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  • What is Call Center Quality Monitoring and Why is it Important?

    “This call may be monitored for call center quality assurance.”
    Anyone who’s ever called a contact center would recognize this familiar line —and for good reason. Call quality monitoring is an essential piece of the puzzle when it comes to increasing and maintaining high customer satisfaction (CSat) scores.
    Quality management is also a great way to find holes in a call center agent’s skill set and address them head on with specific training. Although most contact centers are following some sort of quality management strategy, many are lacking in specific key areas. We’re happy to help you fill in the gaps with our all-in-one guide to call center quality monitoring.
    Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth
    What is Call Center Quality Monitoring?
    As its name indicates, call center quality monitoring is any action or strategy that a management team employs to track the quality of agent interactions in a contact center.
    To get the full picture of what call center quality monitoring encompasses, it’s important to first understand the basics of what a high-quality call should sound like. A few key attributes are:

    Quick call answer time
    Friendly and warm greeting
    Active listening by the agent
    Clear communication
    Effective questioning
    Fast handling and resolution time
    No or low transfers

    Here’s How Your Agents’ Tone of Voice Impacts Customers
    Why is Quality Monitoring so Important?
    Happy customers are at the heart of a call center’s mission. The more you assess and evaluate your customer interactions, the better the customer experience will be – and the more likely those customers are to speak highly of your contact center to other potential clients.
    Impressive CSat scores are what all contact centers should be striving for, and your first step is ensuring all your customers are receiving streamlined and helpful service from each of your agents. When call center managers are properly monitoring phone calls (and other contact channels) for quality, there’s a greater chance for CSat improvement and of maintaining these higher scores over time.
    Note, it’s also important to employee engagement and growth to understand agent performance on an individual level. If an agent is consistently delivering top-notch customer service, they’re likely more engaged and happier at work, which leads to more authentic customer interactions in the long run as well.
    3 Reasons Why Agent Satisfaction is the New Customer Satisfaction
    5 Steps to Monitor Call Quality Like a Pro
    1. Set business goals.
    When it comes to call center success, strategy should be your first step. Decide what your goals are—once you start your quality monitoring, what will be your key performance indicators (KPIs) of choice?
    Decide on a CSat score you think your team can achieve and consider other important KPIs like a high first-call resolution rate and a low average handle time. Add these up to reveal your total quality score. Have meetings with staff to go over this new strategy and make sure everyone’s on the same page.
    2. Record and monitor at random—openly.
    To monitor for call quality, you may choose to listen in on live calls or listen to call recordings. Either way, you must ensure that both the agent and customer are aware that call monitoring is in progress. While listening, try asking yourself these questions:

    Is the agent greeting the client in a professional yet friendly manner?
    Are the correct questions being asked?
    Do the customers sound content with the information they’re being given?
    Is the call being managed efficiently and quickly?
    What is the agent doing well?
    Where could the agent stand to improve?

    3. Gather your customers’ opinions.
    For accurate CSat scores, it’s imperative that you develop a quick survey to either be done on the call after completion or sent via email to be done online. Your customers’ opinions matter most and will help you determine in which areas your agents are excelling and which they could use some fine tuning.

    FACT:
    According to Microsoft, the customer service experience helps inform the decisions of 90% of Americans about where to do business. The quality of your customer service is essential to the health of your contact center.

    4. Schedule regular check-ins with agents.
    To improve in their roles, agents need to understand where there’s room for growth. Be sure to schedule bi-weekly or monthly check-ins with your agents to provide feedback and track their progress. When given the information they need to shine, even the most inexperienced agents can start contributing to the high CSat and quality scores you’re aiming for.
    5. Focus on process improvement.
    Now that you have some insight into your contact center’s call quality, try to identify areas of improvement in your business processes. Does your scheduling system need some work? Are there ways you can help to reduce call spikes and take some pressure off agents? Is there any technology that may be helpful for the contact center as a whole?

    DID YOU KNOW?
    Fonolo saves contact center customers an average of 77 years of hold time annually with our Voice Call-Backs—you’ll be this much closer to reaching your CSat and quality score goals.

