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Join me for an exciting episode where I take a deep dive into the heart of my latest book, False Hustle. Many contact centers and CX leaders are unknowingly sabotaging their own success by focusing on misguided efforts to appear productive.
In this episode, I’ll be sharing insights on how to break the cycle of false hustle and transform customer experience from the ground up. We’ll explore how to strike the perfect balance between the efficiency of AI and the irreplaceable human touch.
Tune in for:
Practical strategies to improve your contact center
Real-world examples of CX transformation
Actionable advice to make your customer service a genuine powerhouse of satisfaction and loyalty
Whether you're a contact center pro or just curious about the future of CX, this conversation is one you won’t want to miss
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
In this episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek," we dive into the challenging world of dealing with angry customers.
Discover five powerful, actionable techniques that can transform heated interactions into opportunities for building customer loyalty. Perfect for contact center managers and agents alike, this episode covers:
The Empathy + Action Combo
The Interruption Buster
The Ownership Approach
The Reframing Technique
The Calm Questioning Method
Learn how to diffuse tension, regain control of the conversation, and turn frustrated customers into satisfied ones. Packed with real-world examples and practical tips, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to elevate their customer service game. Tune in to transform the way you handle difficult customer interactions!
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Dive into the transformative journey of OttoQa, where we've uncovered the profound impact of prompts in elevating customer experience (CX) quality assurance (QA) processes. This podcast (taken from a Linkedin Live Event) brings the insights and methodologies from our extensive experience directly to you, focusing on the art and science of crafting effective prompts for QA automation.
Explore a rich discussion on both the fundamental and advanced strategies that have revolutionized our approach to prompts. This episode is designed not just to share knowledge but to inspire action. We encourage listeners to experiment with these techniques in their operations, building confidence in the technology and its application before making any significant investments or deployments.
Whether you're aiming to refine your CX prompting strategies or are curious about their potential to transform your service center, this podcast serves as your guide to unlocking the power of effective prompting. Join us in discovering the methods that have not only propelled our journey forward but also have the potential to redefine the landscape of customer service excellence.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
I am always thinking about how can my contact center be different? How can we have better quality, how can we as management engage our employees better?
One of the thoughts that I had when I was out sick with Covid, was doing a Reddit style Ask Me Anything (AMA) and having all the employees do just that, and me anything they want.
It was AWESOME!
So many times we just assume that people understand why we do what we do, why this policy is in effect, why we don't allow that. If we dont explain then may times there is the assumpltion of "thats just how it's always been done" or " they just want to be mean", or even "that makes no sense!"
This allowed me to explain questions, policies, procedures, and topics that I did t realize needed to be discussed in more depth. It was a great experience and really enhanced our corporate communication culture.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
This episode is a little different than what we normally do, much more personal. 10 days before recording this, I tested positive for covid, this at a time when Covid has hit our Expivia contact center family petty hard, much harder than in 2020.
I want to give you my perspective on how I dealt with this and how it changed my perception of my WFH agents and my thought process on dealing with agents, even WFH agents that test positive. This was a big wake-up call for me.
I also want to talk through the vaccine mandate that will be coming into play for many of us the first week of January, how we are dealing with team members that don't want to get vaccinated, policies that we are having to put in place, and just overall how we are dealing with the mandate.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
One of my roles as the CEO here at Expivia, is to make calls on where I see technology and CX intersect to try to position us to be ahead of the curve.
Facebook (at the time of this recording) just announced they are changing their name. The name is a small piece of what they are doing. One of the largest companies in the world is changing its entire business model to focus on the Metaverse. This should open all of our eyes as tho what is coming, it definitely opened mine.
In this episode, we look at customer experience how the metaverse, VR, AR, and some other newer platforms coming to play in Customer Experience 3.0
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Covid had changed the way many of us operate our contact centers. In this episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek!" we take a look back at where we were and all the policies, procedures we changed, the technology we now utilize, and the engagement that we have evolved.
This is a great episode for you to take a look at your internal operation and see what areas you can improve with all the changes in the workforce and technology we have all seen.
If you would like to appear on "Advice from a Call Center Geek! make sure you shoot tom an email at tlaird@expivia.net!
