Category Archives: Technology

Introducing The Crunch: Putting Out Big Customer Service Fires in 2020

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Technology News of the Week 2020 - Fonolo Call Center BlogHappy 2020, Fonolo Followers!

Welcome to The Crunch, our *new* biweekly news roundup, where we give you the latest and greatest in customer service technology, news, and views. If you want to see these saying ‘Hello’ in your inbox this year, you can subscribe here. No fear. Let’s stop rhyming now and turn to the news at hand.

As always, the customer service space reads like a riveting novel, full of conflict, drama, beauty, disappointment, hope, taxes, unanswered phonecalls, and robots.

This week, we’ve noted some storylines that we think you should note, too. Continue reading →

Brand Spotlight: How Amazon Won Us All Over

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How Amazon Won us All Over - Fonolo Call Center BlogEver since the retail industry has gotten a digital facelift, only a handful of brands have experienced unbeatable growth. Today, Amazon is a top-of-mind digital company that consumers are browsing all day long – and has quickly become THE retail giant.

Consumer behavior in the retail industry has changed entirely within the past decade. Most customers choose to make purchases from the within the safe walls of their homes via online retailers such as Amazon. Gone are the days when customers browsed stores relentlessly hoping to find what they’re looking for. While malls still exist (and thrive), every customer is aware of the option to purchase something online – usually at a fraction of the cost.

Online retailers like Amazon have caused the retail industry to shapeshift, now providing instant gratification and convenience to customers. Over the past few years, this has forced many brands to hop onto the e-commerce trend and in some cases, close their physical brick and mortar stores to survive. Here’s how.

 

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Contact Centers Move to the Cloud in 2020

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IntroductionAdvances 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

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Beware False Scorecards for B2C Chat - Fonolo Call Center Blog

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

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Contact Center Trends 2020 - A New Guide by FonoloChange 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

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Phone for the Holidays Fonolo's Customer Service Picks for 2020 fonolo blog

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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Checking In: JetBlue and Gladly Partnership Improves Customer Service

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Checking In JetBlue and Gladly Partnership Improves Customer Service FonoloAirline services have been scrambling to improve their customer service strategies and initiatives, making key investments to elevate the overall customer experience. JetBlue is one of the companies that has been actively looking to add value to its customers, using loyalty programs and other means to draw passengers on an international scale. The company recently partnered with Gladly Inc. in an effort to shave time from its customer service call volumes.

By partnering with the technology startup, JetBlue instantly became more customer-facing, and in doing so differentiated itself from other, less than stellar competitors. The airline introduced its software on flights so that the cabin crew would have a bird’s-eye view of information about customers on-board.

And customers are ‘on board’.

 

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Having a Crisis Contingency Plan for Your Call Center

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Best Practices For Integrating Messaging Into Your Customer Service Strategies FonoloLet’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 →

5 Brand Websites Doing Customer Service Right

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5 Brand Websites Doing Customer Service Right Fonolo BlogZappos. Apple. Wistia. Netflix. Whatever your business or its size, the first place your customers go when seeking help is your website. And if they can’t find the information they need there, you’re going to lose them.

You don’t have to be reachable by phone 24/7, but you do have to give your customers a way to solve their problems or get in touch when they can’t help themselves.

Here, we look at some major brands that are doing customer service in all the right ways, but most especially on their websites. We take a magnifying glass to these websites and give you the means to up your website game, too.

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The Power of SMS Technology in Call-Back Communication

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The Power of SMS Technology in Call-Back Communication Fonolo BlogPeople are busy, often going from meeting to meeting at work, chasing after their kids, running errands, or out and about with friends and family. Moments when they have to get in touch with the customer service call center of a company is met with dread, because they don’t have the time or energy to call, wait on hold, and be passed around from one customer service agent to another to solve their problem. Sometimes, even a simple phone call can seem inconvenient, and the best way to stay up-to-date, or to communicate with a company, is through a simple SMS, or  Short Message Service, text message. 

Here is why and how your company can implement simple, convenient, and effective SMS call-back technology into your customer service and call center strategy.  Continue reading →

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