CallTalk™ Radio
170 episodes - English - Latest episode: 18 days ago - ★★★★★ - 7 ratingsCallTalk is the first on-line radio show specifically about Call Centers. BenchmarkPortal brings this show to listeners with no vendor sponsorship so the content is completely neutral. If you have a topic you would like us to cover, send it to [email protected]
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Episodes
The power of an effective feedback loop
August 08, 2018 17:00 - 38 minutes - 34.5 MBInformation feedback is the lifeblood of continuous improvement for contact centers. However, most centers don't employ a structured approach to originating, processing and acting on feedback. In this session, guest Pam Wilson explains the 4 stages required for a feedback loop to have full efficacy. We will discuss the four stages and Pam will share how she has seen them best implemented in call center settings.
Fair Trade Outsourcing: Sustainable, Ethical and Profitable
July 18, 2018 17:00 - 40 minutes - 36.1 MBJoin Bruce Belfiore and Mike Dershowitz, CEO and Managing Director of Rethink Staffing, as they discuss a novel approach to managing call centers for outperforming results and creating social and economic impact at the same time. Mike shares his philosophy behind fair trade outsourcing, and some real-world examples that illustrate its sustainability, ethicality, and profitability.
Marijuana in the Workplace
June 13, 2018 17:00 - 32 minutes - 29.2 MBWhy Drug Test?Drug Testing OptionsNationwide Positivity RatesLegalization of MarijuanaMedical and Recreational Marijuana LandscapeDrug Testing ChallengesPolicy ConsiderationsRecent Workplace Marijuana Case ReviewFuture of Drug Testing
The Knowledge Loop: Improve Your Products and Customer Experience by Leveraging Front-Line Agents
May 09, 2018 17:00 - 37 minutes - 33.4 MBHow contact centers can leverage agent knowledge to improve the products they support. Design for improved Customer Experience while sharing valuable input with other departments: marketing, product development and sales. Information gathering, analysis and distribution are keys to a quality customer service organization. Feedback shows you the weak spots, while analysis and communication with other parts of your enterprise bring value to the enterprise as a whole. Dr. Van Bennekom will dr...
Thought Leadership in the Contact Center: You Can Do It!
April 11, 2018 17:00 - 32 minutes - 29.1 MBJoin CallTalk host Bruce Belfiore as he talks with author and speaker Mitchell Levy about ways to bring thought leadership into your life and your organization. Hear the tips he shared with his Ted Talk audience about listening, hearing, connecting and leading. Mitchell will provide you with insights you can use immediately in your center, and will explain his H.E.L.P. paradigm that will get you thinking and acting to improve yourself and your work place.
Contact Center WorkLife Balance
March 20, 2018 16:30 - 33 minutes - 29.7 MBLet's 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 need for work-life balance has high costs. One study from Indeed found that "More than one in four employees (27%) in organizations that are not perceived to support work-life balance plan to leave their companies within the next two year...
What's the Road to Customer Loyalty?
February 14, 2018 18:00 - 33 minutes - 29.9 MBJoin Bruce Belfiore for a timely interview with Bob Kobek, President of Mobius 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. He will discuss both the concepts and the practical tools needed to get the results every manager seeks. He will include his thoughts on call center technology and online feedback, such as CSAT, NPS and CES. Bob will also share his ideas on the impo...
Agent Engagement & Empowerment
January 17, 2018 18:00 - 31 minutes - 28.4 MBMaureen 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 performance as a team – and attain certified excellence. These are great, practical insights that most mangers can quickly implement in their centers. Guest Bio: Maureen Lewandowski is the Director, Operations at Delta Dental of Wisco...
How to Lead Customer Contact Center Professionals Through Change
December 07, 2017 18:00 - 38 minutes - 34.5 MBChange 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 Management expert, Steve Ellis. Steve will share his exceptional experiences and walk us through a structured approach to leading contact centers during major changes. Be ready to take notes on tips to prepare your team for both change – and suc...
Overcome Three Critical Training Challenges that Hamper Excellent Service
October 26, 2017 17:00 - 34 minutes - 31.1 MBExcellent 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. In this episode of CallTalk Bruce Belfiore and Conner Burt focus on the importance of access, speed and data to your center's success. Please join us for a lively discussion that will both explore these themes and give practical suggestions on how to leverage them best. Conner Burt is the...
