How Communications Service Providers Can Invest in Customer Experience

How Communications Service Providers Can Invest in Customer Experience

15 . March . 2021

Before digging in detail lets us see what is communication service provider:

A communications service providers (CSP) offers telecommunications services over networks. CSPs include the following categories: telecommunications carrier, content and application service provider (CASP), cable service provider, satellite broadcasting operator, and cloud communications service provider.

Communications service providers (CSPs), are at the forefront of the telecommunications industry, despite that they have been slow to invest in customer experience because CSPs have primarily focused on the growth and evolution of their network infrastructure for coverage, capacity, and resilience.

Here are key areas that CSPs should consider for investment in improved customer experience:

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How AI May Help With Contact Center Staffing Issues During Unexpected Times

How AI May Help With Contact Center Staffing Issues During Unexpected Times

24 . February . 2021

Call center are the busiest department of any organization dealing with unexpected scenarios but 2020 has taken this to entirely new level. Remote work has emerged a new trend in 2020. Almost all the organizations are forced to shift to remote working.

Pandemic has impacted contact centers in many ways including remote work shifts and requisite operational changes, all while managing changing agent and consumer behaviors.

As we transition into 2021, call centers would be wise to leverage artificial intelligence, which takes control of real-time data to get ahead of unpredictable scenarios and ensure seamless customer experiences. With call center conditions constantly changing, companies must turn to AI-powered technology to optimize their operations.

Workforce planning is both an art and a science. Workforce managers leverage the science of historical call center data to generate forecasts and create schedules, then layer on the art of experience to refine and optimize plans. Still, a variety of circumstances can yield negative impacts for call centers that are difficult to foresee.

A wildly successful marketing campaign launched without communicating with the contact center can create a situation where agents learn about promotions from customers, leaving them unprepared and unable to assist effectively.

Humans often make decisions based on their emotions or previous experiences, rather than on logic. Both agent and customer’s behavior factor into the unpredictable nature of a call center. Managers cannot predict when agents will be late or absent, and consumer behavior has always been a variable in the staffing equation.
Gone are the days where managers are sitting in bays with agents, and a simple hand raise or frustrated face from an agent could be acted upon. With remote working managers have less visibility and cannot rely on physical cues to determine whether agents are struggling.

Consumer behavior is impossible to forecast with one hundred percent accuracy. Consumers choose when to call – often while trying to find the fastest path to resolution. They may reach out via chat while waiting to speak to a live agent, and post to social media when placed on hold. Often, their outreach is triggered by external events, but behaviors are unique to individual consumers and what kind of day they’re having, mood, or level of frustration.

The only way to ensure success in the face of unexpected scenarios is to act in the moment. Sometimes even the best plan isn’t enough and other times, a situation arises entirely out of the blue. Regardless, call centers must rely on data and technology to adapt operations appropriately.

An intelligent assistant may be one tool that can help. It can automate actions based on real-time data flowing through the call center. This includes making staffing changes depending on call volume, offering struggling agents assistance or wellness breaks and scheduling training and coaching sessions to ensure agents are engaged and prepared for any scenarios thrown their way—all without sacrificing service levels.

An intelligent assistant, powered by AI, that leverages the power of real-time data can help call centers avoid being ill-prepared in unexpected situations. It can serve as a safety net when the plan isn’t enough. This leads to smarter staffing decisions, higher agent engagement, lower attrition and better customer experiences - all factors driving value to the bottom line.

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Don’t Overlook CRM As You Adapt To Pandemic Customer Care

Don’t Overlook CRM As You Adapt To Pandemic Customer Care

1 . February . 2021

As a consultant, I have the opportunity to work alongside some of the top brands in the world. Over time, it becomes easy to spot trends based on market changes and conversations with clients. I believe we have entered into a significant opportunity for investment within our contact center industry. The goal should be to make sure that investment actually improves the customer experience in a sustainable way.

As companies deal with COVID-19, there is a renewed interest in improving the support and service provided by their contact centers. This has been brought on by the real crisis in customer care we all have witnessed. By now, we have all called a company where the wait time can be an hour or more. An hour-long wait time means stressed-out agents and stressed-out leaders, which might make the C-suite more receptive to investment to bring about improvements in customer care.

With this situation comes a need to “fix it fast” – and that typically means spending money on technology. While this is an opportunity to finally get that new technology you have been eyeing for years, it may also be a good time to upgrade where you have already invested – in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Here are several suggestions for investment to upgrade your CRM:

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Ideas to Put Quality Management at the Heart of Your Contact Center

Ideas to Put Quality Management at the Heart of Your Contact Center

16 . October . 2020

Your quality management (QM) program is probably well-established, with guidelines and definitions, rules, and ratings. But does it have a heart, one that contributes meaning and spark to how we think about customer interactions?

Here are some ideas to make sure the heart of your quality management program is healthy and pulsing with life:

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and HR

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and HR

21 . July . 2020

Human Resources are those constituents of an organization that take care of the human facets and needs of all employees within that organization. Key functions of HR in an organization are-

• Employee recruitment and selection.
• Compensation calculation and reward program management.
• In-house training for all employees according to skill sets.
• Performance calculation and managing employee behavior.
• Portfolio management and area location management.
• Transformation and change management.
• Structuring hierarchy of employees.
• Employee relationship management.
• Hiring Campaign management.

Employees are the significant assets and the primary promoters of profitable business for an organization. Hence, apart from managing clients and customers for business purpose, it’s a decisive responsibility of an organization to manage and fulfill all needs of its own employees. It would be improper to say that a CRM system is only used to manage clients and customer; most of the HR heads or managers are using CRM technologies for managing company’s human capital. This approach is called as Employee Resource Management (ERM). An ERM is a business process that fills gaps between an organizations and its employee to create a strong emotional and professional bonding among them.

A well-integrated ERM provides a committed information base system for all Human resources. This is termed as Human Resource Information System (HRIS) in most of the renowned organizations which provides a better interface for HRs to deal with internal employees and screens all problems associated with relationship among organization and employee. Some of its features are listed below-

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