Attempting to predict the future provides some fascinating insights and can help planning, whatever industry you are in. This is especially true when it comes to customer service, as it often feels that we’re in the midst of constant change. Thinking further ahead gives the chance to add perspective and to make more gradual, planned steps on the road to the future.So I read with interest a r...
Effective knowledge management is a key element of delivering customer service and that’s why we’ve been focusing on this important area in recent weeks.In our first post we discussed how to get started - outlining the different stages of knowledge management within customer service operations. Following this we covered building a business case, outlining the benefits your organisation...
In our first blog post in our series on knowledge management we talked about the different stages of collecting and sharing information across the contact centre.So, once you’ve identified where your organisation is now, how do you move forward and create a strategy to implement knowledge management? And what are the business benefits that you’ll receive?Starting with the benefits, the...
Knowledge is at the heart of delivering a successful, consistent and efficient customer experience whatever type of organisation you are in. Collecting and sharing information, incorporating feedback and keeping centralised knowledge updated is central to delivering superior customer service.However while most managers understand the importance of knowledge, many are simply not sure where to start...
Guest post by Dominic Tavassoli, VP Product Management, Eptica Customer service teams should look to leverage cutting edge linguistic technology to address challenges of scalability and efficiency, as well as customer satisfaction.Great hospital emergency rooms excel at what is known as triage, being able to rapidly determine the priority of the treatment of patients, based on the severity of thei...
Despite the explosion of new channels, email is still the first choice for many customers when they want to make contact. Showing the scale of the channel over 2.8 million emails are sent every second and it is predicted that there will be over 4 billion email accounts by the end of 2015.Consumers like the built-in audit trail that email provides, along with the fact that it is simple and straight...
Staff turnover has always been a problem in a lot of customer service teams. While the UK average employee turnover rate is approximately 15%, in contact centres it averages around 25%. That means one in four agents leaves every year - although for some contact centres turnover can be as much as 60%.One of the key impacts of staff turnover is increased training costs. On average, new agents receiv...
Navigating phone menus when you call a contact centre is a source of much frustration for consumers. Done well, the concept of phone menus should help improve the customer experience. You’ll be directed to the best agent to deal with your enquiry and they will be able to use the information you’ve typed in to give a head start on solving your problem, without needing to transfer you ar...
Efficiently delivering the right customer experience is the number one priority for every organisation. But in today’s complex, fast-moving world this can be challenging. The number of contact channels is constantly increasing, competition has never been fiercer and the growth of mobile devices means customer service has to operate 24x7, providing the perfect experience quickly and efficient...
Customers are demanding better service through more and more channels. And they have no patience for roadblocks on the customer journey. According to Forrester 34% give up or go to a competitor after an unsuccessful website experience. Those that do persist tend to switch to your most expensive contact channels – nearly half (49%) of those that couldn’t find information online either c...