Transforming Customer Experiences

Over the past few weeks, most contact centers have transitioned some or all their agents to a work from-home environment—no easy task. First agents had to be set up with the tools and technology to be productive in their new setting. Once agents were home and safe, priorities shifted to keeping them engaged and productive. This is a lot to handle while also maintaining exceptional customer service outside of the traditional contact center.

It would be difficult to find a small business that has not been adversely impacted by the current pandemic. And to say that most small business have been negatively impacted is putting it mildly. Recent findings from National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) show that the three leading causes of small business decline is due to 1) lost sales, 2) disruption in supply chain and 3) disruption in workforce due to employee illness. Furthermore, nearly 70% of surveyed business say, that unaided, they do not have the financial resources to survive more than four months.

Last week, I noticed headlines announcing yet another business that’s decided it “won’t reopen half its offices after pandemic, amid restructuring and work-from-home success”. Maybe that’s not so shocking, though, considering that work-from-home contact center agents have an 80% better retention rate than those working out of a physical call center (according to a recent ICMI benchmark study on agent experience).

Launched in 2014, SheTech is an initiative led by the Women in Tech Council, is the largest industry-led STEM program focused with more than 12,000 participants. Students get to see and hear directly from women about their careers in STEM and the impact they’ve had on the companies they serve. See how NICE inContact got involved.

As the world shrinks and is more connected, technology enables companies of all sizes to scale globally. Whether a European organization is looking to expand into other European countries, or a U.S.-based company is expanding across the pond, adapting products and brand awareness to multiple new markets and cultures is not only doable but is often necessary for growth and survival.

At this point in the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly every company that operates a contact center has had to transition some, if not all, of their agents to a work from home environment. According to an informal survey on one of our recent webinars, 88 percent of our customer attendees said they had moved all their agents to a work-from-home setting.

Did you know that Lassie received the very first pet insurance policy in the US in 1982? No? You may not even know much about pet health insurance itself. Even though it appears to have existed in other parts of the world for decades, it has been much slower to catch on in the US. Similarly, customer experience has always existed, even though we weren’t yet aware of its importance to companies and the products they sell.