The Call Design team just got back from the SWPP annual conference, and as usual, it was one for the books! Our beloved hometown of Nashville once again played host to an event that left us both exhausted and excited. So, grab your Call Design branded popcorn and let’s dive into a quick recap:
Justin Robbins: Keynote Extraordinaire and Pizza Party Myth Buster!
Justin Robbins, the man with the golden insights, delivered another fantastic keynote helping us get unstuck, and owning our unwillingness to lead ourselves plays a big factor! He also shared his knowledge in a few breakout sessions, and guess what? Apparently, pizza parties aren’t always the answer to employee engagement! Who knew!? Justin’s ability to make us rethink our approaches left us hungry for more (and not just for pizza).
Tiffney Spicer and the DEI Panel: Owning Our Unconscious Bias
Our dear friend Tiffney Spicer took part in an amazing panel discussion on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the world of WFM. They fearlessly tackled tough topics head-on and challenged all of us to confront our unconscious biases. We’re grateful for WFM leaders who push us to think differently and create a more inclusive environment. Kudos to Tiffney and the panel for sparking these vital conversations!
Dan Smitley’s Session: Self-Care in the WFM Jungle
Our very own Dan Smitley led a breakout session and shed light on the often-neglected topic of self-care in WFM. Let’s face it, WFM professionals wear many hats and juggle multiple responsibilities. It’s no wonder burnout lurks around the corner! Dan shared the importance of saying no, caring about our own burnout, and even shared some tips on investing in ourselves.
Connecting, Laughing, and Sharing the Passion
The SWPP conference is always a blast! We cherished the opportunity to reunite with old friends, make new connections, and soak up the contagious energy of the WFM community. We share your passion for WFM and believe that it can go beyond simply maximizing staff and productivity. When done right, WFM can empower businesses, create exceptional customer experiences, and ensure the well-being of frontline agents. You don’t have to pick just one of those outcomes, you really can have all three!
At Call Design, we’re on a mission to help transform WFM teams into strategic partners who are improving lives, delivering outstanding customer experiences, and driving solid results for businesses. We firmly believe that employees have the right to be Happy, Engaged, Fulfilled, and Aligned (HEFA) at work. If you agree, or want to learn more, please reach out to us and let us know. WFM might be a hard career at times, but with a community like SWPP and partners like Call Design it can be transformational, and even fun sometimes!
“As soon as I saw you I knew a grand adventure was about to happen.” ― A.A. Milne
One really exciting thing about meeting a person who shares your professional passion is the gravitational pull you feel towards each other. At a conference, it has to happen fast: with so many exhibitors to visit, it can turn into a blur—until you meet the people you really connect with. In spite of the noisy crowds, you are locked in on learning everything you can from a kindred spirit.
At last week’s Call & Contact Center Expo (CCCE) in Las Vegas, the Call Design team was privileged to introduce ourselves to a new audience of contact center professionals from across the spectrum of CC roles: Outbound specialists, AI developers, Quality and Speech Analytics experts, and BPO’s. It’s always gratifying to interact with industry trailblazers who are looking for the latest contact center technology.
We’re Vibing, Right?
Meeting new people can be great, it’s really next-level to run across contact center folks who get as excited about Employee Experience and the human side of Workforce Management as we do. The advances in technology on display were amazing, but our Call Design team got extra enthusiastic talking with EX/CX specialists about the ways that technology can make employees’ lives better. We bonded with new friends who have also made it their mission to create a supportive, welcoming, uplifting environment that allows their employees to envision a long-term working relationship.
For many of the people who stopped by the Call Design booth, Workforce Management is something they’re familiar with, but not their direct responsibility. They may have thought of WFM as a numbers game, a machine whose only goal is efficiency and Big Brother style adherence tracking. But these folks were passionate about personalized Customer Experience and treating their employees well to support that goal of good CX. It was very satisfying to introduce them to the human-centric side of WFM and see their eyes light up in recognition of a people-first direction.
Happy, Engaged, Fulfilled, and Aligned at Work!
Along those same lines, our own Dan Smitley presented a speaker session at CCCE titled: The Machines Have Taken Over – Now What? As a work culture champion and Call Design’s Strategy and Optimization Czar, Dan recognized that there were lots (lots!) of AI companies exhibiting and presenting at CCCE with a message about AI technologies that can do the work of human agents. Dan focused on the continuing importance of the human element, and why we should be focusing on developing soft skills now to prepare for the AI-assisted future.
