Mystery Shopping in the Digital Age
It is every customer experience business leader’s worst nightmare; a customer service representative engaged poorly with a customer, who then recorded the encounter and made it public. In today’s digital landscape, going viral can literally boost or doom your business in a matter of hours. How can companies proactively mitigate their risk to these viral situations in an omni-channel world where customers can reach out via chat, email, phone, or even social media? The answer lies in a quality monitoring tool called Mystery Shopping.
Social Customer Service: 3 Strategies from a Marketer
Achieving a clear line of sight into customer needs and preferences gives companies the ability to make proactive, informed business decisions. Customers want to engage with organizations when and how they prefer and those channel preferences are rapidly evolving. To address these needs, customer experience leaders continue to develop social media as one of those key channels in a successful customer engagement and service strategy. Customers want service on social networks and are reaching out on these channels instead of picking up the phone or using other more traditional methods. In some cases, social media has either evolved into a fully-leveraged customer service engagement channel, or remains in the early stages of adoption by firms. It can also exhibit high levels of ‘activity’ with little cross-channel integration.
Corporate Culture is More Critical Than Ever in the Digital Age
All companies have their own unique corporate cultures. The values and attitudes that are pervasive among a company’s employees, guiding how they respond, make decisions, and ultimately deal with change, develop and evolve over time. In small and mid-sized companies, the culture often stems from a key leader or leaders who set the pace. Whether they realize it or not, the key leaders’ actions, modes of operation, and core values are observed and often repeated by others throughout the organization. In large, complex organizations, the culture is often defined by many factors including years of policies, employee recognition of what behaviors are rewarded and what behaviors are not, and employee perception of what it takes to be successful. Though intangible, corporate culture is a significant factor in all company business decisions and outcomes.
Everyone in the Workplace has a Role in Your Customers’ Experience
Customer experience is top of mind in every organization. Keys to a successful enterprise are centered around realizing the lifetime value of a customer and designing work processes that create customer “delight”, resulting in their likelihood to recommend you to others.
According to our recent customer service experience report, 80% of consumers say they will switch to a different company because of bad customer service, and only half say they would consider returning – the stakes are high!
How Managers and Leaders Can Work Together
In my career, I have fulfilled a variety of management and leadership roles. At MCI, I led multiple groups across the organization, and I felt each role taught me something new about how to be a great manager to my team, and a strong leader to the business.
It’s a common misconception that a leader is automatically a manager or vice versa. At a high level, leaders are the brave innovators, making the big – and sometimes bold – decisions behind the scenes, and managers are the faithful allies, rallying the troops on the ground.
More Valuable than Oil, Data Reigns in Today’s Data Economy
Oil has reigned for centuries as one of society’s most valuable resources. Throughout history, those who have controlled oil, have controlled the economy. However, in today’s “data economy,” it can be argued that data, due to the insight and knowledge that can be extracted from it, is potentially more valuable. Like oil, raw data’s value comes from its potential to be refined into an essential commodity.
Workforce Development: Closing the Skills Gap Starts Locally
As a business owner and the mother of two young adults entering the workforce, I believe our future as a productive and thriving economy cannot wait. Our opportunities for sustainable economic growth rely on the attention we give to tomorrow’s workforce – today.
The Cost of Poor Customer Service [Infographic]
Poor customer service doesn’t just impact the consumer; it also can hinder your brand. Northridge’s annual State of Customer Service Experience 2017 report studied the ramifications of poor customer service on business growth, customer retention and word-of-mouth brand referrals, with emphasis on the financial pains businesses face when they fail to meet customer expectations.
How Artificial Intelligence Impacts the Contact Center
In today’s technology obsessed world, making life simpler, faster, and more seamless is a priority for both businesses and individuals trying to keep up with an always evolving digital landscape. Read any publication and you’re sure to find conversations revolving around Artificial Intelligence (AI) helping to power (if not completely replace, in some instances) human interaction. In the contact center, one thing is certain: positive human connections between agents and customers are critical to building brand loyalty. In an industry that places an emphasis on human contact, what role does AI play in the contact center and how can data gathered from it be used to improve the customer experience?
The Power of Quality Monitoring & Speech Analytics – Working Together
As the growth of technology and artificial intelligence permeate the workplace, few can deny the obvious benefits of computer-driven analytics. Computers can data crunch millions of records, solve complex equations within seconds and build widget after widget – without ever tiring. There are limitations to the abilities of a machine though. Ask a computer to understand sarcasm, or detect emotion and it will fall short every time. As Forbes contributor, Roger Wu, once described in an article, what’s often missing is “that secret sauce – the ability of humans to read between the lines, pick up contextual cues and insights from abstract concepts.”