offer insightful details into why they feel the way they do.
Strategy Customer Experience Operations management Research
Segmentation is not always about offering more to some than others. Rather, it’s about providing a level of service that is fitting to the specific customer’s needs.
Strategy Customer Experience Technology White Papers
Almost every inbound voice call is a potential opportunity for improving non-voice, self-service channels.
One thing we have in Africa now is bandwidth, and lots of it. The cloud will be the enabler of the contact center in Africa.
Satisfaction studies are a tool, but they are not the whole toolbox. A hammer is indispensable to a carpenter, but it isn’t much help when a piece of wood needs to be cut to size.
Far too often, the resolution process contains a defensive posture that really only serves to frustrate—in some cases infuriate—the customer.
Strategy Customer Experience People management
When inconsistency is removed, trust begins to form and puts us on the path to customer loyalty. Focus on building consistency in every aspect of your service experience.
For contact centers handling sensitive information, such as financial and health details, acoustic treatments help keep conversations private.
The young people that I see getting ahead today are the ones whose attitude is, ‘Let me do whatever it takes for the business to be successful.
We started making decisions based on data rather than gut feelings. There is still some intuition involved, but the data helps us to analyze each opportunity and decide which way we need to go next.
When launching a community, you can ensure a positive outcome by aligning it around one or two meaningful business needs with very clear measures and metrics for success.
States such as Tennessee, Texas and Utah are strong markets for contact centers today, but if neighboring states change their laws, market conditions can change very quickly.
Your customer experience vision should be your guiding light—it has to be aligned to your brand and it has to feel authentic to your company. And most importantly, it has to be something that you can deliver on.
Many communities throughout the world believe that having a low unemployment rate is best for their communities. However, in the BPO/Contact Call Center industry, it is all about labor availability.
For the average call center, an alarming 41% of customers are not able to resolve their inquiry or problem on the first call.
One way that leading organizations build strong learning cultures is by starting at the top and having executives show a little humility and admit mistakes.
A key principle in Moments of Truth is that leadership provides a deep and rich understanding of the WHY… why we do what we do.
The contact center often has the data to guide improvements but lacks corporate initiatives to ensure that information gets to and engages critical departments.
Strategy Strategic management Research
Organizations need the ability to blend case-specific data with more traditional metrics. The goal is to understand the entire experience as it relates to customer service.
Strategy Vision - Mission - Values Strategic management
Social customer service is perhaps one of the most beautiful marriages of service and marketing that could exist.
Experience design is the process by which brand cues are crafted as part of the ideal customer experience.
A job is something you accept. A profession is something you choose. The work we do is far too important to be left to people that are simply filling jobs.
Strategy Service Delivery Operations management
You can’t provide the customer with an optimized 2016-style experience when you’re still relying on vintage 2000s technology to make that happen.
It is truly amazing how much differently we can view the world when our primary focus is outward, not inward.
Strategy Culture People management
It is easy for agents to get discouraged by the constant deluge of post-holiday cancellations. Show that they are making an impact by sharing positive retention statistics.
Far too often, contact centers field so many initiatives and demands that this time of year passes like ‘sands through the hourglass’ and the new dawn passes unnoticed.
Strategy Customer Experience Strategic management White Papers
Strategy Customer Experience Strategic management Research
Strategy Visibility Strategic management People management
Strategy Planning Operations management
Strategy Customer Experience Strategic management People management
Tigo moved away from traditional efficiency metrics like average handle time and service level to customer experience, which often also improved efficiency.
Strategy Industry Research Research
Customer-centric leaders know the customer experience brings a brand vision to life. They work hard to unite the organization to a shared vision of the ideal experience. They also ensure everyone understands their role in delivering the ideal experience.
Strategy Customer Experience Industry Research Research
Responding to an emergency with a solid contingency plan in place will ensure that the right number of sandbags are in the right place to hold back the rising water.
Measure agents on what counts the most to your customers, while investing in training and technology to help them manage each interaction across every channel quickly, seamlessly and knowledgeably.
Strategy Service Delivery
Connected consumer applications means managing devices and services across multiple vendors, with customers uncertain where to turn when problems arise.
Strategy Customer Experience
In today’s hyper-digital and rapidly changing world, it’s no longer enough to respond and adapt. You have to anticipate.
Strategy COVID-19
When a coaching culture is in place, people understand that it’s their job to step into the kinds of conversations that they’re currently avoiding and address the issues so they can move things forward.
Strategy Culture COVID-19 Remote Work
Digital channels unveil a wealth of new, convenient opportunities for two-way communication between your customers and your brand.
