Reports, White Papers and Latest Resources

Agents are one of the largest portions of your contact center investment. Optimizing their time is vital.

For years now, hybrid work has increasingly become the new normal for millions of knowledge workers around the world.

This new eBook examines the shifting AI technology landscape for CRM, customer data, contact centre and digital operations, and suggests that – rather than technology – it is disconnected customer journeys and silos that now represent the barriers to evolution.

Your new hire has accepted your offer and confirmed their start date. But will they show up for their first day? The odds might not be in your favor. While first-day ghosting is considered a widespread problem, it is not a problem, per se; rather, it is a result of poor pre-boarding processes. But organizations have the power to turn this around, and Centrical’s Pre-boarding Cheat Sheet can help.

The guide gives a definitive view of the state of the art in workforce optimisation. It reveals the products available, the realities of implementation and predictions of what the future holds.

The way we do business has changed. The shift away from in-person service has driven greater reliance on contact centers. And customer service representatives (CSRs) are now working in a hybrid capacity — supporting customers from both the office and from home. Making this transition was difficult, but we’ve learned a lot.

The average turnover rate at contact centers recently hit 30%. It’s time to focus on agent engagement. In 2022, the average agent turnover rate climbed as high as 30% for large customer service organizations. With the cost to replace an agent averaging more than $14,000, you can’t afford to stay stuck in this cycle.

Building better relationships with your customers starts with employees. For call centres, there’s a direct correlation between their performance, job satisfaction and high turnover.

The cost-of-living crisis has put pressure on contact centres to do more with less, as their overheads increase, while their customers become more demanding than ever – increasingly turning to their service providers for support as they struggle with their finances too. So where do you start? This webinar will help you learn more about where your current technology, people, and processes could be holding you back – with tips and tricks to optimise your contact centre efficiency.

In a world where consumers seek swift resolutions to their inquiries, self-service has emerged as a transformative solution. Even prior to the pandemic’s long customer service wait times, a surge in interest was evident. The potential for self-service to benefit both companies and customers is immense, with enhanced digital adoption and soaring customer satisfaction metrics.

The world’s best contact centres realise the value of data-driven feedback, both in real time and post-interaction.

Your contact centre is a critical part of the customer experience. After all, your team has the power to turn a customer’s problem into a positive interaction that builds satisfaction and loyalty. This can sometimes feel like solving a puzzle that’s missing pieces.

More than ever, businesses need to operate with speed, agility and scalability, all while remaining productive and secure. The challenge is meeting these ambitions without compromising on the most important thing of all: the experience of your customers and agents. In fact, their expectations are higher than ever before.

Contact center business process outsourcers (BPOs or “outsourcers”) have similar goals and challenges to in-house contact centers - and some additional ones of their own. They’ve got to keep several plates spinning at all times. Do they have a secret sauce that helps them to achieve that?

An estimated half of all customers engage on three to five channels during each journey toward making a purchase or resolving a request. Those interactions generate a lot of data you can use to improve efficiency.

The days of rigid adherence to a 9-5 working day are long gone. But this brave new world comes at a price. Offices are places where we chat and gossip, make friendships, build teams, enjoy lunches out and after-work drinks. They are also the ideal spaces for spontaneous meetings, overheard insights or ad hoc brainstorming sessions.

Today AI is embedded within every aspect of our lives. Most of the things we take for granted like asking Alexa to play our favourite music or unlocking our smartphones with facial recognition, all have an AI layer beneath them. The most difficult problem to solve in the AI world today is understanding human language.

Spreadsheets had their day? Modern service centers require modern solutions. Spreadsheets may have been the tool of choice for forecasting and scheduling when contact centres were voice-only.

AI has the potential to address the biggest challenges today’s businesses are facing.

CX Realities 2023, is the third in our hugely popular CX Realities series, which takes recent research to give you an expert view on CX in the current market.

What is customer experience (CX)? It is the perception that your customers form of your organization from the interactions they have throughout their journey with you. Think about companies that have given you a great customer experience and how you recommend them to your friends.

In today’s business world, companies are in a constant struggle to outshine their rivals. In the midst of this competition, where customers exhibit reduced brand loyalty and employees grapple with escalating stress levels, the significance of focusing on employee engagement and their performance matters immensely.

Emotion makes the customer experience memorable. What makes a customer remember your brand above all is the emotion they will have felt, positive or negative. The emotional dimension is therefore a determining factor in your customer relationship.

Based on surveys of over 400 Contact Centers each year, this white paper looks at the reality of how AI – artificial intelligence – is being used to improve customer contact in organizations.

For years, artificial intelligence (AI) has been touted to handle many issues with customer experience and organisational efficiency. There truly are countless ways to use AI to improve customer service and experience.

