‘Metrics’ is a hot word in the world of contact centers. These data sets are a major part of what companies use to better understand their clients and consumers, as well as to examine the work of their own agents. Call center analytics and reporting is a key element of success for any center hoping to continually improve and grow. How involved are your management staff in call center analytics and reporting? How are important metrics used in your center to improve perfor...

Does your inbound call center software need an overhaul? It can be easy to get into a rut with your software. If something has been working for you for the past few years, why change it? The truth is, a new decade is upon us and with it will come advances in technology that your center should be at the forefront of. If you don’t want your competitors to leave you behind in 2019, it’s time to take a fresh look at today’s best inbound call center software. You won’t k...

Are you ready for the new year? How about being ready to sail into a new decade, as you will be doing when the calendar turns over to 2020? If you’re not sure that you - or your contact center - are ready, perhaps you need some help planning for the future. Moving forward in time means moving forward with the way you’re doing things at your center. Technology is always changing and methods are always evolving along with it. Successful call center planning means taking th...

Take a look at your call center’s agents’ desktop. Are there multiple windows? Do various prompts lead them from one program to another, distracting them from the work they were already focused on? Is it easy to navigate from the call interface to the instant messaging or email interface and back? If these questions leave you wondering how your agents can get anything done, it might be time to consider a consolidated desktop. Too many contact centers suffer from decrease...

For outbound contact centers, obtaining more sales is a constant struggle. Even if you have a consistent flow of leads coming in, transforming those leads into actual sales can be difficult. It isn’t impossible, though - you just need to give your approach a facelift to ensure your agents are always putting your business’s best face forward! Why Do You Need to Go After Outbound Sales? The obvious answer to “why do you need outbound sales” is to keep your business af...

Today’s most successful businesses are using the power of SMS messaging to great effect. Many customer service companies and business processing organizations believe that they can’t be part of this trend - but that isn’t true! There are myriad ways to make use of SMS in your customer service strategy. The bigger problem for these organizations is that they often don’t understand SMS integration. Thankfully, some of those same famously popular and successful brands w...

The idea of new technology for your contact center can be exciting. Actually launching that technology? Not so much. Why do so many call center managers balk at the idea of introducing new software and programs in their facilities? A big part of the reasons is because the user adoption process can be slow and arduous. Far too many centers suffer major declines in productivity and profitability due to problems implementing new technology. If you want to bring your center up ...

What is your contact center’s customer effort score? Many of today’s most successful call center’s don’t just know the answer to that question - they know why it matters. Not sure if you’re among their number? Just check out this handy guide to the customer effort score and why it matters for your center. You’ll soon be a master of making customer service effortless for those you serve! What is the Customer Effort Score? If you aren’t already tracking your cen...

Does your contact center have sufficient staff? This is something that many growing centers struggle to determine; are there enough agents on the payroll to efficiently handle daily operations without stressing the labor budget? If you’re in the market to add to your staff, doing so may seem like a daunting task. There are so many things to consider when improving your hiring practices and so many reasons why you shouldn’t add too many agents at once. Taking all of these...

You know your contact center agents work hard. You’ve seen them in action. But do you know how effective their hard work really is? How productive are your agents? It can be hard to determine how efficient their efforts are when you’re only seeing part of the big picture each day. Having a call center performance scorecard - and a sensible way to collect the information you need for one - is your best bet for getting a better idea of your agents’ true level of efficien...