December, 2020

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The 5 Rules of Measuring and Managing Customer Emotions

Beyond Philosophy

When I was in corporate life, my boss asked me to improve the Customer Experience and do it for the least cost. I remember thinking, “Ok. Sure, but….what is a Customer Experience?” Nobody knew back then. I defined it for myself as the mix of rational and emotional parts of an interaction with a customer, which later became my first book, Building Great Customer Experiences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).

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Managing Through COVID-19: A Roundup of Tips, Tools and Tech for Contact Centers

Contact Center Pipeline

We are finally at the end of a turbulent 2020. It has been quite a journey—with many more months of market uncertainty and workplace challenges ahead. Over the past eight months, like many of our readers, we have been forced to pivot our editorial coverage to focus on the impacts of COVID-19 on the contact […].

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The True Role of AI in the Contact Center

Fonolo

AI has been making a relentless assault on the contact center for several years. But it wasn’t until 2020 that its true role became clear. And — it’s not quite what you’d expect. Read All the Contact Center Trends Here: Contact Center Trends 2021. Contact Center Execs Had Been ‘Back-Burnering’ Upgrades. Artificial intelligence has been around for a while now, but many contact centers have yet to integrate it.

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Customer Service Lessons From the Best Unknown Companies

ShepHyken

I’m often asked what the best way to disrupt the competition is. The answer is to not compare yourself to the competition, but to the best companies from other industries. In my customer service speeches, I’ll sometimes ask the audience to share who their favorite and easiest companies are to do business with. The typical answers are Amazon, Zappos, Walmart and other recognizable brands.

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5 Ways You Can Win Faster with Gen AI in Sales

Incorporating generative AI (gen AI) into your sales process can speed up your wins through improved efficiency, personalized customer interactions, and better informed decision- making. Gen AI is a game changer for busy salespeople and can reduce time-consuming tasks, such as customer research, note-taking, and writing emails, and provide insightful data analysis and recommendations.

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Instantly regain control of a conversation and de-escalate using this technique

Myra Golden Media

When customers are venting, they’re stuck in the right side of the brain. We’ve talked about the right emotional brain and the Communication Chain. Here’s a tactic you can use to move on. Ask your customer three closed-ended questions back-to-back. Closed-ended questions are questions that can be answered in one word: “Do you like Italian food?” is a closed-ended question.

Analytics 348

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23 Best virtual team building activities for contact centers

CX Global Media

Updated and now with 30 virtual team-building activities. Here's your chance to build a vital skill for now and the future. Be a virtual team building expert by knowing how to keep your remote workforce engaged and motivated. The post 23 Best virtual team building activities for contact centers appeared first on CX Global Media.

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Reducing Customer Service Friction

Contact Center Pipeline

It has been months since the COVID-19 crisis suddenly shifted entire frontline teams home to work. Customer service operations in the hardest-hit industries are still struggling to perform at the most basic level. Customers have taken to social media and have even reached out to the media to share accounts of their time-consuming efforts spent […].

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This is the Most Significant Thing We Learned in 2020!

Beyond Philosophy

This is the Most Significant Thing We Learned in 2020! Like many people, we are not sad to see the year 2020 slip into the past. We look to ringing in the new year with happy anticipation of better things to come. With a vaccine headed to us all and a new appreciation for what we share when things are “normal,” we are all practically giddy at the prospect of sending this year off to the annals of history.

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The Story Tells the Story

ShepHyken

What’s your story? What reasons compel your customers to do business with you? What gets them excited about doing business with you? Consider this. If you’re selling a trip to Hawaii, you probably try to paint a vision of a day on the beach, an amazing luau and a beautiful oceanfront balcony that includes a gorgeous sunset. The story you don’t tell—at least I hope you don’t—is the one that includes the technical specs of the engine on the plane that’s flying you to that exotic location, the type

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The Contact Center Manager’s Guide to AI

Step-by-step instructions on how to use AI for growth in your contact center Learn how AI can transform your contact center operations. In this ebook, dig into the different AI technologies, then see how each can help automate tasks, streamline service, and turn your contact center from a cost center to a profit house. Plus, we’ll give you practical tips on choosing the right AI tools, getting them up and running, and measuring their impact.

