Category: Customer Experience

Thanks to technology, CX professionals have the tools available to overcome these challenges for a successful new year. Here are 3 tips to help you stay ahead of new consumer demands in 2021:
Give agents the tools to solve issues the first time
Engage customers through their channel of choice
Start thinking how artificial intelligence (AI) can help your agents and customers
Full article: https://www.five9.com/blog/3-tips-to-help-stay-ahead-of-customer-expectations-in-2021
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In the current climate, it’s even more critical to provide a positive and engaging experience for your users. Ultimately, brands are competing against each other to retain customers and keep them interested – even in the most turbulent times. Peoples’ behaviours and preferences have shifted and as a result, it is becoming necessary for brands…
The post Top Tips to Refine Your User Experience appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

It means two things:
In high-quality manufacturing, producing to tolerance means that all the parts are as identical as possible. Getting the tolerances precise permits cars to be made more reliably, and for production to run more effectively.
In human beings, tolerance creates resilience. Tolerance of different abilities and preferences makes it easy to work with diversity of thought and approach and expertise, enabling better outcomes.
Tolerance doesn’t mean permitting behavior that undermines the community. In fact, it requires that we put the community first. Instead, it’s a willingness to focus on contribution instead of compliance.
We need to choose wisely. Are we working with machined parts or with people?

There is no doubt that the world we live in is becoming increasingly digital. This is certainly seen in the workplace, where innovations such as the internet, email and video conferencing are part of daily life. From understanding the benefits of AI to picking up what voice search is all about, even the latest digital…
The post Customer Expectations Amidst Growing Digital Competency appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

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The difference between a ‘call-back’ and a ‘virtual queue’ is subtle in definition but significant in outcomes. Many contact center managers have been distraught to find that what they needed was a call-back, but what they got was a virtual queue.
5 Amazing Reasons to Add Virtual Queuing to Your Contact Center
Fonolo has been the call-back specialist for over a decade, so we know a thing or two about what makes a call-back different from a virtual queue.
What is a call-back?
All virtual queues end in a call-back, but not all call-backs come from a virtual queue.
Call-backs refer to when you return a customer’s request for a phone call. Whether that’s from a virtual queue or an appointment booked through another channel, it’s all a call-back.

TIP:
A call-back can be at any time, but a virtual queue is initiated in-call queue.

What is Virtual Queuing?
Virtual queuing is the simplest type of call-back solution available. It’s a catch-all term for when you use a bot to wait on hold for you.
‘Virtual Hold’ is the trademarked name of the virtual queuing solution made by Virtual Hold Technology, the other long-time call-back solution provider.
Virtual Queuing, Virtual Hold, Call-Backs: What does it all mean?
Agent-First Virtual Queuing vs. Customer-First Virtual Queuing
Virtual hold systems also differ in how they connect to the customer at the end of the queue. There are two main ways of connecting a caller to an agent at the end of their virtual hold: Agent-First Connection or a Customer-First Connection.
Customer-First Virtual Queuing
Contrary to its name, this is the least customer-friendly option. When the call nears the end of the virtual hold queue, the Automated Call Distributor (ACD)  places a call to the customer. When they pick up, the system validates the call and caller and then connects them to an agent.
That still forces the customer to wait on hold for a short time. Companies like United Airlines choose this option because they want to save money by making you pay for the extra time, which is just plain rude.
Six Secrets to Boost Customer Satisfaction in the Contact Center

Agent-First Virtual Queuing
Agent-first means that the call is connected to an agent at the end of the virtual hold. The agent then has to initiate the call-back themselves, usually by pressing a button on their console.
The ACD then places the outbound call to the caller, who can hear a live agent as soon as they answer the call. That makes for a much better customer experience, which is why Fonolo call-backs are agent-first.
Which is Better: Virtual Queuing or Call-Backs?
The truth is that virtual queuing is just one simple way of offering your customers a call-back. They both help to reduce your abandonment rate and average speed of answer — and improve customer satisfaction.
Comparing Fonolo and Virtual Hold
It’s been around for a long time and is a tried and tested method to reduce abandonment rates in your contact center. We will say nothing bad about virtual queuing because it’s an essential component of the Fonolo product suite.
That said, the term call-back includes the many other ways to offer to call your customers back when you’re busy: Visual IVR, Conversation Scheduling, Programmable Call-Backs, Click to Call Widgets, whatever else you call them.
Call-backs are ‘better’ than virtual queuing because they offer more flexibility for your customers and more options for you to manage call volume.
 The post Blog first appeared on Fonolo.

The purpose of marketing is to cause change. If we’re trying to build a movement, raise money for a non-profit, sell a product, change lifestyles, build community–these are all marketing activities that exist to change the way people act.

The project usually begins with clarity. The cause is just, the harm is real, the product is better. The work is worth doing, there’s an urgent need for change, it’s real.

But sometimes, the original arguments, as valid as they are, don’t work. In fact, they rarely do. People don’t all line up to donate or work out or sign up from the very start. You can put in the energy to have your pitch get heard, but the early ones often fall flat. It’s only as the arguments become more clear, or change, that they begin to resonate.

And yet we can get stuck with a certain orthodoxy. An early argument can become the only argument. The story that the group tells from the start is the right one, and anything else is a disappointing compromise, even if it leads to the action you sought in the first place.

In general, there are three things that cause people to change their actions:

Status roles
Affiliation
Convenience

Status roles involve whether this action will move someone up or down in the estimation of their peers or competitors.

Affiliation is related to status, but more specific. It’s “people like us do things like this.” In the words of the Rolling Stones: He can’t be a man because he doesn’t smoke, the same cigarettes as me.

And convenience is the hallmark of a semi-lazy decision–it’s just easier.

Using these three drivers, you can look at the spread of helmets in the NHL, or electric cars in California or Nike sneakers everywhere. We can see it in the decline in smoking in some communities, or the rise of a popular style of music as well.

The originators of these and other ideas didn’t begin with status, affiliation or convenience, but that’s what ended up working.

The post Embeddable CX for the Smartphone-Era Consumer appeared first on UJET.

The pandemic has shaken up the way businesses engage with their customers, accelerating the adoption of digital services and online tools for customer engagement. This trend has been particularly prominent in retail, where ecommerce has skyrocketed during the crisis. According to internet industry body IMRG, online sales in the UK were up 58 per cent…
The post Three Strategic Trends that Will Shape Customer Experience in 2021 and Beyond appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

There is the kindness of ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ And the kindness of “I was wrong, I’m sorry.” The small kindnesses that smooth our interactions and help other people feel as though you’re aware of them. These don’t cost us much, in fact, in most settings, engaging with kindness is an essential part of connection, engagement and forward motion.

And then there is the kindness of dignity. Of giving someone the benefit of the doubt. The kindness of seeing someone for the person that they are and can become, and the realization that everyone, including me and you, has a noise in our heads, a story to be told, fear to be danced with and dreams to be realized.

And there’s another: The kindness of not seeking to maximize short-term personal gain. The kindness of building something for the community, of doing work that matters, of finding a resilient, anti-selfish path forward.

Kindness isn’t always easy or obvious, because the urgent race to the bottom, to easily measured metrics and to scarcity, can distract us. But bending the arc toward justice, toward dignity and toward connection is our best way forward.

Kindness multiplies and it enables possiblity. When we’re of service to people, we have the chance to make things better.

Happy Birthday, Reverend King.