Quite a few of the people who came to the Call Design booth were seeking us out after Dan’s presentation resonated with them. If you wish you had been there to hear about maintaining humanity as AI becomes more prevalent in the Contact Center, you’re in luck! Dan is presenting on this topic for the Association of Customer Contact Professionals on May 18.
One more plug for those of you who love people-focused content: If any of you are attending the SWPP Conference in Nashville in a couple of weeks, be sure to catch Dan’s speaking session at 11am Monday the 15th — Managing More Than Just Your Workforce: You’re Taking Care of Everyone Else, But Who’s Taking Care of You?
I’ll Have That To Go
When we get back home from a trip like this and recover from the early morning flights, the Vegas crowds, and the extremely good food (pictured)– it can feel like reality starting to set back in. But while we certainly had email backlogs to work through, the Call Design team still feels inspired and renewed in our mission. Experiencing a shared passion with other professionals is a multiplier— it’s a motivational chain reaction that makes our individual fires burn even brighter. As we build relationships with other energized people, our network of experiences and talents grows. And we can’t wait to use that rich set of tools and expertise to create revolutionary change for our customers.
OK, maybe you’re thinking that happiness at work is great, but you’re still running a business! What about some data to back up all the warm and fuzzy? We can help with that—if you’d like to see some real numbers that show how a people-first philosophy can work at work, get a copy of our latest whitepaper Investing in Your Employees.
We’re back in the office and ready to help solve your contact center problems! Contact us today to discuss how we can partner with you to create a more engaged, more fulfilled workforce.
¿Increíble, aterrador o ambos? ChatGPT ha creado una tormenta de atención desde que se hizo público en noviembre pasado, ganando un millón de usuarios solo en la primera semana después de su lanzamiento. ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) es un chatbot de OpenAI, una empresa de investigación de inteligencia artificial. Su chatbot ChatGPT permite a los usuarios interactuar con la tecnología de inteligencia artificial de OpenAI. Puede escribir poesía (¡increíble!), así como contenido de blog (¡aterrador! hablando como un ser humano que crea contenido), así como textos, canciones, código de software, etc., utilizando el aprendizaje automático para generar texto similar al humano.
Supongo que muchos de nosotros tuvimos el mismo primer pensamiento: “¿Cómo de bueno puede ser realmente? ¿Realmente puede escribir tan bien como un humano? A juzgar por el ejemplo generado por ChatGPT que presento a continuación, mis respuestas son: “Bastante bien” y “Todavía no”. Su experiencia puede ser diferente. Para cualquiera que aún no lo haya probado, le animo a que vaya al sitio web de OpenAI y le haga una pregunta a ChatGPT. Para aquellos de nosotros que hemos sido profesionales de centros de contacto durante años, nuestro segundo pensamiento bien podría ser: “¿Qué impacto podría tener esto en el centro de contacto?”
Los centros de contacto ya están implementando chatbots por muchas razones: desvío de llamadas, el deseo de automatizar contactos que los humanos encuentran abrumadoramente repetitivos, o simplemente para ajustarse a los clientes que desean una experiencia automatizada. Pero todos tenemos evidencia anecdótica de que esas experiencias de chatbot no siempre son exitosas. Uno de mis colegas estaba contando ayer una historia de una experiencia de chatbot CX que la llevó a un callejón sin salida sin respuestas y sin opciones para continuar en otro canal, y mucho menos comunicarse con un agente humano. ¿Podría ChatGPT ser diferente?
Las señales apuntan a que sí: ChatGPT utiliza inteligencia artificial generativa, entrenada con cantidades gigantescas de datos de texto que le enseñaron a reconocer patrones. Su algoritmo utiliza aprendizaje supervisado para proporcionar potencialmente a los clientes respuestas rápidas que sean relevantes para sus consultas. Pero ChatGPT puede superar a los chatbots tradicionales con su capacidad para aprender y adaptarse a las nuevas demandas de los clientes y a una industria de centros de contacto que cambia rápidamente.
Pero no confíe solo en mi palabra, escuchemos lo que ChatGPT tiene que decir por sí mismo. No soy la primera persona en incluir contenido real creado por ChatGPT en un artículo, pero sí le pedí que escribiera un artículo específicamente sobre ChatGPT en el Centro de contacto.
ChatGPT y el Contact Center: revolucionando el servicio al cliente
En los últimos años, el uso de la inteligencia artificial (IA) en la industria del servicio al cliente ha ido en aumento. Uno de los modelos de IA más prometedores para este propósito es ChatGPT, un gran modelo de lenguaje desarrollado por OpenAI. ChatGPT tiene la capacidad de comprender y responder a textos en lenguaje natural, lo que lo convierte en una herramienta valiosa para automatizar el servicio al cliente en el centro de contacto.
