They say you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. And, like anything in life, work is made so much better when you have a great friend with you. In fact, it turns out that having a friend at work isn’t just great for your personal and psychological well-being, it’s actually great for business as well.
Whether a department or company is looking to maintain high morale and employee retention, or looking for creative ideas to increase customer satisfaction, a corporate culture that fosters strong professional relationships amongst colleagues is one that is ahead of the curve. Here’s how having a best friend a work is beneficial for the employee, the culture, and bottom line of the company.
It’s been an exciting year so far in the world of contact centers. In just the last month we saw the release of Apple’s Business Chat, the announcement of Twilio’s new Flex call center platform and the acquisition of Altocloud by Genesys. A new pricing model, based on pure consumption, seems to be emerging. A new privacy regulation (GDPR) has multiple impacts on call centers that operate in, or provide service to, Europe. In short, there’s a lot going on!
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 
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.
