ShepHyken

MARCH 6, 2023

Top Takeaways: Human-centric CX design is all about communicating with customers, and this goes beyond a one-off survey. It is about regularly speaking with customers directly to deeply understand the customer. It is uncovering where they’re benefiting from your product and identifying barriers or pain points that they are experiencing. Bringing engaged customers who are utilizing your products and services into the design process can help shape great outcomes for your company.

Feedback 331

Feedback Customer centricity Contact Center Surveys 331

Steve DiGioia

MARCH 20, 2023

“So, you’re telling me that THIS customer is more important than all the rest?” And that I should give them preference over everyone else that walks in the door?” Read 3 Reasons Why Successful Teams Earn Your Trust. “But they’re a VIP” , she kept on saying. Now she’s starting to annoy me… I was having a conversation with a few of my old hotel friends and we were discussing some of the silly things that have happened to us over the years.

Sales 182

Sales Customer Service Management 182

ShepHyken

MARCH 10, 2023

This week, we feature an article by Kathleen White, a business manager who helps organizations improve career opportunities and employee engagement. She writes about how companies can adopt a remote workforce and enhance customer service delivery. There’s no doubt that there are challenges to providing remote customer services, but with careful planning, they’re easy to overcome.

Customer Service 306

Customer Service Employee engagement Customer Support Management 306

CCNG

MARCH 8, 2023

As a contact center leader, you’re always looking for ways to improve performance and keep your agents happy. Despite the creativity of your approaches or the generosity of your rewards and incentives, you've likely come across a particular challenge: apathy. As soon as an agent starts “just going through the motions” rather than engaging with customers, interaction quality plummets—and so do customer satisfaction scores.

Morale 195

Morale Contact Center CCNG Agent burnout 195

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

Savvy B2B marketers know that a great account-based marketing (ABM) strategy leads to higher ROI and sustainable growth. In this guide, we’ll cover: What makes for a successful ABM strategy? What are the key elements and capabilities of ABM that can make a real difference? How is AI changing workflows and driving functionality? This Martech Intelligence Report on Enterprise Account-Based Marketing examines the state of ABM in 2024 and what to consider when implementing ABM software.

Enterprise

Callminer

MARCH 29, 2023

More businesses are deploying call center analytics. Read this blog to learn how your current or future call recorder can prime you for effectively implementing conversation intelligence.

Analytics 182

Analytics Call Center 182

JustCall

MARCH 16, 2023

A customer may forgive and forget a bad product, but they will never forget poor customer service. After all, people always remember how you made them feel. Customer support is notorious for not being helpful. Big brands like Amazon, Costco, Zappos, etc., are beloved by their customers owing to their wonderful customer support. And if you’re one of those businesses guilty of taking your customers for granted, then it’s about high time to reevaluate such a self-destructive strategy.

Customer Service 98

Customer Service Morale Customer Support Revenue potential 98

CCNG

MARCH 15, 2023

In theory, the more channels available, the less that voice — and therefore humans — will matter. But people still want to connect with people. With all the investment in technology and AI in call centers, where does that position human-to-human conversations? Omnichannel technologies, defined as those which provide a seamless customer service experience across channels, have seen major growth in popularity over the past few years.

Call Center 195

Call Center CCNG Self service Surveys 195

Nicereply

MARCH 14, 2023

Being a support manager is a demanding job that requires constant learning. These 17 books contain critical lessons that every support manager will benefit from. Every customer support manager has a busy life. Priorities are constantly competing. But one should stand strong among all the others: to keep on learning. And what better way to expand your knowledge than picking up a book?

Management 98

Management Call Center Metrics Entertainment 98

ShepHyken

MARCH 8, 2023

I love hearing about complaints and problems that are solved to the point that the customer wants to tell the world about the experience. That’s exactly what happened to Bill Paretti, one of our faithful Shepard Letter subscribers. He was so excited about what happened that he shared it with me, hoping I would share it with you. Here’s the short version of the story, followed by my commentary and the lesson we can take away from his experience.

