What Can Call Centers Do to Prioritize the Customer Experience? [Resource Guide]

It should come as no surprise that customer experience statistics for 2015 reinforce the power of good (or bad) customer service.  After a positive customer experience, for example, 69% of Americans would recommend that experience to others, whereas 58% would never use that company again following a negative experience.

For call centers in particular, the implications of the customer experience are huge: In the U.S., the cost of poor customer is $41 billion per year, meaning each and every customer’s experience needs to be made a priority – at every point of interaction.

In previous resource guides, we’ve discussed everything from speech analytics to call center productivity to steps to take to mitigate risk.  Today, we’ll take a look at what call centers can do to improve the customer experience:

Blogs

5 Must Read Research Reports on the Customer Experience in 2015

To shed light on rising customer expectations and provide contact centers with actionable insight and information they can use to improve the customer experience, we’ve compiled a list of high-quality research reports from leading-edge organizations. More…

How Sentiment Analysis & Social Listening Can Improve the Customer Experience

What can contact centers do to improve the customer experience?  What can they do to ensure they meet customer expectations of those experiences?  Social media is one solution.  Let’s take a look at a few specific ways contact centers can leverage social to provide the types of experiences customers are looking to have. More…

10 Simple Tactics Managers Can Use to Improve the Customer Experience (Daily)

There’s no shortage of statistics on the customer experience.  But, with such an abundance of aggregated data, research, and resources, the question then becomes: How is your company effectively using that information?  The following is our curated list of 10 simple tactics managers can use to improve the customer experience on a daily basis. More…

15 Surefire Ways to Improve Customer Satisfaction

What are some ways companies can drive customer satisfaction in today’s consumer-centric landscape?  Here’s a curated list of 15 different tactics to improve customer satisfaction, from a variety of sources. More…

4 Customer Experience Questions Your Contact Center Must Answer

What, exactly, defines a positive experience? Of course the answer is different for each individual customer. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to delivering a positive customer experience, there are key areas of focus for companies to be prioritizing.  Here’s a look at 4 customer experience questions your contact center must answer to ensure service quality meets (and exceeds) customer expectations.  More…

How Can Call Centers Improve the Customer Experience? Speech Analytics for the Win!

Due to rising customer expectations, call centers are feeling increasing pressure to look at ways to improve the customer experience. One of the most trusted ways of doing so is through speech analytics technologies. Here’s a closer look at a few of the key advantages speech analytics can provide in customer experience management. More…

5 Ways to Help Agents Provide Better Experiences for Customers

There are many ways to approach customer experience management, but what’s critical is to provide the types of experiences that will satisfy customers. Nowhere is this more important than in the call center, where agents interface with customers 24/7. Here’s a look at 5 simple, time-tested ways to help agents provide better experiences for their customers. More…

How Can Your Agents Provide Customer Service That Goes Above and Beyond?

When it comes to providing quality customer service, going the extra mile isn’t just a good idea – it’s critical in today’s customer-centric landscape.  So what can you do to motivate agents to provide the best possible customer service? How can you inspire them to go above and beyond in their daily interactions with customers? Here’s a look at 3 ways. More…

How Can Contact Analytics Help Improve a Poor Customer Experience? [Use Case]

What happens when a company fails to provide a positive customer experience? What can the company do to satisfy and retain customers – and make them more likely to want to recommend the company to family or friends?  The following use case from one of CallMiner’s senior executives outlines the importance of using contact analytics to help improve the customer experience. More…

Unifying the Customer Experience: How Do You Do It and Why Is It Important?

With the proliferation of communications channels comes the expectation that customers should be able to contact a company through any number of mediums: voice, social, email, live, chat, and so on. Today’s contact center is responding to the shifting consumer landscape by adopting multi-channel solutions to provide customers with a unified and satisfying experience. But how exactly do you do it?  More…

3 Tips for Making Sure Your Contact Center Delivers the Best Possible Customer Service

Your contact center, like any other customer-facing employee group, is responsible for upholding the customer experience. Customers won’t always remember the name of the agent who picked up the phone, but they will remember if your company delivered on its customer service promises or fell short right when it was needed the most. Here are three tips to help ensure your contact center is delivering the best possible customer service to each and every caller. More…

3 Ways to Improve Customer Experience with Speech Analytics

While there are many ways to leverage insights from speech analytics to improve the customer experience, there are several “easy wins” every company can achieve within a few weeks of going live.  More…

Industry News

New Study Shows Multiple Benefits to CEO Involvement in the Customer Experience

According to a recent Economist Intelligence Unit survey, 59% of global senior executives report higher revenue growth when CEOs become actively involved in the customer experience (CX). Fifty-eight percent of executives also report enhanced profitability as a result of CEO involvement in CX. More…

Report Finds Majority of Organizations Failing to Prioritize the Customer Experience

According to new research from ICMI in partnership with LiveOps, the majority of contact centers and customer service organizations are failing to prioritize the customer experience. Seventy-four percent admit to preventing their front line from providing the best possible service and 42% do not investigate the root cause of repeat customer contacts. More…

