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Harness the Power of Positive Thinking

It is imperative for every leader to be a positive influencer. If you are irritable, irked, or downright fed up with the world around you, you radiate it out to the world. You radiate it out to the people who look up to you, people who work with you, and every life you touch even outside the workplace. Studies on positive thinking share a common theme: optimism can have profound effects on a person’s physical and mental health and the people around them. The mere act of expecting positive outcomes and being hopeful can boost a person’s immune system, protect against harmful behaviors, and help people unwire day to day anxiety. Optimism can even lead to a longer life. The psychology of team dynamics fascinates me. You might not categorize yourself as someone who can influence the team, but every cog in your machine is making an impact. Each and everyone one of us influences each other even when are not aware that it is happening. Positive thinking can be contagious and transform the environment around us, but the real challenge is in the execution. I have often been asked, “How can I remain positive when others around me are so negative? How can I influence others to engage in positive thinking?” From the literature I have read and personal experience with my teams, here are some strategies that should be helpful for growing positive energy with your team and boosting productivity. 1. Self-Awareness is Key: It all starts with being self-aware. Even if you read every piece of self-help literature out there, it’s all in vain if you don’t admit that there is room for improvement. Look around you. Do you see gossiping about colleagues, complaining about compensation packages, or predictions of failure? All of this contributes to an unhealthy environment. 2. Get Rid of the Negativity Around You: We all want to live a positive life, but there are always negative influences around us and you can begin to internalize toxic thoughts from others. Those “friends” or colleagues who claim to be looking out for you may be just trying to figure out a way to look down at you. You need to get rid of them before their opinion starts affecting your life. Complaining is the favorite past time of some people and you need to avoid them. 3. Choose the Right Company for You: I love working with and being in the company of positive people. Their influence is contagious, and I always feel better after interacting with them. You know you can’t always control what’s going on around you, but you can control your own reaction in any situation. Being happy is a choice you can make and it becomes easier when you surround yourself with other positive thinkers. 4. Find your Positivity Triggers and Commit to them: You can never have enough positive influence in your life! For some of us, Self-talk and right company just isn’t enough. We have an arsenal of triggers we utilize from time to time to help bring us back to our positive self. You may love music or books, so when you listen to a favorite song or read a good book, it can change your attitude. Happiness is a mindset; commit to it. Be a lifelong learner and ensure a part of that learning is focused on creating a positive environment for yourself and others. 5. Make Lifestyle Changes: Give yourself permission to take pride in you. It’s easy to get into bad habits that end up ruling you but learn to observe and manage your addictions Start with eating healthy, change your relationship with soda, go on a technology detox, drink a lot of water, exercise, and stop smoking! Express yourself, whether it’s through art, music, writing, or dance. Find something you enjoy and cultivate it. Nurture that fire in your soul. 6. Believe in God and be Spiritual: Pray, meditate, have a conversation, seek Him. We live in a fallen world, but God has created each of us for His purpose. The closer you draw to Him, the clearer His purpose for your life becomes. There is nothing more positive that I have experienced in my life then when I finally realized and accepted the fact that God had a purpose for me. Always be approachable and reliable. There is no greater reward that I have ever experienced than helping someone in need. As you incorporate the 6 strategies above into your own life, you will want to share your new found positive thinking with others. Serve them well and always remember: It’s a work in progress.

Top 5 Benefits of Speech Analytics to Make Your Brand Shine

Understanding why customers call and continue to call is actionable intelligence. It identifies the reasons behind behavior, and enables managers to take action that improve first-time call resolution. The same principle applies to customer attrition. Actionable steps can anticipate the causes of customer abandonment and provide them with valid reasons to return. Call center speech analytics is a valuable tool that for boosting customer satisfaction rates and improving the contribution to the organization’s success. The top five benefits of speech analytics include: Improving the consumer experience. Enhancing the consumer experience is a primary reason companies use call center speech analytics. Speech analytics software mines and analyzes audio data to detect elements such as stress and emotion in a customer’s voice. It also helps determine the purpose of the call, the products discussed, and more. Users can identify the needs, wants, and expectations quickly and work with the customer to satisfy them. Reducing operating expenses and increasing profitability. Speech analytics pays for itself in as little as three to six months by reducing call center costs and detecting cost savings. The technique circumvents extra expenses while generating incremental income. However, it requires a significant investment in resources and time up front to calibrate a speech analytics application successfully for a particular site. Monitoring and coaching call center agents to increase service quality. Call center speech analytics software enables managers to monitor agents and customers simultaneously to ensure that the agents adhere to scripts and meet regulatory requirements. Speech analytics technology is also valuable for helping agents improve call resolutions and reduce call volume. Operational and performance issues can be addressed and handled, resulting in overall enhanced service quality. Decreasing customer attrition. Many businesses notice a decline in customer attrition rates after implementing speech analytics. It can help companies identify the reasons customers leave, providing opportunities to make the changes necessary to ensure customers return. For instance, enhanced service quality results in improved customer satisfaction and experiences, giving consumers less reasons to leave. Identifying up- and cross-sell opportunities to boost revenue. Sales organizations can also benefit from speech analytics technology through the identification of up- and cross-sell opportunities, resulting in increased sales conversation rates. Sales managers can also analyze the data to determine the impact of a particular up- or cross-sell on a customer’s level of satisfaction, and identify offer response rates across various customer demographics. Real-time speech analytics applications can create personalized up- and cross-sell opportunities to satisfy a consumer’s distinct requirements. They can also track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Call center speech analytics drive quality monitoring and provide a unique perspective of the effectiveness of internal processes. It is a valuable technique to produce key performance indicators for comparing how different agents deal with various call types, allowing managers to focus their coaching efforts on real-time insight. The result is increased productivity and alignment of skill sets to consumer needs. Overall, call center speech analytics enable businesses to manage marketing campaign planning and deployment with extensive customer insight to enhance the effectiveness of their bottom line. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

