Agent Engagement

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 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,...

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...

Working on a major holiday is tough for anyone. Your agents’ bodies may be in the contact center, but their thoughts and hearts will be with family and friends. Show your agents how much...

You would expect to see a feature article about trends at the beginning of the year. We did that. But things shift quickly in this digital economy—and when it comes to customer expectations, the...

In this month's most-read posts, our authors offer insights on how the contact center agent's role has evolved and become more complex, how best to engage with your WFH agents, how to improve your...

The post-pandemic recovery has begun, and Pipeline readers appear to be looking ahead to what the future contact center operation will be. Will work-from-home (WFH) make a successful transition to a more permanent model?...

I always find it interesting to talk with leaders of customer-centric companies about the strategies and practices that contribute to their success. Lately, I’ve noticed that there is one thing that almost every leader...

Have you heard of The Golden Rule? It’s common English phrasing is: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Golden Rule, the ethic of reciprocity, is found in all cultures whose...

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...

While a successful employee advocacy program can boost your company’s credibility, visibility and even revenue, the reality is that many companies attempt to launch one without ensuring that the key elements are in place....

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...

“Rewritten by machine and new technology/And now I understand the problems you can see” Video Killed The Radio Star (The Buggles) No, video did not kill the radio star, contrary to the famous lyrics that launched MTV...

“That looks crazy!” I thought, watching a TV performer spin a plate on top of a pole. Then he added a spinning plate to a second pole, and then another spinning plate to a...

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...

Serving business-to-business (B2B) customers is similar and yet different from serving business-to-consumer (B2C) customers. Both types rightfully demand excellent customer experiences (CXs) on the channels of their choice. Yet in B2B there is a...

This Little Light of Mine” is a popular gospel song of unknown origin that is sung all over the world. I recently was surprised when my Spotify AI selected Sam Cooke’s version of the...

When it comes to managing your contacts, the days of the rolodex and the spreadsheet database are far behind us. Today’s business landscape calls for much more sophisticated solutions, which means having a contact...

The pandemic period has proven something really important for contact centers, and that is that Work From Home on scale is a huge win. Separate from the impact that the health emergency itself had...

Like most contact center leaders, I like data. Give me cold, hard facts and figures and I’m able to build strategies and implement processes to improve those numbers. Everyone in the contact center industry...