Author: Franz Malten Buemann

  • Why Workwear is Important for Remote Employees

    As new lockdowns come into effect, remote working is becoming more widespread again. Offices have been instructed to close in order to manage the spread of the virus. While some workers jumped at the opportunity to go back into offices when they re-opened, many UK employees who found remote working to be beneficial have been…
    The post Why Workwear is Important for Remote Employees appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • Why You Should Hire Agents Based on EQ Not IQ

    When hiring new talent, it’s easy to get caught up in qualifications and work experience. However, customer service professionals need more than smarts to be successful — especially when working in a contact center.
    Empathy is one of the hottest topics in the industry right now, with the pandemic revealing how important genuine human connections are. This skill isn’t something you can immediately identify in a resume and cover letter, and it’s definitely not something your candidates can take a course in.

    Empathy is one of the hottest topics in the industry right now, with the pandemic revealing how important genuine human connections are. #CustomerServiceClick To Tweet

    We did some digging on the best indicators of high EQ so you can narrow down your next superstar hire!
    The Difference Between EQ and IQ
    The terms “IQ” and “EQ” get thrown around a lot, especially in the workplace. IQ stands for “Intelligence Quotient,” which typically indicates academic intelligence. On the flip side, EQ stands for “Emotional Quotient” and refers to one’s ability to identify, evaluate, and manage their own emotions, as well as those around them.
    Both of these scores are important when measuring employee performance. However, according to Business World, IQ only covers 10-25%of the equation, meaning EQ is responsible for around 75% of a person’s ability to succeed in the workplace. It’s also an excellent indicator of someone’s leadership skills and ability to work in a team.
    Why EQ is Important for Customer Support Agents
    If EQ is a strong indicator of a person’s ability to succeed in the workplace, it’s even more true for customer service professionals. After all, EQ is directly rooted in one’s social-emotional skills.
    The Perfect Call Center Agent Does Exist
    Customer support is about more than just solving problems. A huge part of this role is the ability to tune into the customer’s feelings and support them emotionally. The pandemic cemented this fact as customer support agents across the world dealt with overwhelming call volumes, many from distressed individuals looking for a human connection during the lockdown.
    Your customers want that human interaction — if they didn’t, they’d be dealing with chatbots and emails. But the voice channel remains the most popular form of support for businesses. It’s more important than ever to invest in hiring and training agents to be more compassionate so they can build lasting relationships for your company.
    How to Identify EQ Qualities in a Candidate
    Now that we’ve established the importance of EQ in contact center agents, the question remains: how do I find the right talent?
    1. Read their cover letter
    The cover letter is one of the earliest touchpoints where you can get to know a candidate. It’s much more telling than a resume when it comes to evaluating EQ. Remember, you can teach technical skills, but you can’t teach social-emotional skills!
    2. Pay attention to how they treat others
    Don’t just take the candidate’s behavior in the interview at face value. How did they treat the receptionist who greeted them at the door? The custodian they passed in the hallway? The way they treat other people in ordinary settings can speak volumes.
    10 Huge Mistakes Your Call Center Agents Are Making Right Now
    3. Evaluate their listening skills
    One important quality in a contact center agent is their ability to listen to a customer, remain engaged, and provide helpful answers. During the interview, pay attention to how they answer the questions. Are their answers thoughtful? Do they indicate that they’re in tune with your experience?
    4. Ask behavioral interview questions
    Behavioral interview questions are among the best ways to get a sense of how a candidate responds to different and often challenging scenarios. You may choose to ask them about a time they disagreed with someone and how they addressed the situation, or how they’ve handled irate customers in previous roles. Be prepared to use follow-up questions to delve into their mental process and understand their unique perspective!
    The post Why You Should Hire Agents Based on EQ Not IQ first appeared on Fonolo.

  • The grateful pumpkin

    It might not be autumn where you live, but the iconography of the large orange pumpkin travels around the world.

    People carve faces into them, stick a candle inside and use them to ward off the darkness.

    Perhaps we could consider writing on one instead. Inscribing all the things we’re grateful for, all the people who show up in our lives. We could highlight our heroes, our friends, the selfless people who show up for the community instead of simply looking for a shortcut… We could even remind ourselves of the systems, situations and dynamics that we take for granted.

    Seeing that pumpkin every day is a great way to remind myself of how extraordinarily lucky I am. Even when it seems as though the news is an unending litany of selfishness and tragedy, it’s possible to find someone who made a difference.

