The report, Unlocking Business Intelligence in the Contact Center reveals opportunities for your organization to improve performance by leveraging business intelligence mined from data collected via contact center and CRM software.

As your partner in success, we’re excited to offer you a complimentary copy of this new report. Download it now to learn how best-in-class organizations were able to achieve:

• Cost savings of 45% per call,
• 27% higher first call resolution (FCR) rates, and
• Daily closure rate improvements nearly double the industry average.

» Access Your Complimentary Copy of the Report Now

» Learn How CallCopy Can Help You Achieve Best-in-Class Results

Please note that this $399 value expires 12/3/2010.

We were excited to be able to sponsor lunch for the U-Haul team and prizes for team members recognized in the following categories (based on interactions recorded with CallCopy software of course): Above and Beyond, Most Improved, Overcoming the Objections, Perfect Tone of Voice, and Sharp Listening.

Thank you to our fabulous customers for the opportunity to be a part of this exciting event!

As you enjoy the week and take part in a host of agent-appreciation events, remember to celebrate people skills with these six simple tips from customer services guru and people-skills coach Kate Nasser:

1) An authentic smile changes everything. On the phone, in person, and even the words you use in text, chat, emails, and your website design should smile at the customer.

Studies show that a physical smile can actually change the way you sound on the phone.  Use this technique to your advantage.

2) Treat people the way they want to be treated — not the way you want to be treated.

This is important to keep in mind as every customer is different!

3) Be the sun, not a thorn. Even with thorny difficult customers, be the sun.  Shine light on the problem to be solved and fix it.

There will always be difficult customers; remember to not take it personally and to shine on!

4) A plane flies well on auto-pilot mode. Customer service doesn’t! Adapt to each customer — personalize and localize including personality type, culture, geographic differences, and generational differences.

Not only is every customer unique, but every contact is unique is well.  Use all information at your disposal to create the best customer service experience possible – every time.

5) Empathize before you analyze! Show customers you care and they will care enough to help you help them.

In most cases, customers are more than willing to tell you what they want or need.  Listen to their suggestions and be considerate of any emotional responses.

6) Kindness transcends constraints. (Tristan Bishop) There are obstacles and challenges in customer service and technical support. Kindness to the customer ensures a continued bond while you work to overcome the challenges.

Kindness is key.  In customer service, in life.

For years, Americans have had their phone calls about credit card bills and broken cell phones handled by people in the Philippines or India. But American firms are starting to bring call centers back to the U.S. — and this time around, they are hiring more people to work in their own homes.

Home workers [...] represent one of the cheapest models for customer service. There are an estimated 60,000 people doing call center work from home.

[...] Industry watchers say so-called home sourcing will continue to grow as companies look for quality that used to be harder to afford.

We’ve seen many of our customers make this transition from brick-and-mortar call centers with higher overhead costs to work-at-home agents who are granted a sense of autonomy and independence.  It’s really a win-win situation for both the organization and the employee.

In fact, this shift in the market inspired our latest whitepaper, Building a Work-at-Home Program: What You Need to Know About the New Agent Spectrum.  This resource provides best practices for using workforce optimization applications to meet the demands of a shifting work environment, and empowers decision makers to deploy effective solutions.

• Download our Building a Work-at-Home Program: What You Need to Know About the New Agent Spectrum whitepaper.

In addition to a fantastic view, the festivities included a band, plenty of ice cream, and lots of time to socialize with CallCopy friends and their families before the “Ooohs” and “Ahhhs” ensued.

Happy belated Fourth of July from all of us here at CallCopy!

Whether your organization performs manual or automated quality assurance (QA), call center coaching forms are an integral component of an overall QA program.

Developing Call Center Coaching Forms

There are several components you’ll want to consider when developing call center coaching forms for your organization.  For example, your call center coaching forms and the weighting of different sections should mirror your organization’s customer service goals and priorities.  In addition, ensure that all requirements are met by involving staff from different areas and levels of the organization.  Regardless of these special considerations, there are certain components that all call center coaching forms should include, such as:

• A section analyzing the opening and closing of the call.
• Space to define strengths and weaknesses associated with system knowledge, resolution skills, product knowledge and familiarity with business processes.
• A section reviewing the overall communication skills of the agent.
• An area to identify applicable best practices and up-training opportunities.

