Most contact center agent desktops are a messy, complicated, confusing morass. Agent heroics may lull management into a false sense that the desktop is manageable. IT won’t come to the rescue given the myriad of other projects on their “to do” list. And, of course, project funding is exceptionally tight. Yet the fact remains: transforming… Read More »
Voice of the Customer (VoC) – a.k.a., Customer Experience Management – is a hot topic. After years of process initiatives to save a penny here, a nickel there, everyone is jumping on the VoC bandwagon to find out what their customers’ think of their organizations and products. I’m a big advocate. Ideally, the organization administers… Read More »
As we move toward Fall, it’s time to think about your annual capital budget requests. Don’t let another cycle go by where your “wishes” don’t come true. Here are five critical steps for gaining contact center project approval and funding. Step One: Choose the Right Projects Get clear on your corporation’s strategy and the role… Read More »
Contact center personnel often feel like the ill-fated crew on “Gilligan’s Island” – cast away on their own island. Lacking connection with the “mainland,” they leverage their own resources to devise tools and processes that meet their immediate needs. Everyone knows that this situation is far from optimal, but the organizational chasm always seems too… Read More »
If you strike up a conversation about Web-based self service with contact center professionals, you’ll likely get a glow of satisfaction over the growing base of customers tinged with a hint of frustration over the channel’s isolation from other modes of contact. Organizational siloes are an unfortunate reality that most folks tolerate due to the… Read More »
If you’re planning to listen to the Voice of the Customer, you’ll need some technology for collecting customer input, analyzing it, and putting it to use in line with your defined strategy. The most prevalent means of obtaining customer feedback are: IVR – A great tool for short surveys immediately following the phone interaction. It… Read More »
Service quality is an important means of competitive differentiation. For years, contact centers have gauged their performance using internally-generated quality monitoring scores. A growing collective of service-conscious companies also measure the “Voice of the Customer” (VoC) and integrate this perspective with internal quality and other performance measures. The first step in planning for your VoC… Read More »
Outsourcing is nothing new. For years, centers have allocated certain inbound call types and/or percentages of calls to third party service partners using relatively simple technology. In such cases, the outsourcer supplies people as well as the technology for contact routing, management, and reporting. While this model offers ease of implementation with simple, proven technology,… Read More »
If you think self-service is old news, think again. A new generation of tech-savvy consumers has entered the fray with decidedly different notions about what constitutes effective communication. Mobile trumps land-line and full-screen. Text messaging trumps voice. Event-triggered notices trump customer-initiated inquiries. There’s a golden opportunity to deliver superior customer service AND bolster the bottom… Read More »
Contact center technology sourcing decisions are not as simple as they used to be. The sourcing landscape includes a wide array of hosted services and support options that are as attractive to multinationals as they are to single site centers. The old saying, “Good, fast, cheap – pick two” may be gone. If you consider… Read More »