As I sit here reviewing the April issue prior to publication, I marvel at all the external factors affecting our centers today. Since the pandemic, there has been a scramble to move our agents home to work. I appreciate Jack Boyd’s thoughts in our Feature this month on determining site selection for our centers given our work-from-home (WFH) policies and how that impacts our decisions.
Also in this issue, Leslie discusses how we connect with remote colleagues through email. Mark’s perspectives on strategies for managing remote call center teams helps us navigate this remote transition. And, I love Eric and Shane’s article on how we nurture friendships in our new era.
Sure, the pandemic has had a huge impact. There are many other external factors such as inflation, new mandates for minimum wages, shrinking labor forces and so much more affecting our centers. I always thought we had enough of our own internal challenges in our centers, but now we need to deal with many more external factors.
In 2023 there were a record 28 weather and climate disasters. As we continue to see these extreme weather events occur, we need to ensure we have done all that is necessary to update disaster recovery plans given our new WFH policies.
Have a great Spring!
Table of Contents, April 2024
FEATURE ARTICLE
Where to Call and Contact?
By Brendan Read; Q&A with John H. Boyd
The New Normal, like WFH, has shaken up contact center site selection strategies.
IDIOM INSIGHTS
Contact Center Leaders…Can You Rise to the Challenge?
By Kathleen M. Peterson
Key initiatives to contact center success.
WRITING WELL
Connecting With Remote Colleagues: In Writing
By Leslie O’Flahavan
Email has its flaws, so here’s how to make the best of it.
COACH’S CORNER
Strategies for Managing Remote Call Center Teams – Part 1
By Mark Pereira
How to handle challenges of agents working from home.
AGENT EXPERIENCE
Reinventing Workplace Connections
By Eric Berg and Shane Devitt
How to nurture friendships in the remote contact center era.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Attack The Service/Support Points of Pain
By John Goodman
Doing so is win-win-win for customers, employees, and organizations.
STAFFING
Disruption Ahead for The Contact Center Workforce – Part 1
By Brent Holland
Declining labor supply poses challenges and how to offset them.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Banking on Digital Transformation
By Patrick Reetz
How financial services can use tools like Conversational AI and Agent Assist AI.
AGENT EMPOWERMENT
Guiding Customers on Their Journeys
By Brian Peterson
How AI can assist agents assist customers.
MANAGEMENT
Managing to Adapt
By Brendan Read; Q&A with Laura Sikorski
Where are contact centers going post-COVID-19 pandemic?
CASE STUDY
Recruitment, Attrition, and COVID-19
By Brendan Read
How Jackson National Life’s contact center responded to the challenges.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
The New Face of Knowledge Management
By Alan Ranger
How AI, LLMs, and vectorization has changed KM.
A special thank you to our authors this month for sharing their insights and wisdom: Eric Berg, John H. Boyd, Shane Devitt, Maggie Garza, John Goodman, Brent Holland, Leslie O’Flahavan, Mark Pereira, Brian Peterson, Kathleen M. Peterson, Alan Ranger, Brendan Read, Patrick Reetz, and Laura Sikorski.
Sincere appreciation to each of our sponsors: 2Ring, AWS Marketplace, Calabrio, Centrical, Cognigy, CRMxChange, eGain, Human Numbers, Khoros, Kustomer, Lemonade, MediaSmith, NECCF, NICE, PowerHouse, Procedure Flow, Reuters, RingCentral, Riverbed, ROI-DNA, Strategic Contact, TTEC Digital, WFH Alliance and Verint.