Una de las principales ventajas de usar ChatGPT en el centro de contacto es su capacidad para manejar una amplia gama de consultas de los clientes. Con su amplia base de conocimientos y capacidades de comprensión del lenguaje natural, ChatGPT puede comprender y responder a las preguntas e inquietudes de los clientes, independientemente de su complejidad. Esto elimina la necesidad de que los clientes naveguen a través de menús telefónicos automatizados o esperen en la cola un agente humano disponible, ahorrándoles un tiempo valioso y aumentando su satisfacción general.
Cabe señalar que ChatGPT no es un reemplazo completo para los agentes humanos, sino que puede trabajar junto a ellos para mejorar su rendimiento. Los agentes aún pueden estar disponibles para gestionar problemas más complejos, mientras que ChatGPT puede manejar las consultas más rutinarias. Este enfoque permite a las empresas reducir la cantidad de agentes necesarios, sin dejar de brindar un servicio al cliente de alta calidad.
En conclusión, ChatGPT tiene el potencial de revolucionar la industria del servicio al cliente al brindar respuestas eficientes y precisas a las consultas de los clientes. Su capacidad para manejar múltiples conversaciones, comprender texto en lenguaje natural y recopilar datos valiosos de los clientes lo convierten en una herramienta valiosa para el centro de contacto. A medida que la tecnología continúa evolucionando, podemos esperar ver más empresas que adopten ChatGPT y otros modelos de IA para mejorar sus operaciones de servicio al cliente.
No es una mala aproximación al tema. ChatGPT reunió algunos puntos importantes sobre los beneficios potenciales para la Experiencia del Cliente. Incluía un concepto crucial que podría ofrecer cierto consuelo a muchos lectores, que ChatGPT no es un reemplazo “completo” para los agentes humanos. Si yo mismo estuviera escribiendo ese artículo, no haría esa declaración en el mismo párrafo y luego hablaría de reducir el número de empleados. Preferiría centrarme en la idea de que la experiencia del empleado podría mejorarse y todos los beneficios que conlleva un mejor EX: mejor CX, mejor bienestar de los agentes, menor desgaste y una lista de cosas adicionales que podrían llenar un artículo de blog completo por sí mismas.
En esa misma línea de no reemplazar completamente a los agentes humanos, fue el propio CEO de OpenAI quien tuiteó:
Chat GPT es increíblemente limitado, pero lo suficientemente bueno en algunos aspectos para una engañosa impresión de grandeza.
Sería un error confiar en el para algo importante en este momento. Es un adelanto de lo que está por llegar; tenemos mucho trabajo que hacer en los ámbitos de robustez y veracidad.
-Sam Altman
Con algunos penadores eminentes advirtiéndonos que herramientas como ChatGPT eventualmente afectarán la demanda de trabajadores del conocimiento, es posible que el tweet de Altman no alivie nuestra ansiedad. Sin embargo, tiene razón. La versión actual de ChatGPT tiene algunos problemas, uno de los cuales son los errores de hecho en sus respuestas a preguntas directas. También tiene un problema que comparte con otras herramientas de IA, que es que hereda el sesgo de sus datos de entrenamiento. Pero volviendo al problema real de CX de mi compañero de trabajo con el chatbot de una empresa, ¿podría haber estado más insatisfecha con una respuesta plana y sobreescrita de la versión actual de ChatGPT?
Al menos por ahora, ChatGPT no es un reemplazo para la escritura humana que suena a autenticidad, o para un agente humano que está facultado para ser embajador de la marca de su empresa. Herramientas como ChatGPT continuarán evolucionando y mejorando su capacidad para atender algunas necesidades de los clientes, y eso es genial. Es probable que se conviertan en herramientas increíbles para el centro de contacto. Es ese crecimiento de las herramientas de IA lo que hace que sea aún más importante para nosotros tratar a nuestros agentes como seres humanos que necesitan ser reconocidos por sus esfuerzos, recompensados por preocuparse por sus clientes y nutridos con formación, soporte y herramientas de empoderamiento (una que podría ser descendiente de ChatGPT) que necesitan hacer su mejor trabajo.
In a world where remote work is becoming increasingly common and the customer service industry is evolving at an unprecedented pace, it’s more important than ever for businesses to prioritize the employee experience. That’s exactly what we discussed at the recent Southeastern Contact Center (SECC) Regional Meeting in Knoxville, TN, which Call Design was proud to participate in.
