08 Mar How To Ensure Your Customers Get The Right Answer
The right answer benefits both your business and your customer. It's especially good when that answer comes via the first contact....
Agent Training/Retention
08 Feb Can Generative AI Like ChatGPT Provide Value to Contact Centers?
For the customer service industry, how can generative AI tools like ChatGPT impact the future of contact centers?...
01 Feb Contact Center Revenue: How Value Creates a Profit Center and Cost Reducer
The negative nickname of ‘cost center’ applied to contact centers works against the success of quality customer service. Recognize opportunities for contact center revenue and cost reduction. This helps get bosses on board with investing in customer service as a profitable sales tool. ...
25 Jan Contact Center Work From Home vs Hybrid Work and the Return to Office Struggle
There’s a lot of talk around the work from home and return to office debate. What’s fueling it and where it’s happening is part of the discussion. But does this debate apply to the contact center work from home model? ...
18 Jan Digital Customer Service vs Human Customer Service: Is it All or Nothing?
Digital customer service options are able to help manage the support challenges businesses are facing. The question is, should they be the only options customers have? ...
12 Jan 2023 Customer Service Trends: What the Data and the Pros Have to Say
The new year brings new trends besides inflation, staffing issues and severe weather. The contact center and customer support industry continue to evolve. Data and customer service professionals have insight into 2023 customer service trends and the reasons behind them....
04 Jan Segmentation of Holiday Customers and Key KPIs
You survived the holidays and you’ve got new customers! Now what? To make the most of these new relationships use segmentation of holiday customers to your advantage....
14 Dec Customer First: Is It Always the Best Policy?
A customer first policy is not always best, even for the customer, when it’s missing key components for success....
08 Dec Non-value Added Work in Contact Centers: Identifying and Removing the Waste
Streamlining saves money and time in contact centers or customer service departments just like in any other area of business. That time is more profitable when spent on value-added activities that improve customer experience and product offerings or on efficient actions that support these. ...
30 Nov The 2022 Holiday Season Customer Service Staffing: Keep the Agents You Have
Research released in November found 45% of businesses are having trouble staffing contact center and back office roles. For the 2022 holiday season customer service staffing it’s critical to keep the agents you have during your most profitable season. ...
23 Nov Thanksgiving: 10 Ways to Say Thanks to Your Customer Service Agents
It’s Thanksgiving week! Time for family get-togethers, big meals and Black Friday. You can help your agents feel valued. In a time where retaining quality employees is vital, remember to thank your customer service agents, now and all year round:...
17 Nov Automation: What’s Missing in Your Customer Service Strategy
Customers are leaning into automation and 95% of contact center leaders are using or plan to use automation in the next year. If you’re one of them make sure you’re using quality automation in your customer service strategy....
02 Nov CX and EX KPI Trends: How Inflation and the Great Resignation have Changed Customer Service Metrics
Times, they are always a-changing. No longer silently taking poor treatment, employees and customers have pushed back against companies: employees via the Great Resignation, and customers with changing brand loyalty. Inflation in the US is at a decade high on the heels of two already...
26 Oct Turnover in Call Centers – Why So Much?
Per The Quality Assurance & Training Connection (QATC) 2018 study, turnover in US contact centers alone is "between 30-45% which is more than double the average for all occupations in the U.S." Intense. There are many reasons why there is so much turnover in call centers. ...
19 Oct Phrase Based Models for Customer Service QA Automation and Agent Training
Phrase based models use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning which allow AI to derive meaning from human language. This is a powerful customer service technology in multiple ways....
12 Oct A Chat about QA Tools and Process
Posted at 05:00h
in Agent Training/Retention, Customer Satisfaction Blog, CX Journey, Favorites, QA Automation
What goes into a quality QA process? Updated October 2022 (Originally posted February 2019) Grab a cup of tea, coffee or liquid of choice and let’s talk quality assurance. It’s not the most exciting topic but a vital one to your company’s longevity. There are...
05 Oct Nudging for Improved Customer Experience and Agent Performance
Nudges don’t remove freedom of choice, they make a certain choice more attractive. The aim is to make those preferred choices beneficial to the chooser. We’re not focusing on negative nudges or those meant to manipulate for the benefit of another party. In the case...
31 Aug Customer Service Job Projections and New Bureau of Labor Statistics Report
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their newest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) yesterday. A new report but not much new movement: minimal change in openings, hires, and separations (which include quits, layoffs and discharges) for July compared to June 2022. However, in...
10 Aug 8 Ways to Reduce Agent Churn and Build a Positive Customer Service Environment
According to a Salesforce report from February 2022, 71% of agents have considered leaving their jobs in the previous 6 months with 86% saying they require more from their companies in order to stay. Are you using the following methods to reduce agent churn and...