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Another Way to Say ‘No’ to a Customer

Myra Golden Media

In my De-escalation Academy today, I taught how to politely yet firmly say ‘no’ to a customer. I call the method “U S A.” I’m sharing with you the very teaching from today’s workshop. Try out U S A and let me know how it works for you. For more ideas like this, check out De-escalation Academy. Practice the U S A Method.

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Contact Center Lessons Learned: How Will These Shape 2021 Plans?

CCNG

In a recent panel discussion with CCNG members on the topic of 2021 Contact Center Predictions, Ron shares a few perspectives learned from this year. First, companies found self service options inadequate – When COVID hit in March, many industries found their automated systems were inadequate to help handle call volumes. As companies moved to support remote workers, segmented shifts, etc. they too often found self service options inadequate in view of staffing challenges.

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Technical Reps or Agent Techs? The inter-changing roles of technical support and customer service

TechSee

“You’ve reached Service Enterprises. Your call is important to us. For sales support, press 1. For product support, press 1. For technical support, press 1. For account updates, help with installation, or billing activities, press 1.” While most IVR systems don’t sound like this yet, the possibility is not that far off. In reality, the lines between customer service agents and technicians have become blurred – the technician’s role includes some traditional re

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Leading the Virtual and On-Site Workforce: 10 Top Practices for Managers

Contact Center Pipeline

Coronavirus has accelerated the virtualization of call centers worldwide, supercharging a trend that was already underway. Well before the pandemic, Gartner was forecasting that 35% of customer experience workers would be working from home by 2023, while other experts noted that perhaps 25% to 50% already did. Midway through 2020, many businesses continue to struggle […].

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Gartner® Research: Boost Customer Service Performance with Smart Coaching Tools

Preparing for impactful coaching sessions shouldn't be a bottleneck to success. "Innovation Insight: Coaching Tech to Boost Customer Service Performance" from Gartner shows practical ways to turn this around. In the research, Gartner found that “customer service and support supervisors, who are responsible for coaching, often lack availability and only spend an average of 30% of their time on it.” 1 We believe this valuable resource offers an objective look at how technology can facilitate more

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Is Stress Becoming Intolerable?

Beyond Philosophy

I have a new book called Happy Employees Make Happy Customers. To summarize it, the book is about how Customer Experience exists within an ecosystem, and policies and procedures to manage it are not enough. If you want to have great experiences, you need to look out for your employees. If employees are happier, then they will provide better experiences for your customers.

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A Realistically Optimistic 2021

ShepHyken

As we close out the year, I thought I’d break from the traditional customer service and experience topics and get a little personal – maybe even a little motivational. I’m very optimistic about the future. But the word very doesn’t mean I’m overly optimistic. There’s a difference. Put another way, when I’m asked if the glass is half empty or half full, my response is, “Yes.

Finance 391
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Customer experience in 2021: Which trends are here to stay, according to top CX leaders

GetFeedback

COVID-19 catapulted CX to the top of company priorities—but are these trends here to stay? Find out three top findings from our recent CX study and discussion with senior CX leaders.

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2021 Reality Check – New Technologies Available in the Contact Center

CCNG

We all know that contact centers require a thoughtful balance of People, Process and Technology. The technology in a contact center, ideally, should support and enhance the other two components (People and Process). When it comes to technology, vendors are always pushing the next big thing. They can make it sound like everyone else has all of the new capabilities.

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The State of Digital Customer Experience Report 2024

This comprehensive report explores the evolving landscape of customer and business expectations, with five key trends that will help you understand your customers and stay ahead of the competition. Discover how your peers are implementing AI to improve customer experience with granular insights into their CX investments and specific AI use cases. For the first time, customers prefer digital channels when interacting with a business.

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What is Customer Vulnerability?

Callminer

Read this article to learn how to identify, support and retain vulnerable customers.

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Employee Engagement: 5 Lessons from a Pandemic

Contact Center Pipeline

How engaged people are in their work depends on a myriad of factors from corporate culture to manager behavior, from daily tasks to what’s going on in their personal lives. Google the term “employee engagement” and you’ll get 347 million results in less than one second, so it’s safe to say this is a topic […].

