• The Foundation of Customer Satisfaction? Teach Your Team to Build Rapport

  

  The numbers are in—the edict has been passed down through the channels and the ball is now in your court. “Increase customer satisfaction scores.” Or, “Drive more sales.” Or, the nebulous “Build better rapport with customers.”… [more]

  

• Tracking Customer-Focused Metrics

  

  For years, contact center managers have been measuring operational metrics like average handle time, average hold time, turnover, sales per representative, average time to respond, and so on. But are these the most important metrics… [more]

  

• The Employee Experience: Motivate, Empower, Invest

  

  There’s a concern brewing in employers everywhere. If the economy keeps moving in a positive direction, employees may take their talent elsewhere. A trend for 2012 is improving the employee experience. Douglas Matthews, president… [more]

  

• The Role of Consistency in Professional Support - Part 1: Employee Coaching

  

  Consistent support is fundamental to maintaining high customer satisfaction scores, customer loyalty, and customer longevity. It is a key element in world class service. Customers generally do not care if you have one call center in… [more]

  

• The Role of Consistency in Professional Support – Part 2: Troubleshooting Skills

  

  Consistent troubleshooting skills are integral to providing world class customer service in support centers. Customers want timely, professional, and consistent issue resolution – every time. Benefits of Consistent Troubleshooting… [more]

  

• Employee Satisfaction: It Starts With You

  

  When managers hear they need to improve employee satisfaction to achieve customer satisfaction, they often don’t know where to start. Employees are at the front line, assisting customers first hand. If employees are unhappy, there’s… [more]

  

Featured Articles

• First Call Resolution in the Health Insurance IndustryFirst call resolution is a leading indicator of customer satisfaction, because customers want their support requests resolved immediately. First call resolution is becoming even more important, because call centers in the health insurance industry are seeing a...
• Customer Service Training: The Manager's RoleThe most integral role as a customer service manager is to create an environment of continuous learning and improvement. Employees follow management’s lead, and when it comes to training it is important to position education as more than corrective action. Emp...
• Customer Satisfaction in the Health Insurance IndustryThe health insurance industry is getting a lot of attention as call volume picks up. Baby boomers are retiring and searching for supplemental Medicare coverage, health care reform is in the air, and more members are needing assistance and support. Customer sat...
• Q and A: Benefits of Social Customer ServiceThe ability of service organizations to operationalize social media to optimize traditional support channels will no doubt be a powerful variable in long term customer satisfaction. Recently I had the opportunity to interview Catarina Centeno Duarte, Online Ma...
• Employee Retention: Y You Need a Strategy Employee retention has become a common topic in call centers as the economy starts to improve. According to a 2011 survey included in an article written by Calabrio, 70 percent of Generation Y contact center agents are contemplating leaving their current role ...
• Call Center Best PracticesCall centers that handle service and support calls are, unfortunately, often viewed as cost centers. Although these centers usually don’t bring in revenue directly, they do contribute to the company’s goals in many valuable ways, most notably in reinforcing th...
• E-learning's Missing IngredientTo quickly scale training globally, e-learning surely is the answer.  Today’s global landscape is driving this need. And … as organizations transition from instructor-led training to self-paced e-learning, it’s easy to forget two principles – structure and soc...
• The Role of First-Call-Resolution in Customer SatisfactionThere is an obvious and undeniable correlation between First-Call-Resolution (FCR) and customer satisfaction. When one goes up – the other follows. Unfortunately the opposite is also true. When one percentage goes down so does the other. Successful call center...