Looking to improve customer experience in your contact center? Here are six suggestions you might not have considered yet: Visualize Your Own Ideal Customer Experience One unique way that some of the world’s best-performing customer service agencies are creating great customer experiences is by first mapping out what they believe those experiences would be. While that sounds simple, it’s a collaborative effort that requires the input of multiple team members - and the a...

Dealing with human beings is one of the biggest downfalls of the customer service industry. What do we mean by that? Consider how many times you’ve seen someone get upset at a retail worker or food service professional over something relatively minor, watching as the employee did their best to defuse the situation. It seems that some people are just easily upset by anything less than ideal service. That discerning taste for flawless customer service is perhaps one of the r...

Your call center leads are like potential money in your pocket. When you view them as such, you can see just how important it is to follow up properly on each and every one. However, your leads are also living, breathing human beings - not just dollar signs. You have to nurture the relationship you have with each of them the same way you would with your friends or relatives. How can you balance these two seemingly diametrically opposed types of relationships? How can you hav...

When artificial intelligence - or AI - was first being introduced into the world of customer service, many people wondered how long it would last. Some thought it might be a passing fad, while others were certain it was doomed to be a flash-in-the-pan trend that would quickly fade with many others that have come and come. However, AI has proven its staying power and its relevance in both the customer service industry and the contact center setting overall. With the next deca...

Today’s contact centers have to move at lightning-fast speeds. When you think about the number of connections modern call center agents make on an average hourly basis, it’s astounding - especially in comparison to those made by the typical person in an office setting or another professional environment! It only makes sense that so many of these facilities rely so heavily on call center automation to make it all happen. Call center automation has evolved tremendously sin...

Contact center managers are always on the hunt for new approaches to agent performance evaluation. While there is no right or wrong way to assess your employees, there are some methods that may be better suited to your staff and facility than others. If you’re looking to shake up the way you appraise your employees, you may want to try a method that views and assesses your team members as individuals rather than simply numbers on a list - and gives them meaningful feedback...

Your center is in the business of customer service. You know that to keep things running smoothly, you need to regularly evaluate how well you are serving those customers. What you might not know is how to choose the best way to assess your customer satisfaction levels. With so many options for surveys and feedback opportunities for your consumers, it can be difficult to decide which one is the best fit for your center. Here, we’ll talk about one of the most popular and on...

As with any business, your contact center likely makes maximizing your return on investment - or ROI - a priority. When you pour money into your company, you expect to see some kind of return on that expense. Depending on what you’re spending and why, the return may range from greater consumer interest to literal profits - it all depends on how you measure success. Here, we’ll discuss how to evaluate, measure, and increase your return on investment and use call center te...

If you are in the contact center industry, you’ve undoubtedly heard of business process outsourcing. In fact, you may have even heard your own line of work referred to this way. However, there are marked differences between the two. Understanding those differences and how the two are related and play into one another can help those who are interested in being part of the customer service or business process outsourcing fields thrive well into the future. Let’s examine bu...

People who are cheerful and sound chipper on the phone are more successful as contact center agents. That’s a fact that is easy to understand. After all, wouldn’t you be happier as a consumer to interact with someone who sounded happy to speak with you? The problem is most people who work in call centers either field or make hundreds or even thousands of phone calls every day. Often, these calls are very similar in their pattern or scripting. This makes the work tedious ...