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Designing Country Culture into Your Global Experience

Beyond Philosophy

A few years ago, when speaking in Singapore, I asked my audience questions during my presentation, like I always do. To my surprise, nobody answered, and the presentation suffered for it. Later I learned that in Asia, standing up and answering a question in front of 100 people during a presentation was, from a cultural perspective, was considered rude.

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Employees Love the Story, Too

ShepHyken

Last week, I covered the idea of the story. Customers love to read the stories of other customers using the products they are interested in purchasing. Reviews are where they start. High ratings can turn into high interest. Customer commentary in the review—as in how much they are enjoying the product and how they are using the product—can push a potential customer to make the purchase.

Coaching 382
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Mastering Remote Onboarding: Proven Strategies for Seamless New Hire Integration

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

Join this brand new webinar with Tim Buteyn to learn how you can master the art of remote onboarding! By the end of this session, you'll understand how to: Craft a Tailored Onboarding Checklist 📝 Develop a comprehensive, customized checklist that ensures every new hire has a smooth transition into your company, no matter where they are in the world.

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Customer Experience Strategy Updates for 2021

CX Global Media

Customer Experience Strategy Updates for 2021 – CX Quick Tips on CX Global Media TV with James Dodkins While you might have thought your customer experience strategy updates were over for 2020, James helps you to ring in the new year with different perspectives on common CX discussions. And that’s why we love James. It’s […]. The post Customer Experience Strategy Updates for 2021 appeared first on CX Global Media.

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Top 4 Questions About De-escalation Academy Answered

Myra Golden Media

Last week I told you about De-escalation Academy, and immediately I got a ton of questions. You might have questions, too. So, I’m sharing the top four questions that I answered for new students last week. What is the total time commitment for the Academy? The total classroom training time is 75 minutes, spread out over four days. I build your employees’ confidence and guide them through getting angry customers to back down in short segments (no more than five minutes per piece).

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5 customer experience trends to watch for in 2021

GetFeedback

How to prepare for your customers' changing expectations in the New Year according to Forrester’s 2021 CX predictions.

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Happy Employees Don’t Just Happen: Here’s How to Create Them

Contact Center Pipeline

Happy employees are the best kind. They work hard, keep customers loyal, and stick around to help your organization accomplish its mission. You definitely want them on your team. This is true in the best of times, yes, but also in the worst of times. And right now—just a few months into a deeply disrupted […].

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How to Optimize Call Monitoring: Automate QA and Elevate Customer Experience

Speaker: Laura Noonan, Chief Revenue Officer at CallFinder + Angie Kronlage, Director of Program Success at Working Solutions + April Wiita, Vice President of Program Success at Working Solutions

Are you still manually reviewing calls? 🤔 It's time for a change! The traditional method of manual call monitoring is no longer cutting it in today's fast-paced call center environment. Industry experts Angie Kronlage and April Wiita from Working Solutions are here to explore the power of innovative automation to revolutionize outdated call review processes!

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Designing Country Culture Into Your Global Experience

Beyond Philosophy

Designing Country Culture into Your Global Experience. A dull and awkward presentation in Singapore many years ago taught me an important life lesson: One must know the local culture when presenting an experience to people to evoke the desired response. In this case, I didn’t realize it was going to be different to presenting in the USA or UK.

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Amazing Business Radio: Philippe Mesritz

ShepHyken

How Chatbots Can Deliver Better Customer Service. Leveraging Technology to Amaze Your Customers. Shep Hyken interviews Philippe Mesritz , Khoros ’ first VP, Customers for Life. They discuss how chatbots and other technology can help deliver a better customer experience. Top Takeaways: Now more than ever, it’s incredibly important to pay attention to your digital customer experience.

Chatbots 334
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Top Ten Worst Companies to Call in 2020 #onholdwith

Fonolo

2020 was the year that companies finally realized that nobody escapes a call surge. At first, we thought it would be unfair to measure companies in a crisis with the same yardstick we use in less ‘unprecedented’ times. But then again, life isn’t fair. And it isn’t fair to keep your customers waiting on hold endlessly — especially during a crisis.

Airlines 162