    Thank you for caring, for showing up and especially, for leading.

  • How to get hired as a Marketing Automation Specialist

    Hello, I’ve been in digital/content marketing for about two years now and am looking to gain some more niche skills. I’ve really enjoyed working on email drip campaigns for my company and would like to purse marketing automation as a career path. Any suggestions of courses/ basic skills that would help make this transition? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!
    submitted by /u/reneemh19x [link] [comments]

  • CX-related Weekly Newsletter

    Hi CX lovers Hello Gatsby lovers, I wanted to let you know that we recently launched DXPReport.com, a weekly newsletter focusing on the Digital Experience Platform industry. Delivering a better customer experience is pretty much the driving force behind innovation in the DXP space, so we will be covering CX news, trends and opinions from time to time. You can see edition #1 here (we’re sending out edition #4 on Monday 30th November): https://preview.mailerlite.com/m9k8r2 We’d love you to join us. Feedback and suggestions are also very welcome!
    submitted by /u/KayaFromWordify [link] [comments]

  • 75 Stop Words That Are Common in SEO & When You Should Use Them

    From blog titles to URL slugs, you might not realize how frequently you use SEO stop words. But, to be fair, if Google doesn’t pay much attention to them, why should you?
    Research shows that 25% of blog posts are made up of stop words. However, these words have little to no relevance to the topic of the post. These are words that help you compose sentences and connect ideas together, and they don’t have much impact on Google’s search results.
    But, excessive use of stop words can impact your brand in the long run. They make content harder for search engines to process which can end up negatively affecting how they index your pages.
    In this post, we’ll walk you through exactly what SEO stop words are, how they can hurt — or help — your online presence, and which words are considered stop words by Google and other search engines.
    What Are Stop Words in SEO?
    We use stop words all the time, whether we’re online or in our everyday lives. These are the articles, prepositions, and phrases that connect keywords together and help us form complete, coherent sentences.
    Common words like its, an, the, for, and that, are all considered stop words. While they’re important for communicating verbally, stop words typically carry little importance to SEO and are often ignored by search engines.
    Let’s review some of the most common stop words in the section below.
    Common SEO Stop Words
    The most common SEO stop words are pronouns, articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. This includes words like a, an, the, and, it, for, or, but, in, my, your, our, and their.
    When people search for something online, search engines like Google omit these words in their results because they don’t relate to the keywords in the search. So, rather than looking up content that’s related to these words, Google removes them altogether and prioritizes the keywords.
    So, the next time you’re trying to hit a word count when writing a blog post, try filling that open space with keywords rather than filler copy that doesn’t improve your SEO.
    While it would be great to load up your content with only meaningful keywords, the reality is that stop words are needed for every type of copy. After all, even if you rank highly on Google, it won’t mean much if your content is incomprehensible or doesn’t resonate with your audience.
    Are Stop Words Beneficial for SEO?
    There’s a time and place for SEO stop words. First and foremost, stop words help the reader understand the content. It can be confusing to read titles and subheaders without stop words.
    You also might find instances where stop words help you differentiate between two topics. For example, you can search ‘flamingos’ and you’ll see information about beautiful, bright pink birds. Add ‘the’ to the front, and you’ll be directed to YouTube to listen to the band, The Flamingos. This tiny, three-letter stop word makes a world of a difference in this case.
    In the next section, let’s look at some other times when you should be paying attention to stop words to optimize your content’s search ranking.
    Removing Stop Words
    Should you be removing stop words from all of your content?
    Like anything else, it depends on how you’re using them. If your titles, headings, URL slugs, and keywords make sense without them, then it can be beneficial to remove them.
    SEO Stop Words in Titles
    If your titles don’t make sense when you take out those articles or prepositions, then it’s best to leave them be. After all, you want your audience to actually click and read your content. If the most prominent parts — including the title — don’t make sense, the website could come off as unprofessional or even spammy.
    It usually makes the most sense to leave stop words in titles and headings, as these are wayfinding elements for users navigating your content. Just keep in mind that the optimal character count for titles is 50-60 characters, as search engines cut off longer titles, which could omit important information for the visitor. If you have lengthy stop words in your title, consider rewriting them to balance brevity and clarity.
    Stop Words in URL Slugs
    When it comes to URL slugs, stop words typically don’t have much significance in SEO. They’re relevant, however, if they make your URL slug particularly long. Google ranks URLs based on their length, and longer URLs typically rank lower than shorter ones — as outlined by the chart below.