Team Huddle Boards: Enhance Communication & Maximize Efficiency
September 13, 2017 18:00 - 34 minutes - 30.2 MBHuddles can be the team’s daily opportunity to communicate and plan. They can also be used to circulate other important company or product information. If there is a special focus on a particular metric or initiative the huddle can be used to remind the team and reinforce these initiatives each day. Announcements, such as a scheduled downtime, can also be made during this dedicated time. Communication is the grease that makes things happen smoothly in contact centers. It is also an area in wh...
Building a customer-focused culture in your contact center
August 16, 2017 17:00 - 35 minutes - 31.5 MBContact 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 tips that will help you with this important element of your operation. Bruce Belfiore will ask Jeff Toister to give you the benefit of his experience regarding issues such as: - The importance of leadership in fomenting, forming and furthe...
Delivering Profoundly Remarkable Service
July 26, 2017 19:00 - 37 minutes - 33.7 MBWhat 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 picky, fickle and vocal customers requires a constant and deliberate pursuit of innovative ways to make the customers’ experiences sparkly, but consistent; enriching, but profitable. Since value-added has gotten way too expensive; smart...
Voice of the Customer and Agent Engagement: Roses, Daisies & Weeds
June 14, 2017 17:00 - 35 minutes - 31.2 MBCall Centers are full of many moving parts, we will dive into as many as we can and get the viewpoint of a long time Call Center Pro, Michael J. Tamer, CEO and President of Proponisi. Michael is a 25-year veteran of the customer contact industry. Michael is the author of the book, The Four-Minute Customer, which outlines his Customer Experience management philosophies, and was at the forefront of the contact center quality monitoring industry. Throughout his career, Michael has been teachin...
Employee Engagement - Getting it right, right from the start!
May 31, 2017 20:00 - 32 minutes - 29.1 MBSome of the things we hope to touch on: - values alignment - ?Why can't my work life be like my personal life? - Employee engagement ROI chain - Culture + Tech + Data = engagement - Description of Ohana - Unifying the on-boarding experiences of different areas (pulling together best practices) - Improving the new hire experience - Use of AI in evaluating and career-pathing employees David Kingsley is an experienced organizational effectiveness executive who currently serv...
Best Practices in Agent Screening: Success through Optimized Simulations
April 19, 2017 17:00 - 33 minutes - 29.6 MBJoe 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 screening efforts more cost efficient as well as more successful in terms of hiring the right people for your center. Join us for this illuminating episode of CallTalk! Joe has designed and directed the development of more than 100 custom simula...
Americans with Disabilities: Positively Impacting Contact Centers Nationwide
March 29, 2017 17:00 - 34 minutes - 30.8 MBBruce Belfiore interviews Michael Sanders on his efforts, with the non-profit NTI, to help Americans with Disabilities and Disabled Veterans back into the workplace. Through his work, he has actively placed over 650 work-at-home employees, per year, in Fortune 500 companies. Michael talks about the challenges and opportunity of hiring Americans with Disabilities within the Call Center, Customer Service, and IT Help Desk industries and the solutions NTI can provide. Michael Sanders is the D...
Customer Experience: New Mind Meld Methodology
February 17, 2017 18:00 - 37 minutes - 33.6 MBBruce Belfiore interviews Mark Coudray on his brand new methodology that creates vastly improved connections between agents and customers. A recent trial resulted in an increase in reservation closure rates from 24.9% to over 70%, as well as an increase in satisfaction. Leveraging his knowledge of the human mind and decision-making processes, Mark has created a unique approach that begins with listening to customer calls very carefully, then coaching agents in ways no one has ever done before...
Employee Recognition: Best Practices
January 20, 2017 17:00 - 41 minutes - 37.4 MBA 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 organization may be the way to attain better results and a more satisfied, stable workforce. This episode of CallTalk(TM) will give you the ideas you need to address this important issue. Christopher Tomsa is a seasoned contact center m...
Culture and Agent Compliance: Rules vs. Trust
December 15, 2016 19:00 - 36 minutes - 32.3 MBYour own kids, the team you coach, the scouts you lead, and the people you manage 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 situations in which they have trusted people too much, or have been humbled by situations in which they have erroneously relied too heavily on rules. Our guest, Marge Robba, has more than 30 plus years of experience in ...
