Quick Tips

Are your agents saying the right thing? If you are like most call center leaders, quality assurance requires a lot of your attention and time. How many times have you revamped your program in...

Our Quick Tips posts are just that—brief posts providing advice or actionable items from industry experts. These are tried-and-true practices that have proven successful for the provider, and which can be implemented across a...

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...

Departmental silos will stop a customer service initiative dead in its tracks. Silos also throw wrenches into daily service delivery goals when the contact center is unaware of projects and activities in other areas...

I often ask leaders of award-winning contact centers what they think is the key strength of their operation. They almost always point to their people. Many also stress that the “secret sauce” is hiring...

Taking the time to show frontline agents how much they’re valued is a critical role for the center management team—or should be. Jill Houghland, senior operations manager at InterCall, and a finalist for ICMI’s...

Mention the word texting in a B-to-C context, and most people think of automated alerts. Some text alerts allow for a basic level of two-way interaction (e.g., an appointment reminder alert that asks the...

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...

What is a common issue that prevents organizations from realizing the full value of their contact center technology investment? Usually, when a new contact center solution is deployed, all of the tools are made...

Training programs for home-based agents, especially new-hires, should include ongoing personal contact with a support team member—a supervisor, team leader or senior agent—who they can turn to for a quick response to questions and...

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...

While many top-performing contact center agents desire opportunities for growth and development, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re cut out to be supervisors or coaches. Even so, in many centers promotions are still based...

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...

In centers that suffer from high absenteeism, you'll typically find disengaged supervisors. Like agents, supervisors who are performing the same coaching tasks day in and day out can get into a rut. Disengaged supervisors...

Even the most effective measures will not impact the company’s ability to deliver an exceptional experience if the feedback cannot be translated into improvements at the point of contact. Leading-edge organizations regularly analyze behavioral...

Programs that offer honor and prestige for top performance not only inspire employees to reach for higher goals, they help to create a positive workplace environment that attracts quality candidates. At SWBC, a diversified...

New-hire surveys can help to identify the breakdowns in trust that can occur early on when new agents decide that the job is not what they expected—a common cause of new-hire turnover in contact...