    Don’t Forget to Monitor and Analyze All Your Channels
    Most modern contact centers are moving towards an omnichannel business model where other methods of communication are used for customer interactions. If your company uses channels like online chats or email, be sure to include these in your quality monitoring strategy. Randomly check in and use a similar scoring system as you would for calls. Remember, happy customers lead to better and more business, so it’s essential to ensure the entire customer experience is accounted for from start to finish.The post What is Call Center Quality Monitoring and Why is it Important? first appeared on Fonolo.

  • An opportunity for significant organizations

    Our new project, The Carbon Almanac, is now inviting supporting partners to join us. We are all volunteers and we’re focused on offering institutions a chance to amplify the conversation about climate change. (Partner organizations don’t have to be large, simply committed to help).

    Supportive groups like Linkedin, Kone NL, Automattic, McCann Worldwide, Porchlight Books, Seagate, Amazon, The New York Public Library, The Optimist magazine, Cleantech Open and Change Inc. are already on board. They’re contributing in different ways, agreeing to pre-order or distribute copies of our new book this June.

    Foundational partners get a link on this blog, and all partners appear on our home page and have access to our teaching materials.

    If you’d like to learn more–for your brand or corporation, or for your non-profit–please check out this simple info form.

    Peer to peer, group to group, ideas spread and make an impact.

    Thanks.

  • Automating video marketing

    People love watching videos. Usually a video has more impact than when someone reads a text. Video editing and hiring voice-over talents take a long time, fortunately automating these tedious tasks is possible nowadays. For example with Rollideo, a tool to automatically create videos with auto-generated voice-overs & the exact subtitles. All you need is an input text. Technical users can use the Rollideo API. One of the advantages of the API is that you can quickly make some changes with the input text, the voices or the pictures to create a new version of a video. submitted by /u/FlyNestor [link] [comments]

  • Marketo Certified Associate (MCA) Exam & Pay Increase

    Hi all, I recently passed the Marketo Certified Associate (MCA) exam ahead of my full-time job offer with an employer in the cybersecurity/ tech industry. I am aware that my company, and more specifically, my current role within marketing at the company value both exams and compensate a certain amount during evaluations accordingly. However, I could not find any information online regarding the MCA cert’s typical pay increase. I was curious if anyone passing either the MCA or Marketo Certified Expert (MCE) exam could give insight as to whether they received any pay increase, and if so, how much? Thank you! submitted by /u/Bridge-Working [link] [comments]

  • In Need of Marketing Help (possible business opportunity for you)

    Hi. My name is Nathan and I am a professional video editor. I’ve been selling my editing services for a couple years now and I have gotten pretty stuck with being able to get new clients and not sure how to go about marketing. Not only do I want to learn how to market my editing service, I would like to learn about marketing in general. I 100% want to move into the field of marketing. I just don’t know where to start. I’m looking for someone that has a little bit of free time to help out and show someone the basics of stuff and how to go about marketing. Obviously in life nothing is free, and I am definitely not asking for someone to waste their time helping me. I very well know that editing is a big part of marketing, and if you do marketing as a job I am willing to help you out with video projects and such. I would also be more than willing to do marketing work for you once I get to know the basics. I have a great brain for business and have quite a few ideas that I would be more than willing to share or even start with someone. View this as a possible business opportunity for yourself while helping a guy out. I am more than willing to partner up with someone in business going forward. Thanks for reading, I know this was a ramble on type of post. Discord – nathan137#7859 email – [nathansjohnson16@gmail.com](mailto:nathansjohnson16@gmail.com) submitted by /u/nathan137 [link] [comments]

  • Bizible for marketing measurement?

    Has anyone compared Marketo’s Bizible with Eloqua’s reporting suite including their closed loop reporting? What’s your experience with Bizible? Any sort of advice or feedback would be great! Thanks. submitted by /u/zoezzz777 [link] [comments]

