Contact Center Pipeline Blog

A growing number of companies are using gamification in the contact center to motivate agents to improve their performance and skills. “We’re finding that...

How are leading-edge contact centers transforming their quality management tools to empower agents? Calabrio Innovation Center Manager Brad Snedeker identified the following four key...

With customer loyalty and profitability at stake, it’s important to have sound policies in place for managing and safeguarding customer information. Make sure that...

I have had the same home phone provider for 25 years. I subscribed to that same company’s Internet service 18 years ago. Three years...

Our top blog post in May focused on an age-old challenge for many contact centers—schedule adherence—and offered tips for creating a culture that promotes...

As with practically all improvement activities, an engaged staff starts with the right hires. Passion is a requirement, but it needs to be driven...

How do you dispel the cost center image and focus your top-level executives' attention on the value that great service provides? That has been...

Poor attendance is one of the top reasons for termination in a contact center. According to Benchmark Portal, the average adherence to schedule rate...

Consumers are starting to spend almost as much time using their smartphones and tablets as they spend watching television (127 minutes per day vs....

In my last post, I looked at a few Do's and Don'ts of Proactive Contacts. Not sure how to get started with proactive work?...

In many contact centers, proactive contacts seem to function as “filler work”—an activity that gets done when there is some down time (which, of...

While the advantages of home-agent programs are undeniable, if your model is not well-defined, you’ll likely find yourself running into a few stumbling blocks...

In their eagerness to attract the best talent, companies often oversell the frontline contact center agent’s job during the recruiting process, which only increases...

We love to conduct technology strategy projects and have shared how important we think those are for contact centers. We emphasize alignment of technology...

New technology, emerging channels, social media and rising customer expectations are all transforming the customer care environment. In our recent Contact Center Training poll,...

According to a study from Customer Experience Management, 71% of agents do not have the authority to satisfy a customer. OUCH! With high attrition...

I am a workforce manager, which means I need to count days for many reasons: payroll days for my staffing models; working days, so...

What defines best-in-class performance? ICMI recently announced the finalists for its Global Contact Center Awards Program. The winners in each of the 12 categories...

I want to talk a little about why service metrics (e.g., Service Level, ASA, Abandon Rate or Max Delay) are so important and why...

In early April, interest in agent development rose to the top of the charts on the Pipeline blog—from insights about ensuring that the right...

Which types of contact center training produce the best ROI? In our recent Contact Center Training Special Issue, we asked experts from the leading...

Post-transaction surveys provide a customer-centric view of when first-contact resolution (FCR) has been achieved. But even with customer surveys, the most common methods often...

“Congratulations! You have been promoted to acting supervisor.” It was 1993 when my manager pulled me aside and gave me the good news. I...

If your contact center is among the many that are considering adding social media to the channel mix, one of your top considerations will...

No matter what you think of mobile communication, you can be certain it is here to stay. It is not simply a different type...

What is your training plan for a new supervisor? According to a study by Benchmark Portal, 33% of new supervisors receive no training when...

As more organizations turn to customer experience as a competitive differentiator, contact centers must ensure that staff are fully prepared to drive customer-centric goals....

“To make a long story short” is an idiom that dates back to the 1800s. In 1857, Henry David Thoreau penned these words in...