Strategy Culture White Papers
To build a culture where employees are engaged and inspired to do great work, they need to actively be involved in giving, receiving and observing recognition across the organization
Strategy Visibility
Confusion is a constant companion when it comes to CHAOS and confusion often leads to conflict.
Strategy Planning COVID-19 Remote Work
Strategy Customer Experience White Papers
Strategy Vision - Mission - Values Culture Strategic management
Automation, digitization, WFH, and rising expectations are reshaping the business customer experience.
Operations Strategy Customer Experience People Development Technology Artificial Intelligence Remote Work Technology Member Exclusive
We have some noticeable movement this year. It reflects our dynamic industry in what the vendors are offering, how the labor market is changing, and how centers are maturing.
As centers tackle their challenges and pursue their priorities, I believe we will see a strong focus on the agent experience, and the result should be better customer experience, as well.
Strategy People Technology Remote Work Strategy
Operations Workforce Management Strategy People Technology Staffing COVID-19 Remote Work Remote Work Strategy
Business has changed—forever. We must accept this and take steps to evolve. If we don’t, all the pains we are going through now and the lessons we learn along the way will have been for naught.
Strategy Planning COVID-19 Remote Work Remote Work Strategy
The overall theme for 2021 is: It’s all about the response to COVID and its impacts.
Strategy Industry Research Research COVID-19 Remote Work Strategy
Demonstrate your contact center’s value beyond the traditional scope of customer service and phone calls.
It’s the leader’s job to model a love of learning for everyone in the organization—and humility is at the heart of that.
Strategy Vision - Mission - Values COVID-19 Agent Motivation
Even those organizations that struggled with technology weaknesses and the deployment of work-from-home navigated that weakness with the strength of leadership.
Strategy COVID-19 Remote Work Strategy
Operations Strategy Customer Experience Technology Unified Communications Artificial Intelligence Remote Work Strategy
Ignored or poorly managed visibility is a chronic condition that leaves many centers suffering from enterprise isolation.
Strategy Visibility Planning
Altruism is the concern for the growth and development of the company without the added agenda of self-interest.
Strategy Vision - Mission - Values COVID-19 Agent Motivation Customer Retention
The pandemic has encouraged the adaptation of new business models that place service at their core.
Strategy Planning COVID-19 Remote Work Strategy
Video interactions are professional speaking engagements as much as they are meetings.
Strategy COVID-19 Remote Work Remote Work Operations Strategy
The on-demand environment provides employees with the opportunity to find work that is meaningful to them.
Strategy Vision - Mission - Values People Workplace Environment COVID-19 Remote Work Remote Work Strategy
Operations Reporting Strategy
When you get a one-star rating on any retail site or review platform, the customer isn’t just talking ABOUT you. Customers who give you poor ratings and reviews are, in fact, talking right TO you.
Companies that did not measure the impact of the VoC were much more likely not to have improvements in satisfaction year-over-year, and several actually reported significant declines.
Strategy Customer Experience Research
The lessons of 2020 are already abundant, but they are not complete. There are more lessons to learn and they may be more complicated than those we’ve dealt with to date.
Strategy Planning Remote Work Strategy
There is a huge amount of mutual empathy being shared around the current situation, often initiated by the agents.
Strategy Customer Experience COVID-19 Customer Retention Remote Work Strategy
The partnership with Customer Care provided the perfect ‘test-and-learn’ platform to determine whether a text analytics solution could identify customer needs, trends and opportunities to improve the customer experience.
We believe that the answer to long-term sustainability is to build a model that effectively supports your agents rather than replaces your agents.
Strategy Industry Research Remote Work Strategy
How WFH contact center employees can best engage with customers and colleagues.
Operations Strategy Culture Remote Work People
How you respond to your customers in the coming weeks will likely have a tremendous impact on the future of your brand.
Strategy Customer Experience Service Delivery White Papers COVID-19 Vendor Services Remote Work Strategy
Customer experience excellence is a great marketplace differentiator. But it is only sustainable when supported by all elements within the enterprise.
Strategy Vision - Mission - Values Customer Experience Visibility
What is the ROI on readiness? Peace of mind and the ability to respond.
Virtual Contact Centers Strategy Planning COVID-19 Remote Work
We need to be extreme in terms of building trust, caring for others, showing genuine empathy during these very challenging times.
Virtual Contact Centers Strategy COVID-19 Remote Work Remote Work Strategy
Strategy Data Security
Strategy Customer Experience Wall of Fame
Strategy Wall of Fame
Don't be afraid to get rid of channels if they aren't performing and your customers aren't embracing them.
