CallTalk™ Radio

Customer service allows for limited face-to-face or physical interaction, making it challenging to provide genuine support and lead generation. Instead, people are focusing on virtual interactions to continue driving growth. On this episode, Bruce will talk with Todd Fisher, CEO and co-founder of CallTrackingMetrics about how companies can leverage text messages for customer service use and help generate leads, nurture and convert leads.

Text message marketing holds massive potential for lead generation, but only if executed correctly. There are ways to maximize the success of SMS marketing. A few tips Todd will discuss in order to maximize SMS marketing and generate, nurture and convert leads are adjusting your strategy to:

1.    Meet Customers where they are

2.    Determine optimal timing for outreach

3.    Avoid cold-texting; Opt for organic list creation

4.    Give your customers an offer they can’t deny

Join us for a conversation with industry practitioner Patrick Ebrahimian on the processes that impact access and availability of contact center agents. He shares proven ways to improve service levels and the customer experience using creative lean methodologies. You will love his football-themed playbook that transformed his center's performance.

 

Guest: Patrick Ebrahimian is the Director of Transformation at UnitedLex, driving transformation throughout the entire legal ecosystem. He is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and a LEAN Master, with over 18 years of experience. Throughout his career, he has consistently executed process improvement projects within the hospitality, financial, and manufacturing sectors including call center environments as well. He believes that business and process improvement practitioners should not only look for innovative solutions to help improve processes but also teach the business how to utilize the tools and techniques so that will enable them to become successful. In his previous roles he was the Director of Business Improvement and Quality for Wyndham Destinations, and a Master Black Belt at Johnson & Johnson and Bank of America.

We had a great conversation. With so much going on across all industries with regard to post-COVID operations, changing laws affecting marijuana and criminal justice reform, and employer lawsuits, Ms. Lipnic offered a refreshing perspective on the issues that affect us all.We had a great conversation. With so much going on across all industries with regard to post-COVID operations, changing laws affecting marijuana and criminal justice reform, and employer lawsuits, Ms. Lipnic offered a refreshing perspective on the issues that affect us all.

 

…And that’s why we wanted to talk more about Key Takeaways on Hiring Insights in 2021, and we have brought in an expert on the topic for you, Christine Cunneen, CEO of Hire Image.  Welcome to the show Christine.

Efficient agents not only make the contact center run smoother, but they create a better experience for your customers. We sat down with Matt Duncan from CommunityWFM to discuss how leveraging some of the best practices in workforce management improves agent efficiency and impacts the bottom line.

In this session we plan to cover four major areas of workforce management.

Shrinkage Management (or overhead agent costs)Agent Skill Set ManagementMaking Changes for the Sake of ChangeThe Need for Ongoing Training

 

Guest: Matthew Duncan

Matthew Duncan, Director of Onboarding and Support, has twenty-five years of workforce management (WFM) experience. For the past twenty-one years, Matt has worked for CommunityWFM in a number of WFM consulting, training, and support roles. Prior to joining CommunityWFM, Matt spent four years working for Disney Direct Marketing, Disney’s online merchandise catalog performing WFM tasks and handling contact center intraday operations for 1,200 agents.

 

CallTalk is a monthly internet radio program for the customer service industry featuring the most innovative managers and thought leaders in the customer contact field, interviewed by BenchmarkPortal CEO, Bruce Belfiore. Broadcast monthly, directly over the Internet to your desktop, CallTalk covers hot topics that impact today's call center. CallTalk airs without the participation of vendors so that topics will be free from their influence and guided by the needs of its listeners. If you have a topic you would like us to cover, send it to [email protected].

Operating a contact center efficiently and profitably is not an easy task due to balancing so many challenges—high employee turnover usually being at the top of that list. Not only is it expensive to hire, but it is also not cheap to train and onboard. The average contact center turnover rate is between 30-45%, which means they hire for the same seat every year or two. In contact centers with bilingual agents, yet another element of expense and complication is added—hiring based on language proficiency. With so many factors to improve hiring, an efficient process for agent recruiting is key.

Guest: Brigham Tomco | Emmersion

With experience living and working in several countries around the world, Brigham has an extensive background in language learning and international business. He has played a founding role in over 10 companies in various industries, including a BPO based in the Philippines and 500-seat market research contact center. 

CallTalk is a monthly internet radio program for the customer service industry featuring the most innovative managers and thought leaders in the customer contact field, interviewed by BenchmarkPortal CEO, Bruce Belfiore. Broadcast monthly, directly over the Internet to your desktop, CallTalk covers hot topics that impact today's call center. CallTalk airs without the participation of vendors so that topics will be free from their influence and guided by the needs of its listeners. If you have a topic you would like us to cover, send it to [email protected].