5 Pillars of a successful team

Starting something new, taking on new challenges or implementing changes is not always easy, and there are always reasons to avoid doing so, but opportunities may not be around forever. We must focus on the things we are able to control and make a remarkable difference that our customers, our team, and our communities expect. The key is TEAMWORK. It is said that “Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to obtain uncommon results.” Teamwork is the key component that will enable us to take tremendous strides. Success doesn’t happen by chance. Great teams succeed because they care. They care about their goal, they stand united in the face of adversity, they challenge the conventional perception of the possibility, and they work for a purpose and prevail against all odds. A purpose they all care about with people they all care about. And that is the secret to a great team. They achieve greatness by working towards it together. Caring about each other is the fuel that allows ordinary looking people achieve not so ordinary feats. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to be a part of both successful and unsuccessful teams. What I have observed is that there are 5 common characteristics successful teams share. Purpose: Great teams succeed because they are all driven to a common purpose. Great teams understand their goal clearly, and they know which path to take to reach there. It’s a leader’s job to ensure that each and every member of their team understands the big picture, where they fit into it, and the impact of their performance on the overall objective. Every member of that team works in tandem towards their own and in turn the company’s success because they understand it is but one single goal. Happiness: A survey from PGI (Premiere Global Services, Inc*1) states that there are 80 Million Millennial in the workforce currently, and 88% of them want workplace to be a fun place. People are more productive when they are happy. It motivates them to turn up to work every morning and work as a team. Google has revolutionized the Human Resource “People Operations” industry by simply using data to find different ways to keep their employees happy. Have you created an atmosphere where your team members can have fun together and collaborate easily? The Ownership: When we feel that we belong, we have a sense of ownership in the team. Great teams have member who trust in each other which in turn helps increase team’s efficiency. Transparency helps them develop trust and camaraderie. They inspire each other and commit to the team. Either your team members are committed to the team or they are not: there is no in-between. Success: Job satisfaction and performance skyrocket when a team understands the progress they are making. Understanding that you’re on the path to victory is the biggest motivator. It is the idea of making progress towards a common goal that shapes how we feel about the work we do. When a success is celebrated, everyone in your team is reminded that they have the ability to reach a common goal, and it builds a momentum for you and your team. Resolve Conflicts: Contrary to the popular belief, great teams are not the ones where the members always agree with each other. Healthy debates and heated arguments are often part of the discussions. The secret is that they are more comfortable and likely to disagree or challenge each other and reach a conclusion. They discuss issues out in open and often tend to reach an agreeable solution. They are family, and they tackle the issues as a family. They fight but the fights tend to end with a resolution, and the world outside never knows what happened. The truth is that a great team is a lot more than just a combination of these 5 traits. It’s a sum of it all. Teamwork is one constant which transcends across the industry and all types of businesses. It does not matter if you just a start up or a billion dollar conglomerate, team work has the power to transform the way you do business. As you develop and strengthen the teams within your organization, you will be able to hear the positive impact resonate through the organization.

Artificial Intelligence: Behind-the-scenes tool to improve Customer Experience

Since its initiation, Artificial intelligence (AI) has grown by leaps and bounds. From getting used to simply gather information and predict effects, it’s now being utilized by companies as a major technology to create present day solutions throughout a variety of services. There has been a consistent increment in the amount of ‘Robots’ that can mimic cognitive services of the human mind, corresponding to situation-solving and responding to normal languages. Powered by developed Artificial Intelligence (AI), these machines at the moment are going prevalent. To meet up with the technologically-driven industry landscape, ultra-modern corporations are looking to leverage them into more than a few productive roles, specifically to handle the customers’ queries. The large amount of data we generate is a compounds blessing. It offers us better insight into human habits, but it’s additionally a lot more stuff to sort. For assisting us sort through our data, and make best use of it, we’ll turn to AI (artificial intelligence) for things as challenging as navigating the call center to simply deciding what the doggone temperature is outside. Artificial intelligence in the call center has become much more important in the last few years, leveraging tremendous data sets and predictive analytics for computerized, personalized customer service and on-demand agent coaching based on reporting. However, with great power comes great responsibility. Leverage user models to create an extraordinary customer experience User models, analysed from customer metric data, provide a detailed window into the service you render. These models can be utilized to create private experiences for customers of a call center. First, call centers have to accumulate this information through an analytics tool. Development teams can send consumer habits data from Mixpanel through an API. As soon as information has been gathered, the data can be fed to an algorithm to discern patterns depending on time-of-day, rate-of-rise/decline, or how the information correlates with other behaviours on the platform. The output of the algorithms can additionally loop back into how pages are provided to customers. A call center could improve customer experience by means of analysing what questions and response customers give simply before they come to a decision. Artificial Intelligence streamlines the process Customer Interaction simply entails making knowledge available to customers at their fingertips without asking them to move through hoops or several steps. We base it on what we already know about customers, and just like that! They get the super-targeted info. Actually, it is just making information available to customers in new approaches, lowering the hurdles that customers have to go through to get to the information. It can be as easy as what we learn from you, but additionally the trends that we get from other buyers like you. This exponentially improves customer experience. Artificial Intelligence for Customer Interactions Artificial intelligence is an amazing tool, and it’s going to evolve with time. Nevertheless, exclusively relying on AI to manage crucial sections of a call center, like customer interactions, could spell catastrophe. With the advance of channels that create connectivity and openness, customers are important to call centers stability and thus must be handled as such. Call centers can’t afford to make errors when interacting with them. In order to avert customer frustration as a result of lack of ability to resolve a setback efficiently in a customer’s channel of alternative, automatic processes must consistently exist in collaboration with human interaction. Customers are far too valuable to be handled alone by totally automated systems. Let’s face it; even some people have a tough time interacting with other humans well, typically due to a lack of emotional intelligence. Due to all those reasons, it will be irrational to anticipate an artificial intelligence system to execute and handle a customer interaction at a 100% satisfaction phases. However, with continuous advancement on this area and with suitable utilization, AI could aid call centers enhance their relationship with customers and take it to a higher level. I’m certain that as millennials strive for intelligent self-service and call centers seek automation, AI will continue to create a buzz in scientific circles in the future years. Personalised strategies The intention of the continuous study in Artificial Intelligence is to incorporate the advanced aspects like reasoning, conversation, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. When consumers can communicate with those intelligent systems, the interactions would have a couple of different results. Utilizing the information amassed from such communications between their AI systems and customers, call centers can customize the customer experience for every user. A call center can use the data to investigate the unique perception of a user after which the results can be used to build personalised options around his/her preferences. When promoted with right illustration, the customer tends to go for them and it might also help the call center increase its customer experience. AI-assisted Speech Recognition AI-aided speech recognition helps enhance customer experience. Key phrases can be noticed to set off service enhancements. The word “supervisor,” for example, would alert a supervisor to join a call and alleviate any problems with a customer. Systems can also be programmed to pay attention for competitor mentions. Financial institutions are experiencing same growth. Take a customer who typically calls the bank every Fridays to know her account balance. Utilizing AI, the bank possesses the intelligence to send the customer an automated message with her bank balance before the customer picks up the cellphone. By spotting behaviours and interaction patterns, a call center can decide upon the best channel for relating with customers. Not every customer requires a prolonged and private telephone call. Contacting via email or leaving an automated voicemail can be just as efficient in terms of customer satisfaction and is way less expensive than a live agent telephone call. It merely requires a figuring out of what each client prefers based on gathered data and demographics.

