CrazyCall

APRIL 16, 2019

Close your eyes, lightly fall asleep and recall this exact dream…. You are a business owner. Your business relies on calling, maybe you have a call center, do you? Your agents provide excellent customer service, thus your customers are happy to be your customers. Nice, right? Let me tell you. It doesn’t have to be a dream. There is an actual way to make sure the service your agents provide is on-point and your customers’ level of satisfaction is top.

Best practices 70

Best practices Call Center Scripts Customer centricity 70

CX Accelerator

APRIL 23, 2019

In 2007, I moved to the United Kingdom. This amazing life adventure opened my eyes to cultures, languages, and opportunities I had never experienced in America. Upon arrival, it was clear my American English was not going to cut it in the UK. I immediately started hearing words I didn’t understand, and I’m sure my word choices created some confusion.

CRM 140

CRM Technology Customer Service Personalization 140

VHT

APRIL 9, 2019

The financial industry is unique for many reasons. Among the primary differentiators is the substantial amount of regulations that have been put in place to protect consumers seeking financial services. One of the fundamental responsibilities of any financial services provider is to avoid potentially risky activities and to ensure that there is regulatory compliance at every level, including the customer-facing contact center.

Contact Center 48

Contact Center Interactive Voice Response Personalization Service level 48

ShepHyken

APRIL 3, 2019

“Smile and the world smiles with you.” That is part of a longer quote attributed to Stanley Gordon West. It became the topic of conversation while on a New York subway with my daughter, Alex, when I noticed her smile at someone who, in turn, smiled back. I complimented her on the small but kind gesture, and it started a great conversation about life and customer service.

Sales 333

Sales Customer Service Personalization 333

Advertisement

A high-quality customer experience creates loyal customers for years to come and makes for an easy win against businesses that are competing on other factors like price and quality. We partnered with ContactBabel to uncover the biggest hurdles businesses face when trying to improve CX and offer practical suggestions to overcome them.

Technology

Beyond Philosophy

APRIL 4, 2019

Brands are everywhere. Everybody feels like they understand what brands are. However, when we ask the fundamental questions of “What is a brand?” and “What does that mean?”, there’s a surprising amount of variation in opinion. Branding is a critical topic in Customer Experience. We discussed where branding and Customer Experience interact and prioritize in a recent podcast.

Call Center 326

Call Center Consulting Consulting Benchmark 326

Myra Golden Media

APRIL 1, 2019

1. Label the Employee’s Emotional Reaction. When you merely label what you think your employee is feeling, you show your understanding while at the same time expressing empathy. Labeling is just naming what you observe. Don’t judge or harp on the issue. Here’s what labeling looks like. “It sounds like you disagree with my perception of you coming across as terse.” “It seems like you feel this expectation is unfair.” Most employees respond to successful l

Morale 276

Morale Coaching Feedback Management 276

Steve DiGioia

APRIL 1, 2019

As I lay in bed, coughing and sneezing from a cold, dreading even going to the kitchen for a glass of water because of aches and pains from my unseen tormentor, I’m comforted knowing, “boy, I’m sure glad I didn’t have to go to work today”. But what if I did? How would I be able to serve my customers with these rotten cold symptoms? That’s the question every service provider must answer on those days when we’re not at our best.

Airlines 269

Airlines Customer Service 269

Contact Center Pipeline

APRIL 4, 2019

In the increasingly crowded business landscape, there are a few specific focuses that organizations can invest in to give themselves a boost in attention and customer loyalty. Customer experience (CX) is an area that can provide both this increased attention and help maintain customer loyalty—that is, when CX is done the right way. In fact, […].

Customer Experience 190

Customer Experience Analytics Contact Center Call Center 190

ShepHyken

APRIL 2, 2019

Getting Service Right with Guest Jeff Toister. Taking Care of Your Employees So They Take Care of Customers. Shep Hyken interviews Jeff Toister. They discuss his book, Getting Service Right: Overcoming the Hidden Obstacles to Outstanding Customer Service , and Jeff offers immediately applicable advice on how to improve your customer service. In Shep’s Opening Monologue… He discusses the importance of caring for your employees so they can better care for your customers.