The customer support industry has seen its share of changes in the last few years. Digital channels have skyrocketed in popularity. Employees are working remotely. Technology has evolved away from just phone queues and IVRs.

Do you want your organisation to have better people and schedule efficiency, greater workforce agility, higher agent and customer satisfaction?

As the world emerges from the pandemic and faces the realities of today’s macroeconomic environment, delivering high quality customer experience has never been more important for companies.

Contact centres are at the forefront of remote-based work and Artificial Intelligence — modernisations that are here to stay. But how does the agent of the future fit in, who are they, and how do we activate them?

This guide sets out how utilities, and their wider supplier ecosystems, can re-connect with customers through the smart use of technology within customer service.

In a difficult economy, successful contact centres will use insight, technology and agile management to solve problems without undermining performance or stifling growth. In this report, we detail the results of our survey, and suggest ways for contact leaders to meet their goals. At its core, the research shows that internal collaboration, better workforce management and top draw technology can square the circle of better service at reduced cost.

As the industry continued to adapt to the post-pandemic world, 2023 also saw fresh challenges emerge – from driving the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) agenda forward to reacting to the cost-of-living crisis and the arrival of ChatGPT.

The days of using Net Promoter Score as the ultimate in measuring customer loyalty are fading fast. That’s because it gives you only a limited snapshot of a customer’s journey.

In today’s world, your communications infrastructure is more crucial than ever to your ultimate business success. Customers in all sectors expect suppliers to be ultra-responsive, accessible around the clock and able to use their information responsibly to enhance the overall service experience.

The best place to implement AI is where it can handle things people can’t – or don’t have time to.

You need to create an environment where your staff are empowered and encouraged to give their best every day. Combined with the fact that switching jobs every now and then is becoming the norm, retaining the best people and developing them is quite the challenge...

The travel and hospitality industry experiences an attrition rate of over 80% annually, with early attrition and first-day ghosting significant contributors to these statistics. How can companies throughout the industry curb early attrition while setting their new hires up for long-term success?

This guide outlines how technology investment across customer service can enable local authorities to achieve their objectives to lower costs, strengthen public trust and increase efficiency.

Contact centres are often plagued by disgruntled and demoralised agents. It’s an industry blighted by absenteeism and high attrition rates. But it doesn’t have to be this way. This white paper explores how contact centres can finally become employers of choice, by engaging, empowering and enabling their staff.

Almost every contact centre is under constant pressure to perform within tight budget constraints, with many even expected to “do more with less” year on year. But with the contact centre facing increased demand from customers as they struggle with the cost-of-living crisis and more, this is just not sustainable. That’s why it’s so important for contact centre leaders to proactively look for opportunities to simplify and automate time-consuming tasks to help ease the strain – and make sure they aren’t being left behind when it comes to the latest technological advancements in the industry. Don’t know where to start? Watch our latest webinar to hear top tips and advice on how to get started with simplifying and automating the contact centre – without compromising on quality of service.

Measuring call center Quality Assurance is necessary to improve NPS call center metrics and other customer-driven experience analytics that directly correlate with revenue growth.

Customer experience (CX) leaders have weathered an unfair share of change since the start of the decade, including a sudden and unyielding demand for optimized voice and digital engagement, a talent shortage of epic proportions, and competitive disruption from players many never saw coming.

Safeguarding measures at businesses have taken hold due to economic pressures. Yet contact centers can do more with less without paying the high price of unhappy, disengaged employees.

An increasing number of organizations are recognizing the impact of their frontline employees’ experience on the customer experience and are modernizing their approach to one that is human-focused and employee-centric.

When your employees need to be productive from anywhere, professional headsets make the difference between real connection and wasted time.

The long wait is over! Forrester has published its ranking of 11 software solution providers in the conversation intelligence space, specifically for customer service.

Higher call volumes, more complex requests and overburdened employees are driving more BPOs toward digital transformation. But just what does that mean—and how can outsourced service providers ensure their digital initiatives are making the right kind of impact?

AI and automation are on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but how do these technologies actually help make your contact center more efficient?

DMG assesses the state of the market today for workforce optimization and workforce engagement management solutions, including trends, challenges, and projections. WEM solutions with AI capabilities transform CX by providing many of the automation, engagement, analytics, and optimization capabilities that businesses need in order to deliver outstanding and customized customer experiences.

Are you greenlighting an upgrade to your current contact center technology and looking for a solution that offers an amazing customer experience to improve satisfaction, drive sales, and boost loyalty?

When it comes to business communications, cloud technology is replacing legacy, on-premises communications platforms one by one. Small businesses and multinational organizations alike are benefiting from the rapid innovation and lower IT overhead achieved via the cloud.

Call centers are essential to everything from building brand loyalty to improving efficiency and productivity and facilitating growth.

This guide is explains how (re)building trust starts with providing an excellent customer service that meets the needs of residents.

