You may think that watching movies and television shows is something you do for sheer amusement – providing little educational value. Well, think again! I know I recently spoke about the importance of reading vs. watching television in my latest blog on the top customer experience books, but let’s not completely underestimate the power of the tube. You’ve likely learned some real life lessons, long after the popcorn and peanut M&M’s had been devoured. So to the customer service folks who are ready to take more away from TV and movies then simply an entertainment fix – this one is for you.
Below I’ve illustrated seven lessons about customer service we can all learn from TV shows, movies, and even cartoons! Continue reading
Persuasion is one of the most creative ways for a customer service representative to deliver an optimal experience to consumers. Persuasion isn’t manipulation, rather it’s an effective way to positively influence and retain customers through engagement, connection, and creative problem solving.
In the wide world of call center metrics, “service level” has always held a special place. It gives the industry a universally understood way to talk about how quickly calls are answered by agents. Its origins go back over 5 decades, to the earliest days of call centers.
Whether it’s a bad date, a bland meal, or a mean comment on social media, negative experiences tend to stand out in people’s minds; nearly to the point of entirely clouding out any of the good. This phenomenon is especially exacerbated when it comes to a negative experience with customer service. 
Apple’s new Business Chat could have a huge impact on customer service by changing the balance of forces between consumers and companies.
They say the key to any healthy human relationship is effective communication. This principle also applies to the relationship between a customer and a customer service or sales representative. 
Apple announced “Business Chat” in June, staking a claim to a vital piece of the ecommerce landscape: the channel for customer service communication. The product went into live beta this week with about 10 companies participating, and the timing could not be better for Apple. Facebook, their main rival in this field, is bloodied from weeks of bad press over privacy issues.
As humans, we’ve all had to endure the seemingly torturous act of waiting. Whether as a child, eagerly waiting for our slice of the birthday cake to be passed down, or as an adult, having to sit in drab waiting room at the doctor’s office. As Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers perfectly put it, “the waiting is the hardest part”.
First, some perspective: No $20 billion industry changes quickly. Yes, a growing fraction of call center seats are switching to cloud-based offerings. But Avaya, Cisco, and Genesys are still going to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of on-premise call center equipment this quarter (and for many quarters after that). Heck, there are still 300,000 Nortel-era CS1000’s powering 40 million phones out there. So there’s a lot of momentum to overcome.