Because these requirements overlap from industry to industry, many companies choose to base their call center coaching forms on a pre-existing or sample form (CallCopy provides several sample forms in our Contact Center QA Guide).

Once a form is completed, review the results with the agent, either by scheduling time with the agent for a coaching session, or by using a tool like CallCopy to share the evaluation with the agent.  Follow up with the agent directly, or use our tracking tools to ensure that the agent has reviewed the content.

Why Use Call Center Coaching Forms

Ultimately, the end goal of any QA program should be to facilitate increased customer satisfaction.  In addition, call center coaching forms can help improve agent productivity, ensure better transaction quality and reduce enterprise risk.

Learn more:

• cc: Quality | Quality Management
• cc: Agent | Agent Coaching & Training
• Download our Contact Center QA Guide
• Download our Improving the Customer Experience with Peer-based QM Whitepaper

With this in mind, CallCopy has partnered with Dick Bucci of Pelorus Associates to bring you 10 Secrets to Boosting First Call Resolution, a new eBook loaded with best practices on how to improve satisfaction and cut costs through increased FCR.

“First call resolution is an essential metric for any best-in-class contact center for two simple reasons: it drives customer satisfaction and reduces operating costs.”

This eBook provides an inside look at the many benefits associated with increased FCR, alongside real-world techniques on how to do so, including steps you can take to measure FCR, ways to identify the causes of repeat calls, insight on how FCR relates to customer satisfaction, and, of course, the 10 secrets to boosting FCR.

So, whether your focus is on the bottom line, keeping customers happy, or striking a balance between the two, chances are your organization can benefit from improving FCR.  Download the eBook now to get started.

» Download 10 Secrets to Boosting First Call Resolution

We spent part of the day this past Friday moving, unpacking and getting settled in at the new digs.  Everyone helped out to make the move go as smoothly as possible and we’re all happy to have more space with room to grow!

As you may know, we’ve seen rapid growth in recent years and this move is a direct result of our continued organizational expansion.  We’d like to thank our customers and partners for their continued support.

When the brunt of the storms rendered other Columbus, Ohio offices (and offices across the country, for that matter), non-operational, we were able to work from home thanks to our communications infrastructure and our own CallCopy software.  As the Avaya Insights blog points out, snow days don’t mean what they used to….

For many organizations, hazardous weather conditions have historically meant that when school districts close, parents are forced to either try to find a babysitter at the last minute or take the day off to watch their kids. Inclement weather also traditionally means longer, more dangerous commutes for employees, shorter work days, and above all else, lost productivity.

But that was then, and this is now: our software can record our work-at-home IP phones, and our tools can be accessed remotely via VPN. To ensure our continued operations, we utilize the same technologies that our customers rely upon.

One customer leveraging this functionality is Mohawk Flooring. Using CallCopy software alongside their Avaya Unified Communications infrastructure, Mohawk was able to ensure business continuity despite a crippling ice storm impacting their Dallas, Texas facility several months ago. Agents were able to work from home during the ordeal, eliminating risky commutes and decreased productivity.

To remain competitive, businesses need to be well-equipped to handle inclement weather or even more extreme scenarios such as a pandemic, flu outbreak or natural disaster.

Fortunately, CallCopy’s solutions allow businesses to rest easy knowing that their employees can maintain productivity regardless of the situation. Our contact recording and screen capture technology allows organizations to manage the performance of remote workers – so they remain both safe and productive.

You can trust that CallCopy is working hard to bring you the absolute best solutions and service possible.

“Having a relationship with customers rather than viewing [each one] as a number…that’s [CallCopy’s] number-one differentiation.”

As Ray Bohac, CallCopy’s president and CEO put it in an email to the CallCopy team, “Time and time again, we’ve won customers not only as a result of our first-rate solution offering, but also because we provide something unique and rare in today’s business world – a solid relationship with our prospects and customers.”

“[CallCopy is] beginning to encroach upon the Tier 1 revenue stream, thanks to solid technology, a much-lower price point, and a higher level of support.”

Since the beginning, innovation has been one of CallCopy’s core values.  Our product roadmap is driven by customer suggestions and feature requests – meaning that it’s customers like you that influence and shape the solutions we build.

We would like to thank you for your business, your support, and for the part you play in making CallCopy an industry leader.

» Read the press release
» View the CRM magazine article
» Learn more about CallCopy’s WFO solution