Accountability in Your Contact Center: Tips on Making it Real
November 16, 2016 18:00 - 34 minutes - 30.2 MBWe talk with Debbie Frazier on what accountability in a call center means and how to ensure it is alive and well! Debbie Frazier is a Senior Consultant with Benchmark Portal. She has over 3 decades of experience in customer service managing captive agents and most recently a vendor relations manager for outsourced contact center operations both in the US and outside of the US. Her previous responsibilities included recruiting, hiring, quality assurance, workforce management, customer relat...
Agent Turnover and Retention: Stay Interviews to Drive Employee Engagement
September 14, 2016 17:00 - 33 minutes - 30.1 MBAgent 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. Our guest, Chris Mulligan, from Talent Keepers, will be talking about Stay Interview and in particular, a 4 step methodology that based on years of research, improve results in employee engagement. Chris has over 25 years of experience in the human resources industry, the majority of which has been in the employee engagement, selec...
Intentional Coaching: Everybody wins when you give Agents what they want.
August 17, 2016 17:00 - 33 minutes - 30.2 MB"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 transaction handling, to creating a positive customer experience. Intentional Coaching reduces escalated calls by 50%, improves handle times, first call resolution, customer satisfaction, as well as agent engagement. Join Bruce and Barbara as they discuss what happens when supervisors use this common sense ap...
The Happy Leader
July 13, 2016 17:00 - 35 minutes - 31.7 MBIn this episode, Charles Paelinck, Former Chief Product Officer for Ceasars, will join us to share several reasons why happiness in leadership is so important. Charly has been in senior IT leadership for over 20 years and was most recently the Chief Product Officer for Caesars.
Best Practices in Call Center Consolidation
June 22, 2016 17:00 - 36 minutes - 32.2 MBIn this episode, you will learn "Five Keys To Call Center Consolidation". They can have other positive impacts on your operations such as culture, resources, technology and processes. These five keys will aid in looking at financial and operational benefits. Tim has over 30 years of experience working in the customer service field, serving in leadership roles both internally and within the BPO outsourcing sector. Tim’s role at Benchmark Portal is to help organizations to improve business r...
Knowledge Management in the Contact Center w/ Brian Golden @ Contact Center 411
May 18, 2016 17:00 - 36 minutes - 32.1 MBKnowledge 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 have an impact on several of your key performance metrics, including First Contact Resolution, Sales Conversion Rate, Average Talk Time and Handle Time, as well as your overall Call Quality and Accuracy. Those tools can also have other ...
Leadership People Skills: Communicating Better with Difficult People
April 13, 2016 17:00 - 39 minutesHave 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 other person is prioritizing, planning, executing, and in some instances holding back from project completion at work. Following the Enneagram method, a form of psychology that breaks down the 9 basic leadership styles, Sheena Monnin explains how Enneagram i...
Mapping the Customer Experience Journey
March 23, 2016 17:00 - 37 minutes - 33.3 MBHow can an organization increase 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? If those questions sound impoirtant, you will want to listen to todays show and here is why and how to go about it: The mapping experience will expose roadblocks, pain points, and can come up with a journey to provide the customer with a superior ...
Outbound Predictive Dialing - Is it Dead in the US?
February 17, 2016 18:00 - 42 minutes - 37.9 MB***Here is the lin to access the slide pack that we talk about in our show: CallTalk MUG Our guest, Alex Demczak, wrote a book on “Optimizing Outbound Calling” and has been astounded by the changes to this process over the years, and in this episode, Alex will talk about recent changes to federal and state regulations within the past year. In 2015 Alex saw massive changes in outbound calling regulations both on the federal and state level. Find out how some of these changes will change your...
Before buying WFO technology, hear about 2 big changes in the contact center.
January 13, 2016 18:00 - 35 minutes - 31.8 MBLately, Bill has begun to detect some striking changes emerging in the contact center industry. He sees that contact centers really don’t want to buy software, they want to buy results. There’s a new breed of contact center vendors that is able and willing to provide results. Bill is an industry veteran and has held a variety of sales, marketing and management roles for major contact center vendors and worked as a consultant for centers challenged with meeting their performance objectives....
Big Data – Geoff Colgan from Attadale Partners, joins us to talk it out.
November 18, 2015 18:00 - 39 minutes - 35.6 MBLearn how Big Data is transforming insurance and call center operations, and why your company should be planning Big Data analytics to improve customer loyalty and enhance operating efficiency. Geoff Colgan from Attadale Partners, brings 25 years of experience leading change management for some of the most accomplished and successful public and private companies in the world. Geoff is a frequent presenter at conferences on topics such as operational performance, change management, and custom...
