ShepHyken

MARCH 14, 2018

You have a problem. You call the phone number listed on the company’s website. You wait on hold for what seems much longer than the ten minutes they said you would be holding. You finally get to a customer service rep. You tell your story and the customer service rep responds, “I’m sorry, that’s not my department.” Then you’re transferred to someone else and the “game” of holding and telling your story starts all over again.

Wait times 286

Wait times Customer Service Personalization Management 286

Beyond Philosophy

MARCH 16, 2018

You know that old saying about what you make of you and me when you assume something? Well, it turns out, that economists made quite an assumption for years: that people were entirely rational in their decision making. However, they were wrong and we know they were because of the scientific method. Best of all, the truth is fairly simple and makes a lot of sense.

Consulting 267

Consulting Consulting Customer Experience 267

Callminer

MARCH 15, 2018

We decided to take a deep-dive into the latest debt collection industry figures and statistics to get a glimpse of the current state of debt collection.

207

207

Myra Golden Media

MARCH 12, 2018

I once chatted with QVC about the status of a return. I just wanted to confirm that my return was received, but I walked away from the chat session with a WOW reaction. The WOW started with this message from the Representative: “Ms. Golden, I’m so sorry the camcorder hasn’t been processed yet. I know you’re anxious to have this completed. The return processing time can take up to 17 days from the date an order is returned to QVC.

Personalization 196

Personalization Customer Service Best practices Customer Experience 196

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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

ShepHyken

MARCH 16, 2018

This week we feature an article by Marlene Caroseli who shares some great activities and questions to help customer service representatives improve their service and make the customers experience better. – Shep Hyken. Chip Bell is known for helping organizations create a customer-centric culture. He asserts that customers long to interact with—even relate to—employees “who act like there is still a light on inside.

Customer centricity 192

Customer centricity Personalization Customer Service Customer Experience 192

Call Center Weekly

MARCH 12, 2018

By Jacqueline Santiago Every employer should know they are at risk of high employee turnover, which is why employee engagement is so important. Implementing strategies is more than just providing surveys. You have to be fully committed by understanding the principles of employee engagement. Some of which are: C ulture L eadership P urpose A ction Tr ansparency C ommitment R ecognition The purpose is to have an engaged culture, which will make people stay, and go above and beyond what is expected

Employee engagement 167

Employee engagement Surveys Accountability Feedback 167

Myra Golden Media

MARCH 15, 2018

If you’re on a call with a customer, and more than three, or four seconds go by, and you haven’t said a word, that’s called dead air space. You’re working… you know that. But for the customer, dead air space feels awkward. So we need to learn the best way to fill the silent seconds. Today, I’ll show you five ways to avoid the uncomfortable dead air space. 1.

Customer Service 179

Customer Service Upselling Wait times Accountability 179

ShepHyken

MARCH 13, 2018

Engaged Employees Make Happy Customers. Are your employees engaged? Shep Hyken sits down with Julie Ann Sullivan, author of “Blueprint for Employee Engagement: 37 Essential Elements to Influence, Innovate & Inspire,” to discuss the impact that engaged employees can make on customers. . Top Takeaways: When employees feel like they are contributing to the company, they become problem-solvers and idea-makers.

Employee engagement 192

Employee engagement Customer Service Management 192

Callminer

MARCH 12, 2018

When you want to hear what your customers truly have to say, you are on the path to transforming your business.

Analytics 182

Analytics 182

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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

Contact Center Pipeline

MARCH 15, 2018

A crucial part of every company’s sales and service process takes place behind the scenes where a team of talented professionals helps to make every aspect of the customer journey possible. Although their work is less visible to customers, the back-office team provides vital administrative and support functions that contribute in no small way to […].

Sales 154

Sales Call Center Contact Center 154

Myra Golden Media

MARCH 15, 2018

I was chatting with a company about a price drop. I’d bought something for my Dad and had it shipped directly to his home. Two days after the shipment arrived, I saw on the company’s website that the price had dropped by $20. So I reached out over chat, and this is what I was told: “We are constantly looking for the best prices to offer our customers, and that sometimes means a lower price is featured.

Customer Service 174

Customer Service Personalization Best practices Customer Support 174

Call Center Weekly

MARCH 16, 2018

By Kathy Holdaway What does leadership look like when you are not the one in charge? How does your way of being, create a collaborative environment? How do you show up every day? Leadership starts with who you are on the inside. Being who you are, is the greatest gift we could ever receive from you. I wonder what practices keep you in tune with who you are, so that wherever you go, there you are.

Coaching 136

Coaching Consulting Consulting Personalization 136

C3Centricity

MARCH 15, 2018

Did the title about data make you curious? Great! Of course, in today’s data-rich environment I’m not really suggesting that you actually ignore it! However, in working with clients around the world and in numerous industries, I have found that many are lost by the wealth of information that is available to them. In fact it seems to drown out their reasoning of what to do and they remain frozen in indecision.

Big data 83

Big data Analytics Personalization CRM 83

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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

Contact Center Pipeline

MARCH 14, 2018

What does it take to improve agent satisfaction and retention? Today, one of the key topics of discussion in most contact centers is the high cost of agent turnover and the subsequent need to improve agent retention and engagement. While this has been a challenge in contact centers for some time, there are new aspects […].

Customer Experience 113

Customer Experience Contact Center Call Center 113

Myra Golden Media

MARCH 15, 2018

Psychologists talk about what they call the Communication Chain. The Communication Chain says that when a person puts out a verbal message, they expect a response to that message. That first message is a link in the communication chain. If there’s no response to the link, the chain is left unlinked or broken. Let’s say that instead of reading this email, you’re a participant in one of my workshops.

