Beyond Philosophy
DECEMBER 20, 2017
Consumer confidence is a funny thing. It is little more than a feeling, and yet it drives millions of dollars in business—especially around this time of year. A recent JLL Retail survey revealed that consumer confidence is high, making the outlook for the holiday season holly jolly. Now, to be fair, Consumer Confidence is the aggregate for 5,000 U.S. households’ feelings.
Myra Golden Media
DECEMBER 15, 2017
Today I delivered a customer service workshop in Chicago. When we broke for lunch, three of the attendees invited me to a vegan bistro. Of course, I was thrilled to join them! Over lunch, one of the ladies told me, “I almost never take my vacation time. I prefer just to cash out and get a lump sum payment.” The mother in me couldn’t keep quiet.
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Call Center Weekly
DECEMBER 14, 2017
By Rinku Basu Over the past few years, customer services have been taken to astonishingly new heights. ‘Meeting expectation’ is no good anymore, surpassing expectation is the only modus operandi for existence. To our advantage, with the advent of digital technologies and social media, reaching out to the consumer market and creating a positive brand experience has become less strenuous.
ShepHyken
DECEMBER 27, 2017
The other night, I was out with some friends. We were at a well-known place, listening to music and relaxing. One of my friends said she wanted something chocolate, so she ordered a piece of chocolate cake. A few minutes later it arrived, and she took her first bite. You could tell by looking at her facial expression that she was not happy. She said it tasted very dry.
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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
Contact Center Pipeline
DECEMBER 7, 2017
Social customer service has come a long way since I first wrote about it in Pipeline eight years ago (“The Impact of Word of Mouth in the Web 2.0 World,” June 2009). There have been huge leaps forward in awareness, mindset and technology, despite some lingering challenges that businesses as yet have failed to address […].
Customer Contact Central brings together the best content for Contact Center and Customer Service professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Beyond Philosophy
DECEMBER 19, 2017
Every time I go back to the UK I feel like I took a step back in time. The Customer Experiences I have in the UK are not as good as I have in the USA, now there is evidence to back this up. Per the 8th annual “ Customer Experience Excellence Study” published by KPMG Nunwood, shows that Customer Experience in the UK is lagging. Ten-thousand respondents ranked brands’ Customer Experience based on six categories.
Myra Golden Media
DECEMBER 3, 2017
There are four attributes of empathy, and I teach each of these characteristics in my Empathy eLearning course. One of the characteristics is, communicate your understanding. When your customer is upset, or frustrated, you could communicate your understanding this way: “I realize you’re upset. I’d like to take a minute to talk about what I think happened, and then answer any questions you might have.”.
Call Center Weekly
DECEMBER 5, 2017
By Anna Sabryan We in customer service know how important our role is. Many companies compete to have the best service, and periodically innovate to catch up with ongoing changes. Customer service, at times, changes at a rapid pace. Customer service via social media used to be a very important part of online activities. However today, many intelligent assistants, or bots, can deliver many services.
ShepHyken
DECEMBER 13, 2017
For many years, I’ve shared the concept I call the One Thing Question. The idea is to ask a customer, “What’s one thing you can think of that would make doing business with us better?”. I love this question because it’s all about how a company can improve in virtually any area. Some customers might suggest product improvements. Some might suggest a way to improve the system.
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Contact Center Pipeline
DECEMBER 27, 2017
Of all the things employees despise, end-of-year performance appraisals (PAs) are at the top of the list. The Washington Post has research to support that “basically every single person hates performance reviews.” Regardless of how we arrived here, leaders are no longer bound to the mistakes of the past. When conducted well, the end-of-year review […].
Peter Lavers
DECEMBER 11, 2017
In our new guest blogger Jason Grills ’ first instalment of this blog , he shared four great customer service training ideas that will refresh your support service and take it to a higher level. Here are the remaining four! #5 True or False Quiz. This activity is one of the best ways of improving the team spirit, especially when it comes to recently formed teams.
Beyond Philosophy
DECEMBER 14, 2017
Do you believe it is the Customer Experience you provide that makes customers loyal? If you do, I am sorry to be the one to inform you that you are wrong. I have been a global Customer Experience consultant for fifteen years, since before Customer Experience was even a thing. As a result, I thought I knew everything there was to know about Customer Experiences.
Myra Golden Media
DECEMBER 8, 2017
In this article I show you what empathy is using an experience with my teenage daughter, and then I deliver 4 tactical ideas you can apply right now to express empathy: Put yourself in your customer’s place, Sense the Situation From the Customer’s Perspective, Discuss What’s Upsetting the Customer, and Coming Up with Ways to Fix the Problem.
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Call Center Weekly
DECEMBER 11, 2017
By Melodee Norris How easy is it to deliver exceptional customer service consistently to every customer, every time? Super simple when the customer is polite and nice, right? It is natural to mirror how we are being treated so when a customer is courteous and kind, good customer service is delivered. Once a customer becomes challenging, confrontational or rude, it can be very difficult to resist what comes natural, resulting quite often, in a poor customer experience.