27 Jul Empathy Metric in Customer Service: Managing Empathy Fatigue and Inauthentic Empathy
Don’t underestimate the power of the empathy metric in customer service. To get the most out of this metric though, you need to manage empathy fatigue and avoid using inauthentic empathy that backfires....
29 Jun 5 Points for Effective Contact Center Agent Feedback
Jimi Hendrix loved to fling his guitar around to get weird and wonderful sounds from the feedback.” Jimi Hendrix and his guitar virtuosity aside, we are focusing on their business use of the word feedback: information about something such as a new product or someone's...
21 Jun The Art of Communication in Contact Centers
Latency, language differences, awkward auto-corrects, improper use of emojis (no, the poop emoji is not chocolate and 'LOL' doesn’t mean lots of love): there are many challenges for communication in contact centers with omnichannel customer access. Upgrade your approach to communication. ...
07 Jun An Unhappy Customer Service Agent is More Than a Meme
An unhappy customer service agent is more than a meme, they are a person with difficulties that have solutions.Customer service whether it is as a content moderator, contact center agent or customer sales rep is emotionally taxing....
12 May Help Your Agents Stay Energized at Work
Ann started her day with a double espresso and a quick lap around the block, but by 2pm she has been staring at the same customer service ticket for ten minutes and can’t remember what her last action on it was. She’s so tired she...
21 Apr CX and EX: Balancing Company Policies And Customer Service Agent Needs
Yeah, we know. Relationships are hard. But human beings (and businesses) don't do well on an island alone. Build your CX and EX together....
16 Dec Offshoring Contact Center Operations In A Multilingual World
Remote and offshore work is a growing field with projections of growth to $19.5 Billion by 2025. Let’s look at the reasons, benefits and challenges of offshoring contact center operations in a multilingual world. ...
01 Dec The 2021 Holiday Buying Season – Employee Shortages, Angry Customers and Rising Costs
The 2021 holiday buying season is riddled with post-pandemic challenges including. Let’s look at the current crazy state of affairs....
12 Aug Goals: Save Money in Contact Centers
Posted at 09:35h
in Agent Training/Retention, Customer Satisfaction Blog, CX Journey, Favorites, QA Automation
Research shows it’s not worth sacrificing quality for speed, though. Average Handle Time (AHT) as a tool to organize and estimate rather than to motivate agents is more advantageous. This HBR article by Pete Slease, Rick DeLisi and Matthew Dixon argues that AHT is the...
14 Apr Gain Ground Managing Hybrid Contact Centers
Another group that was shown to be lost in the shuffle of remote work is Gen Z. The Microsoft report revealed this group was more likely to feel isolated, struggle with making a quality home work environment and feel less connected with work. As the...
01 Apr QA, CX and EX for your Remote Customer Service Team – We Can Help
Make managing your remote customer service team easier with CSAT.AI....
18 Mar Crisis as Catalyst: Managing Your Remote Customer Service Team
When we put out our blog last week on facing changes we didn’t yet know how big they would be. This week we are in a new paradigm due to COVID-19, where remote work is a necessity. For some of you this may be new...
11 Mar Face the Changes in CX and EX in Customer Service
Businesses must evolve as the people who work them and those who buy from them evolve. Changes in CX and EX in customer service have to come at the speed of change in the world as a whole....
19 Feb Humor Creativity And Empathy In Customer Service: Know How To Read The Room
Using soft skills like humor, creativity and empathy in customer service, agents are able to change a mediocre customer experience into a memorable one. ...
05 Feb CSAT.AI for Customer Experience and Quality Assurance, Your New Best Friend
Posted at 07:00h
in Agent Training/Retention, Customer Satisfaction Blog, CX Journey, Favorites, QA Automation, QA Metrics
Welcome to CSAT.AI for customer experience and quality assurance, your new best friend. With this innovative tool QA monitoring is automated, covering all of your chat and email interactions. CSAT.AI supports your agents with real time feedback enabling them to provide excellent customer experience....
15 Jan 4 Ways To Avoid Post-holiday Burnout In Customer Service Agents
Conceptual photo illustrating burnout syndrome at work...
20 Nov Stop the Churn and Burn of Customer Service
High stress, low wages, abuse. We’re not talking about indentured servants, we’re talking about customer service. Unfortunately, customer service agents are often treated badly. It’s time for businesses to take responsibility for the environment their employees work in by reducing employee harm....
11 Oct My Personal Customer Service Story: Empathy and Support Inspire Innovation
One of the things I feel most strongly about is that customer service professionals should never ever be sworn at, demeaned or abused...
