BenchmarkPortal

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Contact Center Work and Life Balance | Guest: Sean Vierling

Lets face it, finding the right work-life balance in a contact center isn't easy. It takes guts to make changes in your center that allow agents to balance their personal life with the company's needs. Unfortunately for contact centers, ignoring an agent's ...
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The Prize at the Intersection of Experience and Engagement: Customer Loyalty | Guest: Bob Kobek

Join Bruce Belfiore for a timely interview with Bob Kobek, President of Mobius Vendor Partners and CustomerCount. Bob will address items of interest to both outbound centers and inbound centers, focusing on ways to get to the prize of customer loyalty by ...
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Agent Engagement & Empowerment | Guest:  Maureen Lewandowski

Maureen Lewandowski of Delta Dental of Wisconsin shares tips on how to get buy-in from your people for major initiatives. She illustrates the roles of well-structured processes and carefully chosen technologies to empower and incentivize employees to improve ...
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How to Lead Customer Contact Center Professionals Through Change | Guest: Steve Ellis

Change surrounds contact center managers: mergers, systems changes, organizational changes are all high-impact events that present managers with huge challenges. Join us for the final CallTalk episode of 2017 as we explore these issues with our Change ...
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How to Overcome Three Critical Training Challenges that Hamper Excellent Service | Guest: Connor Burt

Excellent customer service requires excellent training - - and a culture that supports learning and doing. You need to articulate the results you hope to obtain in order to determine the training you need.
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Team Huddle Boards: Enhance Communication & Maximize Efficiency | Guest: Debbie Frazier

Huddles can be the team’s daily opportunity to communicate and plan. A Huddle Board is the team's tool to record important information and memorialize decisions and goals. If there is a special focus on a particular metric or initiative, the Huddle Board can ...
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Build a Customer-Focused Culture in Your Contact Center | Guest: Jeff Toister

Contact center managers know that a strong, positive, can-do culture will improve their metrics and make their customers satisfied. However, culture can seem like a complex, difficult thing to turn around, to build, and to maintain. There are some important ...
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Delivering Profoundly Remarkable Customer Service | Guest: Chip R Bell

What do Google, Netflix, Apple, Uber and Amazon have in common other than rapid growth and amazing profits? They all are considered among the most innovative companies, perpetually seek ingenious ways to delight their customers. Remarkable service for today’s ...
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Voice of the Customer and Agent Engagement: Roses, Daisies & Weeds | Guest: Michael J. Tamer

Agents are the heartbeat of every Call Center and are every manager's greatest challenge. We will explore how to optimize agent engagement and get the viewpoint of a long time Call Center Pro, Michael J. Tamer. Guest Speaker: Michael J. Tamer, CEO and ...
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Employee Engagement at Salesforce.com | Guest: David Kingsley

Getting it right, right from the start! Hear about:
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Emerging Best Practices in Agent Screening: Success through Optimized Simulations | Guest: Joe LaTorre

Joe LaTorre, Director of Innovation at Employment Technologies, will talk with host Bruce Belfiore about emerging practices that every contact center manager should know about. Focus will be on giving you take-aways that will make your recruiting and ...
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Americans with Disabilities: Positively Impacting Contact Centers Nationwide | Guest: Michael Sanders

Have you considered hiring disabled workers for your at-home or brick-and-mortar contact center operations? Bruce Belfiore interviews Michael Sanders on his efforts, with the non-profit NTI, to help Americans with Disabilities and Disabled Veterans back into ...
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Customer Experience: New Mind Meld Methodology | Guest: Mark Coudray

Air Date: Friday, February 17, 2017 - 10AM/PT Host: Bruce Belfiore, CEO & Senior Research Analyst, BenchmarkPortal Guest Speaker: Mark Coudray, DScisive Season: 8, Episode Number: 2
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Call Center Employee Recognition Best Practices | Guest: Christopher Tomsa

A thoughtful review of employee rewards and recognition programs will provide you with ideas for improving your operation. These programs do not have to be expensive - many motivational techniques cost little or nothing. Applying latest best practices to your ...
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Culture and Agent Compliance: Rules vs. Trust | Guest: Marge Robba

Your own kids, the team you coach and the people you lead at work. How much do you reel them in by rules, and how much do you let them run on trust? It’s often a struggle to figure out how to get the balance right, and many managers have been hurt by ...
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Accountability in Your Contact Center: Tips on Making it Real | Guest: Debbie Frazier

Lots of talk about employee engagement, lots of talk about inclusion in decision making.
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Agent Turnover and Retention: Stay Interviews to Drive Employee Engagement | Guest: Chris Mulligan

Agent turnover is one of the costliest issues for Contact Centers and when the agent is heading out the door, it’s usually too late to save the agent or the day.
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Intentional Coaching: Everybody Wins When You Give Agents What They Want | Guest: Barbara Burke

