Organizations are turning to cloud computing in order to achieve a host of business objectives and Aspect is no different. The cloud is not just talk for us, we’ve moved our ERP and CRM platforms and many of our internal systems to the cloud for enhanced performance and more seamless...Read More

The outlook is rather bleak for companies that provide sub-par customer service:82 percent of consumers have stopped doing business with a company strictly due to bad service. And if your strategy is to rely on new customers to replace those lost, you’ll have to pay a high price. It...Read More

Omni-channel may sound like multi-channel with bells on, but it’s more than just a simple buzzword. Has your contact centre made the move yet?At the time the term “omni-channel” entered the customer service lexicon, most industry professionals were still getting to grips with...Read More

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone and several retail analysts are saying holiday sales have been a little less than stellar. While sales were up last year 4.1 percent, this year they will be closer 3.5 percent according to Dana Telsey, CEO of Telsey Advisory Group. Kind of like a...Read More

One of the great changes in consumer behaviour brought about by the digital age has been the rise of self-service solutions in almost every area of daily life. Whether they’re shopping, banking or simply getting from A to B, today’s customers tend to be perfectly happy making...Read More

Smartphones have given consumers today more information at their fingertips than ever before and because of this, more power. Power to research products, to compare prices and features, and the power give or take their business to whomever earns their trust and loyalty. The consequence? Consumer...Read More

As social media becomes the go-to for customers to voice their concerns, businesses need to ensure it plays a greater role in their overall customer service strategy and, in some cases, even form the backbone.The whole reason customers use Twitter as a platform to interact with companies and...Read More

Companies talk about building relationships with customers. A lot. In the normal buying cycle, most businesses only begin the customer relationship once the initial purchase has been made and quantifiable information is available. Even for online retailers who have the ability to allow...Read More

So much has been written recently about the importance of the customer experience that we have forgotten about the importance of the agent experience – and that can be a big mistake.  Ian Jacobs, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research puts it this way in a recent report*, “Unhappy...Read More

Forget vampires, werewolves and all the other seasonal spooks. If you’re looking for an extra-scary Halloween costume this year, we recommend dressing up as a sub-par customer experience. From what we’ve seen, no other “monster” is capable of sucking as much life out of...Read More

Today’s consumers have made it very clear that they overwhelmingly prefer to use digital channels when it comes to person-to-person communications. And yet when it comes to contacting companies, customers are still calling – and they will for quite some time to come. That’s how...Read More

Social media is no longer the newest or shiniest customer service channel but it’s safe to say it still has not reached its full potential. Part of that potential was inadvertently revealed last weekend when a Southwest Airlines computer glitch prevented some passengers from checking in for...Read More

How do you lose a customer before you even have a chance to do business with them? For my brother, it’s putting him on hold three times when he’s trying to book a taxi to the airport for a 7 AM flight. He was considering using a taxi service, the traditional route where he would call...Read More

No matter how good your quality management process is, you need fundamentally strong QM tools to capture customer interactions, surface underlying issues and take corrective action. These tools typically include recording, quality monitoring, coaching and speech/text analytics. In fact, it is...Read More

App fatigue sounds like the quintessential first world problem doesn’t it? “Oh I have way too many apps to open and close on my iPhone 6s. My thumb is sore and I’m burning…like many seconds opening and closing all these things. This is unacceptable.”And yet, in a...Read More

For decades companies big and small have been trying to figure out how to provide customers with better service. One theory is that the better service your company provides, the happier your customers are and in turn they reward you through their loyalty.Sounds simple, right?  Some of...Read More

Enterprises right and left struggle with a number of strategic imperatives around customer engagement. One among them is “avoiding the call.” Competitive pressure and an ongoing desire to cut costs drives organizations to look for ways to automate customer service and elevate the role...Read More

During the throws of day to day operations, nurses, medical secretaries and physicians are often facilitating communication between physicians and patients. Patients call daily with triage questions, inquiries about medical instructions, updates on changes in conditions, and to receive test...Read More