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
The Ultimate Guide To Contact Center Outsourcing Episode...we created it! This episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek!" is designed to give you everything you need before you outsource.
What to look out for, what to negotiate, pricing... it's all here.
This episode will give you everything you need to make the right decision about outsourcing (or not to outsource) your contact center.
If you would like to appear on "Advice from a Call Center Geek! make sure you shoot tom an email at tlaird@expivia.net!
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
What should your service level KPI's be in your contact center?
In this episode, the voice of the Geek, Tom Laird, gives the "official" "Advice from a Call Center Geek!" SLA benchmarks for Voice, Chat, Email, QA, and Sentiment.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
In this week's episode, we take a look at a really cool team-building exercise that I have done here at Expivia. We sat down with some of our management and HR team and tried to discuss the top 10 customer service skills that an associate would need to be a world-class agent.
The discussion was lively and fun! Every organization will have a different set of ten, but going through this exercise you really were able to see what some of your management most value and what are they missing as well.
Well worth the time and effort to go through this exercise.
Once you do, make sure you post your top 10 on LinkedIn with the #callcentergeektop10
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
In this episode of Advice from a Call Center Geek! we dig deep into 13 questions that all contact center leadership teams should be able to answer and have a plan for.
We dig deep into these questions to start anyone in management or working on the first lines of a contact center thinking on how they can improve as individuals and as a call center management team.
Some of these questions we discuss include: Do your supervisors all manage differently? What is tolerated or not tolerated on the call center floor? How does management treat peers? Do your supervisors all manage differently?
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
We had the privilege of talking to NICE CXone (inContact) CEO Paul Jarman on this episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek!"
In what will be one of our cornerstone episodes, we had the opportunity to get into the mind of a true CX leader and visionary.
We talk about the state of AI, speech analytics, changing customer preference, the oncoming digital transformation, and where he sees the contact center and CX going in the next 5 to 10 years.
The discussion also covered the story on how inContact was started as a seller of unified long distance in the late '90s, through the transition of becoming one of the first CCAAS companies, all the way through the merger with NICE and where the company is today.
Very interesting discussion for any call center geek, great insights into where we are now, and where are going in the near future!
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
You just got the job as the new call center manager, you are super excited!!! But then you realize, " I AM THE NEW CALL CENTER MANAGER!!!!", what do I do!
In this episode, we take a look at what the first three weeks should look like for a new call center manager. how to earn trust and respect, creating a culture to be proud of, and getting your team to row in the same direction!
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
This podcast is based on the presentation I delivered in Miami at the "CX Under the Sun Event" to more than 100 CX professionals who are just beginning their journey with CX AI transformation.
During the presentation, I share my views on what is considered "real" regarding AI in the current market, what to be cautious about, and how to initiate AI integration within your organizations.
You won't find any unnecessary content or theoretical discussions here. It's all about the essential tools you should start exploring now and the reasons these tools need further development, regardless of what you might hear from AI technology providers.
DM me on Linkedin if you would like the deck from this talk!
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Speech analytics is an extremely powerful tool in creating a positive agent and customer experience. sentiment, trending keywords, even frustration level and be monitored and tracked.
What we all have been waiting for though is real time analytics. Technology that will help and empower agents in call.
Well we have found a call center leader and a forward-thinking company that is doing just that.
Balto CEO Marc Bernstein joins Tom in discussion in the state of analytics, the technology behind it, how they are doing agent assist, and the technology behind their August 9th launch of real time coaching and real time QA.
The ability for technology to be one actually scoring calls may not be science fiction after all.
Fascinating episode on a company that is leading the way in the speech analytics space. We are very excited to present this episode.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
What Is Customer Service Experience? "Customer service experience is the opinion your customer forms about the quality of the service you provide."
Blocking and tackling. Fundamentals. This is what makes us excel at things that are important to us. In this episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek!" we take a look at 8 topics that can instantly and easily improve your organization's CX.
1. The Tone is the Message 2. Branding 3. Motivate 4. Technology and your associates 5. Customer Immersion 6. Fun! 7. Customer Journey Inspection 8. Appropriate Staffing ( I know, I know...easier said than done sometimes :)
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Back to the basics of what you all love about the podcast! Let's talk about contact center coaching, how to improve it, have a plan for it, and improve our culture with it.
