It may be tempting to think of improving customer service as a monumental task, but the truth is there are big improvements you can make with relatively small investments of time and resources. All that’s required to accomplish an impressive improvement in your customer service model is a simple paradigm shift.
Read more →
Contact centre managers know providing excellent customer support is job one for a successful operation. Today’s client is accustomed to round-the-clock access to answers and does not list patience among their top five virtues. That’s all right. Good contact centre agents can manage, if that is, they have access to a few crucial technology items for excellent customer support. Read more →
For a customer to pick up the phone and call your contact centre, there has to be a pressing issue of some kind. Unfortunately, they don’t take time out of their busy lives to give you a ring to let you know you’re doing a bang-up job. If the phone’s ringing, there’s likely an issue that requires immediate resolution to satisfy the caller’s needs. Read more →
“Functional conflict” may sound like “devout atheist,” a bit of an oxymoron. But the truth is some conflict in the workplace is actually productive. Functional conflict is defined as the type of discord that actually serves the contact centres best interests and may in fact improve performance. Dysfunctional conflict is the bad stuff – petty infighting, unproductive arguments, and obstinacy – that gets in the way of your client service centre’s operations. Read more →
These days, you can’t flip through television channels without hearing some reality TV personality telling someone else to “save the drama.” No one wants unnecessary conflict, especially in the workplace. But while we’re quick to say we want no more “drama,” what if conflict could actually be productive? Read more →
Your business has a lot of things to worry about; accuracy with inbound call handling taking shouldn’t be one of them. Unfortunately, for many companies the compound stresses of high employee turnover, multiple language needs, rising call volume, hefty payroll costs, and an inability to meet customers’ demands 24/7 means cracks can begin to show in the in-house contact centre. Did you know that Forrester Research found 42 percent of service reps say they’re unable to effectively resolve consumer issues because of inadequate technology and out-of-date interfaces? Often, the people who pay the price for your company’s inability to emerge victorious from this complex game of contact centre whack-a- mole are your customers. Read more →
Ah, the unassuming call centre; quietly working keeping things running whether it is the dead of night or Christmas morning. Some organizations don’t give the customer service sector its rightful respect, thinking of the client service centre as more of a touchy-feely part of the company than a revenue generator. However, even if your contact centre principally handles service calls, it’s absolutely a vital part of the way your organization does business and generates profits. Read more →
Virtual reception: it’s the most cost-effective way to quickly meet your customers’ needs without maxing out your labor costs. While the inclusion of the word “virtual” doesn’t immediately make you think of a warm and personal greeting, you’d be surprised by just how polite, knowledgeable, and warm a virtual receptionist can be. In fact, the receptionists themselves are far from virtual: they’re real-live agents in an off-site location, but your callers will never know they don’t work for you in-house. Read more →
“Just give me the bottom line.”
How many times have you heard that frustrating phrase in your life? Sure, the bottom line is important; in business, moving away from a focus on cold, hard facts and figures often leads to disaster. But in the contact centre, there is often so great a focus on metrics and KPIs that customer service and satisfaction end up at the bottom of your list of priorities — intentionally or otherwise. Read more →
So you’ve decided you’re ready to implement a new CRM system and capture information from your incoming calls. Your client service centre has just taken a quantum leap forward with reference to how much bang you’ll get for your contact centre investment bucks. Get ready to open the dam on valuable data you previously weren’t accessing. Read more →