Tag Archives: call center

I recently posted a poll asking which kind of transmission is easier to operate when learning to drive. Even though a couple folks picked manuals, which I am still shocked by, the results looked pretty much the way I thought they would.

I learned to drive on an automatic transmission but did learn to drive a manual thanks to my college roommate teaching me. Pop the clutch, shift gears, monitor rpm’s, all while trying not to roll backwards down a hill after being stopped at a red light was annoying.

My automatic did all that shifting, popping, monitoring for me. All I had to do was just focus on the road. Press the gas pedal to go and hit the brake to stop. That was it. The learning curve wasn’t even close to the same and I learned I was cool sticking with an automatic.

Going through training as a contact center agent reminds me so much of learning to drive a manual transmission. Instead of pop the clutch, shift gears, monitor the rpm’s it’s look up data, switch systems, rekey data, navigate to the correct module, etc.

We recently started working with a contact center that has 17 different systems that their agents might need to interact with on any given call. Think about that. Remembering where to go and what to do on any given call is flat out complicated.

With all the new systems and tools that have been introduced to contact centers since the 1990’s, why hasn’t the agent journey been given the same attention that the digital customer journey has?

I get it, self service is great. But can anyone else relate to me when I say that I am guilty of not being able to figure something out and then smashing 0 for the operator when I really need some help. It’s the reason why there are still over 6 million contact center agents worldwide. People need help with complicated stuff. And let’s remember, when the consumer gets to the point that they need to call in they’re not always in the best mood. It’s not hard to understand why agents quit when their days consist of being spoken to rudely while having to remember all the manual call mechanics to solve a customer’s issue.

No matter how many screens, or sticky notes, or flow charts, or days of training, or Slack and Teams channels, or conversational AI tools an agent has, they’re still having to do all that manual shifting themselves. It doesn’t have to be that way.

The future of contact centers doesn’t look like 2 month long training classes so agents can remember what to do and when. An average agent turnover rate of between 30 and 45% yearly doesn’t have to be the status quo. Agents don’t have to wake up with anxiety every day because of all they have to remember while trying to help a customer.

The future of the contact center is one that will be much easier to navigate not by changing your core systems but by upgrading from a manual transmission to an automatic to eliminate those manual call mechanics that cause hold times and mistakes.

Cue adds CRM widget, expands telephony integration, and more.

Cue, an Atlanta-based software company, announced earlier this week the release of the newest version of their software solution that will further enable phone-based sales and service reps to improve productivity and drive results both during and after calls. 

By acting as an on-screen teleprompter, Cue helps inside sales and service reps navigate through conversations the right way, every time. Cue automatically updates fields in a customer’s existing system, which allows reps to complete work in real time that is historically left for post call wrap up. Cue also simplifies reps’ tech stack so reps no longer have to toggle between tabs and applications.

New features include:

  • CRM Widget: Cue’s new lightweight widget embeds directly into CRMs, allowing reps to gain the benefits of Cue while staying within a system they already know.
  • Telephony Integration: Handles inbound calls from new contacts within Cue and automatically creates new contacts in your CRM or other external system.
  • One-Step Integration: It’s easier than ever to connect Cue with your CRM, telephony and more thanks to Cue’s new one-step integration, Cue integrates with 200+ systems.

According to CEO & Founder, Michael Wilson, “Instead of having to change the way phone-based customer support and sales reps are used to working, companies can now simply embed Cue’s teleprompter-esque conversation guide right into the systems they’re already using. Between this CRM widget and our enhanced one-step integration, we’re excited to empower our customers to get up and running with Cue even faster and in turn, impact their sales and customer service success.” 

If you have any questions, please reach out to Cue at sales@itscue.com.

Thanks,

The Cue Team

Strengthen Your Customer Success Team

For many businesses, customer-facing teams are essential to their success and customer retention. In fact, federal research estimates that customer contact centers will add the most customer service representatives between 2016 and 2026—projecting 36% growth.

And as your company grows, it may become clear that a new or bigger team is needed to focus on customer success. This team is on the frontlines helping your customers achieve their goals. Tasked with providing resources and support, a customer success team is the first indication of an organization’s reliability. Simply put, it’s their job to keep customers happy.

As you think about customer retention—and the essential functions of your customer success team—here are a few steps you can take to build a strong team:

Talk to Your Customers

This one might seem obvious, but the first thing your team can do is connect with the customers that have already given you feedback. Reach out to the ones that have reported success as well as the ones that have canceled or given negative input. Learn why they’ve given this feedback, positive or negative. Do you notice any trends? Take the feedback and strategize how to meet pain points and facilitate more positive experiences with your product or service.

Develop an Onboarding Process

You’re an expert in your product, and you’ve built it in a way that your customers will find easy to use. But even the most straightforward tools and services can benefit from a defined and effective onboarding process. Your customer success team can proactively engage and teach your customers the most effective way to use your products.This saves your customers time as they’re able to avoid common roadblocks. And it strengthens your relationship with them in the early stages of their customer journey.

Provide Self-Service Resources

Sometimes your customers don’t have the time or margin to get on a phone call. Creating a searchable FAQ or knowledge base can help provide these resources. Equip your success team with the answers to commonly asked questions for their customer interactions, but also create resources for common roadblocks, like how-to articles, webinars, or video guides.

Use Surveys

As your business grows, surveys are a sustainable and scalable mechanism for determining customer satisfaction and getting feedback. Many organizations use a Net Promoter Score® (NPS), but you can also add in surveys to other parts of the customer lifecycle. You might consider a survey after onboarding and or at the point of cancellation, for example. If and when cancellations happen, information is your most important asset. Understanding their needs and experience will help strengthen your customer success team and hopefully improve retention moving forward. Just keep in mind that customers can be deterred by too much communication, too—don’t overdo it!

As your customer success team grows and evolves, you may find your team collaborating with other departments, implementing new feedback tools, and coming up with new ways to measure your team’s success and metrics.

Get more visibility, build a stronger success team, and increase retention with Cue. Sign up for your free trial today!

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.