June, 2016

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Killers of Corporate Life

Beyond Philosophy

There are 2 killers of corporate life – speed and politics. Let me give you some background. Before setting up Beyond Philosophy I spent most of my career working in large corporate companies, climbing the ladder of success. I reached the exalted heights of SVP leading a team of 3,500 people globally before I left to start Beyond Philosophy, a customer experience consultancy, back in 2002.

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The Customer’s Perception Is the Only One That Counts

ShepHyken

What does your company or brand stand for? When you advertise or market your company and your products, what is the image that you’re trying to create? What is your brand promise ? I Googled the definition of the term brand promise and here is what came up first: A brand promise is the statement that you make to customers that identifies what they should expect for all interactions with your people, products, services and company.

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Dare to Dream Big: A New Employee Success Guide

Steve DiGioia

This original article was written by Steve DiGioia. Countless studies have shown that the key to a successful employee, one who excels at his/her job, is motivated to perform at his peak and one that will have the best interest of the company at heart, is a properly run and dedicated new employee onboarding and orientation program. During my career I have been personally responsible for the development and facilitation of new employee orientation classes, one-on-one training/coaching sessions an

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How Does Collections Analytics Improve Agent Performance?

Callminer

Think, for a moment, about the last time you had an exceptional experience as a customer. What stood out to you? What do you remember the most?

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Turn Your Contact Center Into a Profit Machine with AI

Every year, $75 billion is lost to bad customer service — and your business could be bleeding loyalty without realizing it. AI is rewriting the rules. Imagine instant answers, 24/7 self-service, faster resolutions, and skyrocketing satisfaction scores. Companies like Amazon are already cashing in, and the technology is easier than you think — plug, play, and profit.

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How Many of Your Customers Have Suggestions for Improving Customer Experience?

PeopleMetrics

As a customer experience company, we field a lot of questions from prospects about customer feedback. In fact, it’s common for prospects to have a system for collecting feedback—from rudimentary snail-mail surveys to online survey platforms. But it’s uncommon for them to have a system for acting on that feedback. Here's the thing: If you’re not acting on customer feedback, then there’s not much reason in collecting it.

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Retail’s Worst Nightmare – Virtual Reality!

Beyond Philosophy

Over the past few months, some retailers have been experimenting with virtual reality. With sales lagging, they‘re hoping that in-store virtual reality experiences will be the magic ingredient that lures shoppers back. Now, though, eBay has announced that it is launching the world’s first virtual reality department store. eBay’s new venture is being rolled out in Australia in partnership with Australian retailer Myer, and it requires nothing more than a free smartphone app and a pair of cardboar

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Five Reasons Your Company May Fail at Customer Service

ShepHyken

Customer Service Culture. There are a number of reasons that companies fail at customer service. As I read dozens of articles each week, numerous books on the topic throughout the year, as well as conduct some of my own research, there are some very clear reasons. Sometimes it’s not what you are supposed to do, but what you should avoid doing. If you’ve been following my work, some of this may seem like a review, yet we must constantly be reminded of these reasons.

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Encouragement = the “Miracle Grow” of Employee Morale

Steve DiGioia

This original article was written by Steve DiGioia. Complaint after complaint is heard about today’s workforce; they are lazy, spend too much time on social media while on-the-job and they have no work ethic. Employee morale is at an all-time low. True or not, it is a fact of business. Today’s employees; regardless of their social status, geographic makeup or millennial segmentation, face a vastly different work environment that those of 30-40 years ago.

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3 Ways to Automate Customer Service with Human Connections

Win the Customer

One of the big challenges for brands using social media for customer service —and also making an effort to proactively reach out to customers with live chat and chatbots on their website—is striking a balance between customer service automation and real human connections. If you’ve ever taken a science class, you’ve probably heard of the triple-beam balance.

