Here’s the scene: It’s the busiest hour of the busiest day. With beefed up self-service through online and mobile applications, customers take care of the easy stuff on their own and reach out to agents when they can’t find what they need. Meanwhile, agents are overwhelmed, trying to retain knowledge on an increasingly complex and diverse… Read More »
Many contact centers have a big goal: Increase First Contact Resolution (FCR). Leaders know it can improve efficiency, lower costs, provide a better customer experience. This post looks at tools that may help you achieve (or improve) FCR. As usual, these tools go hand-in-hand with good processes and the right contact center support and IT… Read More »
We see common situations in our contact center assessment projects: The IVR needs fixing. It’s been static for years. But nobody thinks it matters too much. Or they are afraid to touch it, out of fear it will “break” something. Without reports, they lack visibility to the problems and the data to show the potential… Read More »
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is breaking the hype meter in the contact center industry. While it’s only in the early adopter stages, it appears to be grabbing the attention of contact center technology sellers and buyers. With all the confusion such enthusiasm creates, it seemed a little primer is in order. AI processes and interprets large… Read More »
Our annual challenges and priorities survey, as well as our project experience, show that high attrition, absence and adherence issues, and the uphill battle to gain budget approval for additional staff remain pain points for many centers. While technology is not a “white knight” riding in to solve the staffing problems, it can be used… Read More »
Request for Proposal. RFP. Contact center and IT leaders, along with their procurement departments, turn to this tried and true approach when seeking a fair, competitive analysis of a variety of options. In some circumstances, a formal RFP may still be a good option, if not required. But the evaluation process needs to evolve with… Read More »
Low cost contact center technology solutions abound in today’s market. Centers can quickly implement cloud-based applications at a low price point (well under $100 per agent per month!). These options may seem like a slam dunk for companies with limited IT resources, aging or ineffective systems, and limited budgets. And they can easily tempt others… Read More »
Contact center management labors under constant pressure to do more with less… FASTER! The latter often results in hurried technology implementations that fall short of the benefits the center hoped to realize. The following tables summarize the dos and don’ts of project execution and functionality deliver positive results. Project Execution Don’t: Do: Business Impact Launch… Read More »
Optimizing authentication and preventing fraud are hot topics in the industry. I had the pleasure of facilitating a panel on the topic at the ICMI CC Demo in September. Here are key learnings from that session as well as project work we have been doing to tackle this ubiquitous challenge. I’m going to start with… Read More »
If you’ve spent any time around contact center conferences and trade shows, you can’t help but notice that the cloud is all the rage. Cloud-based technology appeals to contact centers that lack sufficient resources to manage their specialized technology. Centers also gain the freedom to turn capabilities and capacity on and off, while continuously benefiting… Read More »