Category Archives: Retail

Telltale Signs: How to Identify Call Center Agent Burnout

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How to Identify Call Center Agent BurnoutCall centers have become notorious for possessing one of the highest employee attrition rates of any industry. According to Talkdesk, call centers have a turnover rate ranging from 30 to 45 percent. This is a staggering number, given that the average employee turnover rate in 2015 for all industries in the United States was 16.7 percent.

This isn’t entirely surprising: Call centers are stressful work environments. Agents are required to deal with challenging, frustrated customers, with the knowledge that the calls (and their performance) are being monitored and timed. On top of this, a U.S. News Careers report found that customer service representatives suffer from below-average job flexibility.

We’ve previously discussed ways to combat agent burnout, but today we ask: What are the symptoms? How do we properly make an early diagnosis? Identifying the symptoms of burnout as soon as possible can significantly boost your service quality, workplace satisfaction, and bottom line. Continue reading →

The State of Bots in 2019: Successes and Failures

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The State of Bots in 2019 Successes and Failures“We are in the Era of the Customer,” says Shep Hyken.

We are indeed. It’s a modern reality where customers call the shots, armed with the knowledge that they have options. This includes their expectation of a certain level of customer experience, one that is seamless, omnichannel, and with bot offerings. In fact, according to Forrester, today’s “consumers have more tech at their disposal than ever before and it has fundamentally changed how they experience brands.” With more than 50% of companies already using chatbots, and 80% of businesses wanting chatbots by 2020 ( says Oracle), bots have been, and will be, rapidly transforming the customer service and customer experience landscape, especially in retail. In an article by Retail Dive, “Juniper estimates that by 2023 over 70% of chatbots accessed will be retail based.” Think about how many digital assistants, chatbots, and IVR’s that actually refers to, and in what capacity.

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Life Lessons: What IKEA Gets Right About Customer Experience

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What IKEA Gets Right About Customer Experience

Live Unboring.

It’s an IKEA slogan. It’s also IKEA’s raison d’être.

At a healthy 75 years’ old, the Scandinavian born-and-bred brand has well surpassed middle-age and earned its place among retail royalty, continuing to thrive and expand its utilitarian-while-whimsical offerings into the online world. Its products are nestled in households across the globe. Phrases from its brilliantly funny ads have crawled into common parlance. IKEA isn’t simply a store: It’s a cultural force.

IKEA’s long-running epic success is the result of its allegiance to a specific set of principles that guide its every move: To nurture loyalty, a company must dare to be a fixture at every stage of customers’ lives. It must consider their every want and desire. It must meet their needs with products, online and in-store experiences, and customer service offerings.

The proof is in the pudding: Loyal consumers continue to flock to the imposing blue mecca in their town centers (and soon, urban centers) because of IKEA’s ability to hold a customer’s familiar hand throughout their lifetime. With seven decades under its belt, the company has much to teach us about how offering powerful customer experiences can make a brand a force to be reckoned with.

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5 Fascinating CX Predictions to Inform Your 2019 CX Strategy

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5 CX Predictions to Inform Your 2019 CX Strategy2018 has been a pivotal year for customer experience (CX). Industry wide, there is now a deeper understanding of CX as a multi-faceted, complex, incredibly important piece in the success (or failure) of any brand.

With this in mind, we’ve rounded up the most important and fascinating CX predictions for 2019, and provided our own thoughts on what they mean and how they will impact businesses in future. To stay at the top of your game in the year ahead, it’s essential to understand larger CX trends and how they are shaping our world and our industry. Read on as we detail five fascinating CX predictions to inform your 2019 CX strategy.

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Hold It!: The Top 10 Worst Companies You Called in 2018

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On Hold The Top 10 Worst Companies You Called in 2018HOLD EVERYTHING: The results are in.

Onholdwith.com, the Fonolo-powered site that mines Twitter for real-time complaints about being put on hold (and folks, there are many, many complaints), has today made its annual list of hold-time offenders available for all the world to see. And you may be surprised by who made the list.

OnHoldWith.com, launched by Fonolo a few years back, this year collected over a whopping 165,000 posts mentioning the phrase “on hold with” from Twitter. And as those of us in customer service know to a sobering degree, Twitter has quickly become a go-to platform customers use to shout about frustrating customer service experiences. The tweets informing the report this year confirm that: a) customers are increasingly turning to social media to publicly out companies for poor customer service handling; and b) a benchmark of this poor service is placing a customer on hold.