ShepHyken
DECEMBER 29, 2017
This week we feature an article by Patrick Thuot who shares an infographic about how customer service can help the retail industry. A customer-centric approach can help any type of business succeed. – Shep Hyken. With the proliferation of the Internet and the ubiquity of smartphones, tablets, and laptops, the whole retail industry has experienced huge disruption.
Contact Center Pipeline
DECEMBER 21, 2017
There have been significant changes in the social media world over the past eight years, for sure. New networking sites have emerged, and others have disappeared. But it’s safe to say that social media will continue to expand and evolve—and that customers will increasingly turn to social channels to get the attention of the companies […].
Steve DiGioia
DECEMBER 4, 2017
do you still care about customer service or is it all about the money This original article was written by Steve DiGioia. Being in the hospitality business for over 20 years, I have seen some of the best and worst at their trade. But the dining experience sure has changed…. From the hardworking, studious college kid that was very driven and worked as a waiter 6-days a week to put himself through school; the gravelly-voiced divorced mom of 4 grown kids that needed to pay her bills and get her lif
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.
Beyond Philosophy
DECEMBER 11, 2017
Are you the kind of person who hums along to “Jingle Bell Rock” in the supermarket? Does it make you want to fill your cart with cookies and egg nog? When you hear “Winter Wonderland” at the mall, do you think of sleigh rides and warm nights by the fire? Do you feel excited to start your holiday shopping? Or are you one of those who wish they’d just play something else – anything else?
Peter Lavers
DECEMBER 8, 2017
This is the first instalment of a 2-part blog from our new guest blogger Jason Grills – welcome Jason! No matter what type of business you run, apart from quality product or service, you will also need a reliable and efficient support service to retain your customers in the long term. It is your main way to communicate with both potential and loyal customers.
CX Global Media
DECEMBER 28, 2017
Coaching is the #1 agent experience focus for 2018. Yahoo! At least it is as stated in CCW’s Executive Report Contact Center Priorities for 2018. I am thrilled to see the importance of people development being a lead focus for 2018. I am just praying that this year we will not see many of the people development intentions fade or never come to fruition like I’ve seen happen in the past.
ShepHyken
DECEMBER 5, 2017
Create a Culture Where Employees Come First. Shep Hyken Interviews Terry Cain and Steve Church, Co-authors of “The Pinwheel”. How would you like to create a culture and working environment that is better for your employees, which in turn is better for your customers? Shep Hyken sits down with not just one but two guests, Terry Cain and Steve Church.
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!
Contact Center Pipeline
DECEMBER 19, 2017
Happy Holidays! I am taking some idiom liberties in this last month of 2017. “Joy to the World” isn’t exactly an idiom, but it will do to frame my year-end message of JOY and extend my wishes for the contact center world. For the holiday and beyond, I have 10 wishes for contact center professionals […].
Myra Golden Media
DECEMBER 13, 2017
How did 2017 go for you? Employees still struggling with how to control calls with unreasonable customers? Your customer experience still not where you know it needs to be? Still trying to get your people to convey empathy? I know. The struggle is real. The real question is: how will you gear up to make 2018 better? Let me give your people the tactics, skills, and inspiration they need so they can deliver experiences that make you feel proud.
Beyond Philosophy
DECEMBER 6, 2017
Small changes, or nudges, having a big impact on people’s behavior is one that everyone in the behavioral economic community supports and heralds as the latest great idea. However, this great idea isn’t working for everyone. In particular, nudges don’t seem to be making much headway in medication compliance. When a patient doesn’t take their medicine properly, doctors call it “noncompliance.
Kristina Evey
DECEMBER 5, 2017
LISTEN to your Customers. Listening. We all know how to do it… but few know how to do it well … and it could be driving your customers away if you don’t do it well. Listen well and you’ll increase sales and customer loyalty. Even though communication involves two parts – speaking and listening – I believe that listening is actually 2/3 of successful communication.
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CX Global Media
DECEMBER 13, 2017
There are 3 different generations of chatbot technology found in contact centers, websites, or in an APP experience. Learning about the different chatbot technologies will help you to avoid making uninformed decision that lead to bad chatbot performance and poor customer experiences. You can always find yourself on the right path if you are ready to answer these 3 questions for your executives.
ShepHyken
DECEMBER 1, 2017
This week we feature an article by Stephanie Jones about the importance of human interaction in the customer service world. While bots are helpful in many ways, the human touch is still so imperative, and so craved by the customer. – Shep Hyken. Robots are cool. I watched “The Jetson’s” as a kid and was obsessed with all the tasks robots handled. George could get showered and dressed with one robot.
Contact Center Pipeline
DECEMBER 12, 2017
Contact Center managers and business owners who have invested in sophisticated unified communications networks typically understand the urgency of maintaining a skilled, consistent and well-seasoned staff to use these networks. Businesses owners should therefore do whatever is necessary to draw superior talent from a wide pool of knowledgeable workers—and to keep those talented agents long-term—in […].
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