When you think about improving the customer experience, the back office might not be the first thing that comes to mind. After all, most customer-facing interactions happen in the front office. But without the speed, efficiency and quality of effective back office operations, your front office...Read More

The day of connected devices is here. Mere possibilities with IoT (Internet of Things) a few short years ago are today’s realities and wearables like the Apple Watch or connected home devices like Nest are just a few examples. While the majority of IoT attention goes to consumer devices...Read More

A recent Aspect study found that 70% of consumers don’t want to talk to a customer service agent if they don’t have to – they’d rather have the ability to solve product and service issues on their own. They are also increasingly frustrated with the service they are getting...Read More

n any conversation or article as it relates to the new dynamic between customer and company, the conversation invariably addresses the fact that customers are the drivers in what was formerly a relationship where the company dictated how, when and where interactions took place i.e. the customer...Read More

Recently, Frost & Sullivan invited Aspect thought leaders and other customer engagement industry professionals to get together to discuss how mobile and social are changing consumer engagement and the future of customer service. As you can imagine, an animated discussion ensued about the...Read More

In a recent blog, we talked about productivity in the back office being vital to good customer engagement in the front office. For many enterprises, especially those in service-based industries like banking, mortgage origination and insurance, the back office is at the very heart of the business...Read More

True breakthroughs are rare in any industry. So is true innovation. But what does innovation even mean?Wikipedia, our crowd-sourced and most accessible pool of human knowledge, says: “Innovation is a new idea, more effective device or process. Innovation can be viewed as the...Read More

Recently, the U.S. Department of Transportation released a report that ravaged domestic airline carriers for the dramatic rise in customer complaints during the first half of 2015. Apparently complaints about airlines soared more than 20 percent during the period. What irked the agency was the...Read More

You might have one or two last minute getaways planned but for the most part summer travel is winding down. I’d like you to think back on your recent travel experiences. Were you able to get the assistance you needed on the communication channels you preferred to use? Or did you find...Read More

A study conducted by International Data Corporation found that 79% of smartphone users have their phone with them for all but two hours of their waking day. And a full quarter of respondents couldn’t recall a time when their phone wasn’t in the same room with them.I don’t know...Read More

Advances in information technology software and telephony systems have led to a transformation in how hospital systems deliver patient care and increase patient satisfaction. Similar to many other industries, changes in healthcare can trigger fear in patients, front-end staff, and clinical...Read More

Left-handed people make up 10-12% of the population and yet historically, the world around them has been designed for the other 90% – the right handers. Which is great…if you’re right handed. If you aren’t, you no doubt you struggled in school with writing on right handed...Read More

We’ve all been there…  We start a transaction on a self-service channel and we run into an issue somewhere along the way and need help from a live agent. Most often it’s a frustrating experience. In order to get the agent up to speed we are forced to repeat the same...Read More

The bring your own device trend (BYOD), while initially held at arm’s length by most enterprise IT organizations, has led to a very notable improvement in employee efficiency and productivity in the workplace. A VMware study conducted by Acorn Marketing & Research Consultants back in...Read More

The latest issue of Consumer Reports published a study on the top irritants consumers have with customer service. While the findings were not exactly surprising, they are disappointing. At least 10 of the 17 items listed can be addressed with simple technology updates. The question we keep asking...Read More

Summer storms have been particularly strong across the United States. During the month of May tornadoes and have wreaked havoc on much of the South and Midwest with the most tornadoes seen in one month in the last twenty years. The impact of these storms is further reaching than just the...Read More

Michael Schrage wrote a great piece yesterday in the Harvard Business Review on the neglected truth about customer self-service. Schrage writes that there is a difference between self-service and self-support. Self-service he notes, centers on outcomes that a customer expects or anticipates when...Read More

Every day, six billion SMS messages are sent in the US, about twice the number of phone calls made and roughly 25 times the number of pieces of first class mail processed and delivered by the U.S. Postal Service daily. Messaging apps is a $251 billion annual business and is forecasted to generate...Read More

