It has been an exciting year at Pipeline with the launch of our blog. As 2015 comes to a close, we’d like to look back at our 10 most popular posts of the year.
Do Frontline Agents Receive Enough Ongoing Training?
We asked that question in a recent poll on Contact Center Training. The majority (84%) of participating contact centers reported providing ongoing training for frontline staff. Of those, 71% said they provide up to 50 hours of training annually, and another 21% offer 51-100 hours.
Look Beyond Surveys to Measure Customer Experience
Contact centers typically rely on post-call surveys to gather valuable feedback from the customer’s viewpoint. But how do you measure a customer experience that spans multiple touchpoints?
What Causes Slow Service?
Speed is the ultimate compliment that we can pay our customers. It shows that we value their time and we recognize they have better ways to spend it than conducting business with us. What causes slow service? Increased complexity makes all kinds of contacts longer, as does the increase in regulations regarding customer authentication.
Provide Social Customer Care Agents with Situation Guidelines
While a good social service training program provides agents with a basic understanding of how social media works and the differences for engagement among the various social networks, it’s also important to provide them with guidelines on how to handle the various types of situations they are likely to encounter.
Boost New-hire Retention with a Realistic Job Preview
In their eagerness to attract the best talent, companies often oversell the job during the recruiting process, which only increases early defections. Providing a clear, honest preview of the position will help to weed out those who are likely to leave—before making a significant investment in the candidate’s training.
WFM Excel Trick for Counting Days
I am a workforce manager, which means I need to count days for many reasons: payroll days for my staffing models; working days, so that I don’t apply shrinkage to people on vacation or FMLA; and index days, so I don’t treat a month with 10 weekend days the same way I would treat a month with eight weekend days.
4 Key Drivers of Agent Engagement
What is it that makes the agents in certain contact centers especially enthusiastic about their jobs and more committed to delivering a high-quality customer experience on call after call? Higher pay alone won’t produce passionate concern for the company’s well-being and dedication to helping it achieve its vision or goals. The following are four key drivers found in centers with high levels of engagement.
Empower Frontline Staff with QM Tools
How are leading-edge contact centers transforming their quality management tools to empower agents? Calabrio Innovation Center Manager Brad Snedeker identified the following four key trends.
5 Tips to Improve Engagement During New-Hire Training
I remember my first day as an agent at a major phone company. It was at the start of my working life. I was nervous. I had no idea what to expect for my first day. I walked in the classroom, sat down and began talking with the person sitting next to me. She was as nervous as I was. More importantly, neither one of us knew what to expect from training.
Agent Attrition: Time for a Change
“Well, you know, it is a call center.” That phrase always seems to be uttered at some point when discussing turnover at a contact center. It suggests a certain resignation to a situation that is not only problematic on its own, but symptomatic of bigger issues in an organization. Ironically, the same people who often make this statement know full well that it is too important to ignore.