    Image Source
    Stop Words as Keywords
    As we touched on in the last section, there are some times when stop words are crucial to keywording because they differentiate a proper noun from something else. For example, if you searched “Jets New York” you’d probably get a list of flights coming in and out of New York City. But, if you searched, “The New York Jets,” you would get content about the professional football team instead.
    Now that we’re familiar with what stop words are and when we should use them, let’s look at a broader list of stopwords that you should be aware of when creating and optimizing content.
    75 Stop Words in SEO
    There are many, many more stop words out there, but here’s a list of some of the most common stop words to be mindful of when creating content online.

    A About Actually Almost Also Although Always Am An And Any Are As At Be Became Become But By Can Could Did Do Does Each Either Else For From Had Has Have Hence How I If In IS IT ITS
    JUST MAY MAYBE Me Might Mine Must My Mine Must My Neither Nor Not Of Oh Ok When Where Whereas Wherever Whenever Whether Which While Who Whom Whoever Whose Why Will With Within Without Would Yes Yet You Your

     
    Using SEO Stop Words
    SEO stop words are important if you want to create a strong SEO strategy and rank highly on search engines like Google. Overusing them can hinder your ranking, but avoiding them altogether will make your content confusing and unclear. By understanding what stop words are and which words qualify as stop words, you can craft content that works to your brand’s advantage.
    For more ways to rank higher on search engines, read these SEO tips.

  • Customer Service Strategy Needs to Be Ready for the Holiday Season – Here’s What Has to Change

    Up until now, annual strategies for the busiest shopping period of the year have been set in stone, agreed months in advance. But in 2020, many retailers have been forced to concentrate on merely staying afloat as they grapple with the effects of the pandemic, often taking a massive financial hit. In the UK, consumer spending…
    The post Customer Service Strategy Needs to Be Ready for the Holiday Season – Here’s What Has to Change appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • Use the full potential of Custom Modal Designer. 5 tricks that will make your pop-ups more distinctive

     

     

    It’s been proven that pop-ups, if used wisely, may improve the conversion even by 44%. One of their advantages in comparison to, for example, emails, is that they can’t be ignored. They can also be widely customized. Our feature, Custom Modal Designer, is here to help you create innovative pop-ups that will grow your audience and engage them instead of irritating them.

     

    This very useful tool allows for the creation of highly customizable and personalized pop-ups. It makes it possible for selected user groups to view pop-ups containing exclusive offers based on their website activity and CRM data. Thanks to an easy-to-use, intuitive designer, you can monitor where, when, by whom, and what offer is to be seen. Moreover, if you know some tricks, you can actually spice it up a bit and get better results.

     

    Limit your Input Fields and adjust them thanks to our progressive forms

     

    If your pop-up aims at gathering email addresses and subscribers’ data, it is vital to adjust the number of fields. The more fields you use, the smaller your conversion would be. The research shows that pop-ups with five fields have the lowest conversion rate of 0.81%. It also proves that using only two fields brings better results than using three fields with a crushing difference of over 206%. With Custom Modal Designer it is possible to create progressive forms in order to gather more data at a later stage. However, if the form is aimed at building up a new customer base, the higher conversion is, the better.

     

    Custom Modal Designer allows for the creation of pop-ups including not only graphics and forms individually but also both of them combined, all in one program. Remember, that the pop-up that is visually attractive and not overwhelming creates more interest and makes it easier for its viewers to input the needed data.

     

     

    As shown in the above examples, it is possible to modify the size of the fields, shorten them, and insert them wherever they are needed.

     

    Use columns to show more information in a neat form

     

    Not only form fields’ sizes can be adjusted by the columns. It is also possible to set the precise arrangement of your pop-up’s content and modify every widget this way. The column function allows for the placement of any widget in a fixed place. Graphics, texts, buttons, forms – adjust all of them freely, building up a highly customized and original pop-up.

    Moreover, you can use one of the available column arrangements to add an additional background of a chosen color or graphics, set up desired margins, or shorten certain fields if needed. Thanks to the column settings, you can also add several widgets in one row by dragging them to the field of the selected column. Obviously, later on, you can adjust all of them individually.

     

    Create a “Thank you” page that will speed up your conversion

     

    A Thank you Page shows up to the viewers after they opted in for some addition at your website. It can include a simple confirmation of the taken action, such as subscription but it can also be used more creatively.