While the companies on this year’s top 10 list are doing exquisite things in their industries (and trust us, we are big fans of all of them), the results of this year’s report signal that brands could be doing things even better, starting with sprucing up their customer service offerings.

So, here’s a good question: Did your company make the list?

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Why You Should Empower Your Customer Service Team

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Why You Should Empower Your Customer Service Teams

Good customer service is crucial to the success of any business. It also happens to be one of the hardest things to ‘get right’, even for the most seasoned of brands. Imagine spending eight hours a day fixing problems you didn’t cause in the first place. Now imagine that your hands are tied in a million different ways and you’re unable to resolve the bulk of the customer complaints that are on the rise. This scenario is real, widespread, and is likely the reason for high attrition rates in the customer service industry.

This is why empowering a customer service team can be key to the overall success of any company. While we could go on for days about the benefits that come from giving your call center employees autonomy, here are the top three reasons you should actively work to support your customer service employees.

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Important KPIs for Measuring Customer Satisfaction

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Important KPIs for Measuring Customer SatisfactionAnalytics are a key part of any company’s road to success. It’s important for all departments to have benchmarks for success that can be easily measured and tracked. These are often referred to as KPIs (or, key performance indicators). KPIs are measures that indicate how well a company or specific department is tracking towards a clearly-defined goal.

Call center and customer service teams have a variety of KPIs to choose from, but as each company and support department is different, their benchmarks will vary. Read on to learn about a few measures that are commonly tracked in call centers and customer service departments. They may just work for you, too.

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How to Successfully Implement Customer Self-Service Strategies

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How to Successfully Implement Customer Self-Service Strategies“I just want to speak to a real person” has become a token phrase used by people during almost any type of automated customer service experience. Even so, gone are the days when talking to ‘a real person’ is the customer’s preference: Today, 70% of customers expect self-service options and most brands are taking note.

Customer Self Service, or CSS, is any type of electronic or automated support that allows customers to find answers or resolve problems without having to connect with a customer service or call center agent. Examples include FAQ sections on websites, help center blog forums, self-service account creation, password resetting, and interactive voice technology in call centers.

Despite the clear demand for these services, 55% of consumers find self-service portals difficult to use. So, how can these customer self-service strategies be implemented in successful ways that not only increase efficiency but also cut costs for companies? And, using self-service offerings, how can brands create happier customers who are more likely to become repeat customers (or brand evangelists)?

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Inspiring Customer Service Advice in Less than 280 Characters

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Inspiring Customer Service Advice in Less than 280 CharactersAs we transition into autumn, it’s easy for us in customer service to lose the steam, energy, and focus we coveted during the rejuvenating days of summer. This is certainly not ideal given that the late fall and early winter months are some the busiest for call centers and contact centers in many the vertical: Black Friday, Super Saturday, and most of the days book-ending December 25th see a dramatic upsurge in customer support requests, which accompanies a similarly dramatic upsurge in shopping on these days.

Customers also use social media as a preferred communications channel at this high-octane time, a public, digital soapbox upon which to shout out about frustrating customer service experiences (anything from being put on hold to never reaching a customer service agent). But while social media can reflect the negative, it can alternatively offer positive viewpoints and inspiring wisdom, often in 280 characters or less. Specifically, Twitter and LinkedIn have sprinkled throughout its many vestiges a series of short, sweet, thought-provoking tidbits from insightful customer service professionals that can dig you out of the winter doldrums, and catapult your customer support strategies into action. If you want to be inspired, invigorated, and ready for anything, read on and soak in the quick’n’dirty advice from CS and CX professionals and enthusiasts.

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Toronto’s Tech Explosion a Mixed Blessing for Start-Ups

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Toronto’s Tech Explosion a Mixed Blessing for Start-UpsBy every measure, the tech scene in Toronto is exploding. Venture capital (VC) investment is hitting new records. The pace of start-up activity is very high. Lately, it seems like all the major tech companies have announced a new office or a major investment in the city.

While we all cheer for our city to succeed, this ramp-up does have a downside. And, for start-ups and smaller tech companies, it can be a mixed blessing.

 

 

 

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