According to a recent article from TIME, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, hopes to send humans to Mars by 2024. Mr. Musk is ambitious and we wish him the best of luck on this endeavor. But that’s not all we have to say on the matter…
Multichannel contact center support often includes traditional inbound and outbound calling, email, live chat support, social media, online communities, and…texting? Yes, in order to deliver a high-quality customer experience, companies must also use text messaging. In a recent article, Ford Blakely emphasizes the significance of texting for customer service, sales, and marketing and provides the following three reasons why texting is popular in the modern customer experience: (more…)
In a recent article, Nancy Porte discusses how companies can use online communities to improve their customer experience programs. Online communities can include a variety of outlets such as social media channels, chat rooms, forums, discussion boards, and more. While the idea is great and can be beneficial to both the company and the customers, Porte advises that it can be extremely challenging when it comes to creating the strategy behind the online community. Porte offers the following best practices to having a successful online community: (more…)
Do you know the health of your customers? Not their physical health, but the health of the relationship between your customers and your company. In a recent article, Bob Hayes, PhD discusses the importance of measuring various metrics or analytics to determine customer health scores. Knowing customer health scores can assist companies by offering descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. Hayes goes on to give detailed information on the following three steps to creating customer health scores:
In support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Outsource Consultants has gone pink! There are many charities you can donate to in an effort to raise awareness and help find a cure. The following are some of the reliable websites where you can send donations and learn more information:
In a recent article, Eric Feinberg discusses the fluidity of the customer experience in the modern era. Because of the internet and modern technology such as smart phones, customers aren’t restricted to just one path purchasing path of brick-and-mortar stores. The points of the customer journey are not independent of each other. They’re all connected and each of them has an effect on the entire experience. Some of the latest customer trends that Feinberg elaborates on include:
Is a company’s success purely based upon the price of their products and services? Is it based on offering something unique to every other company on the market? These two aspects of a company’s value are very important, but how you treat your customers is what truly determines long-term success. Many companies offer competitive pricing and products, so gaining customer loyalty through a high quality customer experience can be the main advantage that can set a company apart from its competitors. With that in mind, what exactly makes a company’s customer service great? In a recent article, Ben Wright explains the following nine ways companies can deliver excellent customer service:
In a recent article, Luke Starbuck discusses how quality customer service can set companies apart within the retail industry. A major way companies invest in their customer service is by hiring a large amount of customer service representatives in order to improve their scalability and serve more customers. Starbuck argues that simply hiring more customer service employees isn’t the best approach to improving the customer experience; retail companies will need to utilize a hybrid of live agents and artificial intelligence (AI) to succeed. The article provides the following three reasons companies need to use both AI automation and customer service agents:
In a recent article, Jeff Toister discusses how self-service (websites, portals, automation, etc.) has made things easier, but it also takes out the human factor in the customer experience. The more technology is used to streamline the customer journey, the less interaction people experience with friendly customer service agents. People want the customer experience to be easy and fluid, but there will always be times when customers are frustrated with a product or service and need empathy and validation from real, human agents. Toister offers and elaborates on the following five ways companies can humanize their customer service:
Online shopping could potentially replace many brick-and-mortar stores in the years to come. Customers are doing more research now than ever to make sure they’re purchasing the best products and services for their needs. With this in mind, a recent article by Sawaram Suthar says that companies need to think of their websites as their storefronts for customers to explore and make educated decisions on their purchases.