Articles by Greg Levin

Last night you were told by senior management to “do less with more” in your contact center. You can stop celebrating now – it was just an “opposite” dream. Back to reality. Contact center professionals have historically had to devise ways to do more with less . The economy being down for the count hasn’t helped matters much. While some managers have resorted...Full Article »

Nobody could have foreseen the on-the-job meltdown of Tim Thomas, a veteran customer service agent for Alabama Light & Electric (ALE), during a tropical storm last summer. Tim had endured numerous call deluges during regional power outages in the past without so much as a whimper or a whine. His fellow agents had always revered his skill, dedication and resolve – particularly his use...Full Article »

Many progressive contact centers are starting to break free from the confines and rigidity of traditional call routing. Rather than blindly sending callers to the next available agent – regardless of who’s calling or why – these centers are exploring routing methods that are so unconventional they have been banned in certain Midwestern U.S. cities. Here are a few prime examples...Full Article »

Imagine a world in which customer service agents spoke their mind on every call. What if, instead of always trying to soothe angry and abusive customers with forced empathy, agents voiced how they really felt? How interesting it would be if such scripted statements as “I understand your frustration” were replaced with such authentic ones as “It’s probably just...Full Article »

I can only keep the lid on controversial and shocking contact center-related stories for so long before they start to gnaw at my conscience and disrupt my daily mid-morning and mid-afternoon naps. Here are a couple of the most contentious contact center news stories our industry has been censoring for months. Overly Convincing Speech Recognition App Blamed for Customer's Death Managers at...Full Article »

Agents are a contact center’s most vital resource. A recent landmark study revealed that if it weren’t for contact center agents, there would be nothing to keep headsets from simply falling to the floor and breaking. Another key role agents play is providing quality service that keeps customers coming back and buying stuff. With agents playing such a critical role in the success of...Full Article »

In Part 1 of this post , I cited several quality monitoring practices commonly embraced by the world’s best contact centers, then stopped midway through in a desperate attempt to make you come back to CMIQ this week. Here we go with Part 2. I hope the wild anticipation didn’t cause you to lose too much sleep.   Incorporate customer satisfaction ratings and feedback into...Full Article »

Quality monitoring is as old a practice in contact centers as sending electric shocks through agents’ headsets to help keep handle time down. But just because centers have been conducting quality monitoring forever doesn’t mean they have been doing it right. Effective quality monitoring is so important, I’m going to do two successive blog posts on the topic. This week and next...Full Article »

One of the keys to success in managing a call center is being prepared for the chaos and destruction that lurks around every corner in this dangerous world.  Despite the constant threat of total catastrophe and mayhem, many call centers don’t have a formal disaster recovery plan in place. It isn’t clear whether the leaders in such centers are unaware that complete calamity could...Full Article »

Just because your call center surveys customers and occasionally even looks at the feedback they provide doesn’t mean you have a “Voice of the Customer” initiative in place. A true VOC program entails continuously and carefully analyzing customer ratings and sentiment, identifying trouble spots and trends, and taking decisive action before your customer base starts to hate you...Full Article »

Sending a new agent straight onto the phones following just a couple weeks of classroom training is the equivalent of sending an aspiring boxer to fight Mike Tyson following just a couple weeks with a punching bag. In both cases, the rookie is going to get knocked out, and their ear chewed off. Nevertheless, many call centers continue to throw their new-hires into the customer contact ring well...Full Article »