Contact Centers

The pandemic has accelerated a shift in the mindset of the workforce. Millions of people are now looking for jobs that offer more flexibility, not just in terms of working from home, but also in scheduling. Today, many people who were formerly in the workforce don’t want to go back to a regular 9–5 schedule,…

The arrival of COVID-19 in early 2020 posed serious challenges for many contact center operations. Safety concerns forced organizations to limit staffing in their physical call centers. Some shut down, some managed to reduce shift sizes or distance operators from one another by repurposing additional space, and others sent agents home to work remotely. While…

Many national retailers began announcing their 2020 holiday season plans and shopping promotions much earlier than in years past. The holiday shopping season was particularly different considering the COVID-19-induced drastic shift from a traditional brick-and-mortar shopping experience to an even more robust online environment. While stores ponder their physical store operations, retailers understand that 2021…

Retail call centers are an important step in many customer journeys, and for online customers they may be the only human interaction with the brand. Retailers have multiple ways to operate to fulfill the customer need. Should they be in-house or outsourced? Offshore or home-based? How do you expand capacity for business peaks? Whatever route…

Customer support is evolving at a rapid rate, and many brands are reimagining the impact that a retailer’s support team can have on their customer’s experience and their overall business. However, while there's plenty of change happening today, it’s critical for brands to always keep an eye on the trends impacting tomorrow. Here's a look…

Digitization is occurring at such a rapid pace that many industries are finding it hard to keep up with how quickly customers are adopting new technologies. The retail industry is no exception. The question retailers must face is how can they keep up with the trend of an ever-evolving technology landscape, while still providing customers…

People still want what brick & mortar can deliver them, especially when customer service is based on a single view of the customer.

The National Retail Federation has predicted that holiday sales this year will increase between 4.3 and 4.8 percent over the 2017 holiday season. Deloitte's annual retail sales forecast was even more positive, putting the figure at 5.6 percent. This means retailers are looking at between $717 billion and $1.1 trillion in sales this holiday season.…

By implementing a self-service artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot solution, TechStyle Fashion Group (parent company of JustFab, Fabletics, ShoeDazzle) saved more than $1 million and was able to reduce the overall number of calls to its contact centers for transactional and traditionally self-service issues. In addition, the chatbot’s proactive, context-inclusive handoff of more complex chat sessions to live agents…

The pandemic has accelerated a shift in the mindset of the workforce. Millions of people are now looking for jobs that offer more flexibility, not just in terms of working from home, but also in scheduling. Today, many people who were formerly in the workforce don’t want to go back to a regular 9–5 schedule, […]