Top Challenges When Evolving from Multi- to Omnichannel
While many organizations are currently providing multichannel customer service, few as yet have evolved their strategy and systems to deliver a true omnichannel customer...
CRM and the Contact Center
If you think customer relationship management (CRM) software can only play in the sales sandbox, think again. CRM provides a host of capabilities that...
14th Annual NECCF Vendor Expo: Executive Talk Interviews
I had the privilege to attend the 14th Annual NECCF (NorthEast Contact Center Forum) Vendor Expo at Gillette Stadium—Home of the World Champion New...
From Customer Experience to Customer Engagement
Greetings from Engage 2015, The Verint Systems Global Customer Conference, in Las Vegas (June 8th-11th)! The event got off to a great start Monday...
Long-Term Cost Management
Managing expenses in a contact center is tricky business. We have to remember that the transactions we handle are done in a partnership with...
Gamification: 4 Best Practices to Motivate Agents
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...
Empower Frontline Staff with QM Tools
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...
Provide Staff Training in Customer Privacy Practices
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...
7 Tips for Effective Upselling
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...
The Top 5 Posts in May
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...
Create an Environment that Fosters Agent Engagement
As with practically all improvement activities, an engaged staff starts with the right hires. Passion is a requirement, but it needs to be driven...
Getting Top-Level Support
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...
Promoting a Culture of Attendance
Poor attendance is one of the top reasons for termination in a contact center. According to Benchmark Portal, the average adherence to schedule rate...
The Mobile Experience Is About Convenience
Consumers are starting to spend almost as much time using their smartphones and tablets as they spend watching television (127 minutes per day vs....
The Welcome Call
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?...
Proactive Do’s and Don’ts
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...
Home-Agent Programs: 4 Common Mistakes
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...
Cut New-Hire Turnover with a Realistic Job Preview
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...
Plan For Change
We love to conduct technology strategy projects and have shared how important we think those are for contact centers. We emphasize alignment of technology...
Management Training: Keeping Pace with Change
New technology, emerging channels, social media and rising customer expectations are all transforming the customer care environment. In our recent Contact Center Training poll,...
Empowered Agents: A Key to Customer Satisfaction
According to a study from Customer Experience Management, 71% of agents do not have the authority to satisfy a customer. OUCH! With high attrition...
WFM Excel Trick for Counting Days
I am a workforce manager, which means I need to count days for many reasons: payroll days for my staffing models; working days, so...
Inside View: Award-Winning Managers
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...
Who Really Cares About Service Metrics Anyway?
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...
The Top 5 Posts in April
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...
Call Center Training ROI
Which types of contact center training produce the best ROI? In our recent Contact Center Training Special Issue, we asked experts from the leading...
Measuring FCR: Timing Affects Feedback Validity
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...
Basic Training for New Team Leaders
“Congratulations! You have been promoted to acting supervisor.” It was 1993 when my manager pulled me aside and gave me the good news. I...
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