  • Introducing Campaign Monitor SMS: a New Way to Connect and Convert

    Today, audiences expect a lot from the brands they interact with. They want personalized, relevant communications delivered in a format that’s convenient, at a time that suits them.
    Email has been an essential medium for this kind of communication for a long time, and at Campaign Monitor, we’ve helped thousands of brands across the world use email to deliver personal, impactful messages to their customers.
    And today, we’re excited to add a new medium to the mix as we introduce Campaign Monitor SMS.
    A New Way to Connect and Convert
    SMS is a powerful, yet simple marketing tool that helps you drive stronger connections with your audience and drive higher conversions for your business. It’s the perfect addition to email – increase the speed of return on your marketing investment by encouraging immediate action from your subscribers. 
    Whether you want to boost sales through limited-time offers, maximize contributions to a donation drive, or level up your customer service through satisfaction surveys, combining SMS with email creates additional touchpoints with your audience, drives urgency, and gives you the best chance of increasing engagement and conversion. 
    Campaign Monitor SMS is built for busy marketers. Using the same intuitive campaign creation interface as email, you’ll find it easy to get your SMS campaigns up and running fast.

     
    Be on the lookout for helpful resources from our team as well. Whether you’re wondering how to capture SMS permission and grow your list, write effective SMS copy, or follow SMS best practices, our team is here to help you along the way.
    Get Started With Campaign Monitor SMS
    Ready to get started with SMS? Talk to our sales team to get a tour of how SMS works at Campaign Monitor, and learn how you can get started. Oh, and don’t forget to save your seat for our SMS launch event, where we’ll walk through how the feature works, and best practices for getting your SMS campaigns up and running.
     
    The post Introducing Campaign Monitor SMS: a New Way to Connect and Convert appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

  • Customize Product Multi-Line Layout in Salesforce

    Big Idea or Enduring Question: How to customize columns in Add Products dialog box?  We often come across the requirement to add or remove fields from Add Product or multi-line layouts for opportunity products in lightning experience. For example, Add Products Left in Stock field on Add Product page. Add Corporate
    The post Customize Product Multi-Line Layout in Salesforce appeared first on Automation Champion.

