Agent Engagement

Employee advocacy can be very impactful if there is a really clear and articulated business case for the program, and if every element of the program is anchored in the business case, says Christopher...

Contact centers are in the midst of significant strategic and technological changes that will have a lasting impact on the workforce. The explosion of digital channels, tech-savvy mobile consumers willing to air their grievances...

Berlin Packaging has a long history of business success, which its leaders attribute largely to its focus on employee engagement and a culture of shared commitment to “Being Greater, Faster.” It’s a culture that...

Despite the growing popularity of the collaborative corporate culture, the more traditional directive model is still common today. In a directive organization, leaders give their subordinates specific orders on what to do and how...

Successfully transforming into a customer-centric culture requires agent buy-in. Anna Convery, CMO & EVP Strategy at OpenSpan recommends getting agents more engaged in customer initiatives upfront by making sure that they have a voice...

It’s no secret that the work of a call center agent requires saintly patience and nerves of steel, and as customer expectations go up, the job becomes ever more demanding. In fact, Gartner reports...

The millennial generation (those born between 1980 and 2000) has been described as the most high-maintenance workforce to date, but it can also be the most high-performing, if you learn what makes them tick. We...

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...

Interaction with the staff is important in most any leadership position, but it is absolutely critical in a contact center. The agent’s job success depends on interpersonal skills, and it is the supervisors, managers,...

In my last post, I offered five tips to reduce your new-hires’ training jitters, while increasing their knowledge retention and engagement. The following are five additional ideas to ensure that new agents can make...

To keep my latest book—First, Engage Yourself—short enough to read over, say, a long lunch, I omitted nine things. 1. Buzzwords and Wonky Terms OK, I do talk about “employee engagement.” But that phrase...

We all know that creating positive customer experiences requires highly engaged employees. The link between employee engagement and overall organizational success has been proven again and again. Why, then, are organizations continuing to struggle with...

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey articulates this habit so clearly when he asks the reader to picture ... their own funeral. He describes the setting and the speakers, one...

A few thousand years ago, Aristotle articulated a simple truth when he wrote: Well begun is half-done. The first step, the step most often overlooked in the millions of conversations on how to engage...

Albert Einstein defined insanity as ”doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.“ Business books rarely start with quotes from Einstein or ones about insanity. However, we’re talking about employee engagement (actually...

Agility is key to success in today’s rapidly changing business environment. No operation is more familiar with the need to quickly adapt to changes in the market and evolving customer expectations than Pacific Life’s...

As with practically all improvement activities, an engaged staff starts with the right hires. Passion is a requirement, but it needs to be driven by the type of success that the contact center environment...

In this month’s Inside View column, Berlin Packaging’s Senior Manager of Business Development and Strategy Paul Mansour discusses how the company’s rapid growth through multiple acquisitions impacted Berlin’s long-standing corporate culture. Over the past decade,...

March 2009… that was our first issue of Contact Center Pipeline. It’s been six years since we launched our publication. I looked back to see what I wrote six years ago, and it looked...

Have you ever heard the saying, “There’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth”? I work with many companies looking to decrease attrition, and the same set of three problems shows up again...