Marketing 296

Marketing Personalization Customer Service 296

Advertisement

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.

Contact Center

Callminer

MARCH 31, 2023

Bruce McMahon, VP of Product Management, highlights CallMiner's latest platform enhancements, including new speaker measures by talk time percent and duration, and hierarchy filtering in Alert.

Management 352

Management 352

Beyond Philosophy

MARCH 18, 2023

Fads come and go. From Tamagotchi’s to fidget spinners, we have seen plenty come and go. However, one fad that will never go out of style is treating your employees as the valuable resource they are. So, to answer our own question, Employee Experience is not just a fad and is definitely the future of a successful organization. We are fired up about this today because one of you, Praveen Kumar is in a pickle and he asked for our help.

Customer Experience 221

Customer Experience Management 221

Lumoa

MARCH 9, 2023

In the world of customer experience, “customer empathy” is not just a buzzword, it’s a game-changer. Put simply, it means genuinely caring about the experience your customers have with your brand. And when you master this skill, you can create an emotional bond that sets you apart from the competition. Let me give you a real-life scenario of how it works in general.

Customer Experience 158

Customer Experience Accountability Customer Service Customer Care 158

CCNG

MARCH 1, 2023

When you strip a song down to its base, you end up with a simple acoustic version, free of overproduction or electronic distractions. The most striking example of this for me is Eric Clapton’s version of “ Layla ” from MTV Unplugged. When you strip a contact center down to its base, you end up with one-on-one human experiences: customers talking to agents.

Customer Service 195

Customer Service CCNG Average Handle Time Contact Center 195

Advertisement

Understanding and improving your customer experience (CX) can have a massive impact on your bottom line. Choosing the right voice of customers (VoC) solution is a critical step to elevating CX. Frost & Sullivan researched more than 50 leading VoC vendors, analyzing both their “innovation index” and “growth index” to independently select the top 10 performers in each of these categories.

Analytics

Myra Golden Media

MARCH 22, 2023

After three years, I’m back on set with my team at LinkedIn Learning to record two courses! My mornings start in the chair with celebrity makeup artist/makeup artistry career educator Tania Russell, who makes me feel like a queen! Following that, I’m in the green room to fluff out my fro and pray, and finally, I’m on set with my talented director and content producer.

Education 156

Education Customer Experience 156

ShepHyken

MARCH 27, 2023

Each week, I read many 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. 3 Digital Marketing Strategies That Can Improve Customer Retention by John Hall (Forbes) What happens if you gain 10 new customers but lose 20 from your existing client base?

Customer Service 57

Customer Service B2B Customer retention CRM 57

Callminer

MARCH 20, 2023

Gaining a deeper understanding of customer loyalty and the benefits it holds is an important first step to take towards developing your customer base. This article will help you do that and more.

182

182

Beyond Philosophy

MARCH 16, 2023

I’ve followed the American Customer Satisfaction Institute (ACSI) results since I started Beyond Philosophy in 2002. Guess what? It’s at an all-time low for the last 17 years. When you consider all the resources organizations and individuals have put into customer experience and the voice of the customer, I wonder… was it worth it? We asked Forrest Morgeson, assistant professor of marketing at the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University and the director of resea

Technology 221

Technology Marketing Self service Customer Experience 221

Advertisement

CX leaders are in a gold rush for AI, lured by the promise of cost savings and a revolution in service delivery. But simply deploying AI in your contact center isn't a magic bullet. There are hidden dangers that can derail your AI dreams. Recent incidents, such as the missteps of an AI chatbot deployed by Air Canada, have underscored the complexities and risks involved in leveraging AI in customer-facing roles.

Contact Center

Fonolo

MARCH 16, 2023

Your contact center may run like clockwork, with engaged agents answering calls quickly, solving problems, and creating satisfied customers in record time. But without the contact center KPIs and metrics that managers use to measure the effectiveness of their operations, you’d never know for sure. KPIs matter. And they’re changing quickly. We asked contact center industry influencers to share their insights into the changing role of KPIs and shine a light on new metrics to watch.

