CallTalk™ Radio

Management: Generation Y in the Contact Center - Who, How, and Why?

February 19, 2014 18:00 - 30 minutes - 6.77 MB

Bruce talks with Greg Van Zandt about the up and coming generation of contact center employees - The Millennials aka Generation Y. Understanding Millennials: Who Are They? How are they different from those before them? What drives them? What are their social attributes? What are their strengths? Leveraging their Strengths: Considerations when managing this Generation, Implications on: Recruiting, Screening and Training, Scheduling, Work diversity, Training / Coaching, Contact Center and ...

Management: Are You Parenting or Managing Your Staff?

January 15, 2014 18:00 - 34 minutes - 7.59 MB

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 professionally and personally. ROSANNE D'AUSILIO, Ph.D., an industrial psychologist, consultant, master trainer, best selling author, executive coach, customer service expert, and President of Human Technologies Global, Inc., speci...

Delivering Quality: Sysco's Service with a S.M.I.L.E.

October 23, 2013 20:00 - 34 minutes - 7.67 MB

Ed Poorbaugh, from Sysco, shares how they have 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 Poorbaugh has held a number of positions in warehousing, transportation and information technology operations during his 17 year career with Sysco. Prior to his current role, he managed the IT operations for the Southwestern United States and was the project manager for several successfully enterprise-wide soft...

Voice of the Customer

September 18, 2013 17:00 - 32 minutes - 7.18 MB

Steve Ellis, from Eye Med, 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. Steve Ellis is Sr. Director of Customer Care for EyeMed Vision Care. He has over 2 decades of leadership with a proven track record to deliver outstanding results at Sprint, Florida Power & Light, Comcast Cable and EyeMed. Steve has experience in marketing, sales, customer service,...

Service to Sales: Providing strategic organizational value.

August 13, 2013 17:00 - 36 minutes - 8.06 MB

Special Guest, Russell Rossi, from Ney York Life, will be joining us to share his insight on transitioning a service center, into a sales center, that will provide more value to the organization as a whole. Discussion points: 1. Developing a strategic roadmap 2. Key strategies to excite your organization for change and growth 3. Importance of measuring results for success Russell Rossi is the Corporate Vice President of Customer Experience and Strategic Planning for New York Life...

Multi Channels at the Contact Center

July 17, 2013 17:00 - 36 minutes - 8.08 MB

"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: Identifying and selecting Key Performance Indicators for multiple channelsTracking Multichannel Metrics - Tools and TricksEfficiency (Cost) and Effectiveness (Quality) Balanced Scorecard Groupings in a multichannel CenterCalculating Multichannel Occupancy and Utilization to avoid...

Adding Sales to Your Customer Service Culture

June 12, 2013 17:00 - 34 minutes - 7.73 MB

Transitioning your call center from a typical “customer service” environment to a “sales” environment can be a challenging, however, in today’s competitive environment, it is critical to have everyone in your organization focused on upselling or cross selling products/services. My topic of adding sales to your customer service culture will provide you with strategies for making this transition and ensuring your call center is a revenue generator for your company. These strategies allowed our...

Operations: Simple Adjustments for Better Service Levels!

May 15, 2013 16:00 - 32 minutes - 7.19 MB

Kimberly Parish Barrett, Director, Florida Abuse Hotline, Department of Children and Families, joins us for a disscussion on how Government Call Centers are using industry leading technology to empower the front line, manage in real time, and streamline processes to improve service levels and customer service. Kimberly Parish Barrett, Graduated Florida State University with a Bachelor's in Business and a Master's in Public Administration. Director of the Florida Abuse Hotline for 2+ ye...

LEMMING OR LEADER…You Decide!

April 17, 2013 17:00 - 43 minutes - 9.77 MB

With Special Guest, Steve Riddell, from Blinds.com Stop being a “Lemming” and learn how to achieve extraordinary results in record time. Contact Centers pretty much operate the same way and most call center managers are guilty of taking a “lemming” approach to management, process and growth. Lemmings plod along doing the same things in the same way, following the same path others follow. If you have been around this industry for any length of time, there’s really not that much that comes ...

