Call Center Articles

Scenario-based training is an accelerated learning technique that has the potential to deliver the best of both worlds. It allows you to train new hires faster and get better performance once they’re on the job. It works by solving some of the biggest limitations of the traditional approach to call center training.

If we don’t know, are uncertain, or haven’t revisited why we have our quality measures in place, why are we surprised that our teams are disengaged? We absolutely must understand and be able to articulate and drive relevance to every quality standard that we have in place.  These standards must be based upon two key factors: Customer expectations and our mission, vision, and values.

Have you ever wondered who is answering a 9-1-1 call and how critical a few minutes can be? Anne Nickerson recently created one state’s certification training for 9-1-1 Telecommunicators, including an e-learning component and validated test.  She shares her experience and findings.

Earlier this month we hosted a webinar with Mariann McDonagh of inContact and Dr. Natalie Petouhoff.  The topic of conversation was the shift in customer behavior and expectations and how technology has essentially put the customer in the driver’s seat.  Companies are no longer in control of their own brand and customer service strategies.  The customers are.
This webinar generated some lively discussion and awesome questions from community members.  One of the questions was: should mobile and social be treated as customer service channels or as strategies?

The short answer is that it’s best to treat the emerging channels not just as channels, but as strategies.  What’s the best way to develop a strategy that works? During the webinar, Dr. Natalie outlined 7 steps to fast track success when it comes to social media strategy.

Earlier this month we hosted a webinar with Mariann McDonagh of inContact and Dr. Natlie Petohouff.  The topic of conversation was the shift in customer behavior and expectations and how technology has essentially put the customer in the driver’s seat.  Companies are no longer in control of their own brand and customer service strategies.  The customers are.

While at ACCE I had the opportunity to sit in on a panel discussion on Innovative Approaches to Self-Service.  The session garnered discussion around social, chat, web, IVR, and mobile.  As May is the month of mobile here at ICMI, I took the opportunity to chat with one of the panelists, Justin Lemrow of Contact Solutions, in a bit more detail about his thoughts and experiences with mobile customer service. Curious how to integrate mobile into the other more traditional channels your contact center offers?  Wondering how to drive traffic to mobile?  Read on for those answers and more!

On April 25th, many of our community members tuned in for a webinar led by Paul Jay (Founder and President, The Center for Client Retention, ICMI), Nav Chakravarth (Vice President, Oracle Knowledge Product Management), and Monique Cadena (Knowledge Centered Support Manager, Avaya).  It was a lively discussion around the keys to KCS.  In case you missed it, or would like a refresher, you can view the webinar here.

We covered a lot of ground, so there were a variety of questions, but we saw an overarching theme.  Community members want to know how to make KCS sucessful at their contact centers.

On April 25th, many of our community members tuned in for a webinar led by Paul Jay (Founder and President, The Center for Client Retention, ICMI), Nav Chakravarth (Vice President, Oracle Knowledge Product Management), and Monique Cadena (Knowledge Centered Support Manager, Avaya).  It was a lively discussion around the keys to KCS.  In case you missed it, or would like a refresher, you can view the webinar here.

Since we received so many awesome questions, during and following the event, we’ve decided to provide a recap.  Don’t see your question here?  Feel free to continue the discussion in the comments below.

The helpdesk and support team play very different roles within the contact center. As such, they approach and see things differently.  We want to explore those differences.  Each month, we’ll bring you the t perspectives of two iContact employees on each side of the spectrum. Brooks Webb (Manager of the Premier Support team) and Jeremiah Methven (Team Lead for Tier 3 Support team) will share their challenges, insights, ideas and successes. This month, Brooks and Jeremiah share their thoughts on mobile customer service.

This week we kick off part 1 of The “Bringing it All Together” Series. Over the next few weeks, we’ll review how companies are using the NICE solution set to solve key contact center challenges, and we’ll also seek insight from the rest of the ICMI community on how other technology offerings are helping them.