22 Mar What Are the QA Metrics and Terms in a Call Center?
QA metrics are important for gauging and maintaining quality and thereby customers. Contact center analytics can track and parse many of these alphabet soup metrics....
Favorites
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. ...
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...
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. ...
31 May 5 Reasons Why Surveys Suck and New Empathetic Ways to Improve CSAT and NPS
You’re eager to get back to your long delayed project and then get hit with a survey. Even worse, you’re hit with a survey while trying to get your answer.The point is surveys suck and here are five reasons why....
24 May Uber Banning Bad Customers: Is that Good Customer Service?
An abusive agent is detrimental to a company, and so is an abusive customer. Is booting the bad ones, lik Uber is, good customer service? ...
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....
18 Nov QA Workflow Planning with Sample Workflows
QA is, in part, meant to align customer facing service with company goals. An effective CX Quality Assurance workflow reflects those goals with respect to company size and resources. Questions to consider when developing these workflows include:...
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...
10 Sep Saintly Customer Service in a Survey World
I called AAA to get a car towed last month, the subcontractor who moved the car was fantastic - everything that I could possibly want in a tow-truck driver on what was (obviously) a bad day. After he had backed the car into my narrow...
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. ...
12 Feb Customer Love Benefits Both Sides: Appreciation Is The Chocolate In CX
Do you love your customers? Do they know it? Customer love nurtures your B2C relationships....
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....
22 Jan CX Futurism Customer Service Buzz
Futurism: “concern with events and trends of the future, or which anticipate the future.” ...
15 Jan 4 Ways To Avoid Post-holiday Burnout In Customer Service Agents
Conceptual photo illustrating burnout syndrome at work...
08 Jan New Year, New Rules: Consumer Trust, Data Privacy And Compliance In Contact Centers
It was destined to happen. The Wild West of digital media, with its international reach, enticing freedoms and little regulation, could not last without standards of regulation....
11 Dec Empathy Is Great For Cx But It Doesn’t Solve Customer Service Problems Alone
Let’s get clear on empathy, what it means and how it fits into creating great customer experience and your company culture....
23 Oct The FAQ has Evolved but is it Still a Powerful Customer Service Tool?
Humanity loves to ask questions. Our curious nature has taken us as far as the moon and as deep as the quantum world. Some of our questions are much simpler, like how do I turn this thing on? (Admit it. We’ve all asked that question.)...
16 Oct Acceptable vs. Desired: The Power of Balance, Diversity, Inclusivity and Trust in Customer Evolution
Humans are innovative creatures: the internet, AI, cold brew coffee. Innovation means change and change is bumpy....
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...
10 Sep With The History Of Lies In Customer Service, How Do You Build An Authentic Customer Relationship?
A history of lies makes it hard to build a lasting relationship. How do you build an authentic customer relationship in a business climate known for manipulating customers? ...
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....
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...
10 Jul Channel the Brand Voice Right: Contact Center Outsourcing Challenge
There are many challenges to outsourcing to a contact center. One of those challenges is channeling the company vibe so the customer service experience fits the brand. There are key tools that help make brand voice come through in your customer service experience....
19 Jun Contact Center Speak: QA Metrics and Terms Slideshow
Contact Center speak may sound like a jumble of letters, but these QA metrics and terms represent important data. That data empowers you to create great customer experience and save on contact center costs. ...
08 May Disrupt Live Chat – 3 Considerations on How to End Interactions
Beth contacted her wireless provider via chat to ask about data upgrade options for her phone plan . The customer service rep, Dale, answered her question with ease. Beth thanked him, they talked about how cool the most recent “Game of Thrones” episode was and...
01 May To Win Millennial Customers Understand Them Don’t Mock Them
We’ve heard the term “me, me, me generation” and that millennials are lazy and self-obsessed over and over again. The major news outlets quoting stats hasn’t helped. Hasbro even made a Monopoly for Millennials. Not everyone was amused though. Whether you buy into the stereotypes...
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....
18 Apr Will Millennials and Gen Z be the Death of the Call Center?
Millennials and Gen Z are the largest customer base in history and their habits are pushing for more than just a rainbow unicorn latte. They want customer service on their terms. Could Millennials and Gen Z be the death of the call center? ...
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...
27 Mar Longevity and Customer Experience – 100 years in business and counting
Slow like an LA rush hour or fast like a New York minute, change is inevitable. Companies that have passed the century mark realize that change is good, like new ice cream flavors. They are embracing the connection between longevity and customer experience, so they...
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...
06 Mar AI and Empathy in Customer Experience
“I’m sorry, that is not a valid entry,” is not the most empathetic response to a customer inquiry. Yes, AI and automated menus can streamline the customer service process, but don’t forget the human touch of empathy. AI Everywhere It is amazing how far artificial intelligence has...
27 Feb Contact Center Tech – From the Net to AI
The call center has evolved into the contact center through a variety of technological innovations that followed the trusty telephone. (I have mine right here, in case I’m hit by a food craving) The net, IoT, the cloud and AI have and will continue to...
13 Feb Customer Service Monitoring Tools and Transparency
Customized ads, website suggestions, ‘people you may know’, every move online is watched. Common customer service tools like typing previews in chatbots and call monitoring are meant to improve the customer experience by making it more targeted. However, when do customer monitoring tools benefit from...
30 Jan QA Challenges: A Philosophical Approach
The ancient philosophers understood challenges. Customer service QA challenges don’t have to ruin KPI. Instead, they can be a call to action....
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...
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...
26 Sep Your Business Needs a Call Center Like a Crop Needs Bees, but How Much Do the Costs Sting?
Like sun and water to a crop, call centers are a necessary part of success providing important data to secure and build business over time. But, how much do call center costs sting? Call center costs depend on many variables, much like the final cost of...
20 Sep How KPIs Help Call Centers Win in the Business Game
There are 26 calls in the queue, 70 calls in progress and Dee’s target is for her 85 Reps to address their clients’ issues in 5 minutes or less and make 7-12 sales each by the end of the day. That is just a small...