Customer Service 324

Customer Service Personalization 324

Advertisement

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.

Technology

Beyond Philosophy

APRIL 18, 2019

If you give people the option to shop somewhere that only had a few choices or another venue with a wide selection, people almost always go for the larger selection. However, sorting through options can feel overwhelming. Too many choices in your Customer Experience are a terrible thing. Of course, too little choice is not great either. We discussed the issues with too many options in a recent podcast and what you can do to make customer’s decisions easier in your Customer Experience.

Construction 319

Construction Benchmark Consulting Consulting 319

Callminer

APRIL 2, 2019

We are well within the “Age of the Customer”. The first step toward competing successfully in this era is capturing the voice of the customer.

Analytics 254

Analytics 254

Myra Golden Media

APRIL 2, 2019

Your communication ability, leadership strengths, ambition, and people skills got you this promotion. Now comes the hard part – dealing with conflict, giving feedback, toxic employees, and managing your time. You can’t lead your company in delivering exceptional customer experiences if you don’t get first the people management down.

Construction 239

Construction Feedback Management Customer Experience 239

Call Center Weekly

APRIL 24, 2019

By Diana Aviles I’ve chatted with speech analysts from all walks of life. They speak many languages and are versed in different speech analytics solutions. Despite the fact there are some differences in approaches, we can all agree on the one thing, we consistently struggle to get our organizations to understand: you still need to listen to the calls.

Analytics 175

Analytics First call resolution Education Customer Experience 175

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

As prospects define their problem, search for solutions, and even change jobs, they are generating high-value signals that the best go-to-market teams can leverage to close more deals. This is where signal-based selling comes into play. ZoomInfo CEO Henry Schuck recently broke down specific ways to put four key buying signals into action with the experts from 30 Minutes to President’s Club.

Best practices

TechSee

APRIL 2, 2019

Today’s contact centers face a daunting challenge. The explosion in connected devices and the prevalence of online shopping mean that millions of products are now shipped daily, With online commerce projected to pass the $3 trillion mark in 2019. And with 51% of Americans now preferring to shop online, the pressure on customer support operations is about to increase exponentially.

Contact Center 174

Contact Center Average Handle Time B2C B2B 174

ShepHyken

APRIL 10, 2019

One of our Shepard Letter subscribers, who asked to remain anonymous, recently shared a story worth telling. To protect him from the backlash he’s concerned about, we’ll change his name to “protect the innocent,” as the saying goes, just in case someone from his company reads this. So, we’ll just refer to him as Bob. As part of his onboarding process, Bob was put through customer service training.

Customer Service 315

Customer Service Personalization Customer Experience 315

Beyond Philosophy

APRIL 28, 2019

What Customer Emotions Drive the Most Value. 15 years ago, in Munich, I was asked a question I couldn’t answer when presenting to an insurance company. The person asking understood what I was saying about evoking the proper emotions in a Customer Experience. No, he wanted to know how much money he would get back by investing in my idea. I didn’t know.

Customer emotions 316

Customer emotions Consulting Consulting Marketing 316

Callminer

APRIL 22, 2019

Learn more about PCI compliance call recording and transcription and read expert tips and best practices for PCI compliance in the contact center.

Best practices 207

Best practices Contact Center 207

Advertisement

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.

Customer Experience

Myra Golden Media

APRIL 8, 2019

I got my first management title when I was twenty-six years old. The person I’d beat out for the position had been with the company 26 years, and in one hiring decision, this woman, who wanted my job, become my direct report. She’d been with the company since before I was in kindergarten. And now I was her boss. Nobody said my new management job would be easy.