Proper coaching is the most underrated way to improve (or ruin) the culture of your contact center.
In this episode we talk about 10 Tips on Improving your Contact Center Coaching:
1. Praise Publicly But Coach Privately 2. Sandwich Negative Feedback with Positive Feedback 3. Be Specific 4. Tie Performance to Data 5. Have Your Agent Assess Themselves 6. Role Play 7. Discuss Roadblocks 8. Redefine KPI Goals 9. Understand Expectations 10. Remonitor
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Conversational AI...a topic that confuses some and fascinates others.
In today's episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek!", we have the opportunity to sit down with two industry leaders that are shaping how AI impacts customers and contact centers, especially contact centers that are sales and lead gen focused.
Aktify CEO Kreg Peeler and CRO Craig Daly, join us in a conversation tailored for those looking to learn where conversational AI is today, where it's going in the future, and some of the amazing use issues that Aktify is solving day in and day out through its use.
Very interesting discussion from two leaders that are shaping the power of what Conversational AI is and where it is going. JOIN US!
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
In this episode, "A Day in the life of a Contact Center Supervisor", we talk about what a full day looks like for our middle management.
From greeting reps, planning goals, monitoring/coaching, to the end of the day synopsis, we talk about what we have found to be the best way for our supervisors to handle their day to add the most value to our associates and to our organization.
1. Check Closeouts 2. Greet Reps 3. KPI Team 4. Individual meetings 5. Staying Relevant 6. Monitoring/Coaching 7. Dealing with issues that may arise 8. Checklist 9. Daily Synopsis 10. Weekly Agent Analysis
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
It seems there is a big struggle to get people back to work post-pandemic. For various reasons, many service sector jobs, including the contact center are finding it harder and harder to find the quality help need to staff appropriately
In this episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek" we dig into proven hiring techniques to try to help all our listeners through this workforce shortage.
We talk about what social platforms work the best, how to best use them, and what type of budget do you need.
Many other options as well are talked through such as how to set up an employee referral program, using your present workforce to mass post, and looking at many other options that will hopefully give you some ideas to increase your call center hiring capacity not just for now but for the future as well
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Announcement- Expivia Virtual Reality Contact Center Concept Expivia is going to be attempting to build out a 100% fully Virtual Reality Customer Service Contact Center, and we want to show you how we are doing it, in fact, we want you to be a part of it!
The goal is to have a 100% functioning POC that allows live customers to interact with LIVE virtual customer service Expivia team members in a fully virtual and brandable world.
We will be posting videos/blogs/pics multiple times a week to show you how we are doing this, our mistakes, and our triumphs a look behind the scenes at everything we are doing. We will not hide anything...
Please take the time to like our Facebook channel and follow us on our other social outlets!
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
We have the honor of having in the "Michael Jordan" of Contact Center Solutions, an encyclopedia of call center platforms, the players in the space, and the technology that is out there, Brandon Knight VP Advanced Solutions- Contact Center at Telarus.
This is a can't miss episode for anyone looking to possibly change their call center technology or platform, or are interested in the main players in the space and how they operate differently.
We discuss the established players (Nice CXone, 5/9, TalkDesk...), well known premise-based brands and their journey to the cloud (Mitel, Avaya...), and up and comers ( Edify, Ujet, Amazon Connect...).
We talk about the difference between platforms that operate on micro-services compared to a cluster model.
How AI will really impact the contact center.
What new technologies are coming to a contact center near you that you need to understand?
Lastly, we discuss tips and ideas to make your call center investment worth every penny.
A ton of value here for all Call Center Geeks!
If you are interested or need help discussing any call center software needs please feel free to email Tom Laird at: tlaird@expivia.net
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Customer experience is a multi-tiered onion that has so many different layers. In this episode we take another look at call quality, we define that are the pieces that make up quality calls, and then we give an in depth look at 10 Ways to Improve Your Call Center Quality and Monitoring.
