Get insight, news, best practices, and other opinions on trending, industry leading, and other technology topics.
This week I attended the ACCE event in New Orleans and aside from my deep concern for New Orleans and the Louisiana economy due to the situation in the Gulf, I have to say, it was good to see so many folks turn out! BP even showed up! It is clear that even with the economy still bumping along, companies are passionate about keeping their customers. Judging from our booth traffic, they have a high degree of interest in bettering customer experience and increasing agent efficiency.
Yesterday I read an article by, Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor, on the Huffington Post, debating whether we are headed for a "double-dip" recession or just a lousy recovery? It is an interesting debate with many self serving opinions on all sides. I am no economist and have never been a fan of Mr. Reich, but I have to say...when it comes to business in this era, it just doesn't matter! You and your team have got to play like the bottom is falling out everyday. Bad economy or good, recession or not. You've got to be at the top of your game!
Ok...I'll admit that I've been accused of being a gadget man! Sure, I've had my PDA's, GPS's and other electronic toys and yes I was a very early adopter of both the Blackberry and now the Droid. But let it be known, that today I feel the need to be like Paul Revere! Customer Experience Managers beware, The "Tablets" are coming, The "Tablets" are coming! And they are going to change customer experience and the demands on the service process for good.
So, if you read my recent blog, "The Tablet's are Coming!", you know that I firmly believe that these new and extremely portable devices will be changing the face of user mobility faster and in more ways than Cell Phones did in the '80's for personal use and customer support. Don't think so? Get your hands on an iPad for more than 5 minutes and then Check this out...www.flipboard.com I'm an even greater believer after leaving my laptop power supply home while on a 5 day trip. Given that I run the business in the cloud, I was able to do everything I needed to do...short of a little spreadsheet work (could have done it but it would have been more tedious).
I like experiments...in fact I love them. That's kind of how I got involved with Fused Solutions and SpiceCSM. Having grown up in Northern NY and having attended Clarkson University, I wanted to help revitalize an economy that hadn't weathered the transition from agrarian and smoke stack to technology very well. Its a long story but suffice it to say the last several years have been an interesting and fulfilling ride. But that is for a different day back to the experiment of sorts.
One of the biggest topics being discussed in today's call centers and customer service organizations is cost reduction. There are many different factors that go into a call center operating expenses, including everything from agent labor hours to technology costs, and even facility costs. Obviously some things are easier to control than others.
3 Ways to Reduce Training Time Using Technology If you really want to reduce training time, we challenge you to look at the technology your agents are using. Is it simple to use? Does it proactively help agents? Does it make their jobs easier? If you didn't answer YES to all of those questions, you could be complicating your training efforts out of the gate due to the technology your agents utilize to manage the customer journey. One of the unsung heroes of SpiceCSM's Business Process/BPM tool is the ability to reduce the amount of time agents need to start producing at the levels of longstanding employees. Typically when bringing new agents onto the team there's a period of training, usually involving some classroom knowledge transfer, exercises, role playing, and a variety of other methods to give the agents resources to solve requests efficiently. Depending on the organization and type of business, this could take anywhere from 1 - 12 weeks, or longer. In higher turnover environments this only exacerbates training challenges and emphasizes the need to make new employees more productive in less time. Here are 3 ways you can utilize technology to help reduce training efforts:
What is iPaaS: Explaining Integration Capabilities What is iPaaS? iPaas is a cloud-based platform that allows businesses to connect their existing systems together. It provides a single interface where users can access their data from across different software platforms. This means they can view information from one application within another without having to switch between them. The platform also makes it easy for people to build new integrations by providing low-code tools that allow connections to be made with external systems.
LCAP - What is a Low-Code Application Platform The vision that SpiceCSM has from our inception was to have an application that provided the tools to customize the user experience easily and orchestrate data without the need for technical expertise. What we've been calling an "Enterprise Application Builder" is now being recognized by leading analysts as a Low-Code Application platform, or LCAP for short.
The best and most complete platform for data integration, case management, and workflow management to help transform your customer journey.