The event was held on April 5th, and we were thrilled to be hosted by Ed Financial. The hosts and organizers did an outstanding job from start to finish. The pre-event messaging and communication were excellent, and the breakfast and welcome on the day of the event were lovely. It was clear that the coordinators had put a lot of thought and effort into the event, and we were excited to dive into the discussions.
After introductions, our very own Shawn McCormick spoke to the economic uncertainty we are all facing in the wake of the pandemic, politics, and economic considerations. He addressed the potential hesitation to focus on priorities that may have taken a back seat in recent months. We’re all slowly but surely understanding the significant impact of these factors, and that communication, collaboration, and agreement across leadership teams are more important than ever. This is where employee care and engagement come into play.
The topic of employee engagement is becoming increasingly important, and for good reason. Happy, engaged, fulfilled, and aligned employees are almost certain to set companies up for happy, engaged, fulfilled, and satisfied customers. This was the main point of discussion at the SECC meeting. We spent several hours discussing the importance of proactive investment of time and focus around both the employee/agent experience and the customer experience. The message was clear – companies that are nurturing and creating a culture that embraces these values will thrive, no matter what type of uncertainty comes their way.
Yesterday’s contact center wasn’t built for today’s world. As technology continues to evolve, so must our approach to employee care and engagement. Proactive investment and proactive care are truly the only option. We all left the SECC meeting feeling like technology has a heartbeat and that we will be better prepared having shared ways to manage new processes, new goals, new environments, and more. The messages of what is driving contact center success present day were very clear.
As we reflect on the SECC meeting and the discussions we had, it’s clear that employee experience must be a top priority for businesses in every industry. Here are just a few reasons why:
1. Employee engagement leads to better customer service.
When employees are engaged and motivated, they’re more likely to go above and beyond for customers. They’re invested in the success of the company and want to see it thrive. This, in turn, leads to happier customers who are more likely to remain loyal to the brand.
2. Employee engagement leads to higher retention rates.
When employees feel valued and engaged, they’re more likely to stick around for the long haul. This can save businesses a lot of money in the long run, as the cost of replacing an employee can be significant
3. Employee engagement leads to a better company culture.
When employees are happy, engaged, and fulfilled, the entire company culture benefits. This can lead to a more positive work environment, better communication, and more effective collaboration across teams.
As businesses continue to navigate the challenges of a post-pandemic world, employee engagement will only become more important. It’s not just a nice-to-have – it’s essential for success. At Call Design, we’re committed to helping businesses prioritize the employee experience and create a culture that supports employee well-being and engagement. We believe that by investing in your employees and empowering them to be their best selves, you can create a workplace that not only attracts top talent but retains it as well. By prioritizing the employee experience, companies can cultivate a sense of loyalty and dedication among their staff, leading to increased productivity, improved customer satisfaction, and ultimately, a stronger bottom line.
If you’d like to learn more about why you should prioritize employee engagement in your organization, we invite you to submit the form at this link:
By submitting this form, you’ll receive a copy of Shawn’s white paper The CX/EX Connection: Investing in Your Employees which was the research foundation for his presentation at SECC. We’re confident that this resource will provide you with valuable insights and actionable strategies to help you create a workplace where employees feel valued, supported, and engaged. So let’s work together to make sure that every employee feels happy, engaged, fulfilled, and aligned at work – because that’s the key to success in today’s ever-evolving business landscape.
As the world becomes more connected, remote work is becoming increasingly popular, especially in our post-pandemic environments. And in the world of contact centers, workforce management teams should be the biggest champions of remote agents!
Why? Well, here are five quick reasons:
Split-shifts
VOT and VTO
Micro-shifts
No longer worrying about seat allocation
Increased schedule adherence
One – Split-Shifts
When agents work remotely your scheduling team suddenly has a lot more options. When people aren’t having to commute to the office, schedules that didn’t make sense before now have great value. Working from 6am-8am and then again from 12pm-6pm might be horrible for people coming and going into the office. However, for someone working from home this now gives them the chance to work some, then get the kids off to school, head to the grocery store when it’s fairly empty, grab some lunch, and then head back to work. It’s likely not for all of your agents, but for some people, this is a huge win.
Two – VOT and VTO
Then there’s voluntary overtime and voluntary time off. How many real-time teams are constantly chasing people to either add a few hours to their shift or drop hours off to help service levels and budget constraints? When agents work from home you can increase your chances of someone willing to work an extra 1 or 2 after their shift if they know they don’t have to commute home. Or agents might be willing to leave after only working 2 hours if they didn’t just waste 45 minutes driving to work. You give your RTA team a fighting chance with VOT and VTO when your agents work from home.
