Category: Customer Experience

At first, we sold our labor. That was 10,000 years of history. You traded sweat for food.

Eventually, people figured out that they could build an organization. And an organization made things, which someone could buy. Add some technology and machines and productivity would go up, the things would get better, and profits would result. Industrial capitalism. This is the sort of project that most people think about when someone says “I’m going to start a business.”

But there are other options.

Linux and Wikipedia and the local farmer’s market are all projects. They may or may not lead to a profit for every person who engages with them, but they’re distinct entities that organize various talents and inputs and create value for the people they serve.

Stemming climate change, stopping the spread of disease and fighting homelessness are also projects. They may not have coordinating bodies or a single entity, but they represent a combination of ideas, people and initiatives that are coordinated through culture.

Bitcoin is a multi-trillion dollar project with no one in charge.

As our world gets more connected, the projects that change us are more and more likely to have a form that would be hard to recognize just a generation ago. But inventing and choosing and supporting these projects is now on us, and it begins by recognizing that they even exist.

If you don’t ask the question, you probably won’t get the answer.

The microwave in my office has a button that says, “add a minute.” That’s not helpful, as there are plenty of items that need thirty seconds or ninety seconds, neither of which is possible if all you can do is add a minute. On the other hand, “add five seconds” would be a waste, because no one wants to press a button 18 times. The appropriate resolution for a microwave is either fifteen or thirty seconds.

On the other hand, it doesn’t pay for the readout on a radar gun to be a tenth of a mile an hour. Given its accuracy and the need for proof, five miles an hour is probably fine, and one is just the right amount of apparent authority.

Should you be measuring your call center team’s performance on a given interaction on a scale of one to a hundred, or is one to five more reasonable?

Often, we don’t even bother to ask.

We are living through a period of heightened awareness about some of the biggest challenges of our time. People across the globe care increasingly about issues such as climate change, inclusion, and product accessibility. Unsurprisingly, most of the executives I’ve spoken with recently, have listed ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) initiatives among their top three…
The post Four reasons why experience should be the core of any ESG strategy (part 1) appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

There is almost certainly life on other planets in the universe.

And, by definition, there are flying things that are difficult to identify.

But it doesn’t follow that unidentified flying things are spaceships with aliens in them.

There are definitely conspiracies all around us.

And, by definition, organizations often do things that are difficult to explain.

But that doesn’t mean that all of those actions are the result of a conspiracy.

The modern era of UFO-ology began in 1947. UFO as in aliens in ships, not in the obvious statement that some objects we encounter aren’t identified yet. In the seventy years since the aliens come on the scene, our ability to take photographs has become significantly more widespread and the quality of those photos and videos is incomparable to what we used to have.

And yet the pictures of UFOs haven’t improved.

People who used to see things in broad daylight in their backyards suddenly stopped seeing them as soon as they got an iPhone.

One way to tell that you’re dealing with a story instead of falsifiable science is that the story changes when evidence is brought to the table. (Falsifiable means that it can be proven false. “I’m thinking of a unicorn” is not falsifiable, because I can change my story if I need to.)

That’s because we’re humans, and humans embrace stories. There are countless good reasons to believe in the possibility of UFOs and other conspiracies. But evidence that holds up to scrutiny and Occam’s razor isn’t one of them.

If we’re not prepared to change our minds in the face of a test that demonstrates the opposite, then we’re embracing a story.

Crop circles and Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster are useful stories. But they’re also busy evading our ability to find them. If someone gives a new excuse every time there’s better data about medicine or other useful technology, it’s a clue that we’re hearing a story, not a scientific debate.

Truth is hard to find. Truth is difficult to understand when it arrives. But truth doesn’t work to evade us. It usually stays still until we find it.

