Jacada Blog

Survey says...

In a recent survey, nearly 70% of customer service organizations report they’ve invested in a knowledgebase for their contact center, but that same percentage report that the knowledge base does not contain the information necessary for agents to solve customer issues. For companies with more than 10,000 employees, 43% report that information that contact center agents need to access to resolve customer issues resides in more than 20 systems.

Other stats include:

• Respondents listed case handling time (50%), customer satisfaction (49%), and first contact resolution (FCR)(49%) as the top three challenges
• 30% of participants estimated the impact of knowledge base operational challenges at somewhere between $100,000 to $1 million per year, including 6% who put the cost at $1 to $5 million
• For companies with 251-500 agents, 83 percent cannot find the information in the knowledge base

These stats point to the need for a unified desktop or process optimization solution that streamlines the multiple applications a customer service rep needs. Making a few changes can lead to effective agents and satisfied customers. Check out Jacada's unified desktop solution - Jacada WorkSpace integrates across multiple channels of communication and allows your CSRs to concentrate on the customer interaction rather than the navigation of the contact center desktop applications and complicated systems.

Are you listening to me?

Much has been written about how agents communicate with customers over the phone and how the social customer is changing the game in terms of customer engagement.

But before we even begin to engage the customer, the agent must listen, process, and react (or not react at all) to the customer's pain or issue. As a customer, how many times have you thought, or even said, "you are not listening to my problem or issue." To address these matters, let's break down the art of listening into its two most basic forms: active and passive...

Read the rest of the article here (written by Brian Jameson and posted on Customer Management IQ).  Also, check out this Jacada webcast focused on how social meda and location-based services have changed the rules of customer engagement.  As always, you can find many other resources and articles at Jacada.com too.

The benefits of call center technology

I found this article on CRMsearch.com (How Call Centers Benefit from CRM Software) and it gives a good general overview of why a unified desktop system is needed by call centers.  One concept discussed is that by tracking customer information, companies can better understand the habits of their customers as well as predict future behaviors.  This is very important in customer service and can be a 'difference maker' for most companies.  Having the ability to anticipate a customer's wants and needs (as well as resolve any issues quickly and effectively) is the reason customers stay with a company for years and years. With the advent of social media, bad customer service spreads fast. 

Check out the entire article here and for more information about Jacada's desktop and process optimization products and how they can help your company, take a tour here. 

Five out of five business analysts agree! Call center scripting makes life easier.

Make a significant difference in customer service operations by integrating an effective call center scripting tool. And it just so happens that Jacada has one!  Jacada Interaction Manager(JIM) is our call flow and scripting tool that enables you to develop and maintain complex rules-based process flows for your business.

Contact centers can build and deploy customer interactions, dynamic call flows and business rules quickly and easily. The call center scripting tool feature enables reports which describe the most frequent call types, most frequent paths through the call flow, and bottlenecks and trouble spots. It is a tool that has been developed to allow a Business Analyst to create and maintain the rules and scripted flows and make changes as needed by the business. Scripts are easily developed using a drag-and-drop visual modeling tool.

For more information about call center scripting, click here or you can download a sample of JIM for 30 days.  Click to download.

Optimizing Agent Performance in a Real-time World

The tools and processes to optimize agent performance are multifaceted — addressing the desktop to handle the contact, and performance tools to measure and monitor. Check out this article from TMCnet.com answering common questions on how to improve agent performance in a contact center environment.

Read the entire column here and then take a look at Jacada's solutions for desktop optimization to see if they are right for your company.

Six customer experience excuses exploded

Leading expert Peter Massey sets the record straight on customer service, contact centres and customer experience. Massey speaks with MyCustomer.com about some of the issues facing customer service departments, contact centres and businesses at large when it comes to the customer experience. 

'How do we stop doing dumb things to our customers and our people?' - that's the mantra of Peter Massey, one of the leading figures in the world of customer service and experience. For the last 10 years, Massey's work has focused on reducing customer effort, exploring why companies cause customers to contact them at all and how to optimise customer experiences.

Read more to find out how to remedy 6 common customer experience excuses. Check out Jacada.com for information on products and services that can help the contact centre. No more excuses!

How to master the four customer experience competencies

Check out this great blog by Bruce Temkin, Customer Experience Transformist & Managing Partner, Temkin Group, posted on MyCustomer.com. 

Bruce looks at the findings from a recent survey of companies and outlines what we can learn about efforts to become more 'customer-centric.'

In a recent survey of large companies, he found that 92% of European companies are putting more focus on customer-centric culture this year than they did last year. This represents a much higher level of attention than in North America.

Read the entire article here. Also, check out a webcast featuring Bruce Temkin as part of the Jacada Analyst Series - Turning Contact Centers into Customer Experience Leaders

Don't let 'madvocates' hurt your contact center's reputation

Customers are more apt to publicize negative customer experiences than any positive experiences and those negative comments can spread like wildfire via social networks.

Read the entire blog here from Customer Contact News. Jacada products can help keep both your customers and customer service agents happy. Making your agents more productive and efficient will lead to better customer service, loyal customers and hopefully, no more 'madvocates!'

What not to do!

Oops!  Nothing stings more than bad customer service which can result in a loss of  revenue, reputation and confidence. Poor customer service ultimately resides in the hands of the agent on the line, but really starts way before the call comes in.  Lack of process and technology to handle the calls makes it quite a feat to keep the customer happy and agents end up scrambling to keep up. 

Read this article from TMCnet.com as one writer experiences a breakdown in customer service.