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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November 01, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor A familiar thought – but not sure if it’s a good one In the 90's, I was made aware of a bank that became famous for charging its customers to see a teller. National news crews descended upon our city to show people in line with their passbooks demanding a better policy towards their branch operations. It ran in a national TV story under the title, "Bank Fires Its Customers." Emotions ran high as grandmothers were told indirectly they were no longer valued as customers. More >> Permalink | Comments (1)
September 27, 2007 | Author: Andy Green Humans Matter, Even for Web 3.0 These days, it almost seems that the Web is smarter and more knowledgeable than any human – obtaining new information and skills all the time. And if Web prognosticators are right, as we move past Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, we'll be able to pinpoint information through more natural queries. More >> Permalink | Comments (2)
September 27, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor Customer Satisfaction and the Contact Center: Part II In my last entry I focused on two areas — the peaking of customer satisfaction based on the ASCI index, and the first of three challenges that impact a firm's ability to service customers well: the new consumerism and shift of interaction power to the initiator. More >> Permalink | Comment Now >>
June 28, 2007 | Author: Zack Taylor Doing the Wrong Thing Right, Part 1 I used to live in Chicago and always enjoyed visiting the trading floors of the commodity exchanges. If you've never seen a commodity exchange in action, you're missing a real treat. Upon the opening bell, a cacophony of shouting begins by the traders as they pursue a price for the commodity in question. It's entertaining in some ways, but in others, it's a reminder of how we need to question our assumptions when it comes to customer contact.
We hear a lot about companies that have "relationships" with their customers. Their advertising and web sites speak about it extensively, but underneath the hood of the contact center... More >> Permalink | Comments (1)
Unlike most people, I like waiting in line. No, not because I wouldn't prefer to be served faster, but because I get a lot of ideas on how to improve customer service experience by observing the dynamics of what occurs while waiting. More >> Permalink | Comment Now >>
Are you thinking of your customer contact strategy in these terms?In nature, an observable phenomenon called transmutation finds one object converting to another over time. As business tends to mimic nature, perhaps you should be considering your customer contact strategy in these terms. I've often met with companies who love to benchmark. They'll buy reports on contact center metrics, they'll attend "birds of a feather" user groups, and they may even hire "mystery shoppers" to assess customer experience for both themselves and their competitors. More >> Permalink | Comment Now >>
About The Blog
"The Blog" was created to lead the conversation on the future of customer service. Our goal is to inform and inspire, providing insights that challenge our community to think outside of the contact center walls. With topics that are both high concept and highly applicable, The Blog not only brings you the customer service thinking of tomorrow – it offers insights you can put to work for your business today. Welcome to The Blog.