Over its first year, COVID-19 lockdowns and high case counts forced many offices to close. While this sparked big challenges for contact centers suddenly faced with overwhelming call volumes, it did have an unexpected silver lining around remote work.
Soon, businesses realized they didn’t need to spend money on rent to operate with the right tools and infrastructure. By the end of 2020, 71% of employed adults were working from home. Additionally, 54% would like to continue to work remotely when the pandemic is over.
Remote work is the reality for many industries, including call centers. According to experts, the remote call center has become the “new normal.” Call centers are more vital now than ever, as customers have more questions and require more customer care. Plus, the work-from-home landscape has also changed the way contact centers use call center technology and software as well.
The Contact Center Guide to Managing Spikes in Call Volume
Top challenges call centers faced during COVID-19.
COVID-19 brought challenges for everybody, contact centers especially. Here are some of the top challenges contact centers faced during COVID-19.
Staffing and turnover.
Agent attrition was a common challenge for call centers even before the pandemic. However, 80% of call centers report stagnating or worsening agent attrition during the pandemic.

DID YOU KNOW?
The COVID-19 pandemic caused 80% of call centers agent attrition to either stagnate or worsen.

And it’s no wonder! Call center agents were always tasked with demonstrating empathy towards customers. But, customers’ increased demand for empathy during COVID-19 was a big burden for agents, many of whom had their own woes as a result of the pandemic.
Recruitment efforts to fill those empty roles was also a huge issue. Increased inbound customer calls meant call centers needed to compensate for high call volumes with reduced staff and new trainees. This resulted in long customer wait times, high abandon rates, and stress for both customers and agents.
Higher customer expectations.
Customer expectations are higher now than ever. Customers want accurate and immediate answers. If not, the consequences could be catastrophic. The remote call center must meet these new standards, or face dips in customer loyalty and satisfaction.

“One lasting impact of the pandemic will be “immediacy.” The need to be available to engage at whatever time and in whichever channel the customer chooses.”
— Peter Lavers, CX and Customer Service Expert, Founder of ThinkCX

Incompatible technology and agent training.
COVID pushed us towards the remote call center, requiring new or updated call center technology for many businesses. Agents need this software to provide an excellent customer experience from their homes.
Of course, training became a big challenge for those who only had in-person training tools and processes, which further highlighted its importance. This also had a huge impact on agent satisfaction levels.
Today’s most popular remote call center technologies.
Here are some call center technologies that took on a different meaning in the age of the remote call center. For most, their purpose became more important during the pandemic.
Cloud-based technology.
Thousands of businesses and call centers embraced cloud-based technology during the pandemic. Even healthcare providers used it to facilitate COVID-19 vaccine appointments!
Cloud-based technology allows you to have one system to handle all inbound and outbound calls and messages for your call center. With cloud-based technology, contact center solutions will offer more flexibility and scale easily with your business.
Artificial intelligence.
AI is steadily becoming a vital part of omnichannel service, allowing businesses to connect with customers more easily via online platforms. For instance, chatbots that leveraged AI technology were popular before the pandemic, but customers rely on them more now than ever.
It’s important to remember that the value of AI-assisted technology isn’t about providing flashy solutions to your customers, but rather, to enhance the customer support experience. AI helps contact centers facilitate a more human experience, while helping customers gain access to real-time answers.
Now more than ever, remote call centers need AI to tackle longer customer queues, ease the pressure off remote call center agents, and facilitate a more human experience to match the empathy that customers now expect.

TIP:
AI can help your contact center make sense of customer data and better address customer concerns.

Call-backs.
We discussed earlier that customers expect immediacy from call centers. And you’ll get little sympathy from those stuck on hold, whether or not you’ve been dealing with the effect of the pandemic.
That’s why call-back technology saw a huge surge in popularity during this period. In fact, Instead of making customers wait, Fonolo’s Voice Call-Backs offer customers a call-back option as an alternative to waiting on hold.
Why Contact Centers Are Using More Call-Backs Than EverThe post Blog first appeared on Fonolo.