Artificial Intelligence: A Boon to Improve Customer Experience

Artificial intelligence has been around for a while, and while some wholeheartedly embrace the idea, others are wary of using what is portrayed to be a “robot” in any customer experience. When many think of AI, they think of conversationalist robots, while the truth is that AI has evolved into software programs that can be seamlessly integrated into current programs and become a huge asset to their human colleagues. AI is more than just a programmed bot that can answer the same questions that are included on a company’s FAQ page, and actually has many valuable applications in the business world and more specifically, in the form of customer support. Once companies understand the basics behind artificial intelligence and the benefits of speech analytics, the investment is more attractive and practical to improve customer service in all areas. Why Is Customer Service Important? All companies recognize that good customer service is essential to staying in business, building a brand and gaining the trust of consumers that love your products and services, but many fail to understand WHY customer service is so important. It’s just an assumed fact, but doing the research into why it is so important can help us better understand how artificial intelligence and quality monitoring with speech analytics can improve the experience. Estimates suggest that poor customer service may cost companies in the United States up to 41 billion dollars in revenue each year. AI is intended as a solution to that problem and to give your business the cutting edge to stay ahead of the competition and to cut that revenue loss as much as possible. Studies show that almost 90% of customers become frustrated when they have to repeat their problems and issues to more than one representative. This number highlights the fact that good customer service is more than a bonus for your business. It’s a necessity. A poll completed in 2015 of over 2,000 adults in the United States showed that customers are willing to pay more for a product or service when the customer service experience is pleasant. Close to 86% of them said bad customer service encourages them to switch brands. This shows that good service is vital to consumers, and getting an edge on your competition with better service builds trust in your brand and products. Companies often struggle to find the line between being more efficient at answering calls and resolving problems and keeping customers happy. Consumer issues can take up quite a bit of time for an agent even as the company is pushing for faster resolutions that encourage agents to get off the call as quickly as possible. At the end of the day, your customers need to feel as if their opinions are the most valued thing in your company, and artificial intelligence can help. AI provides faster results and resolutions to issues that commonly plague customers. It can improve the efficiency of employees, create better outcomes customized to fit any client’s problem, reduce call center costs and perform large tasks that would be impossible for a human to complete in the same amount of time. AI is important for more than just chat, and can create a positive experience for every customer that works with your company. To put it in perspective, realize that most Americans currently use some form of artificial intelligence in their everyday lives. With smartphones and tablets, most turn to assistants like Cortana and Siri to get directions, ask questions and resolve problems. As AI becomes more integrated into our day to day lives, experts expect that in a short five years, customers will only interact with a human from a company 15% of the time. The other 85% of the experience will be done with some form of artificial intelligence. Recent Experiences With AI Developers work tirelessly to create an AI system that works with every company in a convenient way, with the ultimate goal being to make life and work easier for everyone. Examples of using AI include Google, who improved their voice recognition technology from 84% to 98% in just two years. IBM’s Watson was released in 2011, and is now 2400% smarter than it was at its release date. Tens of millions of online searches are done each month through voice recognition systems. Every advancement brings AI closer to being profitable and applicable to businesses of all sizes. Some companies have already invested in the technology and reaping the rewards for doing so. Digital Genius: Mikhail Naumov, the chief strategy officer of Digital Genius, says that the company better automates their chat software with a deep learning algorithm. This has been done in two different ways. Historical chats – AI systems are better trained with the help of historical chat logs. Benefits include more accurate responses and more time for customer service agents to handle complex issues that an AI is unable to solve. Naumov believes that because customer service is so repetitive, historical transcripts hold goldmines that are underused. Fact data – The nature of the industry Digital Genius functions in has solid parameters regarding the amount of solutions for a set amount of problems. This makes AI programs much easier for this type of business, rather than business development or marketing, where there are many paths and possibilities that lead to solutions. Inbenta – Inbenta approached AI from the direction that customer service questions come when customers can’t find answers to important questions on a website. Search engines can be mildly misleading and send the customer to a page with no valid information for them. This turns into a phone call to a customer service representative that takes up time and valuable resources. Natural language – To deal with this issue, the company developed “Natural Language Processing” that is a form of AI that focuses more on what the customers means in a query rather than exactly what they type. Bulk email response – Inbenta has also solved the problem of excessive emails that

Jamaica: An Emerging Contact Center Outsourcing Mecca

If you are looking to boost the communication capabilities of your business, Jamaica is a hotspot for contact center outsourcing. Generally speaking, BPO in Jamaica is well known among business owners, but some are not aware of the IT and QA specific benefits. Learn why Jamaica should be one of your top choices for outsourcing your call center processes. Highly Educated Consultants Many IT professionals are coming out of Jamaica’s University of Technology (UTEC). UTEC is a hotbed for technology and innovation. Students come out of the university looking for internships, subcontracting jobs, and full-time jobs in quality assurance. UETC’s computer science program prepares students for work upon graduation. With the amount of passionate and dedicated professionals in Jamaica who are proficient in the latest technologies, growing your workforce through a Jamaica call center can give you the help you need. Why Jamaica is Unique There are plenty of advantages for US companies utilizing BPO in Jamaica. For one, the island shares time zones with the US. Jamaica is on the eastern time zone for 6 months and central time zone for the other 6 months. It is also the biggest English-speaking nation outside of the US. There are many short and direct flights from major US cities to Jamaica. These unique attributes of Jamaica make it the perfect place for US companies to work in synergy with Jamaican professionals. Having a call center with a shared time zone and language makes business convenient. Growing Infrastructure The Jamaican government has made tremendous improvements in its ability to meet BPO needs. With high bandwidth and connectivity, you can rely on a Jamaica call center to handle your business transactions. While some improvements still need to be made in terms of the technology sector, call centers and BPO in Jamaica are a priority for both business and government. How the Government Helps The new government in Jamaica has a board of technology professionals with oversight by a Minister of Technology. Jamaica is serious about growing its technological innovation and attracting international businesses. It is a fertile environment for businesses looking to expand their call center operations. The Big Trends The Jamaican IT industry is seeing a big push towards Javascript developers. Jamaican IT professionals are up to speed on the latest advancements in coding and are constantly adapting to new waves of innovation. In fact, Jamaica is seen as the Silicon Island. Technology advancements and game-changing professionals are proving that the country is fully capable of providing dependable call centers and IT capabilities. Outsourcing certain business practices can prove to be beneficial in various ways. Outsourcing to a Jamaica call center can strengthen your ROI and enhance your customer experience. Jamaica’s convenient near-shore location, shared time zone, and large English-speaking population make it a convenient choice for the BPO industry. You don’t have to worry about trusting your customers to people who do not speak English or are not aware of the latest technological advancements. Jamaica is full of experienced professionals and newly graduated computer science students who are eager to help. Consider Jamaica for your contact center outsourcing.

