CX QA Live! | The Agent-Centric Customer Experience Show

On today’s episode, we are super excited to welcome back our guest Sheri Kendall. Sheri is an expert in CX training analytics and is here to help us connect CX training analytics to our business outcomes. Sheri shares the 3 main areas of analysis: content, trainer, and design.

[ 7:44- 9:54 ] The first area of analysis is content analysis. This is all about gathering data and asking the right questions to find out if or what changes need to be made.

[ 11:36- 12:41 ] It’s important to think about your business partnerships. Communication is important, so it’s necessary to keep your communication and your relationships strong. This allows you to better work out problems and find out if the problem is with the training or a need for new tools.

[ 13:31- 16:05 ] The second main area of analysis is trainer analysis. This is done through well thought out smiley sheets. While smiley sheet questions tend to be very surface level, so it’s more effective to chose the right questions that lead to action.

[ 19:52-21:08 ] The final main area of analysis is design analysis. A good design includes everyone and has plenty of diversity. It’s important to make sure that everyone sees themselves in the teachings.

There are many different areas of analysis that are crucial in making sure that our businesses are running smoothly and with good customer satisfaction. Using these CX training analytics will greatly impact business outcomes.

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

Welcome to our first ever Valentine’s Day addition of Recorded for Quality Assurance! Today Rob Connelly and Vistio welcome Suzi Earhart of McorpCX. She’s all about solving problems, giving love, life-long learning and helping others reach their full potential, so she’s here to help us show agents some love today!

Contact centers sometimes take a lot of heat for issues with the functioning of their call centers that end up actually being business issues disguised as call center issues.

[ 4:22 - 5:03 ] Contact center agents are creative, determined people who solve complex problems under stress.

So, how can we empower them and drive better business outcomes?

Three key areas:

[ 8:58 - 9:41 ] Sometimes we need to re-configure our incoming calls so that agents can clear out their queues and not feel constantly overwhelmed. Agents need their 30 second breaks in-between calls to not be consumed with after-call work.

[ 12:47 - 14:26 ] The predictable pizza party reward isn’t actually helping agents grow in their careers. What makes a difference in whether the agents feel valued and seen? It’s the leaders’ awareness of the agents’ “why.”

[ 15:13 - 16:28 ] “The people who lead the best are the people who listen the most.” On this show our most recurring advice to leaders is to sit down with your agents, listen to them and take calls with them.

Team leads and supervisors have a lot of power and potential in their roles because they can be the closest to the agents.

[ 18:06 - 18:57 ] You can say all day long that you value mental health and strive to have a positive work environment, but we are talking about how to actually show your agents that you care and mean it.

We’d love to talk to guests from call centers who are doing this well. Please reach out to us!

Resources:

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

Despite attempting to accomplish the same goal, the West’s version of CX is quite different culturally than the East’s version of CX. In today’s podcast we will be addressing the differences between the two areas. Representing the East’s perspective we have today’s guest Vaishali Dialani, who will be discussing with us the cultural disconnect between the East and the West.

[ 4:40- 6:03 ] There are a lot of variables that lead to cultural disconnect that can factor in. Knowing what these variables are can help us fix them and lessen the disconnect.

[ 10:56- 11:39 ] One of the leading factors in cultural disconnect is a lack communication from management to the frontline agents. Communicating with and understanding the frontline worker’s experiences is the best way to improve customer experience.

[ 17:10- 18:55 ] If both the West and the East were given the exact same call and the exact same customer, there would still be a difference in that customer’s experience. The customer would have a different expectation of how the call would go and would different opinions about the outcome of the call.

[ 21:33- 25:20 ] There are four key things that organizations can do to break down the problem of cultural disconnect. The first is understanding the perspectives of the frontline workers. The second is actually learning and seeing the differences between the East and the West. The third is having cultural training and learning what type of culture the customer prefers/expects. The fourth is having a standardized marketing strategy, but adapting it to different areas.

Even with all the differences between the East and the West, it is possible the lessen the cultural disconnect. Remember, improvement over perfection. We can do this!

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

A big welcome to Thomas Laird AKA The Call Center Geek, the host of the podcast Advice From a Call Center Geek! and the Founder and CEO of Expivia.

Today Jakob Mattice and Thomas Laird talk about the role that AI will play in the call centers of the future.

Question: Do we really think Artificial Intelligence is going to take out the role of the contact center agent?

Answer: It already has, but there is no way AI can replace agents completely. The contact center agent is not going anywhere. That role needs to evolve though.

The bottom line is that we want AI-enhanced agents.

We don’t want agents that are assisting AI.

We want AI that is assisting agents.

We may start to see some brands identifying themselves as having 100% human interaction just as we saw food brands boast being 100% organic, because we value that human connection.

Topics we discuss:

[ 4:30 - 5:18 ] Chat GPT is finally getting to the point where it’s helping us. Ask again in 10 years, but for now it seems, agents still have an important role to play.