Three – Micro-Shifts
Micro-shifts can be a game changer for many organizations. Working remotely now opens up the possibility of having someone work just 1-3 hours at a time. When you can create work segments that small you can start having agents self-select their schedule and use micro-shifts as building blocks. Now if you create those segments just when you have staffing shortages you suddenly have a way of giving your agents autonomy and control over their schedules while also flatting out your staffing variations and meeting a more consistent service level. Win-win!
Four – Seat Allocation
The fourth benefit may be easy for non-contact center folk to overlook, but WFM and operation teams that work in overstaffed centers know the pain of seat management. When scheduling and managing remote agents you no longer have to worry about so-and-so sitting next to each other and talking the whole time, throwing off your shrinkage. Or so-and-so both loving sitting next to the window, but only having one seat available. As a WFM team, you can simply avoid the relational and logistical issues that come with physical contact center seats and simply focus on meeting the demands of the business and customers.
Five – Schedule Adherence
Our final benefit is close and dear to many WFM hearts, schedule adherence. When agents aren’t getting stuck in traffic their schedule adherence will increase. Now add in schedules with varying start times and lengths, like we already discussed, and pair that with a shift-bid, where agents select their schedules, *chefs kiss*. It may not be magical but it’s as close as we get in the WFM world!
For many WFM teams working from home may seem like a non-issue. Whether the agents work in locations A, B, or at home it’s still just numbers and schedules. Forecasts will be what they are and service level goals will remain the same. However, I believe that perspective is short-sighted and hopefully you now see the benefits to the WFM team when their agents work from home. So let’s get off the sidelines, WFM teams, and start championing remote work efforts. Your agents and their schedule adherence will thank you!
At Call Design we believe employees have the right to be happy, engaged, fulfilled, and aligned at work. Remote agents are a way start to make that happen, but managing, scheduling, and engaging remote workers can be challenging. If you agree that remote agents can benefit your organization, but aren’t sure how to make that happen then reach out! We’d love to help you strategize and implement a great remote program for your contact center.
As someone who has spent a considerable amount of time in the contact center space, I’ve learned a lot about the importance of having people around you who will disagree with you. Sure, it may feel easier or more about “culture fit” to have a bunch of people agreeing with you, but the benefits of having people around you who will challenge your ideas, push back on your assumptions, and help you see things from a different perspective are numerous!
First and foremost, having people who disagree with you helps refine your ideas and produce a better product. In contact centers this is especially important because customer experience is king here. If you have a team of people who all think the same way, you run the risk of missing important details that could make or break the customer experience. Having people who are willing to speak up and challenge your assumptions can help you see things from a different perspective and ultimately improve the product or service you’re offering.
Secondly, people come from different backgrounds and will provide different perspectives on the same problem. This is incredibly valuable in contact centers because your customers are not the same as you. They have different backgrounds, experiences, and desires. Having a team full of people from different backgrounds and skill sets can help you approach these challenges in a more holistic way. For example, someone with a background in psychology might approach a problem related to agent burnout in a different way than someone with a background in engineering. Having both perspectives can help you find a more comprehensive solutions to both your customer and employee experiences.
Thirdly, you should always be learning. In fact, if you stop learning, you stop leading your organization. Having people around you who disagree gives you an amazing learing opportunity every day! By listening to their perspectives and ideas, you can broaden your own understanding of a particular issue or challenge.
Fourthly, disagreements protect you from falling into groupthink, where conformity is more important than critical thinking. If everyone on your team agrees on a particular approach or strategy, there’s a risk that you’ll overlook potential problems or issues. Having people who are willing to challenge you and the status quo can help continue to prioritize critical thinking and avoid groupthink.
Finally, having people who disagree with you can help you grow emotionally and intellectually. It’s not always easy to hear that your ideas are flawed or that there’s a better way to approach a particular challenge. But learning to accept and embrace those perspectives can be incredibly beneficial in the long run. It can help you develop a growth mindset, where you’re constantly looking for ways to improve and evolve.
Having people who disagree with you helps you refine your ideas, approach challenges from different perspectives, stay on top of the latest trends and best practices, avoid groupthink, and grow emotionally and intellectually. So if you’re a contact center manager or leader, make sure you’re surrounding yourself with people who will challenge you, push you, and help you be the best you can be. Your customers (and your team) will thank you for it.
For new hires, inhouse or work at home, gamification can help improve readiness and reduce attrition.
