Coaching in our centers can involve a wide variety of coaching activities and communication skills. Our agents may be focused on only one type of customer interaction or a blend, depending on how our center functions and the level of agents we employ. Social media has become a major customer engagement opportunity for companies, whether [...]
Making “greener” choices in the contact center can benefit both the environment and your bottom line. It can even help to attract and retain the best staff. According to a survey conducted by the Society of Human Resources Management on HR and environmental sustainability, 49% of businesses with green workplace practices claimed these environmentally conscious [...]
In honor of April Fool’s Day, I thought I’d share some of the most foolish things I’ve seen center leaders do. I’ll also share the wonderful things since there are many who have what it takes. EATING + COACHING = UNPROFESSIONAL: As I joined the supervisor for coaching, she told me the rep would be [...]
Anyone who has ever worked in a contact center knows stress. Being a workforce manager is like working in a never-ending game of tug-of-war – and you’re the rope! Operations managers expect perfect service levels, while training managers and supervisors expect regular training sessions – and all of this has to be scheduled without negatively [...]
One of the areas of business operations that is often neglected when it comes to soft skills coaching, is our finance team. The employees handling collections inside a company may receive coaching but from my observations, others dealing with vendor payments and internal customer calls and emails rarely have the individual coaching needed to reach [...]
The phrase "employee retention" sends shivers down the spines of some folks. And it ought to. Employee turnover is expensive to any company in a variety of ways, not the least of which is the impact on the customer experience, too. According to Gallup: Engaged employees are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their [...]
What’s the difference between tactics and strategy? Strategy is what you are trying to accomplish, where tactics answer the question of how you will accomplish it. Look at it this way: strategy is doing the right things. Tactics are doing things right. For most Real Time Analysts in today’s contact centers, every day is like [...]
One of the greatest opportunities for agent engagement — and yet from my observations, the least implemented — is the consistent involvement of top leadership in hands-on coaching activities and quality monitoring. Many C-suite and higher-level managers feel that coaching is an activity for the frontline leaders. Or they may do a lot of feedback “telling” in team meetings with [...]
Open communication between our marketing, sales and service teams is crucial for creating the best customer experiences. Our marketing teams weave dreams showing total customer bliss. The advertising gurus design fabulous brochures, website animations, and send direct mailings to interested prospects. Social media shines! When prospects see these ads and posts, they can’t wait to [...]
One of our coaching challenges is to find ways to balance the coaching of skills, that impact processes and solutions, with the soft-skills coaching needed for our agents to provide the empathy and personal touch that our customers want to receive. Sometimes we may feel like these skills are at opposite ends of the spectrum [...]
