Responding with Empathy: 20 Ways to Show Stressed Out Customers You Care

Responding with Empathy: 20 Ways to Show Stressed Out Customers You Care

These are difficult times, and our anxious customers need us more than ever. Some of them  need help with a simple task, like “How do I add a new driver to my auto insurance policy?” Others need help solving a problem: “Why was I charged twice for inflight WiFi?”  All of our customers need our…

Why Your Contact Center Needs A Call Avoidance Policy

Why Your Contact Center Needs A Call Avoidance Policy

Call avoidance is a common issue in contact centers and must be dealt with to ensure a positive experience for your customers. But agents can quickly become frustrated and overwhelmed when dealing with irate customers and high contact volumes, leading them to avoid interactions. While the issue is not unusual, it’s easier to manage if…

4 Smart Reasons to Offer Remote Work in Your Contact Center

4 Smart Reasons to Offer Remote Work in Your Contact Center

Here’s an alarming statistic: More than half (56%) of contact center agents say they’d think about leaving their jobs if they couldn’t work remotely. Our 2022 research study of contact center agents and managers revealed a big conflict between these groups: Despite most agents’ appetite for remote work, almost half of contact centers plan to…

How One Person can Dramatically Impact Your Workforce Management Plan

How One Person can Dramatically Impact Your Workforce Management Plan

As workforce management professionals, we are faced with the daunting task of figuring out the ideal forecast, matching that forecast with a schedule and then making sure that our “master plan” works in the real world – meaning all the people that we are counting on for their shifts work their shifts as planned. Unfortunately,…

3 No-Fail Remote Workforce Training Techniques Top Contact Centers Use

3 No-Fail Remote Workforce Training Techniques Top Contact Centers Use

Contact centers succeed or fail on agent performance. Today’s top-performing contact center leaders know remote workforce training and agent engagement are the new imperatives for performance optimization. Whether your contact center is remote, hybrid, or moving back to the office full-time, getting agent performance right means unlocking the potential of every employee, every day. While…

The Great Resignation: How to Retain Your Contact Center Agents

The Great Resignation: How to Retain Your Contact Center Agents

In spring 2021, roughly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented change occurred in the workplace. There was a mass exodus. Quit rates skyrocketed as workers gave notice and set out to find greater satisfaction in their livelihoods, pursue higher wages, and discover their true professional purpose. In April 2021, a record 4 million…

How to Improve Your Email First Response Time

How to Improve Your Email First Response Time

Email is not the shiny new channel in the contact center. Customers have been using email for years, they continue to use it, and they like email. Over the years, however, their expectations about first response time definitely have changed. There’s no question they expect a faster response than they did back in the day….

Leading A Multigenerational Workforce in the Contact Center

Leading A Multigenerational Workforce in the Contact Center

A contact center is a perfect place for a multigenerational team. There’s so much to do and so many types of customers to work with — not to mention so many channels to manage — that having a team of agents with different strengths will invigorate your customer experience. Tapping into the capabilities of your…

Five Coaching Tips For Contact Center Agents that Work

Five Coaching Tips For Contact Center Agents that Work

Coaching your contact center agents on their performance can either fill everyone with dread or be a productive activity that you and your agents look forward to. Either way, it needs to be done, and arming yourself with a full set of coaching tips for contact center agents will ensure the sessions are productive. Agent…