  • This Candle Company Donates 10% of its Profits to Homelessness, Here’s How

    It is impressive enough that Colin, Ryan, and Austin Gill, ages 16, 13, and 11 respectively, started their own candle company in 2017. But even more admirable is the mission behind their brand Frères Branchiaux. Sure, the brothers initially came up with the business idea as a way to circumvent asking their parents for more allowance money. But from the very beginning, they wanted their company to stand for an important cause – which is why Frères Branchiaux donates 10 percent of all profits to homelessness. In just a few years, the brothers – along with their parents – have created a flourishing business centered around giving back to their community.A family’s commitment to uplift othersCelena Gill, the boys’ mother, remembers a moment from early on in their business when all three of her sons joined a luncheon with Pathways to Housing DC – an organization dedicated to eradicating homelessness –  and donated an oversized check of $500, one of many of Frères Branchiaux’s charitable contributions. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Frères Branchiaux Candle Co.®️ (@freresbranchiaux) Living in the Washington D.C. Metro area, the brothers grew up very aware of the homeless community and always wanted to support them. But Celena said it was specifically her 13-year-old Ryan who had a penchant for helping others. “Ryan is really the driving force behind our commitment to give back. He’s always had a big heart. If he saw someone on the street he always wanted to give them money,” she said. And while figuring out ways to help others is not a top priority for most preteens, Ryan said he was motivated by his mom and dad. “My parents have inspired me. Watching them give back made me realize how important it is to help others.”The family’s pledge to uplift the homeless community is a core value for their brand, but they haven’t always had the time to spread that message – a symptom of being a small business with only four full-time employees.“I admit, we need to market this component better on social media,” Celena said. Still, Frères Branchiaux has shared several Instagram posts throughout the years about their charitable contributions. In a 2021 post, the company stated that their monthly donations, “put at least one homeless family in an apartment every month.” The message goes on to say they have donated over $30,000 to help eradicate homelessness and have contributed $2,000 to fight civil rights injustices.Clearly, the word is getting out. Frères Branchiaux’s online reviews are filled with customers who love the candles, but also applaud the company for their social impact, like this comment left on their ‘Love Jones’ candle written by a user by the name Stacy. “We are happy to support a family-owned business who gives back to their community! Xoxo,” it reads. They rely on word-of-mouth advertising, too. Austin said whenever he meets a Frères Branchiaux customer in person he makes sure to tell them that they’re supporting a good cause. As the youngest Gill, he hopes his family’s contributions can one day make lasting change. “My goal is that no one in the world ever has to be homeless,” the 11-year-old said.The ins and outs of donating 10% As they were mapping out the blueprint for their business, the family always knew their candle company was going to include some type of giving back component and they quickly settled upon supporting the homeless community. But they also understood that before they’d be able to donate money, they needed to create products customers would love, which led them to hone in on their candle-making skills. The boys first learned how to craft what would eventually become their signature scents from their mother’s friend, Danita Brooks. When they finally started to see profits, the brothers – eager to help their community – were excited to donate a large portion of their proceeds.“The boys wanted to give back 50 percent of profits at first,” said Celena, who had to remind her sons that donating that much wasn’t a realistic option for their small business. They finally settled in on 10 percent after doing some research and looking at what similar businesses were contributing. In a 2021 Instagram post, they outlined the various ways they give: through online donations, in-kind product donations, providing money directly to those affected, volunteering, and distributing meals to the community. They also clarified that “when we donate money directly, we don’t dictate what the recipient does with the money.”There was a trial and error process when it came time to figure out how often to donate, though. For the first two years, Frères Branchiaux was making monthly donations to various organizations including Pathways to Housing DC, Friendship Place, and The Father Mckenna Center. But starting in 2020, they switched to quarterly donations and felt that was a better strategy for them. Celena acknowledged that sometimes making monthly donations wasn’t always possible, as it depended on the success of each month.  “Some months you just break even,” she said.The family’s vision wasn’t only to contribute donations, however. They always intended to start a jobs creation program until it got postponed due to Covid-19. Now, with the world opening up again, Celena said the company is planning to resume the initiative which would equip people from the homeless community with job-skills training. Eventually, the objective would be for Frères Branchiaux to employ these individuals, providing them with a real opportunity to make their own money. Giving back is clearly embedded in the DNA of Frères Branchiaux. Still, Celena understands that organizing a charitable donation can be overwhelming for some small business owners. Her advice? Take it one step at a time. “Setting the intention is important,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be 10 percent. You can start off by donating one percent. Anything is better than nothing.”For the Gill family, laying out clear, purposeful goals has always been an important strategy for their business’s growth. In a post celebrating their fourth anniversary, they gave customers insight into how they’ve been so successful.  “A key component of achieving our goals is writing them down and creating a strategy,” it reads. “Remember, a dream is a goal that isn’t written down. We wrote them down—now it’s time to reach them!” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Frères Branchiaux Candle Co.®️ (@freresbranchiaux) What’s next for Frères BranchiauxFères Branchiaux has already expanded their product line to include room sprays, candle accessories, diffuser oils, and bath salts among other items. They’ve also created various candle collections, including astrology candles, Christmas candles, and a Black History Month collection. And even more exciting, they’ve been in big-box retailers including Whole Foods, Macy’s, and Ace Hardware.A huge moment for them in 2022 was being included in Target’s Black History Month campaign At the time, Frères Branchiaux candles were already selling on Target’s website, but this specific collaboration marked the first time the products were sold physically in-store at almost 900 locations – a very cool experience for the boys. “I was excited that our candles were actually in a [Target] store,” Ryan said. “And I was pretty happy we got one of our main goals accomplished.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Frères Branchiaux Candle Co.®️ (@freresbranchiaux) As Ryan stated, the Target deal aligned with the company’s upcoming goals as they hope to make more of a footprint in physical retail spaces moving forward, especially because the pandemic has changed their business model. Specifically, now that customers aren’t at home as often as they were back in 2020, the team has had to reconfigure their marketing strategy since purchasing self-care items may no longer be on top of everyone’s to-do list.“In the past two years, everyone was trying to be comfortable at home,” Celena said. “ Now that people are going out again, it’s about balancing how do we help them recreate that same relaxing experience at home after a long day of work or hanging out with friends?” Not only does Austin hope to see their candles in more retail spaces, but he also wants Frères Branchiaux to be sold in stores all around the world – a lofty objective coming from the 11-year-old. As for Ryan, the middle Gill, no matter what new goals the company achieves next, he said his small business will always revolve around its central mission. “We want to make sure everybody has a home,” he said, “And even before the business, it was always a goal for us to give back and make opportunities for the homeless community and people who are in need.”

