Contact Center

The Top Customer Service Conferences to Attend in 2020

By Ben Ringshall on January 22, 2020

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Wondering what customer service or contact center conference to attend in 2020? We’ve got you covered.

Whatever anyone says, attending live events is essential if you want to keep up and keep involved with the industry around.

Not only is it a chance to find out what everyone is working on — and hopefully pick up some tips — but it’s also a chance to meet with our peers. And you shouldn’t underestimate how important that part is.

Particularly in an industry like customer support, it’s so important to be around people who are working on the same things and can understand what it’s like to be in our shoes. It’s fun, educational, and a great opportunity to build new relationships.

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The Golden Rules of Contact Center SLAs

By Samantha Mehra on September 18, 2018

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UPDATED JANUARY 2020:

As the official written contract shared between two parties, a service level agreement is a commitment between a vendor that ensures specific services will be delivered. It’s a promise you make to your clients that you will maintain the service levels that they and their customers expect.

Anyone who works in customer service, be it in retail, health or finance, should get to grips with Service Level Agreements (SLAs) — and fast. If you’re looking to do just that, you’ve come to the right place. In this crash course, we provide you with:

Contact center SLAs in a nutshell
How to set a winning service level for your organization
Why you should be wary of industry standards
How to meet your service delivery levels

Read on: You’ll be an expert in no time.

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Top 20 Customer Service Blogs You Have to Read in 2020

By Ben Ringshall on January 14, 2020

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Which customer service blog posts helped to shape the last decade for you?

When we look back at the customer support industry in 2010, we see a very different beast to the one we work in today.

Not only has technology changed the way we interact with customers, but it’s also massively changed the way we communicate with our peers within the industry. There are more customer experience management blogs and articles than ever before — not to mention the growing libraries of video and interactive content.

We’ve all come a long way since 2010, but we couldn’t have done it without some of the most prolific influencers to ever lay hands on a keyboard.

Here, we cover the 20 best customer service blogs and influencers to follow in 2020. You’ll recognize many of these names, and we encourage you to check out those that you haven’t come across yet; you won’t be disappointed. And as always: This list appears in no particular order. Continue reading →

Contact Centers Move to the Cloud in 2020

By Ben Ringshall on January 9, 2020

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Advances in communication technology are forcing rapid change in the contact center.

To accommodate consumers’ growing expectations and provide 24/7 omnichannel customer support, we’re expecting to see a mass exodus, with as many as 70% of contact centers moving ‘to the cloud’ in the next 12-24 months.

Will your contact center be left behind?

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Beware False Scorecards for B2C Chat

By Shai Berger on January 8, 2020

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There’s an interesting and high-stakes battle taking place right now in the world of customer service: What will be the dominant text-based channel for B2C communications? SMS remains the most ubiquitous channel, but least flexible. Competing against it are the big corporate-owned messaging platforms: Messenger and WhatsApp (both from Facebook), Apple’s Business Chat, and Google’s offering called (for now) Google My Business Chat.

I recently gave a talk at the TADSummit conference on this battle and the challenges in measuring the progress. Slides are available here and video here.

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Contact Center Trends 2020: A New Age for the Contact Center

By Fonolo Team on December 17, 2019

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Change is the only constant trend.

Everything from the way we shop to how we listen to music has changed in the last two decades. This includes our experience as customers. Modern consumers are no longer willing to accept poor customer service. In fact, more than 80% of customers now say the experience a company provides is as important as its products.

It’s been a journey: The contact center evolved from the humble call center, as more channels of communication became commonplace. In order to keep up with the demands of modern consumers, the contact center is destined to evolve further, into the ‘Customer Experience Hub’ of the future.

As part of this, many businesses are already moving away from the view of call centers as ‘cost centers’ and towards one that views them as a centers of opportunity for businesses — one where the opportunities the center creates well outweigh the costs of running it.

With this ‘meta-trend’ to give us some context, here are three of our top trend predictions for the call center in 2020. Continue reading →

Phone for the Holidays: Fonolo’s Customer Service Picks for 2020

By Samantha Mehra on December 12, 2019

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A thoughtful human being on the other end of the line when you call for help.

An expertly-tied velvet bow adorning the top of a gift you purchased.

A hand-written note with charming keepsake tucked into a box containing your online purchase.

Empathy. Courtesy. Generosity. Humanity. Artfulness.

Whatever the customer service flourish we encounter on our journeys as consumers, we know when it works. At Fonolo, customer service is top of mind for every employee: Sun up, sun down. We see our customers offering humanity, agency, and choice to their own customers by offering them our patented Call-Backs, responsive widget, and Smart Portal. We see their hold times diminish by years, their customer satisfaction increase by multitides, and their revenue climbing and climbing.

Like many other brands invested in a customer-first approach, they get it.

At this time around the holiday season, on the eve of a new year of possibility, we cast a long, studied glance over the year that was. This year, I turned the microphone on our own Fonolonians to articulate 2019 in terms of customer service. We’re a group hyper-aware of when customer service works in other contexts. So, I asked: “What company, either local or online, was your favourite in terms of customer service in 2019? Who will truly innovate in 2020?”

Here’s what they had to say.

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Who are YOU #OnHoldWith? The Top 10 Worst Companies to Call in 2019

By Ben Ringshall on December 11, 2019

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HOLD IT: If you’ve ever sent a tweet complaining about being on hold, then chances are you’ve been featured on the Fonolo-powered website: onholdwith.com. It collects and curates the millions of Twitter complaints about being put on hold, and it has just released its annual list of hold-time offenders.

The site, launched by Fonolo a few years back, this year collected over a whopping hundreds of thousands of posts mentioning the phrase “on hold with” from Twitter. As we noted last year, Twitter has inreasingly become a go-to customer service platform for those wishing to air out their frustrating customer service experiences.

Tellingly, this year’s list indicates that brands are still leaving their customers hanging by forcing them to wait on hold. Lessening hold times should be a priority, as it will no doubt grow customer loyalty and faith in brands.

This year, some big surprises: Virgin Media, Verizon, and United Airlines are among the top culprits in the annual list of The Worst Companies to Call in 2019.

Did your company make the list?

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4 Metrics Your Call Center Needs to Track in 2020

By Ben Ringshall on December 5, 2019

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As we head into 2020, data is becoming more crucial for successfully running a call center than ever.

In the past, the efficiency of a call center hinged on management’s ability to identify flaws in their processes and opportunities to improve the running of the center.

In the coming year, we expect to see AI take on more of these responsibilities in the contact center: Handling routine tasks, routing inquiries to the best place, and suggesting areas for improvement.

But, which areas are we to measure?

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Having a Crisis Contingency Plan for Your Call Center

By Jessica Suezin on November 26, 2019

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Let’s face it: There are bound to be unpredictable, negative circumstances that any organization will bravely face at some point or another. It’s why it’s been said that you should always “hope for the best, and plan for the worst.” When a company or organization is facing any sort of crisis, whether that’s something as serious as a company data breach, a natural disaster, or even a power outage or water break in your building, it’s important to have an established plan or course of action for your customer service team or company call center to execute.

When crisis strikes, it’s critical that everyone is on the page, working together, and ready to take action to alleviate the problem and get back to business as soon as possible.

Here are some tips and tricks that can help your call center and customer service agents ensure that they bounce back quickly and efficiently after a crisis. Continue reading →