Social care has forced companies to learn to take their customers’ perspective as-is, without pushing back.
Customer security is part of the entire customer experience. Safe and secure customer information is part of creating a customer journey with minimal customer effort.
Strategy COVID-19 Remote Work Remote Work Strategy
As with the customer experience, EX isn’t something that just happens; it must be intentionally designed.
Strategy Culture COVID-19 Agent Motivation
The bottom line is this: If your company culture is healthy and strong, you’re going to be able to adapt and pivot.
Strategy Culture COVID-19
2021 is not about ‘going back to the good old days’ (of 2019). It is about moving forward into an era of digital transformation, AI and hybrid/work-from-home teams.
Strategy Remote Work Strategy
COVID ‘shined a light’ on the importance of the contact center, and it now features far more prominently as the ‘face’ of the organization.
Strategy Customer Experience Planning Industry Research Research COVID-19 Customer Retention Remote Work Strategy
Emotion is ‘a complex reaction pattern, involving experiential, behavioral and physiological elements.’
Virtual marketplaces for contact center solutions are growing in popularity.
Strategy Technology
Many times, analytics are not analytics at all. They are simply taking a look at the metrics and assigning a good or bad value to agent performance.
Operations Service Delivery Strategy Customer Experience Service Delivery Technology Omnichannel
Removing friction from service delivery doesn’t mean making it so that customers never see the human side of your brand.
Strategy Customer Experience Service Delivery Remote Work Strategy
Strategy Culture People Workplace Environment
This additional focus on connecting will remain even when we return to the office. It has become a critical part of our culture, a reflection of how we work and engage with each other.
Strategy Culture COVID-19 Remote Work Strategy
Regardless of channel, speed continues to be one of the most important factors in effectively delivering positive customer experiences.
Sophisticated buyers recognize the value of technology, efficient processes and well-trained agents in delivering ROI in terms of sales.
Strategy Culture Remote Work Strategy
Strategy Customer Experience Technology Self-Service White Papers
Between disruptive technologies and rising customer expectations, every day is a new horizon
The ability to properly plan, and measure the performance of the plan, improves your contact center’s visibility as a valued asset.
Operations Reporting Strategy Planning
More than anything, agents want to know what the future holds. While we cannot predict the end of this pandemic, we can keep folks up to date on what is being considered.
Strategy COVID-19 Agent Motivation Remote Work Strategy
Organizations must build these teams with the intention of adding value to brand—and as an important revenue driver.
Strategy Visibility COVID-19 Agent Motivation
Executives across many industries are more aware than ever of the value of the contact center.
Strategy Visibility COVID-19
Calls matter, private conversations matter, and learning about how the frontline feels about working from home matters.
It is vital to optimize each stage with the appropriate strategy in mind, and have the proper tools in place to provide the desired experience at the right time.
The modern contact center means a more agile approach; working anywhere while meeting service level objectives and taking care of the customer on whatever channel they prefer.
In honor of International Women’s Day, Mike Aoki interviews 5 industry executives who share their early leadership challenges, achievements and advice.
Change practitioners act as translators between the technical and people sides of a solution, connecting the solution to the day-to-day impact on agents and how they successfully bring that to life.
Operations Cost Management Strategy Technology
The key is approaching things in the right way, which includes a heavy dose of communication delivered with a dash of gusto.
Today's contact center is the meeting point for brands and consumers to come together and build foundational relationships for trust and loyalty.
In today’s data-soaked world, service leaders need to become knowledgeable about data quality management and how it affects the outcome of your service operations.
Not many could have imagined where we find ourselves, yet here we are. If nothing else, we must be prepared for the unknowable, and that has to start now.
Agents need MORE, not less, training during a recession because there are greater demands on their skills.
Strategy Customer Experience Culture Service Delivery
There is no single magic metric that will offer a clear indicator of your center’s performance or guide your operation to a successful outcome.
Companies that bridge the physical gap between leaders and employees early in 2021 will surpass pre-pandemic performance levels. Those who allow the virtual gap to widen will experience a performance decline.
Strategy Industry Research COVID-19 Remote Work Remote Work Strategy
We don’t need to become Amazon. We need to be great at what we’re great at.
It takes courage to bring forth difficult news. It takes mindfulness to not react immediately. No one can tantrum themselves to a solution!
When it comes to the customer experience, data doesn’t tell the whole story. Customer behavior is primarily driven by emotion and how the experience makes them feel.
Strategy Customer Experience Customer Retention
As managers, your job is to elicit the ‘right’ behavior at scale, repeatedly.