Call Design recently made some changes to our onboarding process. Like you, we’ve got a more than full plate of tactical work to do on any given day, so making time for improving infrastructure processes like onboarding is a real challenge. But we felt that having the best possible onboarding process was critical to keep employee experience (EX) at a continued high level. Making new hires feel welcomed, valued, and equipped for success on day one is key to that high level EX.
Lots of companies are looking for ways to improve onboarding, it’s just that many of them are failing. A recent Gallup study shows that only 12% of surveyed employees “strongly agreed” that their organizations did a great job of onboarding new workers.
Plus, as many of you do, we’ve got many of work-at-home employees, so we’re very familiar with the challenges of communicating culture and making remote team members feel supported. This experience drives us to search for the very best solutions to help our contact center and back office customers find new ways to solve new problems with onboarding, for inhouse as well as work-at-home agents.
While there are different methods available to train new workers and prepare them for the job, one effective solution we offer for promoting fast employee growth and success is the gamification of the training process. Here’s how it can help onboarding in a contact center.
How Does Gamification Work
Gamification is a motivational tool that uses game mechanics like leaderboards, challenges, dashboards, points, rewards, and recognition. It has been gaining traction across many industries with proven results at providing a fun and effective way of training new workers. While traditional training methods may involve one-on-one’s with busy team leads, or passively watching study modules, gamification can add to these methods by providing interactive gaming elements to motivate agents and boost training efficiency and engagement.
Gamification can significantly enhance the training experience while giving supervisors and training managers more opportunities to provide meaningful feedback and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their trainees. An Aberdeen study cited by ERG shows that a gamified onboarding process boosted engagement by 48% for new hires and decreased attrition by 36%.
Gamifying the Onboarding Process
There are different ways to watch an introductory video or a module on HR standards—it can play in the background while an employee multitasks, or the new hire can actively listen, knowing they will be tested and rewarded based on the score. With a colorful scoreboard that’s accessible anytime, there’s no mystery to the new hire’s progress. When it comes to developing new training modules and processes, there are different ways to gamify the process. Some ideas include implementing leaderboards and experience points as workers progress through their training. It not only allows trainees to have a firmer grasp of their training development, but it also provides a means to measure their progress while adding a competitive element to their training. Healthy competition, when carefully managed, can boost engagement and promote new staff to quickly hone their abilities and learn new skills to keep up with their peers and stay ahead of the game.
In addition to leaderboards and experience points, other means of boosting trainee development and motivation are adding achievements and shareable badges. We’ve all seen social media posts in which our contacts share their accomplishments by posting earned badges. For some, the thumbs-ups we get from our network are a more powerful motivator than a gift card. These game mechanics provide a measurable means for trainees and trainers to analyze personal development and growth while giving staff goals to work towards actively.
By having benchmarks and achievements to strive for and actively seek, employees will be more motivated to actively engage with modules on company culture, new hire instructional videos, or tutorials on the tools the employee will use. The key is to find ways that workers and trainees can measure their progress and have goals to work towards actively.
Benefits of Gamification for New Hires
Getting to know you
Gamification is a proven way to improve objective performance, but even more importantly for new hires, it is an active path to becoming part of the team. It gives new employees a way to introduce themselves to their new teammates by encouraging social interaction. Trainees can appear on leaderboards, post their achievement badges, and receive likes and positive comments from established employees.
Team Building
Not only does competition between trainees and staff promote the development of the skills necessary to succeed, but it also encourages new teammates to work together towards shared goals. Some goals are for individuals, other goals can be set on a team level, and teams can compete against each other. For some trainees, individual competition with another individual agent may not be a strong motivator. But these same employees may feel highly motivated to help their teammates reach a collective goal.
Good First Impression
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. We want our new hires to get started on the right foot, with the right mindset, and at the right pace for learning. You believe that great Employee Experience is important, and you want your new hires to believe that you believe it. They must feel in their hearts that your commitment to your employees is as real as your commitment to your customers. That way, your new hires will immediately align with that commitment.
Training
From the jump, it’s absolutely vital that our employees have the training they need to deliver the extraordinary experiences that our customers expect. Gamification encourages new hires’ development throughout the training process and helps to lock in the knowledge they need to master a challenging job. Having a tool that actively pushes employees to grow and learn will ultimately lead to better-equipped staff that not only make customers happy, but also stay with the company longer.
Feedback
While providing goals and achievements that employees can seek is the first step towards encouraging development and growth, providing better and more meaningful feedback is also crucial for success. New hires can be anxious about hitting the floor to take real customer interactions—having measured feedback can help them confidently feel ready.