09 Oct Happy Customer Service Week – Celebrating Employee Engagement with The Ritz
Happy Customer Service Week! Last week in prep for #CustomerServiceWeek2019, we celebrated customer service successes. This week we are celebrating the power of employee engagement with The Ritz-Carlton. Employee Engagement Experts and reports agree, treating employees well is linked to business success. As Micah Solomon states in...
02 Oct The Feel Good Moments: Celebrating Customer Service Successes
In Hubspot’s recent The State of Customer Service in 2019 report, they mentioned the earliest recorded customer complaint from 1750 BCE. Wow. This industry has some history. What about the feel good moments? In preparation for Customer Service Week we’re celebrating some customer service successes...
25 Sep The Customer Experience Time Loop: Give Information, Get Transferred, Repeat
Are your customers caught in a customer experience time loop? Your customer facing AI solutions, like chatbots, never tire of repetition. However, your customers and agents do....
21 Aug Disrupting Gender Inequality in Call Centers
Gender inequality and unequal pay have come to light with the help of things like the #MeToo movement and detailed worldwide studies on the state of gender disparity. These issues are common in the call center and contact center sector. How do we go...
14 Aug Creating Company Culture to Strengthen Customer Service Agent Support
Customer service agent support is key. Agents have a tough job. Let’s be honest, the work is repetitive and dull. These are human beings tethered to a headset at a desk for hours listening to people complain. There are many demands from supervisors and executives....
07 Aug Human and Machine are Best Together: AI enhances CX
There is the doom and gloom approach that AI will take over jobs and dehumanize the experience. When used strategically, AI enhances CX, and shows human and machine are best together. ...
31 Jul 3 Ways Contact Center Agents are Abused
Abuse is not high on the list for most job seekers, customer service employees included. Though there are many reasons for agent turnover in contact centers, one cause is harassment from customers. Here are three ways contact center agents are abused and tools to improve...
12 Jun How Creative Brands Make Customers Feel Good
If you make customers feel good they are likely to stay and more likely to share, like, subscribe, re-post and buy more....
29 May The Power of Streamlining Customer Experience
I love how technology has streamlined consumer life. Amazon prime provides shopping from home and delivers purchases within hours. GrubHub delivers food to the doorstep of over 19 million users. What an upgrade from epic store lines, waiting weeks for a package, cooking and getting...
24 Apr Marvelous Customer Experience with Higher, Further, Faster Service
Posted at 07:00h
in Agent Training/Retention, Customer Satisfaction Blog, CX Journey, Favorites, QA Automation
Captain Marvel is not only a powerful super heroine, her catchphrase has business applications - higher, further, faster. Take some tips from this superhero’s motto and raise your customer service game....
11 Apr How Top Brands like Virgin Build Company Culture
You can teach employees a slogan or a marketing soundbite, but what company culture truly is beneath the polish is the foundation upon which the company soars, or falls. It is what people feel about a company and how they talk about it when the...
03 Apr Employee Engagement, CX and Happiness
Employee engagement and CX are powerfully connected. Empower employees with information and invest in them as people for great customer experience and business....
20 Mar Trends in Customer Experience show Agents Need Support
45% of agents don’t feel they have sufficient tools for success. Why is that? How can you support your customer service agents and improve customer experience?...
13 Mar Customer Service Agent Scoring and Actionable Data
Posted at 07:00h
in Agent Training/Retention, Customer Satisfaction Blog, Favorites, QA Automation, QA Metrics
“Too much information, running through my brain…” The Police have it right. We're drowning in the amount of info available to us. However, what use is data that isn’t sifted or that comes too late? In customer service it means loss of clients and...
16 Jan Reasons Not to Use a A Customer Service Script
Despite her best performance, the customer service script Jessie was required to use didn’t win her an Oscar and it didn’t answer the customer’s questions. Though they have some useful applications there are reasons not to use a script in customer service....
19 Dec The Customer Service Gig
Sick of hearing about the gig economy yet? If you haven’t heard the term likely you’ve been living under a proverbial rock. Is the gig economy rising? That depends on which source of data you read. Still, the customer service gig is rising. Tell Me What You...
28 Nov Don’t Assume your Customer Service Agent is an Idiot
If your customer has been through the online FAQ, searched the product manual, tried finding a solution on Youtube but still needs help, their next step is a call to your customer service team. The quality of agent service they receive reflects directly on your...
14 Nov Don’t Assume Your Customer is an Idiot
“Have you tried turning it off and on again?” The phrase spoken by many IT pros and made even more famous in the Britcom The IT Crowd. The character Roy has repeated this question so much he made a recording of it that he plays...
10 Oct Contact Centers – The Unsung Heroes of Customer Service
“The Buck Stops Here”. Former POTUS Harry S. Truman had that saying on his desk as a reminder that when it came to ‘passing the buck,’ (an expression that means passing the blame) he was the very last stop. Where businesses are concerned, contact centers and...