Gasoline prices are at an all-time high. Food prices are also on the rise. In fact, we feel the impact of a stressed economy every day. For businesses, this means competing for consumers’ ever-shrinking wallets.

So what do you do? How do you keep consumers from passing on your business? Exceptional customer service is the answer. Now if you happen to sell the big gas guzzling vehicles, customer service may not be your savior, but for many other businesses, it can mean the difference between a struggling business and one that is thriving.

Fortunately, this is one area where technology can make a huge impact. Speech applications that off-load human agents to more value-added tasks are just one example of how technology can save a company millions per year. Even smaller applications like appointment reminders, order status updates, and of course, collection applications using proactive outbound and self-service technologies can enable your agents to focus on more revenue generating, more value-added activities.

Another way to control costs yet still provide excellent customer service is leveraging your contact center talent and skills, even within your remote branch locations, through very effective video kiosk applications. This reduces the need for hiring all skills for all branch locations and enables you to leverage skilled resources no matter where they are. In addition, all the tools necessary for enabling at-home agents to be just as productive as agents at the contact center exist today. That means talented individuals who have difficulties commuting to the office can be equally, if not more effective, working from home.

I invite you to share how you are weathering this economic storm by providing excellent customer service.