Every brand’s prior importance is designing customer experiences, keeping in mind the self service which is fast coming in trend. Gartner states 81% of the customers try finding the solutions themselves first and seek expert advice only when they can’t. Five rules for creating beneficial self-service options are:

• Making IVR options relevant which enables the customers to easily get to the option needed and can contact an agent in case of need.

• Training chatbots regularly by keeping them updated on information like brand prices, new product, product description etc. Also, availability of real time customer data which would provide assistance. Another step can be analyzing the tone of customers for providing a smoother conversation.

• Keeping agents on standby because computer programs cannot always resolve all kinds of problems.

• Updating the FAQs by analyzing customer feedback and service transcripts

• Using video tutorials so that the customer queries can be resolved having both subtitles and voiceovers in various languages.

Read more at: https://www.vocalcom.com/en/blog/digital-customer-engagement/5-rules-for-giving-customers-the-self-service-they-want/

Building good relationship with customers satisfies them with their purchases and makes them recommend it to others. With increasing competition in the online market, personalizing customer experience is one good way to attract customers. Success rates are as high as 77%. The ways to personalize experience are: • People tend to search for goods online and purchase in store. Hence, by using geological tools, customers can be notified about nearest shops and the ongoing deals which provokes them to make an early purchase. • Saving information like card details, shipping information, preferences saves time and gives customers a good experience. • Studying the customer preference and making personalized recommendations attracts more customers. • Determining the geographical location of the customers and using their native language and quoting prices in their local currencies gives the customers a clearer overview and therefore convincing them to make the purchase. • Customers are more driven by personalized videos of the products as compared to written description as watching a video involves almost no effort. Read more at https://www.vocalcom.com/en/blog/customer-experience/5-innovative-ways-to-personalize-the-customer-experience/

Good leadership lies at the center of contact centre services. Customer is always prioritized over personal needs. Diligent coaching seen as one of the most effective methods of service improvement and center operation. It is the real life experience that really matters, irrespective of the amount of text book knowledge applied. Great leaders have the ability to remain calm under pressure. They should be ready to take on situations which are new and unprecedented. They should be business minded and focused on the organization’s objectives. As contact centers are dependent on technology, the leaders should have fluency over tech gadgets. Read more at: https://www.customercontactweekdigital.com/agent-engagement/articles/10-skills-all-great-contact-center-leaders-need

With people on the move all the time, it is beneficial for companies to have travel contact centers. People now prefer tickets booked over calls, instead of waiting in long queues. If companies have the knowledge of the needs of customers helps in doing the needed research and brining in, the needed technological advancements for the setup. Big Data provides an added leverage for the required data. One can personalize consumer experience for a better one on one experience. The calls for sales should be made keeping in mind the customer’s time.  Employees should be educated to ensure that they have the needed skills and technical knowhow to manage the tasks. Read more at: https://www.ameyo.com/blog/how-to-build-a-travel-contact-center

Collecting data is important to make operations efficient in a company. But, it is found that collecting and storing data is not enough. Companies must connect and analyze that data across organization. The purpose of data (structured or unstructured) is to extract insights and take accurate decision. But now it is becoming important for companies to connect data, including data from the contact center with the rest of the organization for an integrated view of the customer. Companies should utilize data to combine analytics from the contact center, workforce management, CRM systems, website, social media, surveys and product engagement tools. Read more at: http://callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/1197/Default.aspx

The best of form of marketing is through your customers! If they're happy, you'll find your products selling, but if customers aren't happy, you'll find yourself in a bit of a tough spot. Success of a brand not only depends on how awesome the product is, but also on customer satisfaction. Keeping customers happy is more than a prerequisite in today's world for the success of a brand. Right from respecting your customers to investing in improving customer loyalty, each impacts the performance of the company; this is reflected directly on the sales! Follow the below link to find out ways to keep your customer happy: 

http://www.listenupespanol.com/News-Resources/bid/92851/4-ways-to-keep-your-customers-smiling

Companies are recognizing the need of contact center analytics to gain more consumer awareness but problems like cost of hiring new staff and procurement of new equipment are holding back contact centers from investing in analytics. Other factors like funding and prioritization are to be blamed as contact centers are now seen as cost centers but terms like customer experience and customer journey are gaining exposure. Read more at: 

http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/news/4500246053/Contact-center-analytics-still-an-uncharted-frontier

Nowadays, most contact center uses cloud technology and a report by Frost & Sullivan forecasted that this number will increase to 90% by 2016. The reason for shifting to cloud solutions are that they are cost-effective, easier to scale alongside a growing business, and can be deployed in days or weeks, provides flexibility and enable them to be more responsive to customers. Read more at: http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/957/Default.aspx

Customer interaction analytics is gaining popularity nowadays. It provides information about contact center’s customers, workforce, effectiveness of current system and also strengths and weaknesses. Read more about how customer interaction analytics can benefit your contact center at: http://www.contactcenterworld.com/view/contact-center-article/4-reasons-you-need-customer-interaction-analytics.aspx?md=74f65882-a162-41dd-b17a-b0d20f0af75e&iz=3

In Voice over IP (VOIP) one can link data, record, transcribe, search-enable, translate, authenticate, analyze, and act on conversations, treating each call as a source of information. It has the ability to add and extract value from a phone call. There are some ways to add intelligence to phone calls and increase the speed of transactions to use the untapped data flowing into business through private exchange and contact center. To know more, follow: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/voip-news/7-ways-to-add-intelligence-to-your-phone-calls-64634

There are many challenges that a contact center may face. But, one of the challenges is to improve the level of agent productivity while maintaining a high standard of service. Every customer requires attention, but sometimes the agents are not in a position to respond to every single customer and this leads to a lower level of service. A contact center can improve both agent productivity and the quality of service by choosing the right software. Carl Noblitt (VP Account Management, AireSpring), in his article writes about some ways by which a contact center can improve productivity. To know more, follow: http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/873/Default.aspx