These entail:
1. Investing in a Speech Analytics Software
2. Set Up a QA Team
3. Set Call Quality Standards
4. Creating a Scorecard
5. Monitor the Quality of Live Calls /Evaluate the Quality of Recorded Calls
6. Making the Agent Part of the Evaluation
7. Identifying the Pain Points
8. Document the Results of Call Quality Monitoring
9. Use QA as a Management Teaching Tool
10. Commit to Regular Call Quality Monitoring
Join our SMS Text Group, Text "Call Center" to 814.247.0366
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
When we go in to consult for a call center that is not operating at its peak, there are about 35 different aspects of the center that we look at.
In this episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek!", we give you the top 11 call center topics that you need to look at and how to break them down to do your own process improvement plan.
Many call center managers get overwhelmed if their center is underperforming. In this episode, we show you have to look at small pieces of your center to make constant improvements over the long haul to remake your center.
You can hire a call center consultant to help you, or just listen to this episode and put a plan in yourself!
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
As we step into 2024, the realms of Customer Experience (CX), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and contact centers are poised at the brink of transformative change.
Let's explore the exciting, realistic predictions that are shaping the future of these industries. These are part prediction and part wish list for what I would like 2024 to become.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
What is the proper way to pay your hard-working call center associates?
In this episode, we talk about making sure we have agent and management salary paths for our call center workers to go down to make sure we are showing the proper progression and appreciation for all the work that they do on the front lines.
There are a million different ways to do this but hopefully, this will give you the framework of building out a pay structure in your call center that matched your culture.
Join our SMS Text Group, Text "Call Center" to 814.247.0366
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
These are not just technologies to be ignored as passing fads. There is a wave that is coming to the call center and to CX that you need to know about, you cannot put your head in the sand and hope it goes away.
In this episode, we talk specifically about the role of blockchain in how call centers and service centers will operate in the near future. We discuss the changes that are coming to sending/receiving payments, sending/receiving products, smart contracts, customer record keeping, PCI, and data security all because of blockchain technology.
It's coming, if you are a call center leader, you need to start to get yourself informed, hopefully, this is your start.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Our new Linkedin group on call center operations tips and tactics is now live! You asked for it, you got it! MISSION: The purpose of this group is to engage with call center executives, managers, supervisors, and associates and provide ways to run their call center more effectively. We want to use the themes of the "Advice from a Call Center Geek!" podcast to try to improve the agent and customer experience in call centers throughout the world.
RULES: This is a group whose sole purpose is to prove tips and tactics on helping others improve their contact center operation. Any solicitation for products or services will be deleted from the group and the member will no longer be allowed to post. Please keep all topics related to best practices and questions on call center ops.
We are very excited to have a place where we all can talk openly about any help or ideas to make our call centers better without any sales pressure.
We hope that you will join and add to the conversation.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
How many supervisors, trainers, team leads, and HR staff should you have to manage your call center?
In this episode, we take a look at all aspects of management to associates ratio and make sure you are neither under nor over-staffing your management roles.
Also, we are introducing our new "Advice from a Call Center Geek, Call Center Ops Tips and Tactics" Linkedin Group. If you are reading this, you are a call center geek! The purpose of this group is to engage with call center executives, managers, supervisors, and associates and provide ways to run their call center more effectively. We want to use the themes of the "Advice from a Call Center Geek!" podcast to try to improve the agent and customer experience in call centers throughout the world.
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
In episode 103 we talk about the touchy subject of discipline policies in your call center and what should happen when you have to put an associate on an improvement plan.
We talk about the touchpoints that should happen in the first 30, 60, and 90 days of a new hire, how to be proactive with your associates when it comes to discipline, and what should happen if your culture thresholds are not being met and an associate needs to go on an improvement plan what that should look like.
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
In this week's episode, we dive deep into a really awesome call center motivation that we are doing here at Expivia. This will hopefully give you some thoughts on setting up something like this in your call center.
We also added in a bonus motivation/game that we did today as well that has blown away our expectations when it comes to call center rep engagement.
Love to know your thoughts on this!
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Here is a little something different. in this episode we infuse. call center operations, entrepreneurship, and covid all rolled into one! The host of "Advice from a Call Center Geek!", Tom Laird, had the opportunity to be on the radio with host Joel Natalie of TalkErie.
We discuss how our call center started, what technologies and employee strategies we are using, and how we have grown to a national presence.
We would really like your feedback on this episode as it's truly from the heart and will allow you behind the scenes into what running a call center is really like!