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State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

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Instant Satisfaction: How to Meet Rising Customer Expectations

Return Customer

As Internet speeds increase and technology becomes more sophisticated, customer expectations of companies’ online performances have also risen. In 2015, 47 percent of U.S. corporate executives said their customers’ service expectations were higher than three years ago, while 35 percent said they were much higher. Nearly two-thirds of these companies said it was somewhat or very difficult to please customers, while 77 percent agreed the Internet and consumer apps were raising the bar

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Coaching: The Radical Next Steps

Contact Center Pipeline

Remember when “coaching” was represented by reports shoved in front of agents with lots of red circles accompanied by motivating messages like, “Good quality, but you need to get that adherence rate up to speed!”? If not, lucky you! Today, most of our contact centers have well-defined performance metrics. This data is readily available, and […].

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Uncover The Specific Emotions You’re Evoking

Beyond Philosophy

I’m happy to report that more and more companies realize that emotions are significant to the Customer Experience. It’s an excellent first step. But it isn’t enough. Thinking that emotions are important in Customer Experience, or even that positive emotions are important to our Customer Experience isn’t enough. In general, business needs to get specific about the emotions in their Customer Experience.

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Seven Ways to Properly Give a Gift to Your Customers

ShepHyken

The After-Experience. Congratulations to my buddy John Ruhlin who has a new book that just came out, Giftology. In this book he covers the art of the appreciation gift. You may be familiar with his name if you’ve been following my work. I’ve covered some of his ideas in the past. He’s a rock star when it comes to understanding how to make people feel special and appreciated.

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Next-Gen Cloud Contact Centers For Dummies®

What does customer service excellence look like in 2024? According to our report with insights from CX expert Shep Hyken, customer expectations are at an all-time high, and there’s a bigger shift toward self-service and leveraging AI capabilities.

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Your Hotel SHOULD Sweat the Little Things

Steve DiGioia

have you forgotten the attention to detail? This original article was written by Steve DiGioia. A recent overnight hotel stay proved to me that just because one aspect of a business runs well doesn’t mean that all the others do too. Hotel franchisees must follow strict adherence to marketing, branding, RevPar, etc. all with the intent of satisfying the “flag standards” and providing the guests with a focused message of quality and service.

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4 Ways Improving Customer Relationships Can Help Build Your Brand

Win the Customer

Today, brands can use social media to strengthen brand awareness, create customer loyalty, and build lasting relationships with customers. Customer loyalty is becoming more and more elusive, especially in our contemporary world. Before online transactions and exchanges became the norm, retailers were able to foster physical, and, at times, emotional interactions and connections with consumers.

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Marketing Solutions to More Actionable Insights

C3Centricity

Marketing depends upon actionable insights to satisfy and delight their customers. How comfortable are you with your own process and the actionability of the results? Insights are the holy grail that all businesses seek but rarely find. Are you one of them? If so then I have some tips on how you can get better [.]. The post Marketing Solutions to More Actionable Insights appeared first on C3Centricity.

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Digital Strategies Driven by Customer Experience

Contact Center Pipeline

An interesting finding from Dimension Data’s “2016 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report” is that, for the first time, customer experience has surpassed cost reduction as a primary reason for offering digital channels (73.7% vs. 67.9%). “There is a massive focus in the industry to try to push customers toward digital, not just to reduce costs, […].

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The Ultimate Blueprint for an AI-First Contact Center

Start building the AI workforce of the future with our comprehensive guide to creating an AI-first contact center. Learn how Conversational and Generative AI can transform traditional operations into scalable, efficient, and customer-centric experiences. What is AI-First? Transition from outdated, human-first strategies to an AI-driven approach that enhances customer engagement and operational efficiency.

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More shocking news about Airbnb!

Beyond Philosophy

Airbnb, the home sharing site that says you can “Belong Anywhere,” is suffering! They have now launched legal action against San Francisco over a new law that would require it to delist hosts who have not registered their living spaces. Furthermore, New York could ban Airbnb users hiring out apartments. Recently, though, Airbnb have also been caught up in a wave of claims that its independent hosts discriminate based on race.

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Validate Your Customers Decision to Do Business with You

ShepHyken

My effort to make the sale is validated when the customer chooses to do business with me. Then it is just as important, if not more so, for me to validate my customer’s choice to do business with me through what happens after the sale. I’ve been thinking about the concept of validation for a while. This is where the customers validate your efforts in persuading them to do business with you.

