Most contact center leaders have access to data that enables them to assess just how busy their agents are and if they have capacity to take on additional work. They also have the ability to optimize results that impact customer experience (CX). This balance of efficiency and CX is made possible by strong workforce management practices.

The story of student loan servicer ECSI is a story of partnership and the sense of a higher mission, one of providing support to colleges and universities and of helping young people and their families navigate financial issues they may be encountering for the first time. It’s a story of building relationships and providing services in meaningful ways to constituents who need them. Above all, ECSI’s story is one of a small business able to perform like a much larger one—all while continuing to grow and provide exceptional experiences with every interaction.

October 5-9 is National Customer Service Week and we are joining the celebration—the joys, the challenges, the endless rewards of customer service done right. To us, this year’s theme, Ignite a CX Celebration, seems especially relevant—and to be honest, a little poignant, because it recognizes that the customer experience in 2020 has been like no other.

To stay ahead of the customer experience transformation underway, you need the right transformational tools -- tools that have the potential to improve cashflow, empower agents and delight customers. Fortunately, these tools are easily accessible to all businesses -- large and small. When small business uses the right tools to offer a digital customer experience, they can achieve big results while also experiencing significant financial benefits.

Your CRM, like Salesforce, helps you manage your customer relationships. CRMs create comprehensive profiles for your existing customers and prospects that can help you serve them better and improve your sales opportunities.

Nearly 70% of companies fail at designing omnichannel CX. To beat the odds, follow these 5 steps to creating a future-proof omnichannel CX program that supports seamless channel hopping across any channel your customer prefers.

In the first post of this three part series, Effective Customer Service Can be the Key to Small Business Growth, we talked about how small businesses need to protect their existing customer base if they want to achieve meaningful, sustainable growth. Providing effective customer service, in which issues are solved competently during the first contact, is a good step in this direction.