Drafting engaging articles takes exceptional writing skills, critical thinking, research, and empathy. As a team dedicated to creating quality content, we see writing as an explorative process based on human experiences and emotions no machine could understand or reproduce. However, with digital technologies and AI rapidly advancing, we might be surprised by some new solutions…
The post Human or Machine: will AI change the trajectory of content writing? appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

I hope you have dreams. Dreams are precious, and they open the door for what happens next.

Some dreams are tactical. They’re very specific executions of a possible future, designed to create a certain kind of happiness.

And some dreams are strategic. They might be short on specifics, but they help us understand exactly the change we seek to make in the world and the way it might make us feel.

If your dream is to be a vaudeville star working nightly at the Rialto on Broadway, that’s specific and tactical.

If, on the other hand, your dream is to pursue your craft in front of an audience that appreciates you and makes it possible for you to do it again, that’s strategic.

The more we talk about them, the more tactical they become, as if a dream doesn’t count if it isn’t imminent.

But getting the strategic part right is far more important. The feeling and contribution you’re going for, not what it looks like on your resume.

The problem is that people are often terrible at helping with your dreams.

Perhaps you might get lucky and find someone who cares enough about you that they’ll happily give useful feedback and advice about your tactical dreams. What a precious gift. They’re celebrating your journey at the same time they’re helping you see how you can improve the tactics you’ve chosen.

Tactical dreams are almost certain to never work out the way we hope. We need all the help we can get to understand what we’re actually hoping to accomplish and why. We need to learn to see the strategy behind the tactics we’ve chosen. Because once we can settle on a strategy that works for us and the audience we care about, our tactics can change over time.

Too often, we believe that the first set of tactics we’ve settled on is our true calling, the only way to accomplish our dream. And then we get trapped, and turn away from those that might help us figure out what we really need to be focusing on.

On the other hand, folks who criticize your strategic dreams might mean well, but they’re probably keeping you from making a real impact. To protect you, they pull you down instead. They’re hoping to prevent you from failing at anything. That’s not helpful.

It’s easy to get confused and to simply hope that people will cheer us on, regardless of how realistic our tactics are.

But if the people around you are afraid to criticize any of your dreams, you’re likely to find yourself in a tactical bind one day soon.

There are two confusions. The first is that the next big idea must be fully original. The second is that it have no competition.

This is almost never the case.

Henry Ford didn’t invent the car, and there were plenty of social networks before the dominance of Facebook. Madam CJ Walker didn’t invent haircare, and Ray Kroc definitely didn’t invent the hamburger or the french fry.

The same is even more true for thriving, important local businesses of manageable size.

The future of all of these types of organizations isn’t based on a lack of customer choice. It’s based on customer traction.

When there’s a compelling reason, often due to execution, care and people (combined with a network effect), then a new organization can thrive. Because people want what it offers.

Once you realize that you’re not looking for something original and alone, you have countless options. Because the opportunity is to simply solve a problem, to show up in the world with leadership and generosity and make things that people choose.

The hard part is showing up to lead.

We’ve been indoctrinated to join a ‘safe’ venture instead of seeking out something worth leading.

And that’s the reason that innovations often stall. Because it’s easier to be skeptical than it is to say, “I’m leading.”

And the reason that projects often fail in the early stages is because leaders can get scared of competition and choice, when it’s actually competition and choice that are the symptoms that you’re on to something.

In the middle of all the trauma and change in our lives, we are all on the cusp of a huge multiplication of new business models, new funding models and new ways of being in our communities. If you’ve been waiting for a moment to start a project bigger than your own hourly contribution, this is truly the best moment I can recall.

The post UJET and Playvox Partner to Optimize Contact Center Agent and Customer Experience appeared first on UJET.

