Blogs

Productivity and motivation go hand in hand in the call center. Or at least they should. Too often, both are missing in the call center, or one shoves the other aside. One of the obstacles to bringing those together is scheduling. It’s a kind of Goldilocks dilemma: how do you get it just right? How...

FIRST PRINCIPLE When IVR works well, customers love it—and often prefer it. When it doesn’t, they hate it. And far too often, it doesn’t work well. I know: tell you something you don’t know. To work well, your IVR system has to be smart. Smart IVR solutions never make you repeat information your customers have...

What do they have in common? You do them all one step at a time. When it comes to implementing technologies, or finding new ways to connect technologies, bite-at-a-time is the predominant best practice—for a lot of reasons. But here’s the question people often struggle with. Which bite do I take first? Your customers will...

In recent blogs, I’ve repeated a phrase: omnichannel commerce. It’s not often used, but I didn’t invent it. I use it because it creates a clear distinction between what omnichannel is today—primarily a retail architecture—and what omnichannel will be when it matures: an architecture used in every category of business. (Fact check me on this:...

One of the key buttons I’ll be pushing in the Omnichannel Blog over the coming months is the simplicity of moving to the omnichannel model. I’ll be returning often to the theme that the omnichannel is not a technology, but a way of thinking about technology. To transition to virtual desktops, or advanced disaster recovery,...

Search for “Omni-Channel vs. multichannel” and there are a lot of explanations as to what the difference is between them. Some are spot on; others are dense and circuitous and brimming with jargon—and not close to hitting the mark. Here’s what I think is the easiest way to distinguish between multi-channel and omni-channel. Multichannel describes...

As one year ends and another begins, it’s customary to look both ways: behind us at the technologies and best practices of the past year, and ahead at what’s next. Omnichannel leaps to mind. If we look back, we see how retailers have embraced the omnichannel experience, and the clear value it’s brought to them...

Developed by Teleopti and hosted by USAN, the recently released WFM version 8 includes more than 100 improvements over the previous release, making it a truly groundbreaking solution. Two of the most exciting features are gamification and mobility. You can also visit the WFM product page. Gamification – motivate your employees with fun! In the...

Join Team USAN us November 3-5 in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency for the ICMI Contact Center Demo and Conference. We will be demonstrating the power of Teleopti’s Workforce Management (WFM) gamification and mobility features at pedestal 103. Look for the guys in the awesome blue football jerseys to get a first-hand look at our WFM...

Phone. Email. Social media. Your website. Customers have many ways to engage with your company. But siloed communication channels create a fragmented experience that frustrates customers and impacts service levels. Integrating multiple channels enables organizations to deliver consistent service and lead customers on a coherent customer journey. For some time now companies have recognized the...

Chances are good that, like most companies, you’re already using public or private clouds to host IT services – and you’re reaping the benefits: You’ve reduced costs by moving to a low monthly operating expenditure and greatly reducing – if not eliminating – the capital expenditures associated with an on-premise application. You’ve reduced operational overhead,...

USAN will demonstrate its new cloud-based multichannel contact center platform at the ICMI Call Center Expo in San Diego May 6-9. Visit Team USAN at Booth 315 to learn more about the industry's most versatile and flexible contact center solution in the cloud. Check out the event website here. You Belong at the Premier Global Event...

For a business considering migrating call center operations to the cloud, two primary concerns are security and availability. But according to Tony Bradley, PC World contributor and principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, the debate over cloud availability is “silly” while concerns about security and privacy are valid. Others agree. Earlier this year the...

It’s easy to get caught up in the opportunities made possible by big data in an omni-channel contact center. The information customers provide both explicitly and implicitly about their preferences and intentions can lead to valuable insights that improve how you engage with them. Once you start thinking outside the box, it seems there is no...

  Your organization’s contact center is a hotbed of data. Every interaction with the customer results in a wealth of information – some of it inferred, some of it explicitly stated – about the customer’s needs, wants and desires. This data offers organizations of all types and sizes an opportunity to take customer service to...

I recently participated in a panel at the ICMI Call Center Demo and Conference here in Atlanta with Sarah Stealey Reed (@stealeyreed), Chad McDaniel (@ExecsInTheKnow), Kim Martin (@kbmartin15), and Jay Wolcott (@jaywolcott).  A theme I kept returning to was that of establishing a business process that focuses on your customers' experience without regard to the...

The mission and goal of your call center are to provide the best customer experience, but from an analytics perspective it’s somewhat like the chicken and the egg dichotomy: which comes first, the data or its exploitation? Report highlights a rich seam of customer revenue According to a piece by Simon Lande in CMS WIRE,...

Whoever invented the term “big data” succeeded in combining jargon with an intuitive understanding of what it means: data that is... uh ... big. We know that data is a collection of facts from which we can draw conclusions, trends or even spin to our own ends. Add the word “big” and you open the...

Chip Bell, the keynote speaker of the upcoming ICMI Call Center Demo and Conference here in Atlanta, today posted his wish list for a perfect call center. He makes great points that I believe are spot-on and essential, but to prevailing attitudes today, they may seem counter-intuitive. I just couldn't resist offering additional insight to his...

I just read a great article by Josh Chapman at Cars.com about self-service.  The overall point is that when planning self service options, the goal to keep in mind is customer service, not cost savings. He describes two extremes: one where companies are trapping customers in over engineered IVRs, and another where companies are not...