Why Speech Analytics is a Revolutionary Factor for Contact Center Quality Monitoring

Objectivity Contact center reliability in terms of delivering the value promised to customers depends largely on the performance of individual employees. Thus, in order to ensure that optimal effort is given on each and every call, management teams are required to implement contact center quality monitoring (QM). In most cases, this task is performed by a dedicated QM staff whose goal it is to ensure that required procedures are met while also conveying the messages and tones unique to each client. While QM focuses on assessing and improving an employee’s individual skills, its general purpose is two-fold: to meet the performance demands of contact center clients while also ensuring that operations remain compliant with industry standards. Manual Monitoring – An Inherently Challenging Process Typically, the QM process at most call centers involves an individual agent (be it a manager, supervisor or dedicated QM analyst) listening to individual calls and grading out an employee’s performance. After each assessment the results must then be shared through the appropriate channels, beginning with supervisors or shift managers and then with the individual employees themselves. These individual one-on-one sessions between employee and analyst or supervisor and analyst are essential in order to identify areas that need improvement. Finally, follow-up evaluations are required in order to ensure that education has been effective at helping employees improve the customer experience on his or her calls. While QM efforts are vital for improving contact center performance, the aforementioned process carries with it a number of inherent inefficiencies. These include: Resource management: Managing QM can force executive teams to walk a tight line between meeting the demands of client output and improving processes and performance. When developing a QM strategy, many often first look to supervisors and managers to perform these tasks. While their familiarity with the skills and weaknesses of their individual team members may offer valuable information to this process, adding QM to their already full schedules often requires asking them to sacrifice time and effort being dedicated to other areas. Oddly enough, the net impact of having supervisors perform QM is often a decrease in overall performance due to less attention being paid to other vital areas of operation. The next solution would then seem to be to create a dedicated QM staff whose workflow would be centered on call evaluations and employee training. This eliminates the need for management to be extensively involved in the QM process and creates a team of subject matter experts that employees may be able to rely upon as a resource. However, it is important to keep in mind that creating such a resource would likely require pulling employees that have demonstrated the highest levels of performance off of the phones in order to effectively perform this function. While the anticipated payoff is that they would then be able to convey their skills on to other employees, the question becomes how long the center would be able to wait for the rest of its staff to replace the newly named QM analysts’ levels of performance? This leads to the final concern that manual QM presents in regards to resource management: time. If a team of supervisors or QM analysts is expected to turn the trends discovered during call evaluations into actionable information that helps employees improve customer engagement, then they need the time to both listen to calls and provide education. While the expectation is already in place, that call monitoring will be a primary function of a QM team, the amount of time needed to follow up with employees and managers if often not accounted for. Once evaluations have been done, the QM team must then pull supervisors away from their regular tasks to share results, and then pull employees off the phone to provide education. For contact centers already straining to deliver optimal output levels, such allocations of time may prove to be too great of a cost. Limited sample sizes: Because the QM process can be so expensive and does require so much time, managers or analysts can only afford to perform their assessments using small sample sizes. In many cases, the actual rate of assessed calls may often represent less than one percent of a contact center’s total output. One has to wonder if such a limited volume is able to produce an accurate depiction of overall employee performance. Employees may argue that judging their capabilities on the phone off of a small random sample of their calls puts them at an inherent disadvantage. Depending upon their specific roles and responsibilities, they may feel more comfortable in certain areas than in others. Thus, while evaluating a call for a client or product with whom they are unfamiliar may serve to highlight their weaknesses, it fails to identify those areas which they may view as their strengths. Along with offering a potentially unbalanced assessment of an employee’s skills (or lack thereof), random call monitoring also may fail to show if employee education has truly taken hold. For example, if an employee were marked for a reassessment after having received training and education, reviewing a call from the week following said training may not show what he or she has learned and implemented than one from two-three weeks later. The trouble is, when pulling random call samples, QM analysts often have little control over the time frames from which their calls come from. One might argue that the solution to the problem of limited sample sizes is simply to increase his or her QM staff. However, wouldn’t such action simply serve as an example of throwing more resources at a process that’s already been proven to be somewhat ineffective? Objectivity: The final challenge that comes with manual QM monitoring is delivering objective results. When preparing the criteria that will be used to assess employee performance, the question has to be asked as to the basis used to develop it. Is it being prepared by upper-level executives based solely off of perceived client expectations, or former

Utilities are Improving Customer Satisfaction Through Proactive Outbound Call Centers

In today’s digital world, customers are not limited in the products they can buy or companies they can choose by demographics alone. With the world available at their fingertips, they can simply choose another company if they don’t like your service or products. This makes customer satisfaction of the utmost importance for every product, and gives an outbound call center a unique opportunity to use outbound calling to enhance customer experience. Take the example of utility and energy companies, as consumers have more choices today than ever. As customers weigh their options, companies realize that customer service may make all the difference between keeping their current customer base or dealing with a mass exodus to another company. Simply put, improving the customer experience can directly affect how every business functions, and outbound calling can be a valuable tool in your arsenal when used correctly. Unprecedented Flexibility When Engaging Customers In the past, call centers have relied heavily on telephone channels and inbound calls to keep customers happy. When a problem arises, the customer calls the center and ideally, the problem is handled. While this is still an important part of a successful customer experience, the new approach must include additional channels rather than a telephone call. Inbound agent can offer a variety of channels through which customers can engage and interact, including: Messaging Video Web chats Telephone Proactive customer service comes into play when an inbound call or connection allows the agent to set up some form of outbound contact at a later time. For example, getting a customer’s birthday information allows you to contact them on a special occasion and create a solid personal connection. Essential Technology Tools Many software applications and programs used to keep customer happy are cloud-reliant and address the lack of capability of premise-based systems to handle the omni-channel approach to call centers. In the case of utility or energy companies, customers may be automatically contacted in special situations like maintenance notifications, service outages, or servicing reminders, keeping a solid outbound connection with the customer. This means that you aren’t only engaging the customer when they have a problem, but proactively engaging them in a way that is positive and helpful. Your customers will build a relationship with your company and your brand when they communicate with you more often. With utility companies, many customers feel positive about the ability to keep track of their energy usage, keeping the planet green, and household expenses. While customer satisfaction levels are climbing, utility companies will create even more efficient outbound opportunities with outbound notifications that are unprecedented. Connection and communication aren’t just about addressing problems or helping customers pay their bills. In today’s world customers want a proactive approach to communication, and software makes it a fairly simple process to give them what they want. Proactive Approach to Customer Service No longer is it okay to just wait for your customers to you. Your company must utilize all the tools available to ensure that you proactively connect with your customers before they have a problem that requires an inbound call. Technology has made it easy to create automated ways to reach out to customers and engage them in positive ways This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