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
In this episode, we take a look behind the curtain of our call center here at Expivia to talk about what tools and technology we are using day in and day out and what tools are important in your call center based on the size and goals of the center.
This is an interesting episode for anyone who wants to understand how all the call center technologies of omnichannel, analytics, WFM, HR, QA all work together in unison to enhance the customer experience.
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
We want to set the table for 2021 and our next 100 episodes by asking you how we can do more to add value, and we have some thoughts. We want and need your opinion in this episode.
Also, we take some time to talk about the interesting work we have been doing with the national push to schedule covid vaccinations. It's an amazing story of how the call center has been helping!
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Do you and you care about your associates on a personal level? I'm not saying you are best friends and go out on the town, but do the reps know that you as a manager care about them?
Respect is something that today's generation really takes to heart, and we need to be able to provide respect to make sure our culture is working at its peak.
In this episode, we talk about "Psychic Income, that that is, and seven ways to show respect for your call center associates.
These include:
Showing interest in your call center associates as people
Coaching and reprimanding in private
Celebrating in public
Talking about advancement
Why/how to need to keep team meetings positive
Having reps talk positively about other reps
Keeping management office hours
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Join me, Tom Laird, and John Coulter from Five Star Call Centers, as we journey into a conversation on "Advice from a Call Center Geek."
🔍 Key Highlights:
𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰/𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸: What does the horizon look like for contact centers in the next two years? We're discussing trends, challenges, and opportunities that await!
𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 & 𝗥𝗢𝗜: Which technologies are set to revolutionize contact centers? We're exploring the tools that promise the highest utility and return on investment.
𝗢𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗲/𝗡𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗮𝘃𝗲: How is the nearshoring trend reshaping our industry? We analyze its impact on quality, costs, and overall strategy.
𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗼𝗿 𝗕𝘂𝘆 𝗖𝗫 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵: The big debate! Should companies build their own CX tech or invest in market solutions? We weigh the pros and cons.
𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘃𝘀 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗣𝗢: Unveiling the emerging 'Champion vs Champion' trend in BPO and its implications for the industry.
Don't miss out on these crucial insights that could redefine your business strategy and customer engagement approach. Listen, learn, and let's discuss! Your thoughts and experiences matter.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
What happens when you are told to come up with the policy plan to safely get your call center back onsite in your brick and mortar facility? This episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek!" will hopefully be able to help you.
In episode 98, entitled, "Procedures to Move Your Call Center Back Into the Office", we take a look at our personal case study of how we are planning on bringing back 250 associates safety in-house for a financial services' client that need a secure brick and mortar facility to operate.
We talk about procedures for coming to work, traffic flow, distancing, getting nuanced with break times, and having a safety coordinator for each shift.
If you are planning to have your call center back onsite, this episode will hopefully add a lot of value to your planning.
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
You guys may think I am crazy, but I think I found the technology that will be changing the customer service and customer experience industry to levels we have never thought of.
Currently, we are using call center technology to either gauge the CX (CSAT, NPS, Sentiment..) or we are trying to make interactions shorter, more cost-effective, or easier for the customer.
These are all good things...yet we have no technology out there that will totally change of we operate as customer experience professionals.
I think I have found that technology, one that will change how brands service in the next five years. It's not a call center and it's not an AI chatbot (well not really...).
Listen to this episode, tell me if we are crazy or not!
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
In this episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek!", we sit down with Jimmy Budnik, the VP of Customer Care and CRM at Overstock.com.
An engineer by trade, Jimmy takes to the role of VP of customer care at Overstock.com with one eye on the culture of his team and another on improving the customer experience through education and technology.
In this 30 minute interview, we tackle topics such as:
Take a look behind the scenes at how Overstock handles the retail holiday season
Understand how COVID-19 has affected the Overstock customer care model
How Overstock is handling changing demographics and self-service
What technologies are Overstock utilizing to improve the customer experience
Jimmy's view on how analytics can better understand customer expectations
How does Overstock view NPS in relation to customer/agent sentiment
Very insightful perspectives from an industry CX leader. This episode is very technology-driven and will hopefully give you some insights into where customer care is moving to from the views of someone running one of the leading customer care models in the industry.
