We’ve just published results from our Seventh Annual Contact Center Challenges and Priorities Survey. As with prior years, it was a short survey that asked two simple questions of contact center professionals: What are your biggest challenges today? What are your top priorities for the new year? We’ve been throwing in a bonus question the… Read More »
As noted in my article How to Respond to Visionary Ideas, today’s “hot technologies” target business challenges that grab senior leadership attention – e.g., staffing demands, performance improvement, cost containment, revenue drivers, customer satisfaction. For example: Bots purport to deflect loads of calls, chats, and text messages AI improves routing, workforce management, desktop tools, and… Read More »
We have the privilege of working with contact centers of many sizes, across a wide range of industries. They all have a few things in common: they want to deliver a great customer experience, meet their target metrics, operate efficiently and effectively, and use technology to their advantage. Credit unions are a bit unique in… Read More »
I’ve challenged contact centers to make 2020 the Year of the Agent. I’ve built my case around the argument that if you want to deliver a great customer experience, you first have to make sure you’re delivering a great agent experience. In the spirit of action, I’ve outlined two different assignments for you to assess… Read More »
As I reflect on the hundreds of contact centers that I’ve served across 28 years in this industry, one thing stands out: Most contact center leaders aspire to be “best in class” (or “world class”). Beyond the obvious bragging rights, they have a sense that excellence produces superior customer (and agent) experiences and delivers tangible… Read More »
For most contact center leaders, time is not on their side. The rate of change combined with unrelenting competitive pressure forces decision making at light speed. Deadlines loom before they’ve had time to consider and evaluate alternatives. Moreover, the breadth of their operational responsibilities and daily dose of fire-fighting often rob them of precious time… Read More »
We are frequently approached by contact center or IT leaders who want outside help with a project but first need to convince the “powers that be” to consider using a consultant. Some of the reasons they seek us out: Lack in-house expertise for the task at hand, often seeking some “best practices” insights or help… Read More »
Over the years, we’ve watched key players in contact center technology evolve their solution positioning from enterprise communication with contact center (CC) applications, to unified communications (UC), to converging CC and UC. They want the market to take notice as their core technology advances, their product portfolios offer more complete and innovative solutions, and/or they’ve… Read More »
Too often, the pursuit of technology is driven by speed and constrained by resources. Experience shows this to be a bad combination.Technology success demands careful implementation planning as well as effective technology monitoring and support. Implementation and Testing Getting implementation right takes time, well-structured plans, and commitment from the contact center, IT, vendors and/or their partners…. Read More »
The contact center technology market has become increasingly diverse and complex. With many sourcing options (premise, hosted, cloud, managed services), a growing number of vendors, and the dances those vendors do with their partners, it’s a wonder anyone can make a good decision, much less a timely one, when pursuing new solutions. Pricing comparisons alone… Read More »