The Effect of Rewarding Talent on Outsourced Call Centers

The BPO industry is known for its high turnover rate, but it doesn’t have to be that way. When contact center outsourcing is done correctly, you can reap the benefits of happy employees and customers. Rewarding talent at your call center goes a long way to improve the overall effectiveness of your business. Start With the Best In order to reward talent, you need to have talented individuals working for you. Your recruitment process needs to be focused on finding the right people for your positions. Look for candidates with excellent sales and customer service skills. Online recruitment portals, internal advertisements, and rigorous training programs can all contribute to adding talented professionals to your team. Having a productive and loyal staff begins with the point of hire. Retaining Excellent Employees Once you have dependable employees, you need to incentivize them to stay. Developing a culture of mentorship, training, and engagement makes employees feel valued and productive. Performance management and compensation packages both play crucial roles in retaining your employees. Situational Leadership Adopting a strategy of situational leadership is a great way to prioritize team building and productivity. The theory of situational leadership is that using various managerial styles according to different people produces better results. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to management. Your BPO staff is a group of diverse people who are motivated by different factors. When you have a people-focused managerial approach, you will get your employees focused on delivering real results. Celebrating Customer-Centric Behavior You want your call center staff to be dedicated to providing solutions to your customers. Rewarding your employees is one important part of building a company culture that values the customer experience. Here are some ways to reward employees: Pay attention to surveys: As you peruse surveys, keep an eye out for whom your customers are praising, but don’t stop there, listen to your employees and find out what drives them. You would be surprised to see some of the little things agents want in terms of rewards. Offer competitive benefits: When you provide employees with great compensation packages, they will be more likely to do excellent work. Give Promotions based on quality not tenure: Giving promotions based on certain qualities versus tenure allows anyone to earn the right to become a leader. Consider rewards other than simple commission payments. Qualifying them for prizes is a creative way to create incentives. When you encourage and effortless customer experience through rewards programs, you will see increased employee loyalty and productivity. Don’t Neglect Your BPO Increasing performance is all about the culture you create at your company. If you neglect the outsourced aspects of your business, you will not reap the full benefits of a motivated workforce. The call centers are full of hardworking professionals who are passionate about quality assurance, customer service, and information technology. Differentiating your company from your competitors starts with the structure and culture of your organization. You need to align your managerial style with the brand that you promise your customers. Your outsourcing destination will only benefit your business if you put in the effort to ensure you have talented employees and you reward that talent. When you have the right employees and implement smart rewards programs, your company will see more productivity and better customer service. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Increase Customer Satisfaction With These Positive Words

Using positive words and phrases to connect with a listener is widely accepted as a best practice for professional communication in the customer support industry, and for good reason. When your job is to ensure that customer concerns, conflicts, and problems are resolved in ways that work for both the company and the consumer, they become a key way to put people at ease and let them know that you are working for them. Depending on the context of the situation, different techniques can be used to increase customer satisfaction and improve the overall customer experience. Opening the Call When customers first call in and describe their needs to you, there are a variety of ways that you can let them know you are here to help, even if you don’t have the answer on hand. These phrases serve to both de-escalate any tension the customer feels and also to help you signal to the customer that you might need to gather more information, but in a supportive way. Approaches include: Let’s look at this together. I’d love to assist you with that. That’s a good question… I’d be happy to… Certainly. I’m happy to assist you with that today. Depending on your next step, these techniques can also be used to easily lead customers into the questions you need answered before you can give them more information about their own concerns. They can also give you the time needed to pull up resources, providing a smooth transition into the next phase of the call. Mid-Call Techniques There are a few ways to continue showing positivity and support throughout the middle of the call, depending on the customer’s needs. For those who state very clearly what they want, affirmation works well to increase customer satisfaction. Try a variation on “That’s a good choice,” like the ones below: This is a very popular item. We have had a lot of positive feedback about that item. That is one of our most popular offerings. If you are facing questions and the customer needs assurance, suggestions can often be couched in the form of stories about what other customers have done to be successful, such as: Many of our customers prefer… Other customers in your position have tried… I’m hoping you will enjoy… Closing a Call Making sure that a call ends positively is just as important as making sure that the customer is put at ease in the beginning and then supported throughout their experience. If your goal is to improve customer experience over time, then adopting a few key closers will help. Try variations on “It’s been a pleasure to work with you,” and don’t forget to make sure that you ask if there is anything else they need before you close the call. Variations on that might include: Your satisfaction is our top priority. Is there anything else I can do for you today? I appreciate your patience. Please let me know if I can assist with anything else. Is there anything else you need help with? By letting customers know that you are there until they feel satisfied, you make sure that they have the best possible experience and that they get all their questions answered.

How to Deploy a Foolproof Call-Back Solution

The call back system technology has been around for decades, but it has just started to gain momentum in recent years. More companies are realizing the value in utilizing this system as a call center solution that customers appreciate. Even considering the positive contributions of this system, there are some struggles that should be avoided. Below are a few tips for deploying a foolproof callback solution. Offer it at the Appropriate Time The time at which the call back message is offered plays a significant part in its effectiveness. Research shows that individuals who have been on hold longer are more likely to accept a call back offer. However, it is important to also consider how long the average hold time is. For example, it would not be very effective to introduce the message at two minutes if the average wait time is one and a half minutes. In consideration of those individuals who may decide to “wait it out,” it is a good idea to offer the call back option more than once throughout the hold time. Provide Immediate Service Upon Call Back The whole purpose of the call back for the customer is to reduce their wait time. Therefore, having the customer have to wait once they receive a call back is counterproductive. That is why it is better to have your call back system set up for “agent-wait” rather than “customer-wait.” In the “agent-wait” scenario the agent is on the line as soon as the customer picks up. Employ Call Back Option on the Right Channels There are a number of different call answering systems to choose from, and many of them offer a variety of services. Though these capabilities are available, they are not ideal for all businesses. It is important that you take the time to fully research the different options, their offerings and their effectiveness. This can most likely be evaluated through online reviews or word-of-mouth from other business owners you know. Possibly more important than considering the systems, it is critical that you analyse your customer base and their preferences as well. In any case, you want to make sure that the solution you choose can be easily integrated into your current customer service systems. Maintain Call-Attached Data Collecting and storing call back data can reduce a great deal of confusion and frustration during the call back process. Customers do not like repeating themselves, and having this information stored reduces that need and leads to a quicker resolution processes. Explore All Viable Options Not all call answering services are the same. To ensure that you make the right choice, there are a few things that you should consider. the provider and their additional services the adaptability of the system (for current and future purposes) special call back features past success of the system The right call center solution will help both your customer support team and the customers themselves to have a productive and efficient call. Keep these tips in mind as you consider your next call answering service or improvement options.

How to Optimize Your Tech Support Interactions

The tech support team is an essential element of customer service. As such, it is important that a system is in place to help the support team to provide the greatest quality assistance to customers. Here are four effective tools to optimize tech support interactions. Guided Support Tools Guided support tools help the technician to provide uniformed, effective assistance to customers. They lay out appropriate, customer focused paths of questioning. This not only helps to narrow down the possible issues, but also does so in a manner that is acceptable to most customers. There are a number of programs available that can provide such guided support. Take some time to research the available options and choose the proper solution for your company. Remote Support and Related Services Remote support and other related services can go a long way in reducing the frustration and resolution time associated with addressing complex problems. Even some simple problems can be easily addressed with remote support. Such programs give technicians direct access to the customers’ systems. This allows them to directly see what the customer is experiencing, and many times troubleshoot and even resolve the issues without being in the presence of the customer. Not only does this help to make the client happy by having their problem fixed quickly, but it also helps the technician not have to depend on verbal clues to pinpoint an issue. Therefore, these services are beneficial all around. Self-Service Tools Self-service tools have grown in popularity because customers seem to prefer addressing issues themselves. In fact, research has shown that even when individuals reach out to professionals, many prefer to be guided in the right direction and then left to complete the process themselves. This creates a win-win situation; clients gain solutions to their problems and technicians spend less time addressing simple issues. However, in order for this to occur, the appropriate self-service tools must be in place. The tech support setup must include simple, easily-accessible information in regards to common issues that clients face. Should customers need to speak with a technician, it is also beneficial for the self-service tool to include technology that can track what avenues have already been taken so that the technician can begin where the customer left off. Analytics Analytical data is a form of tech support monitoring that can play a key part in providing and improving quality customer service. An analytical software that monitors the customer-technician interaction can help in several different ways. Uncover common issues that clients face. Help to pinpoint areas where self-service tools are failing. Provide information on clients’ previous inquiries and calls. And more Such information can be essential in creating the best technical support team experience for both the client and the technician. As you can see, proper tech support spans beyond troubleshooting technical issues. It also includes a great deal of customer service. Considering this, having the right tools and support in place are essential to ensuring a positive experience for your customers and tech support team. Take some time to review the possible options to determine the proper tools for you. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Increase Your Productivity With Blended Dialing