Majority of Companies View Customer Experience Optimization as Important

According to new research from Ensighten and Econsultancy, the majority of companies (96%) view customer experience optimization as important. Ninety-four percent of companies surveyed believe optimizing the customer experience will result in higher engagement and conversion rates and 66% believe it will lead to better brand perception. More…

Study Shows Customer Experience Trumps Sales Performance

New research from Business Systems reveals that contact centers prioritize the customer experience over sales performance. According to the “Customer Service in 2015” report, contact center professionals are less driven by the commercial benefits of their technology investments than they are by providing quality customer service. More…

Research Shows Importance of Providing a Seamless Customer Experience

A new survey, conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Interactive Intelligence, illustrates the importance of providing a swift, efficient customer experience. According to study results, the majority (79%) of UK customers contact an average of two to five agents before being able to resolve a single issue. More…

Research Shows Customer Analytics & CEM Markets to Expect ~20% Growth

New research from MarketsandMarkets shows the customers analytics market is expected to grow from $1.6 million in 2014 to $4.1 in 2019, a 20% increase. In addition, the global customer experience management (CEM) market is predicted to grow 17% over the next five years, from $3.8 billion in 2014 to $8.4 billion in 2019, according to analysts at MarketReportHub.com. More…

Study Shows Customer Experience Management Top Priority for Contact Center Outsourcers

A new study from Five9 shows contact center outsourcers consider customer experience management to be a top priority. In fact, 80% of survey respondents say delivering a seamless and superior customer experience is their top competitive differentiator. More…

Sixty Percent of Customers Have Seen Improvements in Customer Service Since Last Year

According to the second annual Customer Service Report from CorvisaCloud, the majority (60%) of survey respondents have seen an improvement in customer service since 2013. However, the 1,200 U.S. consumers surveyed also identified areas that need additional improvement, including agent understandability (49%), hold times (32%), and multichannel support (18%). More…

Study Shows Australian Consumers Value Positive Customer Experiences

A recent study from NewVoiceMedia finds Australian consumers place high value on the customer experience. Fifty-eight percent of Australians surveyed will not tell friends to use a business following a poor customer experience, whereas 76% will recommend a company following a positive experience.  More…

B2B Companies Recognize Importance of Customer Experience Management

New research from Accenture indicates that B2B companies recognize the customer experience as critical to an organization’s growth. However, more than half of respondents who participated in Accenture’s “B2B Customer Experience: Start Playing to Win and Stop Playing Not to Lose” research study admit that their customer experience (CX) programs have not helped to retain customers or build global revenues. More…

Report Shows Customer Experiences Inconsistent Across Channels

A new study by customer experience improvement firm CX, Act, Inc. shows customer experiences are inconsistent across channels (phone, email, chat, and social media). The study, conducted by Social Lens Research, evaluated how companies across industries respond to customer inquiries and resolve issues by surveying a pool of existing customers about their experiences. More…

Customer Experience Management Remains Top Priority for Contact Centers

New research from Cisco and Call Centre Helper reveals 54% of contact center managers view enhancing the customer experience as a priority. Improving efficiency (32%) and integrating new channels into the call center (26%) are other key areas of focus, according to the “Tomorrow’s Contact Centre” survey. More…

Customer Experience to Emerge as Key Brand Differentiator

According to a new Customers 2020 report produced by Walker Information, customer experience will emerge as a key brand differentiator over the next seven years.  The report discusses how B2B companies must evolve their customer experience strategies to meet the increasing demands of their customers. More…

Report Predicts Customer Experience Management Market to Grow 20% by 2017

A new report released by MarketsandMarkets (M&M) indicates the customer experience management (CEM) and voice of the customer (VoC) analytics market is expected to grow from $2.68 billion in 2012 to $6.61 billion by 2017, a nearly 20% increase. More…

Customer Experience Strategies Important to Companies but Majority Failing to Execute

According to new research from the Strativity Group, more than 80% of global companies believe that customer experience strategies are important to organizations.  However, 81% of companies surveyed are not fully committed to executing such strategies. More…

New Research Reveals Customer Experience Statistics for US & UK Customers

New research from NewVoiceMedia reveals that US customers are almost twice as likely (49%) to tell others about a bad customer service experience than UK customers (27%).  Conversely, UK customers are more likely to recommend a company following a positive experience (71%) than US customers (69%). More…

Majority of Customers Provide Real-Time Feedback to Improve Customer Experience

According to a new report released by eDigitalResearch, the majority of customers surveyed (75%) expect to be able to provide real-time feedback to improve the customer experience.  In addition, 76% of respondents have noticed an increase in companies offering them the opportunity to provide feedback on their experiences, as compared to one year ago. More…

Final Thoughts

As illustrated in the above resource guide, companies need to be prioritizing the customer experience in order to compete in today’s increasingly consumer-driven marketplace.  Is your company taking the necessary steps to improve the customer experience?

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