You want to learn how you can better meet the needs of your customers whenever, wherever and on the channel they choose. We get that. But tell that to your inbox. Or to the relentless flood of meeting invites, conference calls and pop-up projects you get every day. (Spoiler alert: they can&rsquo...Read More

Traditional one-way marketing and collecting consumers’ digital footprints and identities such as phone numbers or email addresses are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Businesses used to be able to dictate their brand image to the market solely through broadcast advertising. Today...Read More

Music, movies, photography, transportation, communications and publishing are all industries that continue to experience massive disruption brought on by the advent of technology. ITunes made CDs obsolete. Netflix turned Blockbuster into nostalgia. Digital photography created an archaic brand in...Read More

Economies of scale are factors that cause the average cost of producing a product or delivering a service to fall as the volume of its output increases (Economist, 2008). Economies of scale model is most commonly applied to the manufacturing industry — but, what about healthcare?“It...Read More

It seems like organizations have been collecting and analyzing vast amounts of complex customer data for ages – there’s a reason we call it ‘Big Data.’ But thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile/digital advances, the amount of customer data has been increasing...Read More

There is a misunderstanding about goldfish. The urban myth, perpetuated for decades, is that goldfish will only grow as large as the container they find themselves swimming in. Not true it turns out. When properly cared for, goldfish don’t in fact stop growing because unlike humans, they...Read More

Healthcare has been hit hard by policy, technology and regulatory changes.  Compounding these industry upheavals, patient expectations have grown exponentially – and, for the most part, have not been met by current healthcare practices, especially when it comes to effective...Read More

Continued from Part 1: Dissolving Brick and Mortar Bank BranchesAlthough the bank branch is becoming less relevant to customers for simple transactions because on-line banking is subsuming many of the functions formerly accomplished by tellers, the branch remains a primary source of new sales...Read More

We live in an always-on, hyper-connected world where consumers want it all. They want you to cater to their preferences, expect personalized service and believe you should make doing business with your company absolutely effortless. Customers have become incredibly demanding, right? Yes&hellip...Read More

At age 21, SMS text messaging is finally growing up. Time for big business. Time for business2consumer communication. Finally! But let’s have a closer look at how SMS is predominantly used today.Do you get prescription reminders from your pharmacy, or appointment reminders from your clinic?...Read More

Drive through any town in the US, whether large or small, and you will undoubtedly see striking edifices occupied by branches of banks. They are part of our American heritage, symbols of confidence and stability. But changes in consumer preferences, banking regulations and new technologies are...Read More

Customer service in the hospitality industry is no simple task for any company but luxury brands have to reach the highest of bars and sometimes even go to extreme measures to satisfy guests. The Edwardian Group, a collection of luxury hotels, seeks to be memory-makers for their guests. The...Read More

Travel and hospitality companies pride themselves on exceptional customer service but are they really putting their money where their mouths are? In a 2014 survey of customer service executives, 94 percent of them agree that customer service is a priority. Yet the travel...Read More

Patient-centered care is taking hold in this country as health systems switch from volume-based to value-based, patient-centered models. This model can only work when everyone comes together to create greater efficiencies through economies of scale.Economies of scale are the cost advantages that...Read More

Kids today…are they really tech savvy? They’re always on their phones, using cool apps, making videos and coming up with things like Uber to make life easier.As a function of their near-constant use of new technology (especially smart phones and tablets) it’s easy to think of...Read More

Is doodle the next great customer service channel? Will customer engagement vendors talk about scribble integration? If Ink Messenger takes off it could happen. Ink Messenger aims to carve out a share of the booming messaging market as an alternative to traditional SMS and text-based message apps...Read More

n Forrester’s recent report, How to Measure and Improve the Contact Center Agent Experience, Ian Jacobs explains some guiding principles that can be used to significantly improve the customer experience by improving the agent experience. This report makes a compelling case that you can...Read More

Beta or VHS? GSM or CDMA? Apple or Android?The battle for competing tech standards goes back centuries. Just ask Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla who famously and by some reports unscrupulously competed to have their standard for an electric power distribution selected during the early days of...Read More