Contact Center 151

Contact Center Average Handle Time First call resolution Metrics 151

Contact Center Pipeline

MARCH 31, 2023

As we close out the first quarter of 2023, our readers are focused on the future. Tiffany guides us on how to up our workforce management game. Tim shares valuable lessons learned from the pandemic and how best to move forward in the new normal.

Management 29

Management Employee engagement Cloud contact Contact Center 29

Myra Golden Media

MARCH 22, 2023

I feel icky writing this post. Last week I had to practice what I teach. My team enrolled a repeat client into our online De-escalation Academy, which we do every day for customers around the globe. But something went wrong. Instead of getting our standard welcome email with login details, each of the 51 employees was bombarded with around 70 emails, all featuring the same welcome!

Customer Service 156

Customer Service Customer Experience 156

ShepHyken

MARCH 14, 2023

Or, In a recent Shepard Letter , I discussed the Trust Gap , which is the difference between an organization’s belief that their customers trust them and the percentage of customers who actually do. I’ve covered different gap concepts in the past, and it’s time to add yet another to the list, and that is the Loyalty Gap. By the way, this is a perfect time to mention International Customer Loyalty Month, which happens every year in April.

Customer Service 273

Customer Service 273

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!

Customer Experience

Callminer

MARCH 15, 2023

Read this blog to better understand conversation intelligence, how it works, its benefits, and what to look for when selecting a conversation intelligence platform.

182

182

Beyond Philosophy

MARCH 11, 2023

I have been watching the American Customer Satisfaction Index for over 20 years. Many years, there wasn’t anything too surprising in the report. However, recently there has been, and it isn’t good news for most organizations. After nearly two decades of investment in customer experience, only 20 percent of organizations have managed to improve their customer satisfaction scores—leaving the vast majority, 80 %, having failed to do so.

Marketing 44

Marketing Customer Experience Management 44

The Northridge Group

MARCH 14, 2023

If healthcare managers and small-to-medium-sized business (SMB) healthcare practitioners can agree on anything, it’s that acquiring new patients is both costly and challenging. Conversely, retaining existing patients is far more achievable and economically viable, especially in the ultra-competitive modern healthcare marketplace. There are many different tactics that health providers can use to improve patient retention rates in 2023.

Healthcare 145

Healthcare Technology Self service Analytics 145

Fonolo

MARCH 2, 2023

No stranger to change, the contact center industry has been ahead of the curve throughout the global pandemic. We consulted nine industry experts to tell us all about it – and discuss the state of the contact center in 2023. Word: Contact centers are technology leaders! While the world was pivoting from on-site to hybrid and remote workspaces, contact centers were also embracing cloud technology and upskilling agents to be among the first-generation of AI-native workers.

Contact Center 141

Contact Center Self service Chatbots Consulting 141

Advertisement

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.

JustCall

MARCH 23, 2023

Introduction CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software refers to a tool that businesses can use to record and store key customer information to use when building a relationship with leads or prospects. CRM helps streamline your work. It aids you with better management of your sales and marketing clients by clubbing your workflows, business processes, and client interactions into a single-view interface.

CRM 132

CRM Sales Customer retention Metrics 132

ShepHyken

MARCH 21, 2023

Top Takeaways: Failing to listen to the customer communicates apathy and rudeness. It tells the customer that you do not care enough to engage. Heather Younger shares her 5-step framework on how to listen better: Recognize the unsaid. Look at the nonverbal cues. Listen for pauses and voice inflections. Sense what is happening in the environment. If you don’t recognize what your customers are not telling you, you leave blind spots that hinder you from fruitful listening.

Feedback 200

Feedback Customer Service Customer Experience 200

Callminer

MARCH 8, 2023

Read this blog to learn how to use the customer retention rate formula, common variations, and how you can put it to use in your organization.

Customer retention 182

Customer retention 182