     

    In your Thank You Page, you can ask a newly acquired contact for a referral or a social share. You can also offer a new-joiner discount or show some authority by providing additional knowledge about your offer containing a link to your most popular products or content. It is also a perfect place to conduct a survey and learn some more about the contact.  Lastly, it can be used as an information that email with the confirmation has just been sent to the customer with a small surprise inside of it, such as a new-joiner discount. As simple as that!As you can see, Thank You Page hides a lot of potential that can significantly grow your conversion if you get it right. Custom Modal Designer allows for the addition of the Thank you Page on the condition that a form is being used earlier. All its settings are analogous to the pop-up widget ones, allowing for the column view segmentation, adding links and buttons, and working around your graphics and tests.

     

    Have an eye for detail – adjust your pop-up, add graphics and animation

     

    One of the best characteristics of our Custom Modal Designer is how adjustable it is. Earlier we have already discussed the usage of column placement for general aesthetics. Did you know that pop-ups with images convert better than the ones without them by over 83 percent? 

     

    Don’t be shy with the usage of graphics and animation in your pop-ups. It is also possible to tune almost every small detail of your pop-ups such as background and the level of its transparency, the frames, fonts, colors, and sizes of each widget.  You can easily transfer the style of your already existing website straight into your pop-up. Attention to detail and the constant sense of design will ensure your customers about your stability and professionalism.

     

     

     

     

    No matter how your pop-up looks on a computer screen, you can always moderate separately the way it is displayed on the phone.

     

     

    Know your target and act in a perfect timing

     

    SALESmanago allows for scheduling of the display of a given pop-up for a set date and time or for when the customer behaves in a specific way – for example, leaving his cart behind or keeping coming back to certain products. Thanks to the Website Automation function, you can choose which of the previously prepared pop-ups to display in order to better adapt the content of the message to what we have already learned about the user based on their activity.

     

    With Custom Modal Designer it is possible to schedule the display of the pop-up more precisely than ever before. The pop-up may be planned for the scheduled time zone, day, and time. It may be visible only for monitored contacts, anonymous visitors, contacts with opt-in status, or the ones which have a certain tag, such as for example “REGULAR_CUSTOMER” as shown on the below screenshot. In addition, CMD introduced a completely new feature allowing for the set up of the Display Pause Time. The function allows for the pop up not to be displayed ever again if the user clicks either the close button, the overlay, or a linked element.

     

    Thanks to the aforementioned Website Automation Rule it is possible to combine the possibilities of the Custom Modal Designer with the automation processes. For example, you can prepare a discount offering pop-up that will be displayed only for contacts with the “REGULAR_CUSTOMER” tag, just as we already set it up in Custom Modal Designer in the earlier screenshot. Then, you can add an Automation Rule allowing for the display of this pop up only after a second visit.

    marketing automation

    marketing automation

  • Butterfly hunting

    Ideas are like that.

    The successful editor, curator or entrepreneur doesn’t go hunting ideas to kill them, but to celebrate them, identify them and dance with them.

    And a brutal, all-out frontal attack won’t work. It’s not about raising a ton of money or insisting that the world supply you with only the good ideas. Quibi failed because of the hubris of believing that the ideas could be conjured on a schedule. And countless middlemen have struggled with the dead-end of only wanting to embrace the good ideas, which are often impossible to distinguish from the others at a distance.

    Sometimes, you need to look more closely, to reconsider or to circle around again.

    And sometimes we go butterfly hunting and find nothing at all.

    Fred Hills, who published fifty New York Times bestsellers (including my first one) died a few weeks ago. He took the quest literally, and used to go butterfly hunting with Nabakov. His belief in my book was matched by the trust he offered me and so many authors to find our voice and share it.

    Chris Meyer was another butterfly hunter, patiently connecting, leading and challenging, turning on lights in a way that made everyone in the room see the possibilities that lay just ahead.

    The ideas are there. It might take patience to nurture them.

    [HT to Lisa DiMona.]

  • 6 Social Media Metrics That Matter

    You get out of social media marketing what you put into it. And to know how far your efforts are taking you, you need to be tracking your metrics. We get it: posting on social consistently is already a massive effort, and tracking your analytics along the way can seem like an even larger one.…
    The post 6 Social Media Metrics That Matter appeared first on Benchmarkemail.