Organizations are turning to cloud computing in order to achieve a host of business objectives and Aspect is no different. The cloud is not just talk for us, we’ve moved our ERP and CRM platforms and many of our internal systems to the cloud for enhanced performance and more seamless...Read More

The outlook is rather bleak for companies that provide sub-par customer service:82 percent of consumers have stopped doing business with a company strictly due to bad service. And if your strategy is to rely on new customers to replace those lost, you’ll have to pay a high price. It...Read More

Omni-channel may sound like multi-channel with bells on, but it’s more than just a simple buzzword. Has your contact centre made the move yet?At the time the term “omni-channel” entered the customer service lexicon, most industry professionals were still getting to grips with...Read More

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone and several retail analysts are saying holiday sales have been a little less than stellar. While sales were up last year 4.1 percent, this year they will be closer 3.5 percent according to Dana Telsey, CEO of Telsey Advisory Group. Kind of like a...Read More

One of the great changes in consumer behaviour brought about by the digital age has been the rise of self-service solutions in almost every area of daily life. Whether they’re shopping, banking or simply getting from A to B, today’s customers tend to be perfectly happy making...Read More

Smartphones have given consumers today more information at their fingertips than ever before and because of this, more power. Power to research products, to compare prices and features, and the power give or take their business to whomever earns their trust and loyalty. The consequence? Consumer...Read More

As social media becomes the go-to for customers to voice their concerns, businesses need to ensure it plays a greater role in their overall customer service strategy and, in some cases, even form the backbone.The whole reason customers use Twitter as a platform to interact with companies and...Read More

Companies talk about building relationships with customers. A lot. In the normal buying cycle, most businesses only begin the customer relationship once the initial purchase has been made and quantifiable information is available. Even for online retailers who have the ability to allow...Read More

So much has been written recently about the importance of the customer experience that we have forgotten about the importance of the agent experience – and that can be a big mistake.  Ian Jacobs, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research puts it this way in a recent report*, “Unhappy...Read More

Forget vampires, werewolves and all the other seasonal spooks. If you’re looking for an extra-scary Halloween costume this year, we recommend dressing up as a sub-par customer experience. From what we’ve seen, no other “monster” is capable of sucking as much life out of...Read More

Today’s consumers have made it very clear that they overwhelmingly prefer to use digital channels when it comes to person-to-person communications. And yet when it comes to contacting companies, customers are still calling – and they will for quite some time to come. That’s how...Read More

Social media is no longer the newest or shiniest customer service channel but it’s safe to say it still has not reached its full potential. Part of that potential was inadvertently revealed last weekend when a Southwest Airlines computer glitch prevented some passengers from checking in for...Read More

How do you lose a customer before you even have a chance to do business with them? For my brother, it’s putting him on hold three times when he’s trying to book a taxi to the airport for a 7 AM flight. He was considering using a taxi service, the traditional route where he would call...Read More

No matter how good your quality management process is, you need fundamentally strong QM tools to capture customer interactions, surface underlying issues and take corrective action. These tools typically include recording, quality monitoring, coaching and speech/text analytics. In fact, it is...Read More

App fatigue sounds like the quintessential first world problem doesn’t it? “Oh I have way too many apps to open and close on my iPhone 6s. My thumb is sore and I’m burning…like many seconds opening and closing all these things. This is unacceptable.”And yet, in a...Read More

For decades companies big and small have been trying to figure out how to provide customers with better service. One theory is that the better service your company provides, the happier your customers are and in turn they reward you through their loyalty.Sounds simple, right?  Some of...Read More

Enterprises right and left struggle with a number of strategic imperatives around customer engagement. One among them is “avoiding the call.” Competitive pressure and an ongoing desire to cut costs drives organizations to look for ways to automate customer service and elevate the role...Read More

During the throws of day to day operations, nurses, medical secretaries and physicians are often facilitating communication between physicians and patients. Patients call daily with triage questions, inquiries about medical instructions, updates on changes in conditions, and to receive test...Read More

