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Fonolo is proud to be a part of the 16th Annual Call Center Week Conference & Expo, June 15-19, 2015.
Set under the bright lights of Las Vegas, Call Center Week (CCW) is a five-day conference + expo featuring workshops, site tours, panel discussions, technology demos, case studies and social gatherings. What could be better?
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Customer service should always stay top of mind. And there’s no better way to get the inside scoop than by understanding the stats and trends affecting the industry at large.
Here are 8 interesting stats to get you thinking about customer service. Continue reading
We live in the era of social media, where a single negative review can go viral in a nanosecond. Customers know what they want and what they’re going to get when they engage with a company – and “delight” is not on their list of expectations. So why are companies sticking to the same clichéd marketing playbook?
The current reality is that customer satisfaction levels are lower than they were in the 1970s, according to CCMC’s National Rage Study. Despite a substantial increase in spending by companies to handle customer complaints, nearly $76 billion is at risk to businesses as a result of customer dissatisfaction. Continue reading
Have you ever experienced bad service? Imagine yourself at a new restaurant, your reservation gets bumped, your food is late, the order is even wrong – how do you feel? My guess is you aren’t going back to that restaurant again.
Now imagine the same scenario taking place, but the staff being exceptional in the way that they handle it. Although your reservation was bumped, they’ve offered you a free beverage while you wait. Although your food was late, they are empathetic and apologetic. Although your order was wrong, they’ve offered to cover your bill for the night. The wait staff has undoubtedly gone above and beyond to ensure that you are happy, regardless of the scenario. Great customer service? I would say so, and I would also say that I’d be back to that restaurant even with all the hiccups.
The same approach should apply to your call center. Your agents/consultants are the front line of your customer service department and can make or break the customer experience.
Here are 3 customer service secrets you should know! Continue reading
Life lessons are all around you if you just look for them. There are golden nuggets of advice in everything from your favorite Shakespeare play to the television commercial that plays repeatedly. Even many cliches of wisdom have come from Broadway. So, how can these lessons be applied to business?
Here are some customer service lessons to be learned from the Great White Way: Continue reading
As technology for customer service advances, more and more channels of communication are added to the mix. We started with just the phone call, many decades ago. Then we added email (necessitating the switch from “call center” to “contact center”), then online forms, web-chat and social media. Many people believe WebRTC will be the next major advance on this front.
But understanding WebRTC can be tricky because, unlike the other channels that were added, this one is not starting as a technology in common use by consumers before becoming a customer service channel. Most consumers will first experience WebRTC in the context of customer service. Ditto for contact center executives. If you’re in that latter group, I’ve assembled a list of good resources here to help you. Continue reading
The future of multi-channel customer service is ever growing. According to CCIQ, 88% of companies have adopted multi-channel to keep up with increasing consumer demand. The approach makes sense: allow customers to engage on their preferred channel and make it as easy as possible for them to do business with your organization. However, it puts additional strain on the contact center in terms of staff and technical resources, even more so when customers move from one channel to the next.
From a customer experience standpoint, moving between channels can also be confusing. After all, customers have expectations of how your organization should interact with them regardless of the channel they choose, and unfortunately it’s not always possible to service customers in the same manner on every medium.
It’s important to find methods in sustaining the relationship between you and your customers. Here are 3 ways to maintain customer relationships on their preferred channels: Continue reading
We often talk about the difference between satisfied customers and loyal customers, the latter being vastly more important to your business. Building a loyal customer base isn’t something that happens on its own. It’s the result of having a customer-centric culture, where employees are truly engaged throughout the organization.
There’s a big difference between satisfied employees and engaged employees. Some employees are “satisfied” by doing as little work as possible while collecting a pay check. Continue reading
Last week, Fonolo hosted yet another insightful Google Hangout, discussing top questions about multi-channel customer service. To save you some time, we’ve extracted video snippets of the answers to each question.
Let’s take a quick look at the panelist introductions: Ian Jacobs Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, Keith Dawson Principal Analyst at Customer Interaction Ovum, Art Rosenberg Principal Analyst at The Unified-View, Jon Arnold Independent Industry Analyst at J Arnold & Associates, and Shai Berger CEO and Co-Founder at Fonolo. Continue reading
For many years, the contact center industry has been using the term “multi-channel” to describe the transition from communicating by phone only, to communicating by email, chat and social media. It was this shift, in fact, that got the “call center” renamed to the “contact center”. (Today, 77% of consumers use more than one channel when seeking service.) In parallel, retailers have been using the term “omni-channel” when talking about how the in-store experience relates to the experience on the phone and through web and social channels. Continue reading