Progress bars and milestones give trainees a measure of their progress and provide supervisors with data they can use. Depending on the growth rate or the achievements that staff attain, team leads can look at their progress bars to provide accurate feedback and encouragement to help teams develop even further.
The Future of Onboarding
A robust onboarding and training regimen that promotes employee growth and development is a crucial foundation for every contact center, and with gamification you can take your onboarding process to the next level. If you are interested in learning more about gamification and how it can supercharge your workspace, Call Design is here to help. Contact us today to get started!
Let me share a little secret with you… there are plenty of keyboard shortcuts in Alvaria Workforce that would make you look like a wizard in front of your co-workers as you blast through your day-to-day tasks in the system with grace. The more shortcuts you use the more efficient you become in completing those tasks, and the more time you save at work. There could even be health benefits in terms of minimizing repetitive strain injury (RSI). Let me promise you, this blog is not just about Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.
Tip 1:
How many times have you wondered where a particular module is hiding exactly in the system (especially if you are a new user)? Is Official Schedule Editor in Scheduling or Tracking? Or is it in Advanced Tracking? One of the most underrated shortcuts in my opinion is Ctrl+O (the letter O, not the number zero) to launch the Open dialog. This shortcut allows you to navigate to any specific module immediately. For example, you need to navigate to Official Schedule Editor to do a quick schedule update for an employee. One of the quickest ways to get there is hold down the Ctrl key then hit the O key -> type in the word “editor” without quotes -> hit the Enter key and you are there. No mouse required!
Tip 1.5:
Here is a bonus tip for the above example – if you would like to open Official Schedule Editor in a new window (yes, it is possible to open multiple modules at the same time within the one Alvaria Workforce session just like Tom Cruise did in Minority Report), after you have typed out the word “editor” you can hit the Tab key twice to jump to the “Open in New Window” check box -> hit the Spacebar to place a check in the check box -> hit the Enter key. Magically, a new Official Schedule Editor window pops up! I will let you play around with the tab key more in your own time, it is quite handy to tab your way through the system. Tab away!
Tip 2:Now that I have your attention about tabbing. The moment you land on a field where you need to launch the lookup dialog to select something, your instincts may be to grab your mouse and find that tiny little look up “…” button to launch it. For example, you are in Official Schedule Editor, and you would like to look up an employee. RSI can be a serious issue and relying on your mouse arm heavily to perform this look up function all the time is not ideal. Hold down the Ctrl key then hit the Enter key is the shortcut to launch the look up dialog, and you are on your way to selecting the employee you are looking for.
Tip 3:
How many times have you right clicked and add… in Alvaria Workforce? For example, add an employee record, add a segment, add an Intra Day Performance, the list goes on! If I would get a dollar every time I did that mouse click combo, I would be a millionaire by now (but I think I would still not retire since I love being in Workforce too much). Drum roll… the shortcut is that you could hold down the Ctrl key then hit the Insert key to open that add dialog window. Happy adding!
Tip 4:
Speaking of adding, this shortcut is not just a mouse click saver but something functional. For example, you need to add in notes for an employee and you also would like to track when exactly you wrote those notes down for record keeping purposes, just like a diary entry. Once you are in the memo field, you can hold the Ctrl key then hit the M key, after which you would see a timestamp appear in the format of <MM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss> for the current date and time.
Tip 5:
Last but not least, this shortcut is a great friend to have, especially when you need help. Pun not intended; it is to launch the Alvaria Workforce Help! In most modules you are working in, if you are not sure about a field within the window, you can simply hit the F1 key, and a help window would pop up that is contextually based on the window you were in. For example, if you are in Forecast Group -> General tab and you are not sure what “Allow long service delays:” is, you can hit the F1 key -> click into the General tab hyperlink and read about Allow Long Service Delays.
At Call Design we are more than happy to help you with any questions you have about Alvaria Workforce, but this help menu shortcut is a great initial step to see if it can get the help immediately at the tip of your fingers. Of course, if you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us!
I hope you are able to start practicing these shortcuts next time you are in Alvaria Workforce. It is no secret that shortcuts can help you be more efficient in your day job, save you time, and can even save you from developing RSI. I have only shared what I believe to be the lesser-known shortcuts and there are a plenty more shortcuts built-in to the Alvaria Workforce system. I would be more than happy to share some more shortcuts with you another time…
Accountability is the backbone of quality customer service. When your contact center agents take ownership for their work, they provide higher quality interactions with their customer base. But how can leaders promote accountability within their organization. This article will give you some actionable tips.