Covid-19 has had a terrible impact on people and economies around the globe. But it has facilitated accomodation of at-home work for the disability community. Guest Kate Brouse of nonprofit NTI helps disabled Americans and veterans open employment doors. She outlines how today's environment has allowed NTI's services to disabled Americans to double. Discover how. you can leverage this willing and dedicated workforce in your business.

 

Guest Bio: Kate Brouse is a disability advocate for national non-profit NTI@Home, the leader in helping Americans with disabilities train for and find work-at-home jobs. Kate has appeared on talk shows and podcasts discussing remote work, accessibility, diversity, and disability. Kate has a bachelor's degree in English from Brigham Young University and is an avid bicyclist, roller blader and reader.

 

About CallTalk

CallTalk is a monthly internet radio program for the customer service industry featuring the most innovative managers and thought leaders in the customer contact field, interviewed by BenchmarkPortal CEO, Bruce Belfiore. Broadcast monthly, directly over the Internet to your desktop, CallTalk covers hot topics that impact today's call center. CallTalk airs without the participation of vendors so that topics will be free from their influence and guided by the needs of its listeners. If you have a topic you would like us to cover, send it to [email protected].

Knowledge management is foundational the effectiveness of the modern contact center. Metrics from cost per contact and handle time require agents to rapidly find the information they need, and customer satisfaction demands that agents have complete and accurate answers in every situation. Even agent satisfaction is impacted by how a center manages knowledge because their job becomes easier when information is readily accessible and intuitively organized.

Guest: Burgoyne Hughes

Burg has over 30 years of contact center leadership experience.  He designed and implemented the quality assurance program for Staples North American contact centers, then went on to lead the first multi-channel contact center for Staples. He served as Vice-President of Consumer Service at Teleflora where he drove a 20% increase in average order value while establishing industry leading customer service in a highly seasonal environment. Burg then Vice-President of Operations for BuySeasons where his teams regularly earned BIzRate’s Circle of Excellence Award for demonstrating exceptional end to end customer experience. Burg is currently in his fifth year as Senior Manager of Call Center Operations for GE Healthcare, where his team recently achieved Center of Excellence recognition from BenchmarkPortal. Burg has presented at a number of industry conferences, including ICMI’s Contact Center Conference and Expo, The National Conference on Operations and Fulfillment, CRM Evolution and KM World.

The contact center world has been pushed ahead 4 to 5 years in 1 year in terms of technology, because of COVID. The rate of adoption of existing tech just exploded. What’s next? What does 2021 bring? 

 

Guest: Steve Bederman | President and CEO | NobelBiz

Steve Bederman is a published author, accomplished leader, and a highly regarded Contact Center industry innovator. With a phenomenal journey throughout his career, his expertise in corporate restructuring and strategic growth brought him the reputation of a renaissance business leader. He is also an Amazon best-selling author having released a very successful series of corporate thrillers.

Now, Steve is the President and CEO of NobelBiz, a Contact Center Technology Company. From a unique carrier-of-carriers network to a complete omnichannel software with social media integration, NobelBiz offers state-of-the art solutions for companies that want to keep their clients happy.

Digital CX is meant to provide a more effortless customer experience across multiple engagement channels. As the channels customers can use to interact with us multiply, customers demand a personalized, consistently positive customer experience as they navigate their engagement. Companies subsequently have developed increasingly complex CX strategies, and these strategies need to empower the contact center agent with smart tools to support traditional voice, live chat and email channels while augmenting these channels with AI-supported digital channels and virtual assistance. While some industries, including financial services and telecom, have eagerly embraced multi-channel CX and the integration of several digital channels, consumer utilities have been slower to adopt these solutions.

But it doesn’t need to be this way. The current scarcity of digital CX and integrated multi-channel support within consumer utilities presents a greenfield opportunity. Consumer utilities willing to craft a modern, integrated voice-and-digital CX strategy can realize cost savings and resource efficiencies, reducing cost-of-support for customers, while crafting a customer support environment that makes for happier employees and more satisfied customers. Join Cary Cusumano and Sarah Simon, a pair of CX design professionals at Verizon Business Group, as they help utilities understand “what’s in it for them” in adopting digital CX solutions to make their customer support operations both more efficient and more effective. With capital dedicated to meeting regulations and maintaining infrastructure, CX is not always a top priority for utilities. Yet serving a captive audience of utility customers shouldn’t mean resigning your support organization to using the last generation’s support strategies.

If you are measuring your customer experience and not measuring your employee experience you are missing a great opportunity to discover the gaps in critical issues like customer loyalty and employee loyalty. As the saying goes, if you don’t measure, you cant manage.