In the ongoing quest to find the optimal call center efficiency for your operation, new tools that combine the best use of human resources and cutting edge innovations in technology provide the edge you need to compete. One of the techniques that has been gaining a lot of steam recently is blended dialing, a process that automatically transfers agents from inbound to outbound calls as needed. While there are some controversies as it is being implemented, all early studies show blended dialing programs increase agent happiness and productivity overall. How Blended Dialing Programs Work By using your cloud calling software designed to evaluate and manage traffic, your system can be set to automatically reassign agents from incoming call tasks to outgoing tasks as needed. This process allows for flexibility as demand for customer service rises, while providing extra help to outgoing calls during times when the incoming demand is low. The result is that more workers are tasked to the call center’s top priorities at any given time, increasing call center operational productivity overall. Handling Pushback During the Change As you move your call center to a blended dialing program, it will be natural for agents who feel more comfortable handling either inbound or outbound traffic to voice concerns. While some agents may have the aptitude and assertiveness for outgoing calls like debt collection, rotating them to ensure their skill set remains well-rounded is a good move for both the agent and the company. Studies have shown that agents who are given a variety of challenges throughout the day remain more productive for longer and report higher job satisfaction. Training and Staff Selection Since agents who feel equally comfortable with both incoming and outgoing calls are becoming a better and better fit as blended dialing gains in popularity, it is also important to talk to HR about the company’s needs moving forward. That way, future hires will fit well with the program. For existing employees, a smooth transition is dependent on two things: training and resources. Take care of the training aspect by making sure you test the new system in ways that give each employee the opportunity to get familiar with assignment switching. That also gives you the opportunity to hold calibration meetings, ensuring that all communications through the system and expectations for performance are handled. Moving Forward For the best possible call center efficiency, the program needs to be continuously monitored and tweaked, and your cloud calling management software needs to be set up to optimize your traffic and your assigned resources. That means ensuring that your employees get the resources they need when moving from one task to another, and it also means having a system that knows when to switch them. Benefits When you put blended dialing in place in your call center, you become more capable of responding to changes in consumer interest and need caused by booms in sales, such as those around the holidays. You also gain the ability to respond to marketing initiatives and to finish calling campaigns more efficiently. This technique represents the next step in call center efficiency. Finding a way to make it work for your company means being ready and competitive when the demands of future clients require responsiveness. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

10 Simple Steps You Can Take Today to Improve Your Inbound Contact Center

Although businesses go to great lengths to provide customers with self-service options that make it easy for them to find solutions to common questions and problems, there will always be a need for a quality inbound customer service department. In fact, data published by Forrester reveals that voice is still the most commonly-used customer service channel and has an impressive 73% utilization rate. The way your team handles calls will largely determine whether you retain or lose customers. The quality of your audio and the ability of your team to problem-solve efficiently will help determine how your customers feel about your company after calling in to resolve an issue. Remember, customers typically don’t call contact centers unless they feel like they have exhausted all other avenues. It is up to you to ensure that the experience is a positive one by providing adequate training and by holding your call center representatives to high standards. If your contact center customer service department could use a little boost, here are 10 simple steps you can take today to improve it. Improve Self-Service Your call center can easily become overwhelmed if too many calls come in on a regular basis. Too many calls can also lead to increased wait time and can cause your customers to become frustrated. To help make things more manageable for both your team and your customers, improve your self-service options and make them as user-friendly and versatile as possible. You can do this by utilizing the following: Call-back options Interactive voice response Online chat services Email communication Other self-service options It is not necessary to make all of these services available, but try to choose at least two. Make sure all self-service options are easy to find and equally easy to use. By making it possible for customers to find answers without calling in, you can help keep call center staff from becoming overwhelmed and make it easier for them to improve their productivity. Additionally, you will likely see customer satisfaction soar as customers are able to find answers to their questions without waiting on the phone for extended periods of time. As convenient as self-service options are, it is imperative to maintain high-quality voice channels in contact centers. Don’t forget that voice is still the most frequently used contact channel, so don’t make the mistake of neglecting it as you focus on self-service selections. Focus on the Customer Experience The whole point of a contact center is to take care of customer concerns and improve rapport between businesses and their clients. This can be easy to forget if call center agents get caught up in the everyday challenges they face while doing their jobs. Whether they’re working on outbound sales or handling incoming calls, call center agents should be constantly reminded that their primary responsibility is to provide a positive experience to their customers. This can be especially challenging when angry customers call in and demand answers to particularly difficult or unique problems. To help equip agents to remain focused on an improved customer experience, consider incorporating the following suggestions: Rewarding agents based on the outcome of a customer call Providing ongoing training so agents are better equipped to deal with complicated issues Encouraging agents to go “off the script” as needed to ensure customer satisfaction When agents are rewarded for providing a positive customer service outcome and are given the training and empowerment they need to resolve challenging situations, your employee and customer satisfaction rates will inevitably go up. Make Training an On-Going Process Can you imagine trying to create a complicated dish without first being given a recipe? What if someone gave you the recipe and instructed you to make the dish, but didn’t provide you with all of the ingredients? When you provide your call center agents with only one training session when they are newly-hired, you are essentially asking them to do the same thing – achieve perfection without having the necessary tools to do so. On-going training can not only help cement core customer service principles in your agents’ minds, but it also gives you the opportunity to address and correct specific questions or issues plaguing your contact center. Additionally, establishing a pattern of ongoing training will give you the opportunity to keep your contact center agents up-to-date on recent trends and technology. Whether you utilize a lecture-only structure or you allow for more interaction, do what works best for your team. The important thing is to put proper emphasis on ongoing learning so that your agents are better prepared to deal with a variety of situations and uphold your brand image. Utilize Call Quality Monitoring Systems It can be difficult or even impossible to measure the success of your call center without utilizing a call quality monitoring system. Depending on the size of your department, one or two qualified supervisors should be responsible for monitoring call quality at all times. Their goal should be to assess both incoming and outgoing calls to ensure that minimum customer service standards are being met or exceeded. One important component of every call quality monitoring system should be the ability for qualified agents/supervisors to promptly correct errors. When supervisors are empowered to rectify mistakes and improve the customer interaction process right away, it will free up more time for the managers by minimizing the need for them to monitor their employees. Exemplify Good Performance Exemplifying good performance from your agents is one of the best ways to encourage adherence to high customer service standards. When agents are publicly recognized for consistently meeting or exceeding expectations, it can inspire their coworkers to perform in a similar manner. Additionally, with the help of call monitoring, supervisors have the ability to break down and analyze every component of an exemplary call so that the call center team can learn from it and jot down ideas for improvement. Exemplifying good performance will have the added benefit of improving employee morale and inspiring a greater sense of ownership among