Customer satisfaction is important in any organization but the main criteria is to achieve and maintain it. Customer satisfaction can be achieved when any organization gives importance to service. But, the key question is how to retain quality service? To know more about quality service, please follow John Tschohl (Founder and President, Service Quality Institute, Minneapolis)’s article link: http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/828/Default.aspx

According to Tracey E. Schelmetic (TMCnet Contributor), many small organizations with contact centers that could have improved their services to customers by using analytics were earlier forced out of competition. They were unable to bear the high capital costs of instigating such solutions unlike big companies with greater access to large amounts of data resources that have been able to use analytics solutions to run their businesses more efficiently. However today, cloud-based analytics solutions are helping even the smallest contact centers by turning all the communications with customers into useful data that can be used to provide better analytical solutions in the customer support operations thereby, leading to superior customer satisfaction ratings. Read more at: http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/workforce-optimization/articles/383244-smaller-companies-reaping-large-rewards-from-contact-center.htm

“Money is King” in the field of call center and the result is well proved in a research. An important feature of human motivation is influenced by perks offered. The company Snowfly, which is the leading provider of Internet based employee incentive and loyalty program offers different rewards to its employees, some of which are reloadable debit or gift cards that can be swiped anywhere, merchandise and donations in form of charity. Out of all anywhere spend cards are overwhelmingly in demand as compared to others. In the results, more than 98% of the value of rewards was both types of cards against the cash equivalent as they are soon forgotten but cards have long term motivational value. Thus, the study shows direction of how incentives are valued and the end line is for all that matters is money. Read more at: http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/549/Default.aspx

Any rupture in the Contact Center can be expensive and damaging so it is worth to approach these matters in the right way. Security is a journey and corporate companies must mesh up with technologies that support it. At the same time with security, friendly culture is appreciated. Some of the key points towards it are following: Security starts at the top: Security experts should be included in the planning before important decisions specially like signing contracts are made. Context is king: Business documentation should be made in a clear way. Caveat Emptor: Vendors are an important link and they can create a whole set of tensions. Experience shows that a well-planned security network saves money and improves economics. Last of all every organization should be honest and lower risks and improve financial conditions. Read more at: http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/795/Default.aspx

Mostly all customer service providers offer there service through phone calls. It is time consuming and customers have to wait long before they can have a conversation personally. Optus is an Australian Provider in integrated communications and a subsidiary of SingTel, brings in effective action its [24]7's mobile chat capability in Optus mobile app. This application will allow customers to chat with Optus customer care from a mobile phone. It is a very smart choice and it will give personalized service to all consumers. The same user friendly service which they accessed from their laptops and PC's is now available on their phones. It is a brilliant experience for the customers and increases customer satisfaction as it saves a lot of time. The same service should be adapted by other service providers also so that they do not lose their market share. Read more at: www.contactcenterworld.com/view/contact-center-news/optus-makes-customer-service-brilliant-with-247s-chat-in-the-optus-mobile-app.aspx

Nuance communications is one of the world's biggest providers of voice and language solutions to many businesses and consumers. Its applications experienced by millions of people. To streamline customer authentication and fight fraud at the same time it has partnered with TRUSTID which is a provider in contact center authentication technology. Nuance Voice Biometrics uses a technique to detect unique characteristics of a person's voice and creates a voiceprint which is used for future reference. It replaces the intrusive questions often asked and saves time. Contact centers that uses TRUSTID and Nuance in combination can see greater reduction in time taken on a call, operation cost and strengthening of security. Read more at: http://www.contactcenterworld.com/view/contact-center-news/nuance-and-trustid-partner-to-help-contact-centers-streamline-customer.aspx

The first step towards managing the call volume peaks is identifying the patterns. Some of the several tips are as follows: The fewer variances available on the desktop like emails, printers, office suites the better standardized it is. It reduces variances which may cause problems with updates which ultimately lead to call spikes. The second most important thing is to be better placed in your environment i.e. to keep call center agents well informed about their tasks and coach specific agents on specific skills. Lastly, the most important aspect is to design an efficient action plan containing a trigger point which could easily signal when the plan should go into effect. Read more at: http://blog.inovasolutions.com/2014/surviving-call-center-peaks-and-valleys-part-2-managing-call-volume-peaks

The most recently developed modern call center has emerged with so much of technology usage from cloud to Customer Relationship Management and Integrated Voice Response with new phrases catching up on people’s minds. It can be compared to an Oxford dictionary which gets 1000 new words added almost every year. There is always a need of new word to describe an innovation, idea or technology. These new words lead to puzzling communication. Thus the need of the hour is a jargon busting guide. Some examples are COLO which stands for Colocation. It refers to the service where data can be stored by a host company in a third party data center. For access to the whole guide visit: http://www.newvoicemedia.com/blog/understanding-the-modern-call-centre-our-jargon-busting-guide/#colo

According to a survey, which polled more than 13000 customers across 33 countries and 10 industries, showed that contact centers undermine the importance of customer service and hence dissatisfy them. 91 percent of customers complain that they have to contact the company several times for the same problem. 90 percent do not like to be put on hold. 89 percent report being frustrated about having to repeat their problems several times. Companies should start providing best class customer service so that they do not have to face same pitfalls with customer retention every time. To avoid call waiting, a cloud router should be used for automatically transferring  call to the next agent. Companies should invest in real time reporting software so that they have full interaction history of a customer when they call. Read more at: at:http://www.callcentertimes.com/Articles/tabid/59/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/407/CategoryID/1/NewsID/783/Default.aspx