Inbound Sales: Accelerate your Sales Cycle with Mark Coudray
October 14, 2015 17:00 - 33 minutes - 29.6 MBSales Expert, Mark Coudray, joins CallTalk to discuss the changes that have occurred with the advennt of the digital world and how that has impacted the sales channels. We will look into the changes in communication, campaigns, and closure rates, and it's all good news! His professional activities involve the strategic planning, direction, and transition for companies moving from an analog marketing delivery model to a digital model. This includes the evolving changes to how goods and servi...
Leadership Development
September 16, 2015 17:00 - 33 minutes - 30.1 MBLeaders play a vital role in the call center, they are an important reason why people stay or leave, engage or not engage. Research show the relationship agents have with their lead, supervisor or direct boss are key. This episode we speak iwth Chris Abel, Senior Director, Contact Center Operations and Customer Experience, Bright Horizons Family Solutions. Chris is responsible for all operations supporting five lines of business and managing third-party vendor relationships. Prior to joinin...
Employee Engagement and Retention Trends
August 19, 2015 17:30 - 36 minutes - 32.1 MBEmployee engagement and retention are core talent management building blocks and staying abreast of key trends and new approaches is important for HR professionals across disciplines. In this episode, we talk with Industry Expert, Chris Mulligan, from Talent Keepers, as he explains what the latest data is telling us about hot trends and those practices that are getting results, including what the “Best-in-Class” are doing to achieve strong results from their investment in employee engagement...
Surveys - 15 Tips to Optimize Yours, From the Man Who Wrote the Book!
July 15, 2015 17:00 - 36 minutes - 32.1 MBSurveys are an important tool for measuring your customers’ and agents’satisfaction along with identifying areas needing improvement. Listen in to 15 tips to optimize your surveys. Guest Dr. Fred Van Bennekom, The author of "Customer Surveying: A Guidebook for Service Managers," teaches operations management in Northeastern University’s Executive MBA program and has served as an information systems consultant for Digital Equipment’s field service organization. Through his company, Great Bro...
Technology - Leveraging Industry Benchmarks to Build a Business Case.
June 15, 2015 17:00 - 38 minutes - 34.1 MBLeveraging Industry Benchmarks to Build a Business Case for a Technology Investment. Technology is a crucial component in many areas within the contact center. With Drew's experience he is a wonderful person to enlighten us more on this topic. As a problem solver with Technology Finance Partners he will shed some light on how industry benchmarks are used in selling and what that translates to on the buyer’s side Drew Wright co-founded Technology Finance Partners in 2000 and has driven hun...
Coaching Strategy - A Success Formula
May 13, 2015 17:00 - 35 minutes - 32 MBA Success Formula – How to Coach and Develop Discretionary Effort From the coaching perspective, learn how each employee is unique and valuable through their behaviors. As a coach use this knowledge to guide them through important transformations toward top performance. Dave Gregory is the Director of Management Training and Leadership Development for Alorica. He and his team support more than 4,800 leaders who in turn support more than 48,000 contact center associates over 73 sites around...
Process Improvement at Contact Centers - A Lean Six Sigma Approach
April 15, 2015 17:00 - 32 minutes - 28.8 MBCustomers are demanding more efficient and effective service from Contact Centers throughout all industries. Walt will chat with the Assistance Vice President at Provident Credit Union, Walt Sweeny, about a Lean Six Sigma approach to Contact Center process improvement that Contact Center leaders could use to make their Contact Center be the best it can be, effectively and efficiently. Walt Sweeny has been in the Contact Center business for over 16 years. He is currently an Assistant Vice Pr...
Culture - How to Build It and Work with It!
March 18, 2015 17:00 - 33 minutes - 29.4 MBMany of us describe our strong culture and its impact on our organization as a “secret sauce”. In this show, we will be talking with Senior Director of Patient Service Center Operation at Sutter Physician Services, Steve Chambers, about some of the factors that can serve barriers to creating a strong and healthy culture, and keep you from finding that "secret sauce" Steve Chambers joined Sutter Physician Services (SPS) in 2012. In his role as Sr. Director of Patient Service Center Operatio...
Quality Assurance - One Minute Survey Results
February 11, 2015 18:00 - 36 minutes - 32.2 MBA discussion of Quality Assurance processes and tools from a recent survey by BenchmarkPortalBest practices of high performing centers. Dayne Petersen has been managing and consulting with call/contact centers for a number of years. She has experience managing and operating both business-to-business and business-to-consumer call centers. Additionally, she has a successful track record evaluating and implementing call center solutions that meet defined client requirements. In her most rec...
