April fifteenth is just around the corner. Is your contact center ready?

This is the question on many minds of call center managers as they work toward readying their staff and their center for the often-dreaded tax deadline. This year, though, that deadline doesn’t have to spell doom - or even stress - for your center. Prepare your call center for tax time with these tips and be ready when Uncle Sam asks for their cut.

Call latency is something that any call center that uses digital VoIP solutions for voice communications likely experiences. Why is that such a big deal? Because the vast majority of contact centers are using VoIP to communication with consumers and clients!

So, how big of a problem is call latency? How much do you really stand to lose when latency becomes an issue in your center? Check out this information about how latency could be costing your company big - and how you can offset and eliminate those costs.

Customer experience is about more than just providing answers to questions and solutions to problems. These days consumers are looking for a full personalized experience. They want to feel like your first priority, and they want to feel like the companies they work with know them on a personal level, as well.

Rising to meet these changing needs is part of providing the memorable customer service that keeps consumers coming back to your brand or company. Today’s technology is designed to help you do exactly this, with the modern consumer in mind. Speech analytics is one of the best tools for the job, simplifying numerous elements of the customer service job and making it easier than ever to tailor service to consumers while streamlining the workday for your agents.

Customer experience is something that most people in the customer service industry are aware of. But what about the customer journey? Is the journey your consumers are going on a pleasant one - and are you making it harder or less enjoyable than it ought to be?

Here, we’ll dive into the details of the customer journey in your contact center, whether you partner with other companies to provide third-party service and support or are an all-in-one business. Either way, there are ways you could be providing a better journey for your customer- and making them want to take that trip again and again!

What do your top executives see when they bring up their dashboard in your facility? If they’re like the heads of many contact centers, the answer might be disappointing. Too many companies suffer from too much data and an ineffective executive dashboard to present it in.

Don’t let your facility be among them. Check out this list of key metrics to include in your executive dashboard, along with some important hints on how to do so. Remember - your dashboard is only as effective as it is user-friendly, so style can make just as big a difference as the information it is used to present!

It’s never easy to completely overhaul the way your company presents itself. Whether you’ve been in business only a few months or for many years, you have all of that time and the memories of your previous iterations working against you. Even when rebranding is for the best, it can be a difficult task, prompting many companies to wait until it’s simply unavoidable.

Your contact center doesn’t have to be one of those businesses. Call center rebranding doesn’t have to be something you put off and avoid until you can’t avoid it any longer - but it will be, if you don’t give it the kind of attention it needs now. Here’s your guide to a seamless transition this year - and to making call center rebranding a simple task in 2020:

In most businesses, keeping up with trends is important. It helps you stay relevant and keeps consumers interested in what you have to offer. In the world of the contact center, though, keeping up with - and perhaps ahead of - trends is imperative to your success. It can mean the difference in delivering a great customer experience and providing the kind of service consumers really need - or getting outpaced by those you’re in direct competition with and leaving profitability behind as a result.

Want to know what the call center trends are projected to be in the coming year and beyond? Here are some expert takes on the trends to watch:

“Going green” is something more and more businesses are prioritizing in the modern day. With the climate crisis on the forefront of the public’s minds, it only makes sense that so many companies hoping to stay in that public’s favor are doing their part to help get emissions and pollution output to a minimum.

Fast food companies, for example, are pitching in by eliminating packaging on products where possible, trying to endear themselves to millennial and Gen Z consumers who are concerned about the overuse of single-use plastics. These measures are working; companies who were in on the green trends saw significantly positive user feedback in the last two years.

But can your call center be one of those businesses? Is there a way to have a financially stable green call center? Here is what you need to know about making your contact center more eco-friendly without losing profitability and productivity:

For a long time, now, contact centers have relied heavily on the interactive voice response system - also known as IVR - to direct consumer traffic and create self-service options. It makes sense; a good IVR system can lower labor costs, improve efficiency, and enhance customer experience. But could a chat bot be doing the same thing?

These days, companies are using chat bots to accomplish numerous tasks that were once the job of live agents. They can also be employed to handle many of the same jobs your IVR system once did. The question is - are they capable of doing it better?

Being able to see figures and facts is an important aspect of success when growing and improving your call center’s approaches. Data visualization has long been a focus of these improvement strategies for contact centers, BPO organizations, and more. These days, though, this visualization is its own approach - and its entirely digital.

Digital visualization allows for better interaction with data and a better understanding of the figures being examined. It allows for companies to make more meaningful adjustments based on the information presented - and access that information whenever necessary.

Ready to learn more about how great digital visualization can improve your call center from the inside out? Check out all the ways seeing it in living - digital - color can help your team put your data to better use: