Chris Bauserman
Three Rules for Adapting Agents to the Omnichannel Experience
Nobody excels at everything. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and the best of us know how to navigate those skills and work them to our advantage. It’s no different in the contact center, particularly as agents are tasked with learning a diverse...
Turning Disruption into Opportunity
For contact centers, the proverbial genie is out of the bottle. While the development and distribution of effective COVID-19 vaccines has put the global economy on track toward normalcy, the way contact centers operate—and the art of the possible—has been altered permanently. For example,...
Unexpected Lessons from the 2020 Contact Center
About a year ago, I tried something that we would all agree now was a bit foolish: predict what the 2020 contact center would look like. Before the COVID-19 pandemic sent agents home on a massive scale, before economic disruption reinforced the need for...
Thinking Differently about Digital in Your Contact Center
Contact centers often see ebbs and flows. Customer preferences change, new tools emerge, and leaders are left with the challenge of dialing up or down specific channels to accommodate evolving customer behavior. For example, at the beginning of this year, our own research had...
Building a Sustainable Strategy for Remote Agents
The first half of 2020 will forever be defined by the global response to the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Individuals, businesses and governments worked together to mitigate an unprecedented public health crisis, ensuring human health and safety amid tremendous economic uncertainty. As more businesses embraced...
Reopening Plans Must Look Forward, Not To The Past
Throughout the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, technology has played a considerable role in minimizing disruption and maintaining continuity of customer service. Amid widespread self-isolation and quarantine, contact center leaders ensured that agents and other staff still had access to vital customer information and...
Contact Centers Value AX. It’s Time Contact Center Executives Do, Too.
Experience is the oxygen of organizational success. On one hand, you have customers, who hold businesses to the highest standard when it comes to every point of contact with your business. On the other hand are your contact centers, agents – who work with...
4 Applications of AI in Customer Service That Work Today
The concept of AI improving emotional intelligence might sound like a paradox. A coded algorithm is not the most natural supplement to human empathy, after all. But customer experience (CX) leaders know that AI-powered technologies can transform the way businesses understand core audiences. Customer...
3 Tips to Better Handle the Holiday Rush
The text of this article originally appeared on ICMI. For many contact centers, there’s a fairly predictable ebb and flow throughout the calendar year. An outdoor home goods brand, for example, likely receives a much higher volume of inquiries at the start of summer...
How to Create a Digital-First Omnichannel Agent Experience
The text of this article originally appeared on ICMI. In our digital era, it seems each day brings a new way to connect and communicate. From the proliferation of text, chat, and messaging apps like Facebook and WhatsApp, today’s consumers expect to interact with companies...
3 Ways Agents Can Add The Human Touch to Digital Experiences
The text of this article originally appeared on ICMI. The shift from traditional call centers to modern omnichannel contact centers can feel as different for both agents and customers as the shift from in-store retail to ecommerce. The virtual ‘cockpit’ of the modern agent now...
Break the Catch 22: 3 Tips to Delight Customers and Avoid Detractors
The text of this article originally appeared on ICMI. Social media has a tremendous power to create legions of brand advocates or destroy all good will, seemingly overnight. For example, fast food brand Wendy’s has earned a cult following through its online tongue-in-cheek commentary and...