For more info on Advice from a Call Center Geek: Text us: 814.247.0366 Follow Tom: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
For many of us, that is what Black Friday and Cyber Monday are. Over the years, we have come up with some tips that help make these high-traffic days go as smoothly as possible.
In this podcast we go over 7 call center tips for Black Friday:
No IT Updates This week Look at Your Shrinkage % Have a Motivation for Your Associates Taking Care of Large Queues Virtual Call Backs Using Mon-Wed to Educate Your Associates Document, Document, Document
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Speech analytics is an evolving tool that has use cases not yet thought of.
As we are evolving how we use the tool, we want to tell the Geek! community as a whole to possibly spur some thoughts on the best way to use analytics in your organization and to also increase the ROI for an analytics investment.
In this episode we talk about 10 unique ways that we see analytics being used:
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Its almost 2021 (YES!!) and we here at Expiva are having budgeting talks and discussions on where we see the industry moving in 2021 and what technologies and strategies do we want to invest in for next year.
In this episode we talk about the top five trends that we see in the industry and how we plan on using them to our advantage.
Topics include:
Google Real-Time Transcription / Dialogflows
Customers Want No Excuses After COVID-19
The Effects of COVID-19 on Legacy (older) Technology
Exploiting Digital Service (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp...)
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
One of the age-old call center ops questions is "Should we use live or recorded calls" for our QA? Understanding that many call centers are moving to an analytic based QA platform, there is still a majority of centers using managers to "listen" to calls.
In this episode, we talk about the benefits of using both methods and when to do so.
We discuss what type of individual you should hire for a QA role and making sure you don't have your QA staff think that the job is to just find the mistake that reps are making. There is so much more to QA!
Calibration sessions are a very important tool in creating the right quality culture in your center. We discuss how to set them up, what types of calls to use, and tips to get the most out of them.
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
I am going to start to answer the awesome questions I am getting in the Advice from a Call Center Geek! SMS Texting community as Community Q/A mini-podcasts.
I want this to be a huge benefit of joining our texting community (to join text "podcast" 814.247.0366 to get signed up).
In this Mini-Pod, I give my thoughts on some best practices when you have voice and chat agents and channels to staff. Should you keep them separate or should you cross train and integrate all the reps with all the channels?
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
This podcast episode of "Advice from a Call Center Geek", titled "AI Tools in CX: The Truth about ROI," delves into the practical aspects and return on investment (ROI) of AI technologies in the context of contact centers.
It critically examines various AI tools like large language model chatbots, analytics, agent assist, and auto quality assurance, discussing their suitability, cost implications, and impact on customer experience for different sizes of contact centers.
The episode provides insights into the evolving AI landscape, emphasizing the need for contact centers to carefully assess the real value and applicability of AI solutions in their operations.
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Lowering handle and talk time the right way can add to a center's ROI and make the customer and agent experience better
In this episode of the Geek!, we talk about tips on how to break calls down into segments to streamline processes. how to lessen hold time, and how to minimize one of the biggest killers to handle time and call center efficiency...after call work/wrap time.
I try to give simple and effective ways that we have used to best utilize technology, processes, and training to get your handle time lower while not impacting the customer experience.
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
Outsourcing your call center operations can be a scary deal. If you can manage the relationship in a proper way, there can be a win-win mentality that happens not just for you and the BPO partner but most importantly for your customers as well.
In this episode, we give you actionable items to put into place to make sure the client/call center relationship runs as smoothly as possible.
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.
This is an Episode for true Call Center Geeks! I want to give you my five favorite call center reports and tell you why they help me and can help your call center.
In this episode we will talk about: Daily Summary Reports Monthly Volume Trends Interval Volume Trends Agent Occupancy Reports Customer/Agent Sentiment Reports
Text me: 814.247.0366 Follow me: @tlaird_expivia Join our Facebook Call Center Community: www.facebook.com/callcentergeek Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tlairdexpivia/ Watch us: Advice from a Call Center Geek Youtube Channel
Through Expivia Digital, Tom works with contact center leaders on CCaaS platform selection, AI implementations, and NICE Studio and integration services.
Same honest, vendor-neutral advice you hear on the Call Center Geek podcast, applied directly to your specific operational challenges.
Schedule a consultation at ExpiviaDigital.com to discuss your contact center technology strategy.