[ 7:13 - 8:02 ] Chat CPT is being utilized as a call center agent. This may seem like a new and shiny idea, but don’t forget that we need a line of agents ready to step in when AI hits its limit of understanding.

[ 8:32 - 9:13 ] How AI assistance could really make an agent’s job easier.

[ 10:17 - 12:33 ] How do we prepare ourselves for AI taking call center jobs? We are digging into levels of what technology can do. Perhaps off shore call center jobs are a little more vulnerable to being replaced by AI because we’ll always have higher tier issues needing to be solved by agents with a mastery of the English language.

[ 20:16 - 21:53 ] Imagine Digital adoption and the meta-verse. Put on your VR headset and imagine walking into various stores to act as a consumer and resolve customer service issues. It’s coming.

Right now, we feel about AI, the way 1994 felt about the internet. Innovation comes when we’re most uncomfortable and that’s what’s happening right now. We’re growing into AI. 

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

Throughout social media, there is a lot of corporate speech that presents a fake perception of how a company runs. It’s easy to posts if you're a successful business, but how do you become one? Our guest today is Martin Anderson, co-founder and CEO of Lemon Contact Center. Not only do Martin’s posts build respect for his brand, but they accurately reflect his company and its success.

[4:07- 6:45] Are your posts an accurate reflection of your work? Remember that our posts reflect not only our business, but ourselves as well. It’s important to be doing the right thing when no one would see it, so that good actions become the habits.

[11:26- 13:05] Having good service is a cost to your business, but it’s a cost you're willing to pay. Always show what the company values and make sure that the service is good, all the way down to the little details.

[18:37- 19:35] Your business cannot thrive without care for the environment of the business and the people in it. You can’t manufacture a good working environment, it has to be authentic.

[24:00- 25:10] While most of the time you think you should be using your head over your emotion, emotions are still a very important part of building your culture. Your emotions will guide you in building your work environment.

The appearance of your company is important, but the appearance is nothing without a genuinely strong working environment behind it. Remember, how you do anything is how you do everything. Build your culture with strong habits and good service to have a respected brand.

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

Getting buy-ins is everything in CX leadership, so it follows that it would also be the #1 problem that CX leaders struggle with. Today, with the help of Dave Seaton, we will be explaining how to build buy-in and how to appeal to your stakeholders.

Topics we cover in today's discussion:

[ 3:34-6:33 ] There are more steps beyond buy-in. To be successful, you need both commitment and action. To do this, you need to really analyze your stakeholders.

[ 9:35- 10:05 ] Everybody is different, which means that each stakeholder will have different areas that are more important to them. When pitching to each stakeholder make sure that you are appealing to their wants and needs. Influence with intention, not intuition.

[ 17:14- 18:17 ] There are times when you need to appeal to all different types of stakeholders at one time. To properly appeal to them all, think of it like snacks at a party. You’ll want to make sure that everyone of your executives has a little bit of “snack” to keep them interested.

[ 19:58- 21:10 ] Predicting the effectiveness of your change is as simple as this easy formula: E ( effectiveness of change ) = Q ( quality of change ) x A ( acceptance of change )

Even with the same project and same goal, you’ll need individual proposals to appeal to each of your stakeholders. Analyzing what is important to each of your stakeholders and applying it to each of your proposals will help with building buy-in.

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to j3;34oin our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

Today we are talking about the growing expectation from that market that our companies are bringing value to the world. There is a demand for ethical businesses that make the world a better place. Value-based businesses truly reach their customers.

With labor being sourced off shore what are our opportunities and responsibilities as companies?

[ 3:21 - 4:34 ] What is impact sourcing? Impact sourcing is the idea that you would open up a new labor market, agents, in a location where the ability to pay those agents according to the overall contract value and the other business dynamics represent a massive positive change economically for those societies. Your employees will love their jobs and your customers will benefit directly.

[ 11:48 - 13:28 ] It shows when companies take care of their employees. Then those employees are able to turn around and offer true help and real compassion to customers.

[ 14:15 - 15:24 ] Companies need to work on retention because of the stressful difficulties agents face. There is shifting value from the employees’ perspective and how much they actually believe in the company they work for.

[ 20:31 - 23:10 ] The ways that employees are treated matters a lot. If our business wants to maintain their position in their industry and continue to be a market leader we need to improve this part of our reputation.

[ 24:52 - 25:40 ] Your org chart should have customers are on the top and leaders on the bottom. The leader should be serving those who serve the customer.

Pair all of this focus on the values and the heart of your business with excellent performance and you’ll have a strong combination.

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

We just witnessed the Southwest Airlines holiday meltdown of 2022. Due to winter storms, 60% of Southwest’s December flights were canceled, leaving over one million customers were affected. The debacle that ensued can be attributed primarily to Southwest’s Direct Route Model as opposed to the Hub and Spoke Model that most of the other airlines use. Additionally, antiquated technology made it hard to mobilize pilots and staff along other flight routes.