Personalization 166

Personalization Customer Experience 166

Call Center Weekly

MARCH 14, 2018

How can tone, in written form, affect customer experience? The tone you use in your writing to customers—whether in email, live chat, social media, or text—can make or break the customer experience. If your company’s marketing brand voice is fun and friendly, but your customer service voice is scoldy, scripted, or legalistic, you’ll be giving customers a bad, or at least a confusing, customer experience.

Scripts 136

Scripts Marketing Customer Experience Customer Service 136

TechSee

MARCH 13, 2018

Artificial Intelligence was the talk of 2017. The hype was generated by successive breakthroughs in multiple industries, such as self-driving cars, smart assistants, etc., as well as a PR blitz by some of the leading technology enterprises. The customer service industry, in particular, pinned high hopes on AI, expecting that upon its introduction to the market, smart machines would truly transform the customer experience.

Customer Service 95

Customer Service Chatbots Virtual Agent Technical Support 95

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

Contact Center Pipeline

MARCH 13, 2018

There is no question that skilled agents offer the best opportunity to save unhappy customers who are at risk of leaving. But how do you help customers, and retain them, if you never hear from them? Today’s tech-savvy customers prefer self-service over phone calls, and they’re more likely to seek answers to their questions within […].

Self service 100

Self service Contact Center Call Center Customer Experience 100

ShepHyken

MARCH 12, 2018

Each week I read a number of 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. How to Design a Stellar Customer Experience by Michal Maimaran and John Schroeder. (KelloggInsight) The Zappos of the world are redefining expectations.

Customer Service 99

Customer Service Big data Technology Customer Experience 99

Aspect

MARCH 14, 2018

Last Thursday on International Women’s Day I attended the Washington University’s Olin Business Schools – St. Louis Leadership Perspective | The “She” Suite: Celebrate International Women’s Day with Women in the C-Suite and in Leading Roles. While there I was reminded, once again, just how valuable community events like this are and how they absolutely make me a better leader, mother, friend and colleague.

Technology 104

Technology Analytics Personalization Management 104

TeleDirect

MARCH 12, 2018

Success in real estate depends on a host of factors. Capitalizing on timely ventures doesn’t just happen by accident. You’ll note that many of the top real estate firms consistently earn high marks for customer service, revenue ranks, market share, and more. So what’s their secret to success? One underrated aspect – yet nonetheless critical – of high achievement in the real estate industry has to do with business process outsourcing (BPO).

Real estate 94

Real estate outsourcing Call Center Business Process Outsourcing 94

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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.

Customer Guru

MARCH 15, 2018

At Customer Guru, we believe that Customer Experience (CX) should be the number one priority for all the Indian businesses so that they become more sustainable and successful globally. Thus, we are on a mission to spread this awareness, inspiring and guiding professionals to adopt and inculcate a customer-centric approach. We are certain that this is a first step to help organizations WOW their customers and create raving fans for themselves.

Customer centricity 85

Customer centricity Customer Service Chief Customer Officer Marketing 85

VocalCom

MARCH 12, 2018

The contact center is, without question, an intense environment. To keep agents organized and focused, managers may present them with a rigid protocol. However, good management is only part of ensuring agent success. Agent empowerment is equally essential, and that means giving agents a voice when establishing contact center practices. Listening to their customer experiences and allowing them some autonomy when delivering service can empower them to do their best work.

Contact Center 91

Contact Center Agent Empowerment Interactive Voice Response Contact center software 91

aircall

MARCH 16, 2018

Our 2018 customer support strategy survey was sent to 475 industry leaders. Some questions were straightforward. What is your annual budget? Do you employ remote agents? How large is your customer support team? All surveys were anonymous, so we can be confident that these answers were honest. Nowhere was this more apparent than the final question — an open response form.

Customer Support 88

Customer Support Brand ambassadors Morale Surveys 88

Kayako

MARCH 14, 2018

In all the best practices and how-to’s, it’s easy for a small business to get lost with applying every customer service tip. You don’t have the budget of Amazon or the resources of Nordstrom. Forget a 50-person department dedicated to customer support – you don’t even have fifty employees, period. Does that mean tiny businesses don’t have what it takes to provide amazing customer support?

Customer Support 86

Customer Support Best practices Benchmark Metrics 86

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Customers expect to be able to interact with your organization whenever and however they want. They also expect your agents to have insights into their journeys so that they don’t have to repeat themselves as they move through various channels. And, if they’re not able to, they just might find one of your competitors who will offer the flexibility they are looking for.

Customer Experience

360Connext

MARCH 15, 2018

The world is fast. Technology invades every part of our lives, both in good and possibly not-so-good ways. As we rely ever-more heavily on the communication tools of any trade today, like email and texting, we crave more emotional and human connections to break through the clutter. In customer experience, a personal touch can go a long way to improve a typical touchpoint in the B2B journey.

B2B 81

B2B Consulting Consulting Personalization 81

Nexmo

MARCH 13, 2018

The collaborative power of embedded communications and the efficiency of bot automation can yield significant increases in workplace productivity. The cognitive resources that artificial intelligence can bring through bot integrations can take productivity to an even higher level. Now Vonage and Converse.AI have combined all these technologies to automate the development of communications-enabled workflows.

Technology 81

Technology Chatbots 81

Return Customer

MARCH 14, 2018

You probably already know how important the voice of the customer is for your business, but are you placing equal importance on finding the time to read them? Reading your reviews can do wonders for your business, and in this post, you’ll learn why. Here are three critical reasons to be reading your customer reviews. 1. You’ll Gain Invaluable Insight.

B2C 77

B2C Feedback Personalization Sales 77