Retail is in the middle of a reckoning. Economic turmoil, rising operating costs, and shifting consumer habits are driving a wave of store closures,...

Welcome to our April issue. This issue brings together a range of perspectives and practical insights designed to help us navigate our environments with...

Retailers are under increasing pressure to meet customer demands for seamless, 24/7 service, as noted in a recent report by Mintel, “US Evolutions in...

A favorite annual article here at Pipeline tops this month's top 5. In our "Moving Forward" feature, we kick off each year with advice...

Agentic AI has emerged as quickly as it has powerfully, reshaping the landscape of contact centers. Unlike traditional automation, agentic AI is designed to...

Through a pandemic, the Great Resignation, and difficult economic conditions, an age-old contact center challenge has become more complex: agent retention. According to Forrester,...

A Short Story to Start Before. You’ve seen this happen, maybe even in your own contact center. Jasmine is hired, bright and warm, eager to...

Making sure new employees have the best possible onboarding experience isn’t just nice: it’s crucial for keeping great people! A solid plan for onboarding,...

In 2025, AI in the contact center industry found fast traction due to numerous opportunities to drive better customer and agent experiences. For instance, chatbots...

We live in an era where the customer experience (CX) is being fundamentally reshaped by rapid advances in technology. Across industries, companies are investing...

I have always fostered this statement in the headline with my clients. Your staff, if happy and content, will help you reap the benefits...

Today’s economic, political, and social climate can best be described as a full-on storm, what with inflation, costs, unemployment rates and changing labor supply,...

How do you transform satisfied customers into loyal advocates? For businesses aiming to thrive in today’s competitive environment, it’s no longer enough to simply...

Blueprints guide the construction process when building a structure. Building a high-performing customer experience (CX) strategy is no different. The building process starts with...

Running a small or medium-sized business (SMB) comes with no shortage of hurdles, especially when it comes to customer service. Competing with larger companies...

I am proud of our March 2026 issue. I love seeing some of my “old favorite” topics, which I don’t think we will ever...

Brendan kicks off this month's top posts with his interview with Richard Boire of Boire Analytics. Richard shares his insights into how organizations use...

In today’s fast-paced call and contact center environment, information is abundant, but knowledge isn’t always readily available when needed. Every interaction, ticket, and internal conversation...

In today’s fast-paced call and contact center environment, information is abundant, but knowledge isn’t always readily available when needed. Every interaction, ticket, and internal conversation...

Most people don’t trust the companies they buy from. AI seems to be making customers more wary, instead of building better experiences and trust...

In contact centers, metrics have always been the north star. We measure everything: customer satisfaction (CSAT), first contact resolution (FCR), Net Promoter Score (NPS),...

Two decades ago, the “Service Guru,” Tom Peters, did an interview with me entitled, “Push, 1, Push 2, Push 3, Push your customer over...

Contact center leaders are in a tough place. Executives demand faster results, happier customers, and shrinking budgets. It’s a high-stakes juggling act: chasing efficiency without...

In 2023, the Chevrolet of Watsonville, Calif. chatbot offered one lucky customer the deal of a lifetime. The large language model (LLM)-powered negotiator agreed to...

The contact center industry is facing a customer experience (CX) breakdown that can no longer be dismissed. The data tells a clear story: Forrester’s “Global...

Contact centers have long sought to balance providing loyalty-and-revenue-building excellent customer experiences (CXs) with the costs of supplying them, and with this, supplying superb...

Since generative AI (GenAI) made its explosive debut at the end of 2022, every business function has felt pressure to deploy GenAI-powered tools in...

Everything faces an end. And technology is no exception. Indeed, technology systems must be retired when they become outdated, pushed off stage as newer...