contact-center

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

By Samantha Mehra on January 20, 2020

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Happy 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 →

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?

Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

The Power of SMS Technology in Call-Back Communication

By Jessica Suezin on November 19, 2019

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People 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 →

Workforce Management Tips for Call Centers During the Holiday Season

By Drew Wilkinson on November 13, 2019

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With Black Friday and Cyber Monday nearly upon us, the vast majority of retail call centers have welcomed new agents in the last few months. For example, in 2016, Radial hired 20,000 seasonal workers for its call center, customer service, and freight fulfillment operations – three times its permanent staffing numbers.

This rapid scaling of staff happens because retailers know they need to offer a consistent and pleasant customer support experience, even with the drastic increase in demand. If they don’t, they risk losing sales and leaving consumers disgruntled, potentially hurting future business. Despite the hiring of seasonal call center agents, the average number of support tickets per agent can still increase by 17% during the holiday season, putting much pressure on retailers, their stressed full-time staff, and new seasonal agents.

Optimizing schedules to meet the demands of the holiday season is crucial to ensuring that average wait times across your voice and live chat channels do not get out of hand. This is where workforce management comes in. Continue reading →

How Chatbots Can Support Your Live Chat Customer Service Strategy

By Jessica Suezin on November 7, 2019

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People often hear the word ‘bots’ and immediately think about some dystopian science fiction flick they’ve seen where robots ultimately take over the world and usurp humanity. There is still a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication in the marketplace about bots, and artificial intelligence generally, which explains in large part the resistance some people have in adopting bots for their lives and businesses.

The truth is, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and messenger bots are a new frontier in technology that can be an excellent tool to support our businesses, particularly when it comes to customer service. When used and integrated into your call center and customer service strategy correctly, messenger bots have the potential to relieve backed up call center queues, assist busy customer service agents, and ultimately help serve more customers and increase sales and revenue for the long term.

This is how messenger bots can increase the efficiency of your customer service call center, improve customer satisfaction, improve the workflow of your customer service and call center agents, and increase the overall value of your company. Continue reading →

How to Prepare Your Call Center For Spikes in Call Volume: Credit Unions

By Drew Wilkinson on October 31, 2019

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Credit unions’ commitment to serving their members is reflected in their healthy growth: these financial institutions now count more than 110 million people as members and hold deposits totaling $1.1 trillion. When a growing sector builds its reputation on customer service, customers themselves can feel the strain of growth when that reputation is no longer met or exceeded. The bottom line is that keeping customers happy during an expansion is no easy feat.

Credit union call centers face a unique set of challenges beyond brisk growth. Traditionally smaller in size, credit unions often lack the resources to implement “best-in-class” technologies, making it especially tricky to tackle surges in call volume that come from rapid growth. With 76% of customers viewing customer service as the real test of much a company values them, long wait times can leave brand new members (and existing ones) annoyed and frustrated.

Continue reading →

Are You Prepared for Unpredicted Spikes in Call Volume? [Slideshare]

By Drew Wilkinson on October 24, 2019

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While today’s tech-savvy consumers are using more non-voice channels to connect with businesses, the act of picking up the phone to quickly and verbally resolve an issue (complex or otherwise) isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The problem with this? According to an Accenture study, consumers’ top two complaints were:

Having to contact customer service multiple times; and
Being kept on hold for too long.

This consumer pet peeve is exacerbated by the fact that contact centers routinely face expected, and unexpected, spikes in call volume. Expected spikes can be a result of seasonality and promotional events, and unexpected spikes can stem from product recalls or natural disasters.

Continue reading →

5 Best Practices for Providing Excellent Customer Service on Social Media

By Jessica Suezin on October 10, 2019

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If you were to check your company’s social media mentions right now, there is a very good chance you would find customers trying to get your attention. According to J.D. Power, 67% of online users are leveraging social media to get in touch with companies for support. There is no question that ignoring them is a major customer service faux-pas. If your team is going to engage with customers on social media, there are a few best practices to keep in mind before you get started.

Here are five tips for cultivating successful interactions with your customers and clients on social media.

Continue reading →