That’s what went wrong.

Now, with the help of Brannon Stacy, Global Business Development Manager at Fusion, let’s take a closer look at what Southwest did right.

[ 4:55 - 6:37 ] Southwest representatives despite feeling helpless, managed to connect with the customer and ease their frustration. They showed a high level of respect, allowing customers to finish speaking. They apologized and they were transparent.

[ 7:53 - 9:05 ] Taking another step back, here are 4 things that helped Southwest ride out the crisis: teamwork, partnership with the airport, facing challenges, and overcoming the obstacles in front of them. Truthfully, they defied all odds, and in the end, they lived their mission statement.

[ 13:48 - 15:41 ] What kind of training would it require to maintain your mission statement in a time of crisis? Here’s how agents can speak transparently to an upset customer when they don’t have an answer. Our culture wants so badly to hear good news, but isn’t the truth more important? We should not just placate the customer in order to fake a short term, positive interaction.

[ 20:16 - 21:12 ] We can all learn from Southwest here. We all need to make sure we have the right tools and technology to prevent these kinds of situations.

[24:27 - 25:26 ] As an agent, it would be tempting to throw in the towel in the face of so few answers for so many unhappy customers, but instead, a great agent will still try to connect with the customer on a human level.

Does your mission statement shine through on an average day? What about in a time of crisis? Once the crisis happens, the time for training is past, and if agents can embody the mission statement in a time of crisis, that’s an excellent reflection on senior leadership.

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

Welcome to the show! Today we’re diving right in with two real life customer service calls we recently had in our personal lives as customers. Let’s talk about what makes a helpful and seamless experience versus a frustrating experience. Let’s talk about tools, policies and responsiveness.

Focusing now on the voice of the agent:

[ 9:55 - 11:21 ] The results are in and 65 percent of CX agents don’t think of CX as their career, and 40 percent want to leave CX as soon as humanly possible. Unfortunately, we see the self fulfilling cycle of turnover that our friend Leslie Oflehaven calls “the lasagna of stupid.” We don’t invest in our agents as much as we could because they don’t stick around. And they don’t stick around because we didn’t invest in them enough.

[ 12:40 - 14;03 ] The agents who do see CX as their career are most happy with the ability to work from home.

[ 14:03 - 16:35 ] People are taking stock of 2022. Is work what drives you? How is your overall well being as a person? Working from home is fitting into their life. The ability to work from home is actually more important than pay. Be careful about the push to return to the office.

[ 21:42 - 24:27 ] There are some great lessons and opportunities for discussion in the book The Customer Rules by Lee Cockerell. One point to highlight is that we should become an expert at creating experts. Another lesson is to surround yourself with smart and confident people. Let those people be equipped and freed up to thrive in their role.

[ 26:25 - 28:00 ] Don’t give responsibility without authority. Giving responsibility without authority sets your center up to have a high rate of escalations because you’re not letting the agent resolve the customers’ issues on their own. All of those escalations are going to increase your costs.

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

Back in front of the mic today to talk about agent satisfaction and how to effectively compensate and motivate our most important assets.

[ 6:58 - 8:45 ] The polls are in and here’s what agents really want: more respect from leadership, more respect from customers, more satisfaction from their work, better pay, proper training so they feel like they’ve actually been taught how to do their job the way leadership wants it done. Of all of these, the highest by far was higher pay. And agents want higher pay not just because they want more money, but because they feel like they don’t get paid enough for what they go through. Wouldn't an alternative to higher pay, then be to come up with ways to make their work to better and easier.?

[ 9:49 - 11:34 ]  We are focusing on “the voice of the agent” and designing an agent-satisfaction metric, making qualitative data more quantitative. Call center leaders need to listen to agent feedback to improve their CX programs. They need to listen to both seasoned agents and new agents.

[ 15:42 - 17:21 ]  CX agents, if they are trying hard to contribute to the company, may face the challenge of burn-out and we may start to see “quiet quitting.” The truth is though that most people don’t strive to underperform in their lives, and the people who are in that mode didn’t get there over night and probably don’t want to stay there.

[ 18:44 - 21:20 ]  Change initiatives are usually uninspiring. First to note here is that we shouldn’t think of our goals or initiatives as “change management.” And, it doesn’t matter what you’re saying if you’re not paying a livable wage. If you want to inspire, figure out how to open up the profitability that would pave the way for pay increases.

[ 22:57 - 25:39 ] Who builds brand loyalty? Agents do. They are the one that communicates that the customer matters to the company and that what the customer is experiencing matters to the company. And now, employee experience is finally getting the air time it deserves. You’re not building your business. You’re building the people who’ll help build your business. These times are marked by shifting labor dynamics, turnover and the leverage going to the agents who can now switch jobs more easily than ever. This is one of those moments in time where the economics are shifting and we don’t want to miss this opportunity to grow in the area of employee experience.

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.