CUSTOMER — March 2014

Creating a Consistent Customer Experience in 7 Easy Steps

Customer experiences come in all shapes and sizes. Some are traditional, in a store, while others transpire via a mobile device. Don't lose sight of this as you build and improve your VoC program....Read More >>>

Six Steps to Building a Successful Voice of the Customer Program

Following these best practice guidelines, VoC programs can become part of an effective CEM strategy to help collect and act on customer feedback across....Read More >>>

Want a Customer Experience Makeover? Enter This Contest to Win One!
We've all seen the TV shows in which people or properties get a new lease on life via makeovers. Now Interactive Intelligence is bringing this concept to the call center.

The Lync Between Customers and Contact Centers
The true benefits of this growing ecosystem of technologies is that the promise of UC, the promise of increased efficiency, the promise of enhanced customer care - all of which contribute to greater levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty - can be implemented much more quickly than previously, with the comfort of knowing they will just work, allowing users to immediately begin leveraging the new features and capabilities to more effectively interact with customers and colleagues.

The Selling Tree: How InfoCision's Sales Training Program Helps Maximize Revenue-generating Opportunities for Clients
One of the key aspects of The Selling Tree is a two-pronged approach aimed at connecting with the caller both on a rational level and an emotional level. The rational level relies on the Communicator having a thorough knowledge of the product, then using that knowledge to position the product as useful to the customer.

The Voice of Your Customers - Listening Is Only Part of the Story
CUSTOMER Magazine recently spoke with Herb Williams-Dalgart, senior director of certification and performance improvement at J.D. Power, a leading market research company. We asked Herb to describe a world-class Voice of the Customer (VOC) research program and why it's important to all businesses, particularly contact centers.

Aligning People and Technology to Create an Effective Voice Self-Service Channel
It takes more than a vision to create an effective interactive voice response self-service solution in a contact center. There are many factors that contribute to the goal of achieving high self-service completion rates along with improved customer satisfaction with this communication channel.

2014 CUSTOMER MVP Quality Awards
The business of business has always revolved around one central element - customer satisfaction. Though technology has delivered new ways of delivering services, and for end customers to communicate their levels of satisfaction (or dissatisfaction), the core principle remains: Successful businesses deliver quality service and focus on customer satisfaction.

What Are You Waiting for? Survey on the Spot Instead of Through E-mail
Paper surveys have probably been around since papyrus. We've always been interested to know what others were thinking, right? We've all seen the surveyors at the grocery store, armed with their clipboards, intercepting folks lugging bags out to their cars to ask about products and services. In-home surveys came via parcel post, in overstuffed envelopes, asking us about everything from private businesses to the city's new urbanization plans.

Doxo Makes It Easier for Customers and Businesses to Connect
Businesses today for the most part still interact with customers the way they have in the past. More than 80 percent of communications with customers are done via paper mail. And even when businesses interact with customers online, most organizations do so using websites based on the Web 1.0 model. Both methods are way out of line with customer online behavior, says Steve Shivers, CEO and co-founder of doxo, who adds that his company offers a better alternative.

Why My Loyalty Program Isn't Making Me Feel Loyal
Look for loyalty programs that provide ubiquitous access for you from all forms of media such as web, mobile web, mobile apps, swipe cards, no cards. Studies show that mobile offers are seven times more likely to be redeemed than paper offers. Why? You can redeem what you don't have - your offers and rewards will be with you in your pocket wherever you go.

Oracle Provides Insight on WebRTC & the Customer Experience
WebRTC has garnered a lot of attention recently as a potential unified communications game changer. Not only does this technology allow for real-time voice and video interactions from a web browser, and without requiring special client software, but it opens the door for more, and more interesting, application development.

VoIP Dialing Emphasizes Benefits of SIP, Talks About What's Next
That's the word from VoIP Dialing CEO Ben Nabon, who spoke with CUSTOMER magazine in mid January. Nabon said that the softphone, which VoIP Dialing will trademark, "will change the way people work with it." He adds that the VoIP Dialing softphone will be "good for calls centers and intranets, and definitely a product that at some point will go to the consumer."

What to Do to Get the Most Out of Your Contact Center Team
Some feedback suggests that from a pure ROI perspective, spending your dollars on the performers in the middle of the curve (address the mediocre) represents the biggest opportunity for impact, because it is usually the largest group in a normal distribution. If you can move the middle 1 percent, you will see the largest impact.

The Affordable Care Act: Top 5 Contact Center Initiatives Not to Be Ignored
The Affordable Care Act has already brought millions of new customers to the healthcare market. And under the new law's guidelines, it looks to bring millions more - making the consumer environment for healthcare and insurance more competitive than it's ever been.