Most Effective Ways to Complete Inbound Complaint Calls

While a customer calling with a complaint is likely the last thing any inbound calling center wants to deal with, such calls can make for great opportunities for your customer service representatives to improve their skills while ensuring the caller remains with your business for the foreseeable future. Learn the right way to complete all of your inbound complaint calls. Ending for an Equally Agreed Upon Resolution Whenever a caller is satisfied with a specific resolution option, your customer service agent should be sure he or she details the next steps in the process, offers up one final apology, suggests a complementary product or service as a way to upsell and tells the caller that he or she will receive a follow-up call to ensure the resolution is satisfactory. There are a few pitfalls to avoid with this resolution. For instance, your representatives shouldn’t drag the conversation on longer than necessary in order that they don’t run the risk of wasting the caller’s time. Your team should also keep all jokes and humor to a minimum, as not everyone shares their brand of humor. Finally, offer to send the caller an email detailing the specifics of the conversation rather than repeat the conversation word-for-word. A Neutral Resolution With some customer support calls, the best you can do is accept a neutral resolution where the customer accepts the solution but is still not 100 percent satisfied. If you or your representatives arrive at this juncture, you can regain the caller’s confidence by seeing if there is a product or service in which he or she may be interested, using buying history to find a good fit. Your agents should also pay close attention to opportunities to make personal connections with the caller in order to show they pay attention. While it’s good to ask the customer for the best way to contact her or him for a follow-up, it’s not good to drag out an ending if the caller seems especially rankled. Additionally, your representatives should ask if the customer has any further inquiries before ending the call. The Unresolved Resolution No matter what you try, there are simply some individuals whom you can’t please no matter what. You and your agents should be sure they clarify the issue without placing blame on someone else. As always, review the resolution and make sure the customer agrees to it. Apologize, and let the individual know you’ll find out more about the problem and follow-up later. The customer should know that the experience will be used to improve your company’s business model, and he or she should also receive some form of recompense if one is allowed. As for don’ts, don’t attempt to upsell the customer, as this may only anger him or her. It’s also best not to bid the customer good day, as the heightened mood could make this come across as sarcasm. No matter how tempting it might be to do so, refrain from apologizing too much. The customer wants results, not apologies. As you can see, there are various directions in which an inbound complaint can go. Use these tips to make any situation one that’s both effective and a great learning tool.

5 Easy Steps to Build a Successful Customer Support Team

A functional customer support team is essential to the success of your business. Many customers view the support team as the face of the company, and an unpleasant customer service experience can leave them with a bad feeling about the company as a whole and create detractors you don’t need. To avoid this, you must have the right team and customer support services in place from the start. In today’s competitive environment this can and should be the differentiator, especially for a call center team. Here are a few steps that can be taken to build and maintain a successful team. Implement Effective Support Techniques Having the right support techniques in place can help to ensure that clients receive uniformed, quality care every time they contact or are contacted by the company. All techniques should promote treating the customer as the highest priority and must ensure that the interaction is as pleasant as possible. If it is feasible, it can be beneficial to implement outbound customer service practices where the representatives contact the customers on a regular basis to ensure that they are not having any issues. This proactive approach can set you apart and such actions go a long way in the customer’s mind. Utilize Data in Decision-Making You pay for data to be collected on calls and you should get your money’s worth. The collected data can be very helpful during the decision-making process. Things like rings before call is picked up, length of call, hold time, common complaints, FAQ can help you design and maintain the right type of techniques. You must review frequently as customer’s priorities can change, and you must be prepared to change with them. Knowing, tracking and comparing such data can help you to make proper decisions as far as what techniques may need to be deployed, improved, or in some cases removed. Encourage a Team Mindset Customer service practices are most effective when everyone is on-board with the process. No matter who the customer reaches everyone should and must be on the same page. Implement and encourage an “all-hands on deck” mindset. As all team members support everyone, not only will it help to boost customer satisfaction, but it can also create comradery within the group as they can all take pride in receiving positive reviews, high NPS, and in turn build confidence and boost moral within the group. Create a Reward System Everyone enjoys being rewarded and acknowledged for hard work. A reward system is not only a great way to show appreciation, but it also helps to make your customer support team feel valued. Studies show that employees who feel valued tend to be happier and loyal to their companies. You should always reward your team for great work! Set up weekly, monthly, and quarterly recognition that employees can look forward to and strive to achieve. Automate Wisely There are a number of customer support services available that your company can take advantage of. However, you must be mindful to only deploy automated services that make sense and provide the image you want to display. Many customers find too much automation to be impersonal which can leave them with a bad impression. It is important to find the right balance between automation and your customer support team. Research, do focus groups, and be prepared to change what must be changed as often as it needs to be changed as you go through the process of what works and what doesn’t. As you strive to implement or improve your customer service tactics, consider following these steps. Not only can they help you to enhance your customer satisfaction rating, but they may also lead to a more efficient and productive support team that will ultimately lead to more customers.

3 Smart Strategies to Achieve Sales Success in an Inbound World

It’s no secret that the sales market has made a massive shift. Rather than salespeople going to the customer, the customer is now going to the salesperson. Your inbound call center is perfectly positioned to increase your sales and do so in a way that benefits both your company and the customer. Learn three effective strategies for boosting your sales success and customer satisfaction. Get Proactive About Engaging Potential Customers The internet is one of the most powerful shopping and research tools for the modern consumer, which you’ve likely noticed. You can use this trend to improve your inbound sales by starting and joining a conversation with current customers and potential customers whenever they visit your whitepapers, blog or social network profiles. Customers are there for a reason, so you might as well use the opportunity to make a sale. The best way to do this is to make sure the customer gets the information he or she needs. With the right incentive and product or service details, the individual is likely to reach the conclusion that only your company’s products will do. Utilize the Power of Inbound Calls Customers who call your company are likely already intrigued by whatever you have to offer. With the right analytics, you already have a solid idea of the specific products in which the customer is interested, making it that much easier to supply them with exactly what they want. Just remember when you engage inbound customer that she or he is likely just as well informed about your services or products as you are, which means you and your customer service representatives and marketing team will need to work together to make a sale while taking proper care of the customer. Keep Your Sales Team Fully Captivated The lines are now a bit blurred when it comes to differentiating marketing from sales, which is why your sales team should cross-train with the marketing department. This could mean participating on the company’s social media pages, writing an occasional article or doing something else a salesperson may not consider part of her or his normal job responsibilities. This cross-pollination approach to sales is a great way to keep your sales team engaged by allowing them to better understand the services or products your company offers, which allows them to speak more intelligently about those services or products to the well-informed customer or caller. Something else to think about is the fact that keeping your sales team captivated can allow them to learn new sales techniques, some of which may shorten their normal sales cycle, which boosts their numbers. The old sales methods simply don’t work in the new sales and customer model. The faster your sales team realizes this, the more proficient they’ll be at their jobs. Now that you have the proper foundation for your inbound sales strategy, you and your sales, marketing and customer service teams are better positioned to take advantage of the new sales method. Put these tips to good use and watch your numbers soar. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Want to Captivate your Customers? Learn Storytelling