Strategy Vision - Mission - Values Wall of Fame
Strategy Industry Research
Keep an open mind and bring the ‘can do’ attitude that your executives expect.
We try to be superior at what we do. We want to offer the absolute best we can to the customer. We’re not driven by one quick sale; we’re driven by always doing the right thing.
Strategy Customer Experience Culture
Operations Strategy Customer Experience Remote Work Strategy
A results-focused CX leader knows the way forward should be mapped out in advance. Goals and roles should be clear. The performance framework should be systematic and measurable.
Strategy Vision - Mission - Values Customer Experience Research
You must create a learner-based culture of strong and smart business people that are treated and provisioned in a way that optimizes, not minimizes, their talent.
Strategy Customer Experience Remote Work Strategy
The rampant spread of highly contagious variants of the virus has more companies grappling with whether to require employees to be vaccinated before returning to the workplace.
The beginning of the new year offers the opportunity to invest time and energy into getting the ‘assessment ball’ rolling.
Leaders have a unique responsibility to influence the overall direction that their business unit will assume. This is true even when one is faced with the kinds of conditions many must confront today.
Enable easy and near-real-time course corrections, and be more sympathetic to changes in customer behaviors.
Getting technology right is about not letting the day-to-day fire drills stop the ongoing activities to plan for, implement and optimize changes.
Customers make decisions about the ‘kind’ of company they are working with based on their connections across the entire organization.
Operations Workforce Management Strategy Technology Workforce Optimization Artificial Intelligence COVID-19 Remote Work Remote Work Operations
Operations Strategy Customer Experience Technology White Papers
Leaders must demonstrate that their heart is in the job, and that is only possible when humility governs the use of strength.
Operations Collaboration Strategy Customer Experience Technology Remote Work Technology
Remember, CX is not a one-and-done process. It’s an evolution. No one gets it perfect the first time.
Strategy Culture Service Delivery
Belief and certainty can be so strong they blind us to areas of weakness.
It will be essential to build out an organization and a team that can handle the new normal in our industry—fast-paced with high expectations from clients.
Chat, text and social media enable contact centers of all sizes to maintain consistent, exceptional outcomes for customers.
Rapport-building is both an art and a science. The very definition of the word describes beautifully the job of most contact centers.
Why is it so difficult to provide proper governance that will break the chain that links funding for staff and training to 20th century private practice models?
I believe the industry is poised to enter a new phase of productivity.
Strategy Customer Experience Industry Research COVID-19 Remote Work Strategy
When employees behave at cross purposes to your desired business outcomes, what is really going on in their lives?
Strategy COVID-19 Customer Retention
Generational norms and expectations will drive widespread adoption of omnichannel in the contact center whether the contact center likes it or not.
Current Issue Operations Strategy Customer Experience Technology
Healthcare contact centers are growing not only in numbers but also in scale.
It’s time to conduct an in-depth review of three WFH factors: benefits, trade-offs, and risks.
Operations Strategy People Hiring Engagement Technology Remote Work Operations Member Exclusive
How COVID-19 has upended BC/DR and staffing strategies
Strategy Remote Work Operations
Operations Strategy Customer Experience
Strategy Customer Experience Technology Unified Communications Remote Work Technology
Operations Strategy
Replacing COVID issues at the top of the challenges was formulating strategies that propel the contact center into becoming a central component of the operations of the organization.
Operations Workforce Management Strategy
Strategy People Development
Departments need to cooperate and share the wealth to succeed in this brave new world.
Strategy Customer Experience Remote Work Operations
Strategy Technology Artificial Intelligence
Strategy Customer Experience People Development Technology Artificial Intelligence Remote Work Strategy
Strategy Customer Experience People Technology Artificial Intelligence
Strategy Culture People Hiring
Operations Strategy People Development Turnover
Operations Strategy Customer Experience People Technology Remote Work Strategy
Current Issue Operations Strategy People Hiring Performance Management Turnover
Current Issue Strategy Customer Experience People Development Omnichannel Self-Service White Papers
Operations Strategy Customer Experience People Technology Artificial Intelligence
Strategy Customer Experience People Turnover
Current Issue Operations Customer Experience People Hiring Engagement White Papers
Strategy People Hiring Development
Rather than removing all physical presence, technology and digital software need to be integrated into in-store offerings to reduce the pain points of either channel.
Strategy Customer Experience People Engagement Technology Artificial Intelligence
Current Issue Operations Strategy Customer Experience People Performance Management Engagement Technology Omnichannel Artificial Intelligence
Current Issue Operations Strategy People Technology Data Security
Current Issue Operations Strategy People Technology
Current Issue Operations Strategy
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