Credit unions today face growing competition and heightened member expectations for an exceptional interaction experience. As a result, their contact centers have to find ways to raise their standards of service, and many engage contact center consultants for expertise and best practices insights. Historically, many credit union contact centers have had a difficult time garnering… Read More »
Are Managed Services On Your Radar?
Managed services (MS) has garnered plenty of energy and enthusiasm in the contact center technology marketplace, both from buyers and sellers. It is perceived as solving problems companies face today, notably IT cost, responsiveness, resource bandwidth, and expertise. The contact center wants more control for strategic and day-to-day changes, and has an increasing need for… Read More »
Best-of-Breed or Suite?
As companies make decisions about sourcing for new contact center technology, a crucial question to answer is whether to pursue “best-of-breed” (BoB) solutions or solutions that are part of a “suite.” The BoB strategy was common when vendors had a more narrow focus. For example, there were “CTI vendors” or “IVR vendors” and “WFM vendors”… Read More »
Project Management Is Not Enough for Implementation
We’ve been on our soapbox for years to encourage organizations to adopt the 3 Ms of implementation – Project, Change, and Vendor Management. Project Management (PM) focuses on the tasks associated with an implementation – planning, executing, and completing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet business objectives. Change management (CM)… Read More »
Top 10 Mistakes in Technology Selection Process
Contact centers always seem to be short on time and resources when it comes to their selection processes for new technology. And most are under pressure to move fast. Here are some common mistakes that don’t serve them over the long haul. ONE: Failure to assess the upside potential of your current solution. If your… Read More »
Is NPS Good for the Contact Center?
Let’s get the rant part of this blog out of the way right up front: I am not a fan of Net Promoter Score (NPS®)1 for the contact center. No hidden agenda here. I am tired of the topic coming up and wish it would go away. But I will continue to engage in thoughtful… Read More »
Fix Your Front-end Now!
My campaign to get everyone to fix their “IVR” or front-end menus and scripts starts NOW. We have all heard the complaints – whether from customers of your specific contact center, or just from friends and family who presume you are a sympathetic ear for their most recent suffering at the hands of bad user… Read More »
WFO Suites Promote Efficiency and Effectiveness
Workforce Optimization (WFO) technology continues to advance. Tools such as Workforce Management (WFM) and Quality Monitoring (QM) have achieved widespread deployment. A full WFO suite delivers an array of intertwined functions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the center, and optimize the hiring, training, performance, and development of the most valuable (and expensive) resource… Read More »
“I Just Want to Talk to Someone…”
Reports of the decline of human interaction in the contact center are premature. While it might be a noble goal to obsolete phone calls, email, chat, and text, the need for dialog is still strong. Sometimes self-service fails. Some customers dislike self-service. Some transaction s are not well-suited to self-service. Whatever the reason for wanting… Read More »
I Really Just Want to Help Myself!
In all likelihood, you offer at least one self-service channel, even if it is as basic as an IVR. So why are you still talking to customers? It’s because self-service falls short, and customers can’t find information or complete transactions without assistance. The value in closing this gap is huge – in dollars and customer… Read More »