Benchmarking - Multichannel Survey from BenchmarkPortal

March 13, 2013 17:00 - 28 minutes - 6.22 MB

Call Centers continue to be the prime point of contact for customers. However, over the past several years IVR's, Websites, Social Media, etc have changed the way customers interact with your business. BenchmarkPortal is introducing a multichannel benchmark survey designed to capture valuable performance data for these various contact channels. We will unveil the survey and provide insights on key performance metrics that should be captured and monitored for these multiple channels. Playi...

WFM - Workforce Management Meets Workforce Morale

February 13, 2013 18:00 - 32 minutes - 7.24 MB

With Special Guest: Ed Poorbaugh, Manager Support Center Operations and Supplier Support Sysco Business Services Scheduling in a Call Center is very complex. Ed will share best practices on how to staff for OT and those undesirable shifts, as well as great ideas on ways to motivate the Representatives. Representatives are more than a resource to handle the work, they are an asset and Ed will share ways to show they are genuinely appreciated.

Employee Training… Getting the most bang for your buck?

January 23, 2013 18:00 - 42 minutes - 9.43 MB

Organizations that make large investments in people typically have lower employee turnover, which is linked to higher customer satisfaction and profitability. Companies are investing thousands of dollars per employee in training. Are those investments paying off? Susan McDonald Osborn, Call Center Learning Strategist, will present common flaws in training programs and provide practical strategies for ensuring that training dollars translate to performance on the call center floor Susan McD...

Call Center Campus 2012 - Best Practices Roundup

December 19, 2012 18:00 - 39 minutes - 8.92 MB

Contact center managers from around the world, shared their best practices with us, in a brainstorming session at Call Center Campus, and now we want to share them with you! Bruce Belfiore and Dee Buell will discuss some of their favorites and discuss why and how they can make a big difference in your contact center. Taking a deeper dive into contact center operations, special guests Russ Rossi - Corporate Vice President for Customer Experience and Strategic Planning at NYLife AARP and Ste...

Working Successfully with Generation Y

October 17, 2012 17:00 - 35 minutes - 7.82 MB

Join host Bruce Belfiore and Kevin Childs, Senior Partner with OneSource Consulting and acting Contact Center Practice Leader with ManpowerGroup, as they discuss transitioning customer service teams for success with Generation Y. Your company can have a more engaged workforce, decrease your attrition, increased customer satisfaction and experience some profound financial impacts to the organization by placing a much stronger focus on redefining what development and growth means for Generati...

Training - How it Sets the Atmosphere in a Contact Center

September 19, 2012 17:00 - 32 minutes - 7.32 MB

Customer Service Representatives are always thirsting for more and more knowledge, whether it's regarding the markets they serve or the health benefits available to our service members. Health Net focuses on empathy with their military community. This has helped Health Net create a very unique culture where everyone feels a purpose or mission to serve those who serve our country. Guest: Fidel Ligsay is the Vice President of Call Center Operations for Health Net Federal Services, based out o...

Co-Browsing Technology for the Customer, with Dusty Stanford

August 15, 2012 17:00 - 34 minutes - 7.62 MB

“Eliminating Your Customer Service Blind Spot with Co-Browse Technology” Customer service strategies have evolved over time to cover every communications channel - phone, chat, email, social media and more. But, with the exception of in-store service, most companies have lacked a visual component to customer service communications. Learn how Co-Browse technology is now being used in call centers to create a visual connection, enabling agents to see exactly what a customer sees on the scree...

The Meaning of Life in the Call Center: Rethinking Agent Sat

July 19, 2012 17:00 - 41 minutes - 9.25 MB

Is employee engagement as strong as it could be in your organization? Is everyone highly motivated to do a great job every day? In this episode of Call Talk, Teresa Amabile describes a decade of research into the hearts and minds of people at work. Her results, and their implications for what managers and supervisors do every day, may surprise you. As mentioned in the show, click on the Progress Principal, for more info and how to apply it. Personal Work Diary Tool - for individuals Daily ...