Intentional Coaching: Everybody wins when you give Agents what they want. "Intentional Coaching is an innovative coaching approach in which supervisors are out on the floor with their agents, reinforcing what’s right and helping them go beyond fast, efficient ...
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Leadership and Happiness | Guest: Charles Paelinck

Do Happy Leaders Lead Better? In this special episode of CallTalk, our guest argues that, in today's business organizations, great leaders usually are truly happy leaders. Does this reflect you and your contact center?
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Best Practices in Call Center Consolidation | Guest: Tim Rauschenbach

In this episode, you will learn “Five Keys To Call Center Consolidation”. Consolidation is an important and complex process that needs to be approached and executed carefully. It is crucial that you fully consider the impacts on your operations, including on ...
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Knowledge Management in the Contact Center | Guest: Brian Golden

Knowledge Management tools and resources are the brain of your contact center, providing your agents with the information they need right when they need it…when developed effectively and working properly. The effectiveness of your Knowledge Management tools ...
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Leadership Perspectives | Guest: Sheena Monnin

Leadership Perspectives: Have you ever wondered why some people are more difficult to work with than others? No matter how hard you try, it seems impossible to see eye to eye with the other person. Believe it or not, there is a quick way to figure out why the ...
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Customer Experience Journey Mapping | Guest: Amy Novak

How can an organization increase the customer satisfaction by providing a positive experience and reducing the customer’s effort? Is your organization thinking of, or looking into, more effective and less expensive says of interacting with customers?
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Outbound Predictive Dailing - Is it Dead in the US? | Guest: Alex Demczak

There have been astounding changes to the outbound calling process over the years. If your company uses predictive outbound dialing or your agents are spending time performing outbound calls, you need to hear about recent federal and state changes.
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Before Buying WFO Technology, Listen to this: Two Emerging Changes in the Contact Center Industry | Guest: William Durr

Lately, Bill has begun to detect some striking changes emerging in the contact center industry. Something that has always mystified Bill Durr is the absence of change in the industry. He sees that contact centers really don’t want to buy software, they want ...
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Big Data | Guest: Geoff Colgan

Almost 70% of Fortune 1000 companies have Big Data initiatives. But even smaller companies are using Big Data techniques to find competitive advantages. Learn how Big Data is transforming call center operations, and why your company should be planning Big ...
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Inbound Sales: Accelerate your Sales Cycle | Guest: Mark Coudray

The inbound sales process is changing. In the old days, the consumer would do about 1/3 of the sales process in advance of reaching out to the call center; now this fraction has more than doubled in many cases – with important implications for sales ...
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Leadership Development | Guest: Chris Abel

Leaders play a vital role in the call center, they are an important reason why people stay or leave, engage or not engage. Research shows the relationship agents have with their lead, supervisor or direct boss are key. Have your leaders gone into their ...
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Employee Engagement and Retention Trends | Guest: Chris Abel

Employee engagement and retention are core talent management building blocks. Staying abreast of key trends and new approaches is important for HR professionals across disciplines. TalentKeepers’ annual Employee Engagement and Retention Trends Survey is the ...
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Surveys - 15 Tips to Optimize Yours | Guest: Dr. Fred Van Bennekom

Survey Design Surveys are an important tool for measuring your customers’ and agents’ satisfaction along with identifying areas needing improvement. While a survey seems deceptively simple — it’s just a bunch of questions — getting good, valid data for ...
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Technology - Leveraging Industry Benchmarks to Build a Business Case | Guest: Drew Wright

Leveraging Industry Benchmarks to Build a Business Case for a Technology Investment. Technology is a crucial component of a good contact center. Drew Wright will share his experiences as a problem solver and business case builder. He will shed light on how ...
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Coaching Strategy - A Success Formula | Guest: Dave Gregory

A Success Formula – How to Coach and Develop Discretionary Effort Learn how each employee is unique and valuable when properly mentored. As a coach use this knowledge to guide them through important transformations toward top performance.
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Process Improvement at Contact Centers - A Lean Six Sigma Approach | Guest: Walt Sweeny

Customers are demanding more efficient and effective service from Contact Centers throughout all industries. Host Bruce Belfiore chats with veteran manager Walt Sweeney about a Lean Six Sigma approach to Contact Center process improvement that Contact Center ...
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Culture - How To Build and Work With Culture | Guest: Walt Sweeny

Many of us describe our strong culture and its impact on our organization as a “secret sauce”. What are some factors that can serve a barriers to creating a strong and healthy culture?”
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Quality Assurance - One Minute Survey | Guest: Dayne Petersen

Listen to host Bruce Belfiore interview Dayne Petersen in an illuminating discussion on Quality Assurance best practices.
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Caller I.D. and the Contact Center | Guest: Ian Roncoroni

Cost of caller identification: Even though it’s been around for decades, caller ID continues to pose problems for your contact center. Today, we’ll be talking about why those problems are actually getting worse, and discuss some ways your contact centers can ...
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Highlights from Call Center Campus: Imagining Excellence in the Contact Center | Guest: Amy Novak

