How long should agents be on the phone with customers? As long as it takes to solve their problem…and not a second longer. There’s an important distinction between reducing handle time and improving handle time. Call centers can use different shortcuts and hacks to achieve a reduction in handle time. They can also just rush […]

Everything needs that special something to grow. Plants need water and sunshine. Humans need great food, clean water and abundant plants. Businesses… They need customers. As many as they can get. But unlike plants and humans, they don’t have to constantly replenish themselves. Once a business gets a customer, they could potentially keep them (and […]

When businesses investigate technology solutions, they often start with the obvious: accounting software, customer relationship management tools and business planning applications. Often overlooked are new tools that integrate with CRMs, improve customer relationships and build their bottom line – cloud call center technology. It can improve any office, for both employees and customers. Here are […]

Few businesses purchase call center technology without considering its return on investment (ROI). Instead, they define their business goals and needs, and then compare possible contact center solutions. A couple of technologies rise to the top – usually the ones geared toward recouping an investment the fastest. One common element to the winner’s circle? Call center […]

Some call center execs “know in their gut” whether or not their business is succeeding. For the rest of us, a mystical connection to the building and employees wasn’t in the cards. To close the gap from palm-reader to big-data guru, start with a foundation of metrics. How do call center metrics help? The answer: […]

Leaders use call center business intelligence (BI) to solve some sticky issues. What’s slowing down productivity? Which calls are problematic? What affects the bottom line the most? BI can reveal kinks in many mission-critical processes. Here are a few strategies to get those insights from your screen to the bottom line. Agree on the Goal A […]

Ian Michiels at Customer Think suggests a marker of successful business intelligence (BI) lies in employee productivity. He isn’t wrong. His statement, however, raises questions about how to define positive productivity. In addition, his words relate to business intelligence generally rather than to call center business intelligence specifically. This article solves for both areas, examining […]

Here are five 2017 trends and events to consider as you plan your 2018 call center operations strategy. Keep an eye out for big picture realities and how they have affected your call center, and you’ll be able to better manage or leverage similar events in 2018. Avaya Declares Bankruptcy In the spring, Avaya, an […]

Contact Center Pipeline, in its survey, reports contact center leaders see agent turnover as their primary challenge. The same survey respondents offer a glimpse of a silver lining. They intend to emphasize coaching and development in an attempt to lower turnover rates. But this doesn’t give much insight into why agents leave contact centers. The […]

As Bryce Payne and Clint Laubaugh prepare to attend LISTEN2017, a premiere event for customer engagement analytics professionals, we sat down to ask what they expect to see and hear at the three-day conference. They talked with us about cloud-based “everything,” including the cloud-based contact center, compliance concerns, and business operations. We know the cloud […]