When you think about improving the customer experience, the back office might not be the first thing that comes to mind. After all, most customer-facing interactions happen in the front office. But without the speed, efficiency and quality of effective back office operations, your front office...Read More

The day of connected devices is here. Mere possibilities with IoT (Internet of Things) a few short years ago are today’s realities and wearables like the Apple Watch or connected home devices like Nest are just a few examples. While the majority of IoT attention goes to consumer devices...Read More

A recent Aspect study found that 70% of consumers don’t want to talk to a customer service agent if they don’t have to – they’d rather have the ability to solve product and service issues on their own. They are also increasingly frustrated with the service they are getting...Read More

n any conversation or article as it relates to the new dynamic between customer and company, the conversation invariably addresses the fact that customers are the drivers in what was formerly a relationship where the company dictated how, when and where interactions took place i.e. the customer...Read More

Recently, Frost & Sullivan invited Aspect thought leaders and other customer engagement industry professionals to get together to discuss how mobile and social are changing consumer engagement and the future of customer service. As you can imagine, an animated discussion ensued about the...Read More

In a recent blog, we talked about productivity in the back office being vital to good customer engagement in the front office. For many enterprises, especially those in service-based industries like banking, mortgage origination and insurance, the back office is at the very heart of the business...Read More

True breakthroughs are rare in any industry. So is true innovation. But what does innovation even mean?Wikipedia, our crowd-sourced and most accessible pool of human knowledge, says: “Innovation is a new idea, more effective device or process. Innovation can be viewed as the...Read More

Recently, the U.S. Department of Transportation released a report that ravaged domestic airline carriers for the dramatic rise in customer complaints during the first half of 2015. Apparently complaints about airlines soared more than 20 percent during the period. What irked the agency was the...Read More

You might have one or two last minute getaways planned but for the most part summer travel is winding down. I’d like you to think back on your recent travel experiences. Were you able to get the assistance you needed on the communication channels you preferred to use? Or did you find...Read More

A study conducted by International Data Corporation found that 79% of smartphone users have their phone with them for all but two hours of their waking day. And a full quarter of respondents couldn’t recall a time when their phone wasn’t in the same room with them.I don’t know...Read More

Advances in information technology software and telephony systems have led to a transformation in how hospital systems deliver patient care and increase patient satisfaction. Similar to many other industries, changes in healthcare can trigger fear in patients, front-end staff, and clinical...Read More

Left-handed people make up 10-12% of the population and yet historically, the world around them has been designed for the other 90% – the right handers. Which is great…if you’re right handed. If you aren’t, you no doubt you struggled in school with writing on right handed...Read More

We’ve all been there…  We start a transaction on a self-service channel and we run into an issue somewhere along the way and need help from a live agent. Most often it’s a frustrating experience. In order to get the agent up to speed we are forced to repeat the same...Read More

The bring your own device trend (BYOD), while initially held at arm’s length by most enterprise IT organizations, has led to a very notable improvement in employee efficiency and productivity in the workplace. A VMware study conducted by Acorn Marketing & Research Consultants back in...Read More

The latest issue of Consumer Reports published a study on the top irritants consumers have with customer service. While the findings were not exactly surprising, they are disappointing. At least 10 of the 17 items listed can be addressed with simple technology updates. The question we keep asking...Read More

Summer storms have been particularly strong across the United States. During the month of May tornadoes and have wreaked havoc on much of the South and Midwest with the most tornadoes seen in one month in the last twenty years. The impact of these storms is further reaching than just the...Read More

Michael Schrage wrote a great piece yesterday in the Harvard Business Review on the neglected truth about customer self-service. Schrage writes that there is a difference between self-service and self-support. Self-service he notes, centers on outcomes that a customer expects or anticipates when...Read More

Every day, six billion SMS messages are sent in the US, about twice the number of phone calls made and roughly 25 times the number of pieces of first class mail processed and delivered by the U.S. Postal Service daily. Messaging apps is a $251 billion annual business and is forecasted to generate...Read More