Morale 229

Morale Call Center Education Management 229

Contact Center Pipeline

APRIL 16, 2019

Businesses are facing ever-increasing risks of fraud and cybercrime. Every day brings more reports of security breaches and compromised customer data. Cybercriminals are clever and quick to find new ways to steal customers’ and employees’ personally identifiable information, which can be used to commit fraudulent activities ranging from spamming to accessing online accounts to extortion. […].

Accountability 164

Accountability Personalization Contact Center Call Center 164

TechSee

APRIL 10, 2019

In the highly competitive telecom industry, customer experience is a critical factor in building and maintaining a competitive advantage. A recent report by Forrester takes this concept one step further by proving that improving customer experience in telecoms delivers a boost to all KPIs. Drive Revenue with Great Customer Experience 2017 indicates that after the auto industry and upscale hotels, telecoms has the third highest potential for increasing revenue by improving CX.

Customer Experience 154

Customer Experience Customer centricity Interactive Voice Response Wireless 154

ShepHyken

APRIL 5, 2019

This week we feature an article by Irina Kirnos who writes about how chatbots are customer experience tools that are changing the way that companies interact with their customers. Chatbots are more than just automated FAQ answer generators. These virtual customer experience tools are transforming the way that companies interact with their customers in the contact center environment.

Chatbots 301

Chatbots Customer Experience Cloud contact Contact Center 301

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.

Beyond Philosophy

APRIL 8, 2019

Whenever I talk about Customer Experience with audiences, I begin by explaining that customers do not buy things rationally. Customers buy things emotionally and then justify the purchase with logic. Irrationality and data don’t mix. However, there are ways that people’s irrational behavior reveals a rational pattern in the data. Let’s take a look at actionable insights about people’s irrational behavior as customers and the importance of the human touch in a digital transformation.

Surveys 315

Surveys Self service Consulting Consulting 315

Callminer

APRIL 3, 2019

Analytics 196

Analytics 196

Myra Golden Media

APRIL 29, 2019

Last week I shared my 3-Step De-escalation strategy at a Salesforce Trailblazers conference in Minneapolis. You know you’re creating value in a presentation when people start taking photos of your slides, Q & A is endless, and when your Twitter feed is aflutter with comments, compliments, and questions. I gave the audience my 3-Step De-escalation Strategy: Recognize, Reframe, Resolve.

227

227

Contact Center Pipeline

APRIL 17, 2019

Building powerful and engaging customer experiences through the contact center requires several important ingredients—just-in-time and in-context analytics, artificial intelligence for self-service and after-contact work, seamless omnichannel options for customers, and fair, accurate scheduling. But one of the most critical components are the contact center agents themselves.

Contact Center 153

Contact Center Customer Service Self service Analytics 153

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.

Customer Experience

ProProfs Blog

APRIL 30, 2019

We at ProProfs bring to our readers a thought-provoking conversation we had with Shep Hyken , the Customer Service and Experience Expert. He is the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations. A bestselling author featured on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, he has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in the speaking profession.

Customer centricity 153

Customer centricity Journey mapping Chatbots Customer Support 153

ShepHyken

APRIL 24, 2019

Surprise and delight is a great customer service concept. Or is it? The concept behind surprise and delight is to surprise the customer with a level of experience that they weren’t expecting. Obviously, it should be a positive experience. Otherwise, the concept would be called surprise and disappoint. Nobody wants that! A while back, I interviewed Matt Dixon on Amazing Business Radio about the wonderful book he co-authored with Nick Toman called The Effortless Experience , where they cover the s

Customer Service 299

Customer Service Customer Experience 299

Beyond Philosophy

APRIL 25, 2019

Brands have already begun using facial recognition technology in their Customer Experience. Walmart and KFC use facial recognition technology. Passengers on Delta check in for flights in the Atlanta airport using facial recognition. Even my phone password is my face. Technology also exists that captures customers’ authentic emotion measurement using facial recognition software.

Technology 296

Technology Entertainment Consulting Consulting 296