Call Center Site Selection - To Expand or Consolidate?

June 13, 2012 17:00 - 39 minutes - 8.77 MB

Leading with Labor CBRE executives reveal their unique insight and approach when addressing one of the biggest enterprise challenges moving forward - how to successfully implement solutions at the intersection of human capital and real estate. Special Guests: James Trobaugh As one of the founding partners and Senior Vice President of the CBRE Labor Analytics Group (LAG), Jim has spent the last 17 years developing a specialized practice within CBRE that has lead to over 800 site and market...

Social Media in the Call Center with Dr. Natalie Petouhoff

May 16, 2012 17:00 - 36 minutes - 8.07 MB

Applications like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and online customer communities have put the power into the hands of the consumer and customer, leaving companies at a loss for how to retain brand equity, how to interaction in these new channels and the affect of social media on their bottom-line business. Dr. Natalie’s recent research on the application of social media to customer service may be the tipping point for businesses to take Web 2.0 as a serious IT application that can literally tra...

Impact of Technology on Contact Center Performance

April 18, 2012 17:00 - 33 minutes - 7.43 MB

Does More Technology Really Make Your Center Perform Better? Learn The Just released results of groundbreaking research. Up to 30% Reduction in Cost per Call - through Technology alone! A new Research Report on Technology in the Call Center shows this and many other statistical ties between Technology and Call Center Performance. Download and read the Executive Summary first. Download Survey Here » Then tune in to our Encore Presentation on CallTalk live Wed., April 18th at 10 am PT / 1pm...

Agent Adherence: Managing FMLA in the Contact Center

February 15, 2012 18:00 - 32 minutes - 7.16 MB

Is your employee taking advantage of your medical leave policy or the Family Medical Leave Act? No one likes to be sick, and managers hate it even more when an employee uses that card for the wrong reason. However, there are legal issues protecting the employee and employer, and it’s up to you to know how to make the right decisions while managing your workforce. We are joined by an expert that will help us navigate what can be some very tricky water.

Live in Vegas - Call Center Campus: 20 ideas in 20 minutes

January 18, 2012 20:00 - 38 minutes - 8.62 MB

Join host Bruce Belfiore and senior contact center experts as they discuss caller satisfaction, agent satisfaction and best practices. We gathered many top managers and executives in the contact center industry during our October event, including Matt Conant of PLATO Learning - "Small changes can and did make a big difference to caller satisfaction, but sometimes the changes you need to makerequire some careful listening" Hear how they turned their center around, and Chuck Sartiano of Blu...

CallTalk - A BenchmarkPortal Christmas Special

December 14, 2011 21:00 - 32 minutes - 7.32 MB

We call up to one of the busiest Contact Centers in the world at time of year - Santa's Workshop. From WFM to FCR, we ask them to share their Best Practices with us. This entertaining but informative show is a compilation of call center best practices from the diverse team of Contact Center Experts here at BenchmarkPortal.

VUI and the Latino Caller

November 16, 2011 21:00 - 35 minutes - 7.97 MB

Voice User Interface Specialist, Sondra Ahlen, joins us to talk about the continuously emerging caller base of Latino speaking clients.

Employee Incentives: Two Magic Words that equal success!

September 14, 2011 20:00 - 35 minutes - 7.85 MB

Two words reveal the secret of successful employee incentive programs: feedback and reinforcement. These are two of the four core tenets driving behaviors that affect KPI’s. Join Special Guest Bob Cowen from Snowfly on CallTalk to learn the best ways to utilize them to promote success behaviors in your center.

IVR: Paving a smooth road between IVR and Agent.

August 24, 2011 20:00 - 36 minutes - 8.08 MB

IVR's are designed to route a caller to the correct agent - but not at the cost of frustrating the caller with long menus or repetitive questions. Susan Hura, from Speach Usability, shares her insight on how to bring the IVR and agent together, creating a smooth road for the caller to travel.

Home Agent: A fresh look at the at-home agent concept.

