Jim Rembach
CustomerThink
Greensboro, NC, United States
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Past articles by Jim:
7 Speech Analytics Mistakes That Can Cost You Big
Finding the right Speech Analytics Solution starts with knowing the right questions to ask. It’s also important to know that avoiding Speech Analytics mistakes requires you to know the questions not worth asking. Thanks to Roger Lee of Gridspace for sharing his insight at Customer Contact Week. Roger is a long-time contact center industry veteran and a respected thought-leader. At the event he… → Read More
Tear Apart and Put Together Your New Contact Center
Flexibility is often an innocently misunderstood element in the contact center technology evaluation criteria. Afterall, unless you’re evaluating and implementing a wide-array of contact center technology as part of your everyday job, it’s just impossible to keep up with. But you can’t ignore this issue, or else you’ll be tearing apart and ripping out your new technology as quickly as you’ve put… → Read More
Two Factors Make It Easy for Contact Center Chat
The contact center industry can seem very fragmented at times. One thing that we must remember is there are new contact centers being opened all of the time, and in a wide range of industries. When considering live chat the same thing is true. We have some new to supporting the chat channel and some experienced at chat. But success in both cases hinges on two key factors. Thanks to Jeff Epstein… → Read More
12 Ways To Show Some Love To Supervisors
80% of contact center agents leave because of their relationship with their immediate supervisor. But with all relationships, it’s much better to give first – so that you shall receive. Follow these tips for building a better relationship with your Supervisor. She’ll likely love you for it! Your Supervisor today is like that elementary school teacher that you are still in touch with and will… → Read More
Reality Check: Are your customers channels or people?
I’m cursed. Are you? For years I fell into a trap that I see many in the contact center industry fall in to. It’s the trap of managing workflow for efficiency. I need to be careful not to manage queues of interactions because that’s how it’s always been done. My reality check is to remember, those are people in queue. Not efficiency metrics or channels to be managed. But that feeling of people… → Read More
How to Get the Greatest Agent Training ROI
Contact center agent training can be a very big expenditure for a lot of organizations. For contact centers that experience higher agent turnover the expenditure is obviously much higher than for those with lower turnover. Regardless of your turnover situation, one thing is certain, the ROI (Return on Investment) on agent training is very important. Because of the importance of agent training… → Read More
The Most Unlikely Source Is Blocking Contact Center Transformation
Change is hard, especially in the contact center industry. The humor of this eye-opener is that those of us in the contact center profession are supposed to be in the business of helping meet the needs of our ever-changing customer expectations. Leaders want their agents to be flexible and self-motivated. Yet I’m perplexed when I see contact center leaders that are often their own worst enemies… → Read More
The Modern Call Center School for Supervisors
The world of talent development and adult learning has changed dramatically over the past few years. And leading contact centers are modernizing their learning to keep pace. They realize they must modernize or risk losing their next generation of frontline leaders to other opportunities. Get ready, because the modern call center school for supervisor skill development is much different than the… → Read More
What’s the difference between customer service and customer experience?
Sadly, Bill Gessert passed away suddenly on October 3rd, 2018 – leaving behind his beloved wife, Lisa and four adult children and five grandsons. It’s was a complete honor to have had Bill on my podcast The Fast Leader Show. While I knew our time together would be full of sharing and insight, I especially loved the way he was able to answer the nagging question, “What’s the difference between… → Read More
ALERT: Leadership Training for Supervisors Is Being Disrupted
Most all contact center executives know they need to respond aggressively to the fact that we are in a state of massive transformation and disruption in the marketplace. The contact center has been targeted as a pivotal organizational component in this age of disruption that we live in. To be intentional and proactive in their response, executives are investing in the transformation of their… → Read More
ALERT: Leadership Training for Supervisors Is Being Disrupted
Most all contact center executives know they need to respond aggressively to the fact that we are in a state of massive transformation and disruption in the marketplace. The contact center has been targeted as a pivotal organizational component in this age of disruption that we live in. To be intentional and proactive in their response, executives are investing in the transformation of their… → Read More
An often unseen yet vital customer experience element
Can you hear me? Can you see me? Is it your problem or my problem? Is anyone willing to own the problem? Well, without any visibility into your contact center’s network performance, your answer is a resounding and overwhelming…NO! If you’re a customer experience focused organization, there are a few core metrics that can differentiate you from everyone else – customer effort and first contact… → Read More
How Do Your Call Center Supervisors Compare?
To assure alignment and execution of your contact center business plans, perhaps the single most important ingredient is the effectiveness of your fronltine supervisors. To a large extent, the level of your organization’s long-term success relies on the effective execution of daily operations, which is led by the frontline supervisor. To know if you’re at risk of creating success you must know… → Read More
Don’t Waste Your Money on Empathy Training
Empathy training is a waste of time and will have little to no effect on the customer experience in your contact center. If you want to build empathy skills in agents, you need to have the right mindset and take the right actions. Don’t waste your money on empathy training alone, do this instead. Many, if not all of these 7 elements can be found in contact centers where empathy is part of the… → Read More
5 Teams Coca-Cola Created That Blows the Top Off Employee Engagement
Contact centers are built on processes and systems that need to be managed and led. Because of the rapid pace of work and unforgiving workloads that come, they need to be effective and high-caliber, including employee engagement. At the Coca-Cola Consolidated Contact Center in Charlotte, North Carolina their employee engagement system consists of five teams that make for a special formula. I was… → Read More
Forgotten Yet Key Source for Contact Center Best Practices
I’ve been very fortunate to have gained different perspectives in the contact center industry. I’m so grateful for my frontline experience, but I also realize that since those days, I’ve been able to experience a significantly broader perspective on the entire industry. When it comes to problem solving and finding your best solution, it’s the broad experience that you want to leverage. Some… → Read More
This is where you break down barriers to enhance contact centers
Contact centers around the world face similar challenges, yet so many continue to work in silos. To tear down the barriers that are preventing you from delivering an exceptional customer experience, you can’t do it alone. Many contact center leaders have an opportunity to accelerate their success by collaborating with others. When they do, value is returned in shortened learning curves and the… → Read More
Why the best contact centers ignore survey scores
I believe in the human spirit and that we can overcome some of the most difficult obstacles with the proper mindset and approach. When it comes to improving survey scores, most contact centers have way too many obstacles and paths in front of them, so they need to learn to take a path less traveled. Ignore Survey Scores I am an even bigger believer in the unconventional and creative ways to… → Read More
It’s time to replace your contact center duct tape and bailing wire
“Just hold it together for one more year!” I had an operations-day flash back for a moment thinking about needing to squeak out every inch of life from my systems. Upon reflection, I also remember the downside of holding on too long to systems and how much time, energy and frustration that created. Meeting with Jens Eckels from Avaya at Customer Contact Week in Las Vegas I started thinking about… → Read More
This Is What Destroys Contact Center Morale
Your company culture is on the wall, written in your mission statement, part of the company vision, it’s in your core values and it’s communicated. And this is what destroys contact center morale? It is a problem if your leaders do not live out these perceived commitments through their behaviors. Customers Inside and Outside – Same Just like your customers hate to have an expectation not met, so… → Read More