Lori Bocklund
Lori Bocklund is President of Strategic Contact, an independent consulting firm that helps companies optimize the value of their customer contact technology and operations. Lori helps corporate and government contact centers develop and execute plans tied to business goals, such as technology strategy, VoIP and virtualization planning, technology requirements and selection, and project management and implementation. Backed by more than 20 years in the industry, Lori has developed a deep understanding of a broad spectrum of systems, applications and operational environments and extraordinary skill in making today's complex technology environments more easily understood. She's a popular, enthusiastic presenter, author and advisor, and shares her knowledge and practical guidance through numerous speaking engagements, articles, technology courses, and her book, "Call Center Technology Demystified." Email: [email protected]
Are There Better Ways to Staff the Contact Center?
Executives regularly ask contact center leaders to explore new operational paradigms that could benefit their organizations. Some of these ideas come from things they...
Align Business, Contact Center and Technology Strategies
I’ve been on my soapbox for years touting the importance of aligning the business strategy, the contact center operations strategy, and the contact center...
Five Key Decisions for Buying Contact Center Technology
In earlier writings, I’ve offered up guidelines for purchasing cloud technology that focus on pricing, service level agreements, and the statement of work. But...
Buyer’s Guide to Cloud Solutions
Affordable contact center technology solutions abound in today’s market. Centers can implement cloud-based applications with far shorter lead times than premise-based solutions. They’re especially...
Resiliency in the Age of Pandemic
As we prepared for 2020 six months ago, few (if any) had a crystal ball that anticipated the kind of widespread disrupted brought on...
Contact Center Challenges and Priorities for 2020
We just completed our fifth annual survey and had 275 participants chime in on their top three challenges and priorities. While I encourage you...
It’s Time to Get More Out of Data
Contact Centers have always had an abundance of data about customers and performance. Unfortunately, that data is not being fully utilized to benefit the...
Make Contact Center Technology a Strategic Tool
I’ve logged a few decades working with hundreds of contact centers. So, here’s one thing I know for sure: Contact center technology can be...
Virtual Assistants Can Be Your Contact Center Agents’ Best Friends
For all the buzz about “bots” and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their potential to make agent-supported contacts go away, agent-handled contacts still dominate for...
Take Self-Service Up Another Notch
If you’re like me, you may waffle between excitement and cynicism over self-service (SS). Over the years, there has been a lot of hype...
The Future of the Contact Center
We embarked on a fun little survey this spring to gather input on the future of the contact center. Our focus was on which...
Try Omnichannel… Again
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” This lovely phrase we all learned as children could come in handy right about now!...
Use the Right Tools for Internal Communication
A few universal truths guide contact centers, and one is that everyone seeks “efficiency and effectiveness.” Efficiency includes timely responses and (relatively) short contact...
Time to Create a Better Desktop
It jumped out at me as big news: Lack of and/or bad desktop tools took the #1 spot on our challenges list for 2019....
Automate Those Manual Processes
Way too many centers have way too many manual process steps, negatively impacting the customer experience and the cost of doing business. Long handle...
It’s Time to Bid Farewell to Excel-based WFO
Contact centers need performance management tools to manage their operations. Too often, the dominant “tool” is Excel. Unfortunately, when individuals export and manipulate data...
Highlights from the 2019 Challenges and Priorities Survey
With nearly 300 participants, Strategic Contact and Contact Center Pipeline proudly report the findings from our fourth annual Challenges and Priorities Survey. Here are...
Contact Center Challenges & Priorities for 2019
I hope you are as excited as I am to dive into the results from our fourth annual survey, with nearly 300 participants sharing...
Four Key Contact Center Technologies for 2019
As we end 2018 and reflect on what’s ahead in 2019, it seems like a good time to think about what’s new and what’s...
Calculating ROI for Contact Center Technology Investments
It’s easy to get excited about technology and conjure up all of the benefits that will accrue to the contact center. But you must...