When it comes to customer acquisition, telemarketing services face an uphill battle. The overall perception of telesales campaigns among the public is generally on a downturn, and it takes innovation to keep people interested and listening. That is why storytelling has become such an essential tool for telemarketers looking to pitch people successfully, regardless of the product they are selling. Why It Works Narratives give people ways to identify with and dramatize the events of everyday life, and because of that, they allow for meaning to be constructed and shared between the listener and the storyteller. This narrative empathy is key to the reason why people find the stories they do particularly compelling, and learning to adapt in order to reach the listener is a prime skill that storytellers develop. By empowering your agents to become storytellers for your brand, you give them the opportunity to close the relationship gap between the brand and themselves. This makes it easier for them to identify with it, and it opens up a range of indirect lifestyle pitches. Ways of Constructing Stories Around Your Brand There are four main ways to construct stories around your brand: Allow agents leeway to recount their personal histories Tell the history of the product Tell the history of the firm and its background Tell the stories of other customers. By making room for these four techniques in your telesales campaign, you can empower your agents to perform better and close sales more quickly. Here is how. Personal Stories Allowing agents leeway to develop whatever personal stories they find fitting means taking a risk, that’s true. It also means inviting them to make earnest appeals to the customer based on their own experience with the company or the product, though. When your employees are happy and well adjusted, and when they have the right experience with your products, this can be a powerful way to connect to the listener by connecting the pitch to their needs on a more intimate level. Product Histories For products that represent a clear innovation or that have an interesting developmental backstory, giving the history of that product is another way that brands can get ahead. A product history gives customers an appreciation for the work that has gone into developing and refining the product, and it also answers practical questions like “Why do I need this?” without engaging with the formal pitches that customers have become resistant to. Your Company or Firm’s Story For brands whose marketing is intensely tied in to their brand personality, a firm history is another great way to connect to readers. Telling the story of how your company developed and why its employees are dedicated to the product in question gives readers a sense that this product represents the culmination of a longer-term goal. Other Customers’ Stories Last but not least, sharing reviews and feedback from other customers is a great way to let people know who your product appeals to and what they see in it, making it even easier for customers to imagine how they would use it in their own lives. Cultivating any of these approaches has benefits, but the strongest program for customer acquisition will involve folding all four techniques together and using them each to appeal to customers with a variety of needs and mindsets. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Think Beyond Telemarketing with Outbound Call Centers

When outbound marketing is used in a tactical way, it strengthens customer relationships and heightens engagement. Progressive companies are looking beyond the idea of telemarketing to the unique opportunity to build a relationship with customers and work to fully establish a brand with the current customer base. Outbound calling is a vital part of customer care, but must be used in the right way in order to engage customers and provide a pleasant experience. We have several core tasks that should be used to turn outbound sales into more of an attempt at building a relationship with the customer that is positive. With these three basic steps, the customer becomes more engaged and invested in a product or brand. New Customer Welcome First impressions are important, and how you greet your new customers plays directly into how they feel about your brand. Welcoming your new customers can create a memorable impression – either positive or negative. While it may be faster to outsource customer service or welcome new customers through email, you create a personal, friendly, warm vibe when you connect with new customers through a phone call. A personal call placed at the perfect time can set you off on the right foot with every customer. Your outbound call center agents should be offering assistance to those who are buying for the first time, explaining promos and perks and introducing any services the customer may be entitled to. Taking the Pressure Off Inbound The goal of an outbound agent is to anticipate what the customer will need and reach out to them before they have a chance to dial an inbound center. When done correctly, this removes a large amount of strain from the inbound call center, and provides a positive customer service experience for the consumer. In order to meet their goals, outbound agents must have a unique skill set and a close relationship with inbound agents. Data analytics should be used for outbound agents to connect current customer with the correct services and products. Insights are extracted through previous transactions to determine exactly which services can be helpful to a customer. Calling Triggered by Events Your outbound agents are essentially looking to connect with the customer at just the right time. In this sense, they are telemarketers that know when to make the call. Special occasions, anniversaries and birthdays are ideal times to reach out to customers and offer them a special promotion or product. If you know what is happening in your customer’s lives, then your agents are likely to get the timing just right with a phone call. Be Proactive About Customer Care Free up your inbound agents with an outbound call center that functions correctly. Your agents should be using proactive activities in order to take the pressure off your inbound center and provide exceptional customer service. Start the process with a simple welcome to new customers, and gather data about how customers respond to your efforts. Once you’ve identified your target market and how they respond to your changes, you can design additional programs that match their needs.

Communication is Key in Successful Vendor Management Programs

If you have a call center, then your success often relies on how well you can communicate and build solid relationships with your vendors. By no means do you want to have a strained relationship or lack of trust between you and those that are vital for your success. If you want to make long term relationships with your vendors, communication is the key. To make the best out of your business, follow these four tips. Communicate Expectations Make sure that your expectations are outlined and clear for your vendors to understand. Make sure that you set up meetings with all of the right people so that they know how they’re contributing to your goal & plan. The foundation needs to be clear and solid between you and vendors. Communicate Proactively Call center vendor management programs tend to do their worst when there isn’t consistent communication. If you aren’t in constant contact with your vendors, the relationship may begin to slip. Weekly meetings can help make sure that there is trust established between both parties. Communicate Plans One of the biggest mistakes that call center managers can make is to keep their goals and plans secret. It’s better to be open about them. Keep the line of communication open so that the vendor understands the kind of success your business is seeking. Additionally, if anything changes, you want to make sure that you relay it to your vendors. They should always be up to date with current information. Communicate with Key Vendors If some of your vendor managers offer a skill or service that is particularly critical to your success, you want to make sure to bring them to the table. Invite them to meetings where you’re going to be discussing key strategies. In many businesses, collaboration is really a building block of succeeding. Keep those lines of communication open and invite relevant vendors to your meetings. Communicate Rewards If your vendors are performing well, make sure that they know it. It’s imperative that you recognize those that are doing the best so that they might be able to motivate others. Monthly reviews can also help boost morale when it comes to those that are doing well. Recognition and rewards can attract vendors to you. At the end of the day, when you work in call center; vendor management is important. One of the vital components of your success, however, is your relationship with your vendors. The best way to be successful is to keep your communication strong.

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