Amazing, scary, or both? ChatGPT has created a firestorm of attention since it was made public last November, gaining one million users in just the first week after its launch. ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot from OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research company. Their ChatGPT chatbot allows users to engage with OpenAI’s artificial intelligence technology. It can write poetry (amazing!) as well as blog content (scary! speaking as a human who creates content) as well as texts, songs, software code, and so on, using machine learning to generate human-like text.
I’m guessing that a lot of us had the same first thought, “How good can it really be? Can it really write as well as a human?” Judging by the example of ChatGPT output that I’ve presented below, my answers are, “Pretty darn good,” and “Not yet.” Your mileage may vary. For anyone who hasn’t tried it already, I encourage you can go to OpenAI’s website and ask ChatGPT a question. For those of us who have been contact center professionals for years, our second thought might very well be, “What impact could this have on the contact center?”
Contact centers are already deploying chatbots for many reasons: call deflection, the desire to automate contacts that humans find crushingly repetitive, or just to accommodate customers who want an automated experience. But we all have anecdotal evidence that those chatbot experiences are not always successful. One of my colleagues was just yesterday relating a story of a chatbot CX experience that led her to a dead end with no answers and no options to continue on another channel, let alone reach a human agent. Could ChatGPT be different?
Signs point to yes: ChatGPT makes use of generative artificial intelligence, trained on gigantic amounts of text data that taught it to recognize patterns. Its algorithm utilizes supervised learning to potentially provide customers with fast answers that are relevant to their queries. But ChatGPT can surpass traditional chatbots with its capability to learn and adapt to new customer demands and a fast-changing contact center industry.
But don’t just take my word for it, let’s hear what ChatGPT has to say for itself. I’m not the first person to drop some actual ChatGPT-authored content into an article, but I did give it the prompt to write an article specifically about ChatGPT in the Contact Center:
ChatGPT and the Contact Center: Revolutionizing Customer Service
In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the customer service industry has been on the rise. One of the most promising AI models for this purpose is ChatGPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI. ChatGPT has the ability to understand and respond to natural language text, making it a valuable tool for automating customer service in the contact center.
One of the main advantages of using ChatGPT in the contact center is its ability to handle a wide range of customer inquiries. With its vast knowledge base and natural language understanding capabilities, ChatGPT can understand and respond to customer questions and concerns, regardless of their complexity. This eliminates the need for customers to navigate through automated phone menus or wait on hold for a live agent, saving them valuable time and increasing their overall satisfaction.
It should be noted that ChatGPT is not a complete replacement for human agents, but rather it can work alongside them to improve their performance. Agents can still be available to handle more complex issues, while ChatGPT can handle the more routine inquiries. This approach allows companies to reduce the number of agents needed, while still providing high-quality customer service.
In conclusion, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize the customer service industry by providing efficient and accurate responses to customer inquiries. Its ability to handle multiple conversations, understand natural language text, and gather valuable customer data make it a valuable tool for the contact center. As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see more companies adopting ChatGPT and other AI models to improve their customer service operations.
Not a bad take on the subject. ChatGPT pulled together some important points about the potential benefits to Customer Experience. Crucially, it included a concept that might offer some comfort to many readers, that ChatGPT is not a “complete” replacement for human agents. If I were writing that article myself, I would not in the same paragraph make that statement and then talk about reducing headcount. I would rather focus on the idea that Employee Experience could be improved and all the benefits that come with better EX— better CX, better agent wellbeing, lower attrition, and a list of additional things that could fill up a whole blog article by themselves.
Along those same lines of not completely replacing human agents, it was the CEO of OpenAI himself who tweeted:
With some eminent thinkers warning us that tools like ChatGPT will eventually impact the demand for knowledge workers, Altman’s tweet may not relieve our anxiety. He’s correct, though. Today’s version of ChatGPT has some issues, not the least of which is factual errors in its answers to direct questions. It also has a problem it shares with other AI tools, which is that it inherits bias from its training data. But going back to my co-worker’s actual CX problem with one company’s chatbot, could she have been any more dissatisfied with a flat-toned, over-written response from the current version of ChatGPT?
At least for now, ChatGPT is not a replacement for human writing that has the ring of authenticity—or for a human agent who is empowered to be a brand ambassador for their company. Tools like ChatGPT will continue to evolve and improve their ability to take care of some customer needs, and that’s great. They will likely grow to be amazing tools for the contact center. It’s that growth of AI tools that makes it even more important for us to treat our agents like humans who need to be recognized for their efforts, rewarded for caring about their customers, and nurtured with the training, support, and empowering tools (one which could be a descendant of ChatGPT) they need to do their best work.
