May 06, 2008 | Author: Andy Green
During the Slowdown It’s Wise to Build Up Customer Service
With the economic speedometer stuck somewhere between slowdown and recession, businesses are concerned about a replay of the dot-com bust in 2001. This time, history will take a different path. According to analysts, technology spending for 2008 is expected to grow at a rate of 4%. It’s official: we are living in the New Economy where IT investment drives productivity both in the contact center and across the enterprise. More >>
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April 30, 2008 | Author: Andy Green
Best of the Web
During my Web journeys over the last few months, I’ve been inspired by many interesting sites. Too many, in fact, to cover in the course of my blogging. Rather than hold back any longer, I'm launching a "Best of the Web" post to cover great sites that are currently on the top of my favorites list. Enjoy! More >>
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April 29, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
I knew it when I saw it
We all appreciate when someone looks out for us. Phrases like "got your six" and others have become part of our vernacular. Even more formal terms like "customer advocacy" – defined by Forrester Research as "the perception on the part of customers that a firm does what's best for them, not just what's best for its own bottom line" – have been identified as critical to creating long-term customer relationships. More >>
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April 28, 2008 | Author: Vickie McGovern
Video...again? Will it really take off this time?
It must have been the early nineties when I started talking to customers about video phones and such, but even though people thought it was cool, it never really took off. More >>
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April 23, 2008 | Author: Andy Green
A Short History of Self-Service
An interesting crystal-ball piece in Time Magazine dedicated one of its “10 Ideas That Are Changing the World” to customer service. Or, to be more exact, its demise. Time writer Barbara Kiviat makes the case for automated self-service replacing human interactions with news of impressive advances, including a completely automated airport check-in system. Supermarkets (yet again) play a role in the story. The origins of the current self-service revolution dates back to an early 20th century Memphis-based grocery store. More >>
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April 16, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Effective Practices for At Home Resources – Part 2
One of our recent posts discussed three best practices around the people, policy and working environment aspects of a home-based resources strategy. Let's take a look at the last three of the six insights we’ve uncovered in working with early adopters of this rapidly developing trend. More >>
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April 11, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
The New and Improved Suggestion Box
Unlike the TV show "The Office," where additions to the HR suggestion box are never forwarded to corporate, a new era of customer input is shaping up. More >>
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April 10, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Web 2.0, Social Networks and Customer Service: The New Reese's
A famous commercial from my childhood was for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Two kids – one holding a jar of chocolate, the other holding a jar of peanut butter – collided and created a new product. It was the birth of the peanut butter cup – "the perfect mix.” More >>
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April 03, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Effective Practices for At-Home Resources – Part 1
Our last post discussed the business, societal and technological changes that are making home-based resources an ever increasing percentage of the customer contact workforce. 2007 IDC estimates range from as few as 112,000 to as many as 672,000 contact center agents worldwide working at home. Avaya research indicates that more than 42% of companies are considering at-home resource deployments in order to attract and retain the highest quality resources. The good news? With at-home agents, the larger addressable work force available makes finding the right people easier, and the expenses associated with supporting premise-based agents shrink as much as 33%. It’s a classic win-win.
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March 28, 2008 | Author: Andy Green
iPhone Gets its MBA
In case you weren’t at Apple’s press conference for the iPhone 2.0 announcement, engadget was there to blog the major points. iPhone 2.0 is really a software upgrade, but an important one. Third-party developers now get a shot at creating software with the same SDK used internally by Apple. Oh, and one more thing – there are enterprise applications.
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March 24, 2008 | Author: Vickie McGovern
Do people that work from home really work?
In a world where global warming, carbon emissions and the dreaded "R" word are uttered almost daily, one trend businesses are noticing now more than ever is working from home. An estimated 150 million people around the world either work from home on a part-time basis or call home their primary office. But if your business hasn't taken that leap yet, you're not alone. I mean, people that work from home don't really work, right? Wrong. Yes, it takes the right kind of person, but there are many of us out there. I should know — I'm one of them. More >>
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March 21, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Best Practices for At-Home Agents: A Two Part Series – Prelude
At-home agents live and work at the intersection of business, societal and technology trends. I've recently spent time with companies that are beginning to embrace the use of at-home resources. Interestingly enough, employing remote contact center agents has been an option for more than ten years, but the recent surge of at-home agents is akin to the social epidemics described in The Tipping Point and largely influenced by three factors:
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March 14, 2008 | Author: Andy Green
In Search of the .400 Agent
We’re delighted when we have a great customer-agent experience and left questioning our faith in humankind when we don’t. Coaching, training and metrics monitoring can all help boost agent performance. But is there a price to pay for improving agent behavior? Contact center managers should look to major league baseball and its experience shaping batting averages for an answer.
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March 12, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Spring Training
Baseball's spring training began a few weeks ago with teams reporting to camps all over Florida and Arizona.
One of my favorite pastimes during this season is to watch the averages of the players – especially those who are on the edge of making a major league roster. Because they’re generated in such a short period of time, amazing statistics can be deceiving. This makes it difficult for managers to assess the validity of these performances over the long term and determine which players make the final cut. More >>
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March 06, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
The Experts Agree: Maintain the Gain, Remove the Pain
Last week marked the release of two important assessments of customer service satisfaction. The first, BusinessWeek’s Customer Service Champs, is an annual ranking of companies that "know how to keep front-line folks happy, make tech investments that help rather than hinder consumers and have leaders who make service a priority." Not a bad recipe for customer service excellence! The second, the University of Michigan's ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index), is a "national economic indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of products and services available to household consumers in the United States.” More >>
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February 28, 2008 | Author: Andy Green
Crowd Control: Crowdsourcing the Enterprise
Not everything can be automated. Sorry, it’s just not possible. We expect contact center agents, not a software application , to sort out a misplaced delivery order. There’s an interesting computing trend called crowdsourcing that taps into the unique skills of real people. Turning the human-versus-computer relationship on its head, crowdsourcing uses software to organize human problem solvers to take on tasks too difficult for silicon. Think of it as an on-demand contact center that matches customers with a virtual expert community. More >>
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February 28, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
One Test, Two Books, and a Golden Thread
The Page 99 Test and books like The Tipping Point and Freakonomics are all examples of using shortcuts to reach an insight or conclusion. This idea of cutting through the clutter could be the key to providing excellent customer service. More >>
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February 13, 2008 | Author: Zack Taylor
Facing Up - Social Networks Coming to an Interaction Near You
The ever-growing popularity of social networks is allowing sites like Facebook to thread their way into more mainstream brands. On January 30th, the Wall Street Journal added a feature that allows subscribers to see which WSJ stories are popular among their Facebook friends. More >>
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