  • How to Use Your CRM to Power Your Marketing

    It’s easy to picture the customer journey as a well-traveled, east-to-west road trip, following a single highway from awareness to consideration to purchase.
    In reality, people take a lot of detours.

    If you want a complete picture of the customer journey, it’s essential to connect your marketing efforts with the tool at the center of it all: your company’s trusty CRM.
    While you may be familiar with a CRM, you probably aren’t using it to its full potential. Here, we’ll cover its role in marketing and how it powers great customer experiences.
    CRMs are traditionally considered a tool for sales teams to track leads, prospects, and customers. With them, reps can see every interaction a contact has had with a brand — everything from calls with a sales rep to website visits.
    But on the marketing side, marketers rarely use a CRM for anything other than creating email lists, if at all. This is a huge missed opportunity.
    Think of your CRM as a single source of truth — tracking every customer interaction and painting a clear picture of their journey. Here are the benefits of this:

    One central hub for data. Any business, regardless of size, needs a central location for storing data. This makes it possible to identify patterns and see what’s working (and what’s not).
    More audience segmentation. You’d never send the same message to every customer — which is why segmentation is so crucial. A CRM can group your audience into segments — such as where they live or when they’re most active — so that you can talk to your audience in a more targeted way.
    Optimized campaigns. A CRM tool can connect to your marketing channels, enabling you to see how your channels perform and how your audience is interacting with you.

    By putting it at the center of your marketing strategy, you can truly personalize your messaging, create more targeted and meaningful content, and expedite the sales process — helping your entire company grow.
    Let’s dive more into this below.
    What is the Role of CRM in Marketing?
    As I mentioned above, marketing is about more than single, solitary interactions – it’s about building a complete customer experience.
    Here’s how CRM can power different areas of your marketing:
    1. CRM for Email Marketing
    With email and your CRM, you can segment your contacts into different lists based on any CRM data point like location, page interactions, and more. And it doesn’t stop there.
    You can add an extra layer of personalization to your emails by sending different CTAs to customers based on your CRM data. By sending relevant, personal emails, you can build trust and provide value to customers and prospects.
    A CRM can also help you and your team save time. By connecting email to your CRM, you can avoid exporting and importing lists of contacts into your email service provider (ESP). This keeps all of your contact information up to date while helping your team stay compliant with CAN-SPAM laws.
    2. CRM for Social Media Marketing
    You probably already know this, but it bears repeating: social media is a two-way street. Producing great content for social — like clever tweets, trendy Instagram photos, and engaging videos — is important, but it’s not enough.
    By pairing your CRM with social, you can see how customers engage with your platforms and the conversations they’re having — making you more prepared to interact with them.
    A social CRM can also give you an overview of topics, hashtags, and influencers within your audience segments. Then, you can leverage this data to provide timely, relevant content.
    3. CRM for Digital Ads
    While third-party data helps you reach a broad persona, the first-party data you get from your CRM lets you target a hyper-specific group of people. It allows you to create relevant ads for any audience, no matter what stage they’re at in the buyer’s journey.
    For example, you can create a custom audience of all the contacts in your CRM who viewed a certain product. Based on this audience, you can then create an extremely specific ad that provides information about that product to propel them along their buyer’s journey.
    This makes a big impact on your customers. Think about how many ads they see in a day. How many of those do you think are actually relevant? By promoting highly targeted ads, your customers won’t be surprised or frustrated when they see one.
    CRM Marketing Automation
    CRM software is designed to help sales and customer service professionals — but it can also help you perform some marketing tasks.
    For instance, in a CRM you can set up email sequences to engage with leads without manually re-creating content. It can also alleviate your workload by taking tedious tasks off your hands, like manual data entry or logging customer interactions on social media.
    However, while CRM software can perform some marketing automation tasks, your CRM alone may not be the right solution for all of your marketing. Check out this helpful article that compares CRM versus marketing automation.
    Final Thoughts
    When marketers leverage their customers’ data for good, they can craft remarkable customer experiences. By combining your efforts with a powerful CRM, you can connect the dots to improve the customer journey.