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The 3 Customer Service Skills of Brilliant Support Teams

Kayako

This is a guest post by Lindsay Willott, founder of Customer Thermometer. I recently read the unputdownable The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, famed founder of tech VC Andreessen Horowitz. In one chapter Ben describes how, during his time at Netscape, he became frustrated with his product managers. So he created a document called “Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager” which crisply laid out the behaviours of good product managers, and juxtaposed those with the behaviours of

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Modern Conveniences Your Online Customers Expect

Win the Customer

From automated purchasing and shipping to simple returns and mobile-friendliness, these are the modern conveniences your online customers expect from your business. Today’s customer expects a lot. Online shoppers expect even more. And their expectations should not be ignored. In the United States alone there are more than 191 million online shoppers.

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The Ultimate Contact Center Buyers Guide: A Crucial Decision

Harness the True Power of your Contact Center In today’s fast-paced business environment, selecting the right contact center solution is critical for enhancing customer experience, improving operational efficiency, and optimizing costs. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the essential factors to consider when choosing a contact center software that aligns with your business needs.

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New Thinking, New Ideas, New Successes!

C3Centricity

Things have been pretty hectic for me these past few weeks. As you read this, I am in New York presenting at the CASRO Technology and Innovation Event, 6th to 7th June. If you’re attending the event, please stop me and say “HI”; it would be awesome to meet some of my Amercian readers! I [.]. The post New Thinking, New Ideas, New Successes!

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Don’t Push My Buttons

Contact Center Pipeline

It provides a sense of threat… that there is an “or else” at the end of that command! We live in a world where people feel entitled to operate on the premise that if you “dare” to “push my buttons” the offended party has the right to abandon all civil behaviors and punish you the […].

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It’s Easy! How To Attract Customers.

Beyond Philosophy

We all know that internet consumers have the attention span of a flea. If something doesn’t immediately grab their interest, they’re likely to be off to the next website within seconds. This is a challenge for companies that depend on their websites to attract and engage customers. If customers don’t like what they see, they’ll click away before the company has a chance to sell itself.

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When Improv Meets Business

ShepHyken

Customer Experience. I recently was invited by Pegasystems to attend Pegaworld 2016, their annual users’ conference. The conference was everything about CRM (customer relationship management). While there were some amazing demonstrations and stories that came out during the general and educational sessions, one lesson jumped out at me. It had to do with improvisational acting.

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9 Workforce Trends That Will Define 2025, According to Gartner®

Workforce challenges are accelerating, and leaders must be prepared. According to Gartner, “Executives today face a volatile business environment, sustained talent shortages, rapid technological advancements and intense change fatigue in the workforce.” 1 In 9 Future of Work Trends for 2025, Gartner reveals nine critical workforce trends that will define 2025 – from AI’s impact on productivity to evolving leadership roles and talent shortages.

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The 3 Customer Service Skills of Brilliant Support Teams

Kayako

This is a guest post by Lindsay Willott, founder of Customer Thermometer. I recently read the unputdownable The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, famed founder of tech VC Andreessen Horowitz. In one chapter Ben describes how, during his time at Netscape, he became frustrated with his product managers. So he created a document called “Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager” which crisply laid out the behaviours of good product managers, and juxtaposed those with the behaviours of

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Inside Customer Success: Moz

Amity

With more than 23,000 paying customers worldwide, Moz provides analytics software to track all of a website's SEO and inbound marketing efforts on one platform. We sat down with Ellie Wilkinson , the Senior Customer Success Team Manager at Moz, to discuss how Customer Success has evolved over the last two years. Can you tell us about your responsibilities at Moz?

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Nice to meet you! How well do you know your colleagues?

ijgolding

I recently wrote an article for my column on CustomerThink entitled ‘How Well Do You Know Your Customer?’ – the premise was around the significance and necessity of creating customer personas. You can read the article here. If you do not want to read it, the conclusion to the article was that there is most definitely a need for everyone in an organisation to have a clear understanding of who their customers are – the customer persona is a tool to make that understanding a reality.