Caller I.D. and the Contact Center
January 15, 2015 18:00 - 33 minutes - 29.7 MBCost 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 alleviate the burden and cost of caller ID. Guest: Ian Roncoroni is the founder of Next Caller, advanced caller ID for businesses. Next Caller is the world's largest caller ID database, linking telephone number to name, address, ema...
Highlights from Call Center Campus : Imagining Excellence in the Contact Center
November 26, 2014 18:00 - 35 minutes - 31.4 MBAfter another amazing Call Center Campus event in Las Vegas this November 2014, Bruce Belfiore and Amy Novak, will be going over some of the highlights from the event. Listen in for best practices shared in our Round Tables and Panel Discussions, as well as highlights from the guest speakers.
Quality Transformation
October 15, 2014 17:00 - 36 minutes - 32.1 MBBreathing new life into quality. Changing the perception of quality ownership by engaging agents so they could see their ownership in the process. The mission is building customer loyalty by providing a quality service experience the first time, every time. Join us as we talk with Toni Roberts, Diector at Delta Dental of Michigan, will be sharing her insight on Quality Transformation. Antoinette Roberts, director of Regional Operations, has been with Delta Dental of Michigan since1983. Prio...
Call Center Law
September 17, 2014 17:00 - 34 minutes - 7.69 MBCall Monitoring and Recording sounds like a great idea for qualaity control of calls at your call center, but are you putting your agents or management at risk? BenchmarkPortal's Bruce Belfiore sits down with Attorney, Adam Losey, to discuss the leagal issues around call centers, both from an inbound and outbound perspecitive. As privacy Counsel for Call Centers, he works with client-side management to develop and implement telephone monitoring policies governing monitoring and recording of...
Employee Recognition - Why is everyone talking about it?
August 13, 2014 17:00 - 34 minutes - 7.74 MBWhy 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 some of his experiences and lessons learned on building employees awareness of company goals, raising morale, and increasing productivity. Zane Safri has spent his career in call center operations, many of them serving international c...
Agent Motivation and Coaching - The Positive Coaching Approach
July 16, 2014 17:00 - 34 minutes - 7.77 MBJudy McKee joins us on CallTalk to help us understand the Positive Coach Approach. Designed to help call center personnel gain confidence and experience in the use of learned skills and attitudes, the Posaitive Coach Approach can help reduce the work load on managers and quality assurance departments. Judy McKee is a nationally known motivational speaker, seminar leader, sales trainer and author. Her personal philosophy of motivation through education and commitment shines clearly througho...
Customer Effort - Is this the new Net Propmoter Score?
June 18, 2014 17:00 - 36 minutes - 8.02 MBIs the Customer Effort Score the new Net Promoter Score? Just because research is published on the internet or in a business journal does not mean the research findings are true. Guest Frederick Van Bennekom, Principal, Great Brook Consulting, will be talking about survey methodology and design to determine validity. Dr. Fred Van Bennekom helps organizations collect and apply customer and employee feedback in a statistically valid manner. The author of "Customer Surveying: A Guidebook for S...
Gamification - Principles and Best Practices
May 14, 2014 17:00 - 35 minutes - 7.88 MBWhat is it, why all of the hype, and how can we use it to our daily challenges like retention of new-hires, adherence, quality, FCR, customer upselling and retention? Special Guest Bob Cowen of Snowfly - a full service incentives and recognition company, will join us to answer those questsions and yours too! Bob has been in the contact center industry for more than 30 years. During those years, he’s visited numerous centers across the country. At virtually each one of them, he observed an ...
Net Promoter Score - Is that the ONE Number you need to Know?
April 16, 2014 17:00 - 38 minutes - 8.55 MBUnless 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 likely to return and to give good word of mouth? Dr. Fred Van Bennekom of the Northeastern University's Executive MBA Program, joins us shed some light on those questions! Recently, several key metrics have arisen to measure customer se...
Virtual Agents - Implementing a Home Based Support Center
March 19, 2014 17:00 - 38 minutes - 8.5 MBWe 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. Jesse Hoobler is the Director of Worldwide Software Support at Pitney Bowes Inc., a $4.9-billion company that provides technology solutions for small, mid-size and large firms that help them connect with customers to build loyalty and grow revenue.While at Pitney Bowes, Jesse has been on a five year journey to transform...