Self-Service

This month, our readers have strongly focused on moving forward in our new hybrid/remote work environments. Rama enlightens us on how video technologies can improve both the employee's remote work experience and the customer's...

Forecasting economic futures is challenging, but business success depends on it. The U.S. economy ended 2022 on a sustained strong note. Payrolls continued to grow beyond expectations. Unemployment stayed low. Wages were still growing...

Customer care leaders are in the heart of a perfect storm. After a couple of tough years, much of which had consumers conducting their shopping online, customers are tired and frustrated, service cases are...

Since the dawn of direct-to-consumer retail, customer service has separated leading retailers from laggards. As retail matured and transitioned from brick-and-mortar to online, the contact center’s role in the customer lifecycle gained increasing importance. In...

There has always been, and will continue to be, a blend of predictability and unpredictability when managing inbound customer contacts. When there is a planned event, like a new product or service launch, upgrade,...

Promises are the most personal and binding of commitments, and therefore are to be made carefully, kept fully, and broken only in the most extenuating cases and with thorough explanations. So, when a company, its...

Today, brands must differentiate the experience they provide their customers or risk losing them to competitors. One way to achieve this level of differentiation is through digital self-service experiences, which empower customers to get...

The pandemic exposed two significant insights about the state of customer service: A poor customer experience coupled with pandemic-fueled emotions can push customers to the brink of tears; and Customers don’t have much faith...

When the world went rapidly digital, customer engagement solutions such as intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs) became invaluable pandemic frontline first responders in the customer service realm. Today, IVA technology is revolutionizing how customer service...

Let’s have a heart to heart. Do you understand which channels your customers prefer to contact your organization? In a recent contact center webinar conducted by Jacada, 42% of the attendees replied they don’t...

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 over SS, but that enthusiasm has been tempered by equal...

Customer Experience (CX) as a term may have many definitions, but it is generally accepted that it is all about creating personalized, seamless, low-effort customer interactions. By its very nature, CX takes a holistic...

Poorly designed IVR applications have been frustrating callers for years—and in too many cases, alienating customers rather than providing a quick and easy way to handle the most basic transactions. Worse, when callers opt...

With online self-service, getting customers to accurate information with as little effort as possible can provide them with a high-value experience while meeting the business’ cost-reduction objectives. Unfortunately, too many websites contain outdated information...

Contact centers exist to support customers who need to access information or complete transactions. Companies can reduce costs by addressing those needs, partially if not wholly, with self-service technology. Above the obvious bottomline impact,...

Many customers prefer to forgo the human interaction and opt to self-serve through a company’s website or IVR system. The rapidly growing popularity of smartphones has added another dimension to customer expectations for self-service. Smartphone...