Today’s best-in-class organizations know that delivering world-class customer service is no longer a value-add, but a must. After all, it’s impossible for a company to survive without its customers. Still, some believe that great service is just too costly, so they do the bare minimum. But, what these businesses fail to understand is that poor customer service actually costs more. How much more exactly? According to data aggregated from KISSmetrics, globally, the average value of a lost customer is $243. Is it even more costly for your organization?

I've recently purchased a new software application for my business. The tool has been helpful in making our team and myself more productive. There is of course a bit of a learning curve and a few areas where I've struggled to figure things out but not enough to contact the provider’s help desk or customer service line.

Many contact centers have a goal of completing a number of quality evaluations per agent per month. What is less often talked about is the timeliness of those evaluations and how long after a call agents typically receive feedback.   

Is your Quality Monitoring program the right fit for the Knowledge Workers in your contact center?  

With advances in technology, previously disparate teams of Knowledge Workers are now often working together as part of a contact center that was traditionally comprised of the Task Worker. 

Recently I ordered a product online. The experience was safe, easy, price competitive and the item was delivered right to my door step.  It occurred to me how many things had to go right to create this great customer experience.  Their website had to function well in various browsers. Their payment portal had to work properly. They needed to have my item in stock and be able to ship it by the promised date. Every step of the order and fulfillment process had to be perfect to produce a happy customer. Miss even one step and a customer would be disappointed.

No matter what type of contact center, we all have agents with different levels of tenure, skill and motivation that inevitably leads to a bell curve of agent performance and effectiveness. We all desire our agents move to the upper end of the curve where that magic combination of high productivity and quality exists.

Have you ever had a coach or manager offer such helpful, or not so helpful, advice? Did it make you want to jump right in to the conversation and ask for guidance or did you, as most of us do, get defensive and try to explain your actions?

When contact center agents are hired, they typically go through fairly comprehensive training before ever interacting with a live customer. Thinking on the fly, solving problems on the spot and dealing with customers of varying temperaments is not an easy task, so managers need to be sure customer service representatives are fully prepared before they send them into action.

Companies expect a lot out of their contact center agents, and with good reason: Agents carry a lot of responsibility in terms of upholding the company reputation and providing a consistent, positive customer experience. Agents directly represent the company, so it’s worth spending some time ensuring they are properly and efficiently trained. If your agents are not well-trained, performance will inevitably decline, as will customer satisfaction and, eventually, business revenue.

Ensure your agents can perform to their utmost ability by implementing quality agent training software, such as Envision’s Click2Coach, which gives you the tools you need to facilitate excellent customer-to-agent interactions. Click2Coach is a no hassle way to use in-house data that’s gathered by the software to coach your agents and improve the vitality of your company.