Blogs

In the modern age people are extremely savvy about technological channels of communication and are selective about the usage of such channels. With options expanded from traditional technologies such as phone and email to newer channels such as chat and social media, one thing is clear about people’s use of such communication means: they strive...

In her article The Power of a Personalized Experience, Cynthia Clark at 1to1Media echoed our own sentiments about personalizing the customer experience through preferences in an article we posted earlier this month. After considering her own experiences with a corner grocer who knew her mother's preferences without the use of technology and a database, and...

Remember the memorable camera shot at the beginning of the Julie Andrews movie, “The Sound of Music”? This 1965 classic begins with an aerial shot of the Austrian Alps and pans in on Ms. Andrews, who exuberantly croons the memorable, “The hills are alive…!” At the risk of mistreating a metaphor, one could say that...

Probably one of the most sensitive and difficult management challenges is, as one CallCenter magazine piece puts it (rather dryly), “monitor(ing) each agent’s adherence to schedules.”  In medium to large call centers, when the agent logs in, it is the equivalent to punching a time card. The “adherence” part is all about ensuring the monitoring...

Workforce management (WFM) software is becoming more and more popular with companies that rely on efficient call center support. Call centers are the “front door” to your operation. Scheduling the right combination of people to match the peaks and valleys of customer calls is all about knowing how and when to schedule your greeters and...

Need to make your call center more productive, less wasteful of time and talent and your bottom line closer to your top estimates? Workforce management (WFM) software is your key resource in meeting all three of those goals. According to a “CallCenter” Magazine piece… “The most important thing that most call centers can do to improve...

  The modern online consumer world is one in which there is an explosion of data available about our tastes. Google’s search is highly personalized and part of the search engine leader’s corporate vision is making its search as uniquely fine-tuned to the user as possible. Also, anyone with a Netflix account knows how deeply...

When discussing return on investment (ROI), it is very tempting to focus on the factors that seem to be the most concrete: hardware costs, recurring monthly service fees, IT salaries, and other items that easily transfer over to a balance sheet. However, in the field of contact centers that deal with direct customer engagement, we...

Everyone agrees that customer engagement at utilities across the country, and even around the world has improved greatly in the last few years, but there are still many challenges ahead. Utilities face so many challenges that the industry has even seen the birth of a new type of executive -- the utilities executive as a rock star....

Customer self service is not a new idea. Banks have been using self service features for decades. ATM's and online account management are just two ways banks have been able to help customers help themselves while reducing customer service costs. All businesses can learn much from the banking industry's history of leveraging customer self service....

The benefits that cloud-based call centers provide to businesses are garnering a lot of attention. The industry is touting its low TCO, scalability and better disaster recovery. While the cloud offers some impressive benefits to call centers, nobody is talking about how it benefits customers. The cloud works on a scalable outsourcing principle, pulling resources from multiple...

Electricity is all around us and we rely on it daily, but many consumers take it for granted until their service is interrupted by a power failure.  In the digital age, electricity is absolutely essential for a vibrant economy and for a high quality of life.  As utilities seek to update the smart grid to...

Call center technology should be at the core of your customer resource management. It consists of the hardware, software and skilled people to screen, refer and handle customer inquiries, complaints and (if you do it right) future business. Among other things, the best call center technology gives the customer the most hassle-free experience. The person...

Without even trying every company produces a customer experience – good or bad – when they interact with their customers. But no business in today’s service-driven economy can afford to leave it at that. You have probably defined an ideal customer experience and have many solutions in place to help your company create it: an...

I just saw where Spencer Dean (@SpenceDean) of inContact (@inContact) posted “Do you collaborate with your customers?” on LinkedIn and referenced an article by Brandon Evans (@brandone) of CrowdTap (@Crowdtap). The article is entitled “Customers Don’t Want Ads, They Want A Conversation” and I think it’s great. It talks about the shift from marketing “at”...

These days, consumers are more wired in than ever before through the internet and mobile technology. Consumers have become used to having any inquiry answered immediately and information delivered upon request. Increasingly, today's consumers seek empowerment through a variety of self-service options in everything from healthcare to paying bills. Nowhere is this trend more evident...

Before we can address the question “How do I do customer service?", we first have to define some terms.  According to Harley Manning at Forrester, customer experience is defined as "How customers perceive their interactions with your company."  He further defines an interaction: "It’s when you and your customers have a two-way exchange." If we...

USAN has teamed up with ICMI (International Customer Management Institute) to find out how call centers are using emerging channels to improve the customer experience. Be one of the first 200 participants and receive a $5 Starbucks gift card! Take the survey now!

Let us say that, for whatever reason, your customers feel dismayed about the service they have received from your business. Let us say that your customers take it as personally as the negative experience can possibly be taken. Consider for a moment the old flight or fight mechanism, a common primal, physiological occurrence in conflict...

These days, you can buy your groceries, do your banking, check in at the airport, finish your Christmas shopping and even check out your library books all without interacting with another human being. Yet many companies still act under the erroneous assumption that customers prefer live service, when in fact, the opposite is becoming the...