Practicing Positive Psychology in Customer Service

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Practicing Positive Psychology in Customer Service WPHave you encouraged a frustrated employee to stay positive after a particularly deflating customer interaction? If you have, you were tacitly acknowledging the importance of positivity in customer service.

When you boil it down, great customer service is about having a positive influence on the customer’s experience of your organization. If your own staff are feeling negative or pessimistic, it’s difficult for them to provide that highly positive experience.

The problem is that you can’t always be there to offer a few words of encouragement. So, how do you ensure the practice of positive psychology? Simply: By ensuring that elements of positive psychology are a part of how your organization operates. In case you aren’t familiar with the concept of positive psychology, here’s an abbreviated definition from the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania:

Positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

 

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How to Efficiently Manage Service Levels with the Right Technology [Slideshare]

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managing service levelsFor most call centers, service level is a very important KPI.

It measures two parameters: 1) the availability of call center agents to assist customers; and 2) the speed with which agents resolve customer queries and concerns. Since any fluctuation in service levels can directly and significantly impact revenue, it’s understandable that call center executives are concerned with taking the necessary steps to consistently improve them. When it comes to service levels, leveraging the right technology can go a long way in improving declining service levels and, as a result, improve other important call center metrics such as CSAT.

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How Call Centers Can Manage a Brand Crisis

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How Call Centers can Manage Brand CrisisThink a crisis will never happen to your brand? Think again.

2018 proved that reputation-damaging blunders are more prevalent than ever, their devastating effects amplified by the related complaints and commentary buzzing on social media. From Hawaii’s fake missile crisis to the death of a French bulldog aboard a United Airlines flight, many organizations have recently found themselves on the defensive, doing their best to mute negative conversations surrounding their brands. As Ashley McCown, president of PR firm Solomon McCown & Company, notes, “The longer the public has to wait for a response from a company or individual after a crisis, the harder it is to convince it that you’re taking the issue seriously.”

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This is our 1000th Post! A Look Back at Our Greatest Hits

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It's Fonolo's 1000th Blog Post 2019It’s hard to believe, but the WordPress dashboard doesn’t lie: This is our 1000th blog post!

From the very beginning, we knew we didn’t want the blog to just be a tool for self-promotion. Too many company blogs are filled with recycled press releases and thinly-veiled cheer-leading. Our hope was that a) we could develop a loyal audience by covering topics beyond the immediate neighborhood of our product; b) we would do this with a quasi-formal journalistic ethic (e.g. objective tone, footnoting sources, high-quality images); and c) we would do this often (three times a week!). I’m happy to report that the plan paid off and we now have thousands of loyal readers.

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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 →

4 Contact Center Reports to Kick off 2019

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4 Contact Center Reports to Kick off 2019It’s been a while since we did a report round-up post. It’s not for lack of material! Our inboxes here at Fonolo HQ are full of great reports covering call center technology and trends. The steady pace of industry news has simply made it hard to find a quiet week to slip in a post like this.

Below are four reports that we think are worth your time. Thanks, as always, to the companies that sponsor these reports. The availability of this information helps the whole industry become more innovative.

By the way, don’t forget to check out the report we just released: On the Horizon: Customer Service Trends in 2019. It features a sparkling new sci-fi theme that helps to keep the pages turning.

 

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#Trending: Call Centers Are Addicted to Call-Backs

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Trending - Call Centers are addicted to call-backsHere’s what we know: In the call center industry, it feels as though there is a carousel of new and emerging call center trends forever in rotation. A trend doesn’t even have to be new or never-before-seen, mind you; it could very well be an existing technology, process, product, or service that has finally garnered the attention it deserves.

In the call center industry, something big is trending: Call-backs. And it’s no surprise that call centers are addicted to this solution because, quite simply, it’s the secret to customer happiness.

 

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How to Efficiently Manage Service Levels with the Right Technology [Webinar]

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How-to Efficiently Manage Service Level with the Right Technology‘Service level’ measures the accessibility of a company to their customers, and that company’s ability to manage call volume fluctuations and execute their staffing strategy. It is directly tied to customer service quality and is often a vital indicator of a contact center’s overall performance.

A declining service level can point to a number of issues: Poor scheduling; calls taking longer than expected; unplanned call fluctuations; and much more. On the other hand, if a contact center’s service level is improving, it’s usually a sign that the right technology, optimal agent scheduling, and accurate call planning are in place.

How can contact centers better manage their service levels? Leveraging the right technology can go a long way in improving a less-than-optimal service level and,  as a result, the overall quality of customer service. From optimizing workforce management to enabling agent call-backs, managers and decision-makers who implement the right technology will reap the rewards.

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New York Times Op-Ed Mentions Containment Rate

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New York Times Op-Ed Mentions Containment Rate 1

Containment rate is a well-established performance metric in the customer service world, but not as well-known as NPS or hold time. I would say it’s on the “wonkish” side as far as metrics go.

So, you can imagine my delight to see “containment rate” mentioned in a New York Times Op-Ed last week! Not surprisingly, it was in the context of a “robots-will-take-our-jobs” thesis, but it at least was a more nuanced approach than what we usually see in the mainstream press.

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4 Takeaways from Our Live Discussion on The Future of BPOs [Video]

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4 Takeaways from Our Live Discussion on The Future of BPOs Last week, Fonolo hosted an insightful live discussion on the future of BPOs. The expert panel discussed whether reshoring is a permanent trend, the impact of AI on BPOs, and so much more. To save you some time, we’ve extracted video snippets showcasing highlights from the discussion.

First, let’s take a quick look at the panel of speakers: Reagan Miller, Jeremy Watkin, Thomas Laird, and Shai Berger.

 

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