Discover a transformative journey like no other with this comprehensive eBook from Talkdesk.

Are you taking care of all the elements of the forecast? Are Planning and Operations teams working together for success? Are you delivering efficient schedules? Do you focus on Employee Engagement?

This Workforce Management Platform Request for Proposal Template is editable and allows companies to collect information on Demand Forecasting and Capacity Planning, Scheduling, Realtime Management, Reporting, API, Integrations, Configuration and End user access.

Understanding how to get started and choosing the right conversational AI and automation solution can be a daunting task. Contact center leaders are challenged to see beyond the buzzwords and hype to the practical, yet sophisticated advances in conversational AI that can help them transform their operations with automation.

In light of sustained competitive pressures and demanding customer and employee expectations, CIOs and CFOs are increasingly scrutinising their organisation’s infrastructure investments.

We live in a hyper-connected world in which employees and customers communicate from any location, through any channel. And customers expect effortless resolution to their issues.

It’s easy to get lost in all the data that comes with contact center management, but there’s a way to easily identify, track, and analyze the metrics that reflect how your contact center contributes to the business strategy.

Interaction Analytics has become a critical technology in helping brands unveil insights that are core to improving both advisor and customer experiences.

This eBook is designed for contact center management teams who are striving to create a more positive, efficient, and productive work environment, are focused on improving customer service and are ready to ramp up their internal Quality Assessment process.

This eBook provides a deep dive into the top seven trends that will affect contact centers in 2023 and the role that workforce management plays in rising to the opportunities and challenges.

In March and April of 2023, Assembled surveyed hundreds of WFM and customer support professionals across more than a dozen industries to ask them about their benchmarks, challenges, and priorities both now and in the year ahead.

The advent of generative AI marks a dramatic leap forward in the realm of automation. Application leaders responsible for customer service should partner with technology vendors to evaluate and adopt the generative AI product innovations that deliver the most value in the near term.

Traditional WFM methods of forecasting and scheduling are based on outdated paradigms from phone calls. Meet the digital reality of today with NICE True to Interval (TTI) analytics, which take into account asynchronous, periodic interactions for more accurate contact center staffing.

Your people are the heartbeat of your business, care for them and they will better serve your customers. Supporting the wellbeing of your employees is now an obligation - not just a ‘nice to have’.

A call center is a dynamic organization - always growing, always improving - for the benefit of the brand. The people who take on this important work should be trained - and recognized - to further the organization. Gap analysis employed by managers is the best route for call center agents to improve their own performance and, ultimately, grow the business.

An effective forecast for an operations team is like having a healthy heart. Your forecast takes in data and pumps out information and guidance for your scheduling and service level management functions. Everything is predicated on getting the forecast right.

Forrester were asked to evaluate the transformational potential of conversation intelligence software in the contact center. Forrester conducted an online survey, commissioned by Uniphore, of 317 customer service strategy decision-makers at organizations in North America and Europe to explore this topic.

The customer experience equation involves more complexity than ever before, from omnichannel challenges to the pace of change faced by customers and the issues with which they need assistance. In contact centres, call volumes are up, attrition is at an all-time high and artificial intelligence solutions have often fallen below the expectations of leaders who implemented them. Contact centre leaders who invest in the right areas, from agents to technology and specific artificial intelligence solutions, can get ahead and offer increased customer satisfaction, while reducing costs and keeping agents happier and more productive no matter where they’re working from.

The impact of our experiences, both positive and negative, can shape our opinions and relationships for a long time. Customers will remember how a brand made them feel far longer than just the deals and offers they provided.

Interaction analytics enables organisations to surface actionable insights across 100% of their recorded interactions, to identify and quantify issues to improve advisor and customer experience.

The advanced capabilities of speech analytics and associated use cases are making organisations wake up to the value held in their call recordings. However, despite the potentially game changing ability to tap into the rich insights from the analysis of audio data at scale, challenges remain.

Conversation automation solutions enable sales and marketing teams to automatically engage, qualify, nurture and schedule meetings with leads by using AI-powered virtual assistants and chatbots.

The degree to which contact centers will be impacted by looming recessionary pressures and ongoing labor shortages is yet to be fully known. However, it’s safe to predict that contact center leaders will be forced to do more with less—less financial flexibility, less talent, and less room for error.

Customer expectations have heightened in the wake of rising living costs, with many organisations missing the opportunity to provide personalised, proactive support to those who need it.

Quality management processes identify and address factors impacting contact center and BPO metrics such as customer satisfaction and retention. But chances are, the experience driving your QM process is diminishing its impact.

The “UK Contact Centre Decision-Makers’ Guide (2023 – 20th edition)” is a major annual report studying the performance, operations, technology and HR aspects of UK contact centre operations.

Today, customers have seemingly endless options to contact businesses and get their questions answered.