You want to learn how you can better meet the needs of your customers whenever, wherever and on the channel they choose. We get that. But tell that to your inbox. Or to the relentless flood of meeting invites, conference calls and pop-up projects you get every day. (Spoiler alert: they can&rsquo...Read More

Traditional one-way marketing and collecting consumers’ digital footprints and identities such as phone numbers or email addresses are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Businesses used to be able to dictate their brand image to the market solely through broadcast advertising. Today...Read More

Music, movies, photography, transportation, communications and publishing are all industries that continue to experience massive disruption brought on by the advent of technology. ITunes made CDs obsolete. Netflix turned Blockbuster into nostalgia. Digital photography created an archaic brand in...Read More

Economies of scale are factors that cause the average cost of producing a product or delivering a service to fall as the volume of its output increases (Economist, 2008). Economies of scale model is most commonly applied to the manufacturing industry — but, what about healthcare?“It...Read More

It seems like organizations have been collecting and analyzing vast amounts of complex customer data for ages – there’s a reason we call it ‘Big Data.’ But thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile/digital advances, the amount of customer data has been increasing...Read More

There is a misunderstanding about goldfish. The urban myth, perpetuated for decades, is that goldfish will only grow as large as the container they find themselves swimming in. Not true it turns out. When properly cared for, goldfish don’t in fact stop growing because unlike humans, they...Read More

Healthcare has been hit hard by policy, technology and regulatory changes.  Compounding these industry upheavals, patient expectations have grown exponentially – and, for the most part, have not been met by current healthcare practices, especially when it comes to effective...Read More

Continued from Part 1: Dissolving Brick and Mortar Bank BranchesAlthough the bank branch is becoming less relevant to customers for simple transactions because on-line banking is subsuming many of the functions formerly accomplished by tellers, the branch remains a primary source of new sales...Read More

We live in an always-on, hyper-connected world where consumers want it all. They want you to cater to their preferences, expect personalized service and believe you should make doing business with your company absolutely effortless. Customers have become incredibly demanding, right? Yes&hellip...Read More

At age 21, SMS text messaging is finally growing up. Time for big business. Time for business2consumer communication. Finally! But let’s have a closer look at how SMS is predominantly used today.Do you get prescription reminders from your pharmacy, or appointment reminders from your clinic?...Read More

Drive through any town in the US, whether large or small, and you will undoubtedly see striking edifices occupied by branches of banks. They are part of our American heritage, symbols of confidence and stability. But changes in consumer preferences, banking regulations and new technologies are...Read More

Customer service in the hospitality industry is no simple task for any company but luxury brands have to reach the highest of bars and sometimes even go to extreme measures to satisfy guests. The Edwardian Group, a collection of luxury hotels, seeks to be memory-makers for their guests. The...Read More

Travel and hospitality companies pride themselves on exceptional customer service but are they really putting their money where their mouths are? In a 2014 survey of customer service executives, 94 percent of them agree that customer service is a priority. Yet the travel...Read More

Patient-centered care is taking hold in this country as health systems switch from volume-based to value-based, patient-centered models. This model can only work when everyone comes together to create greater efficiencies through economies of scale.Economies of scale are the cost advantages that...Read More

Kids today…are they really tech savvy? They’re always on their phones, using cool apps, making videos and coming up with things like Uber to make life easier.As a function of their near-constant use of new technology (especially smart phones and tablets) it’s easy to think of...Read More

Is doodle the next great customer service channel? Will customer engagement vendors talk about scribble integration? If Ink Messenger takes off it could happen. Ink Messenger aims to carve out a share of the booming messaging market as an alternative to traditional SMS and text-based message apps...Read More

n Forrester’s recent report, How to Measure and Improve the Contact Center Agent Experience, Ian Jacobs explains some guiding principles that can be used to significantly improve the customer experience by improving the agent experience. This report makes a compelling case that you can...Read More

Beta or VHS? GSM or CDMA? Apple or Android?The battle for competing tech standards goes back centuries. Just ask Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla who famously and by some reports unscrupulously competed to have their standard for an electric power distribution selected during the early days of...Read More