After another amazing Call Center Campus event in Las Vegas this November 2014, Bruce Belfiore and Amy Novak review some of the highlights from the event. Listen as they review best practices shared in our Round Tables and Panel Discussions, as well as ...
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Quality Transformation | Guest: Toni Roberts

Listen now on demand to our latest CallTalk Show on Quality Transformation. Toni Roberts, Director of Delta Dental of Michigan, will share tips on breathing new life into quality at your center. This includes changing the perception of quality ownership by ...
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Call Center Law | Guest: Adam Losey

Listen now on demand to our latest CallTalk Show on Call Center Law. Adam Losey, Esq., an attorney with Foley & Lardner, will share tips on monitoring communications as well as other legal issues important to contact centers. As privacy counsel for call ...
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Employee Recognition - Why is everyone talking about it? | Guest: Rosanne D’Ausilio

Why are so many people talking about Employee Engagement? We’ll find out a few tips on the effectiveness of employee recognition and how it can potentially provide financial success to your company. Zane Safrit, CEO, Business Consultant, and Author will share ...
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Agent Motivation and Coaching - The Positive Coaching Approach | Guest: Judy McKee

What is the Positive Coach Approach? Positive Coach is designed to help call center coaches learn how to cultivate great agents. This approach will lessen the work load on managers and quality assurance departments, and foster a more open and competent work ...
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Customer Effort - Is this the new Net Promoter Score? | Guest: Frederick Van Bennekom

Just because research is published on the internet or in a business journal does not mean the research findings are true. Look at survey methodology and design to determine validity. Join host BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore and guest host Frederick Van ...
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Gamification Principles and Best Practices | Guest: Bob Cowen

Join host BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore and guest host Bob Cowen, Snowfly, as they discuss gamification principles and best practices. What is it, why all of the hype, and how can we use it for our daily challenges like retention, adherence, quality, ...
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Is The Net Promoter Score The One Number You Need to Know | Guest: Frederick Van Bennekom

Unless we're in a churn and burn business, customer retention is critical to achieve long term profitability. But how do we know what drives customer retention? We may have lots of anecdotal data, but can we be scientific to identify those customers are very ...
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Virtual Agents – Ideas for Implementing a Home Based Support Center | Guest: Jesse Hoobler

We will be discussing the reasons why Support Organizations choose to go virtual, advantages to leverage, roadblocks to avoid, and some lessons learned from out in the field.
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Management: Generation Y in the Contact Center | Guest: Greg Van Zandt

Understanding Millennials: Who Are They? What drives them? What are their significant attributes? Considerations when managing this Generation: Implications on Scheduling, Work diversity, Training / Coaching, Contact Center and Corporate culture; Leveraging ...
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Management: Are You Parenting or Managing Your Staff | Guest: Rosanne D’Ausilio

Do you want to improve your performance and the performance of your staff? Of course, the answer is yes. We all do. But first we need distinctions between managing and parenting–as well as managing and leading–so managers (and everyone else) can develop both ...
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Delivering Quality: Sysco's Service with a S.M.I.L.E. | Guest: Ed Poorbaugh

Ed shares how Sysco has improved their average quality score from 88.7% to 94%, and reduced turnover by 15%. They are delivering service with a S.M.I.L.E. Ed has held a number of positions in warehousing, transportation and information technology operations ...
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Voice of the Customer | Guest: Steve Ellis

Steve Ellis will share five key steps to designing an effective Voice of the Customer program that focuses on the customer experience and drives continuous improvement throughout the organization.
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Lemming or Leader - You Decide | Guest: Steve Riddell

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Call Center Campus 2012 - Best Practices Roundup | Guest: Dee Buell

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Service to Sales: Providing Strategic Organizational Value | Guest: Russell Rossi

Discussion points: 1. Developing a strategic road map 2. Key strategies to excite your organization for change and growth 3. Importance of measuring results for success.
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Multi-Channel Management: Latest Learning On What To Measure & How | Guest: David Raia

“Call” centers are now “Contact” centers, with multiple channels a client can connect with you and your business. Special guest, David Raia, will be joining us as we examine this new world and discuss the following:
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Adding Sales to Your Customer Service Culture | Guest: Susan Wolski

Join host Bruce Belfiore, CEO, and Susan Wolski – TXU Energy, as they discuss adding sales to your customer service culture. Transitioning a call center from a typical “customer service” environment to a “sales” environment can be challenging. However, in ...
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Government Call Centers: Simple Adjustments for Better Service Levels! | Guest: Kimberly Parish Barrett

Join host Bruce Belfiore, CEO, and Kimberly Parish Barrett, Director, Florida Abuse Hotline, Department of Children and Families, as they discuss government call centers. Bruce and Kimblerly will discuss how simple operational adjustments can lead to improved ...
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BenchmarkPortal's New Multi-Channel Benchmark Survey | Guest: John Chatterley

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Workforce Management Meets Workforce Morale | Guest: Ed Poorbaugh

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