Customers are the heart of every contact center. If customers don’t interact with your business, you really don’t have a business, which puts a well-strategized and successful customer service strategy at the forefront of contact center success.
Research from Salesforce states that 89% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a company again when they experience high-quality customer service—a percentage that’s far too high to ignore. To ensure your contact center leaves customers with the best impression possible, it’s necessary to implement a strategy that’s dedicated to keeping your clients happy and coming back for more.
Creating a Customer Service Strategy That Drives Business Growth
How to build a customer service strategy.
It takes time, knowledge, and dedication to develop a superior customer service strategy, but we’re here to help you out! Simply follow these 6 steps to get started:
1. Establish a company brand guide that expresses a clearly defined mission and culture.
Company values and culture need to be defined from the get-go so contact center agents know what’s most important when it comes to serving their customers. Customers who can relate to a company’s mission or culture are more likely to be loyal to the brand and spread the word to others. Plus, this brand guide will help you to shape the way you hire, dictate the way management interacts with agents, and inform the culture of the contact center as a whole. A comprehensive brand guide is essential for any company in any field for success.
How Your Brand Voice Can Improve Customer Engagement
2. Train your agents to be customer-service experts.
There are a couple essentials you should write into your agent onboarding and training plan to ensure all your agents are on the same page and providing the best customer experience possible. Remember these two “E’s” when developing your training plan:
Expectations.
Set your expectations about what superior customer service looks like at your contact center so all your agents know what they should be aiming for. Have new hires sit on calls alongside agents who excel at customer service, so they know what it looks and sounds like.
Empathy.
A successful agent’s most valuable skill is empathy and being able to properly communicate it to customers on a call or via online chat. Don’t worry, it can be taught! Be sure to equip your agents with empathy phrases like “I know this must be frustrating for you” and “I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing this,” and set up role playing training games to help them practice so they’re ready for these interactions in real time.

TIP:
New hires shouldn’t be the only agents receiving training. Ongoing opportunities for learning and growth should be provided to employees of all levels to promote agent engagement.

3. Track your most important customer satisfaction Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
A few KPIs should be monitored on a regular basis to keep tabs on how your contact center is performing from a customer service standpoint. Your most important indicators of success in this area include:

High First-Call Resolution (FCR) rates.
A low Average Time in Queue.
A high Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Impressive Customer Experience Survey results.

6 Tips to Improve Your Contact Center’s Net Promoter Score
4. Ensure your agents have the support they need.
As a manager, your role is not only to make sure everything is running smoothly, but also to provide support (emotional and otherwise) to agents in your contact center. That may look like bi-weekly or monthly one-on-ones, ongoing training initiatives, and facilitating connections between remote agents. A happy agent makes for positive customer interactions so do your best to ensure every agent feels like they have someone to turn to when the job gets tough.
Agent support may also include technology that helps with call load management. Voice Call-Backs and Programmable Call-Backs give callers the option to stop holding on the line and receive a call-back one it’s their turn in the queue. This helps to smooth out call spikes, ultimately providing the customer with a more convenient experience and alleviating stress from agents.
5. Be ready to scale when the time is right.
Speaking of technology, it’s essential that you invest in tech that allows for seamless growth. When customers realize how great your service is, they’ll be in touch regularly and recommending their friends do the same. Utilizing cloud-based contact center technology like Fonolo means you can scale your business in a pinch, hassle-free.

A @Salesforce states 89% of consumers are more likely to purchase again when they experience high-quality customer service. That’s why #contactcenters need a strong #customerservice strategy.Click To Tweet

6. Turn your call center into an experience center.
Delivering products and services to customers via more than just phone calls is key to keeping up with the current contact center landscape. Even if your company solely focuses on inbound assistance and not sales, providing customers with a variety of options elevates the customer experience. Consider the following enhancements:

Introduce web-based chat functions if you haven’t already.
Give your website “FAQ” section a refresh to empower customers to self-problem solve.

Retail call centers should invest in an e-commerce platform for online shopping convenience.
Enlist or appoint dedicated social media feedback agents who respond to customer feedback messages on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

TIP:
According to a study by Vonage, the use of Instagram to message businesses increased by 75% in 2020.
The post Blog first appeared on Fonolo.