July 13, 2011 20:00 - 38 minutes - 8.62 MB

Would you like to add diversity, flexibility and experience to your workforce through at-home agents? After managing a call center for one of the largest insurance companies in the world, Dee Buell shares her thoughts on how at-home agents can become successful in almost any industry.

Customer Satisfaction: Acting on the Voice of the Customer,

June 15, 2011 20:00 - 43 minutes - 9.78 MB

Customer feedback is a powerful tool to improve service levels, eliminate inefficiencies, and create more loyal customers--but like any tool, it needs to be used properly to be effective. Hear Peter Leppik, industry expert, author and founder and CEO of Vocalabs, talk about proven, scientific strategies for making customer feedback work for you.

Time Management: Getting More (done) with Less (stress). Time Management Tips Yo

May 18, 2011 20:00 - 40 minutes - 9.09 MB

Paul Burton, author of Focus Pocus - 24 Tricks for Regaining Command of Your Day talks with host Bruce Belfiore about practical ways to get more control of your day, your work and your career. His ideas can be put to use by all call center managers to add minutes to your day...and possibly years to your life!

IVR - Call Flow and Design

April 13, 2011 20:00 - 45 minutes - 10.2 MB

The IVR is a customers first contact with your business when calling in, so it is extremely important for it to start off well. Industry Expert Jay Minnucci joins us to talk about proper flow and design.

Quality Assurance Part 2: Forms and Beyond - Coaching to Excellence.

March 16, 2011 20:00 - 33 minutes - 7.36 MB

Bruce Belfiore talks again with Lisa Courteau about tested techniques that you can use in your Quality Assurance program to make your supervisors "agent advocates" and motivate your agents to embrace behavioral changes. Join us for a lively and illuminating discussion of practical best practices in this important area of call center management.

Workforce Optimization: Analytics Demystified – Customer Focus (Session 2 of 2)

February 16, 2011 18:00 - 36 minutes - 8.13 MB

Bill Durr, an industry veteran of 25 years, joins us again for session two on our focused look into Analytical WFO. We will talk about the exciting new analytical applications being employed by enterprises and contact centers today. We will address how the changing customer demographics are forcing companies to focus on speech and text analytics, and why Customer Feedback management is equally crucial to surviving these hyper-competitive times. The episode will include interesting results fr...

Quality Assurance: Call Monitoring Your Agents Will Love

February 02, 2011 18:00 - 35 minutes - 7.88 MB

Creating a quality monitoring program that is valued by the business requires you to have a well-developed strategy that is aligned with your organization's business objectives. But you can't stop there - it is just as important to create a culture in which agents value and look forward to having their calls evaluated. Lisa Courteau joins us to share her insights.

Workforce Optimization: Analytics Demystified – Employee Focus (Session 1 of 2)

January 19, 2011 18:00 - 33 minutes - 7.44 MB

Bill Durr, an industry veteran of 25 years, joins us to help define Analytical WFO and discusses how certain advanced applications are used to identify and resolve skill and knowledge gaps in the workforce. We will also be covering traditional topics such as service level goals, schedule adherence and how many QM assessments are enough. The episode will include interesting results from BenchmarkPortal's new Workforce Optimization study. We will be giving away 5 of Bill Durr's new book “Analy...

Work Force Management: How to understand and embrace advanced workforce management.

January 12, 2011 18:00 - 34 minutes - 7.67 MB

Workforce management is a white-hot topic for 2011. WFM expert Adam Cincoski joins us to talk about how to understand and embrace advanced workforce management as a key component of your success. Adam teaches the Workforce Management course for the College of Call Center Excellence and is one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet...really! So join us for this special WFM edition of CallTalk!

Employee Morale: Ideas and Insights to Create an Outrageously Cool Culture

January 05, 2011 18:00 - 36 minutes - 8.2 MB

Becoming a great leader and inspiring others...in the turn and burn contact industry...is possible, and becoming a requirement. Kirk Weisler shares his techniques and ideas on employee involvement, engagement, and commitment.

Site Selection: What does the research show are the key success factors?

December 08, 2010 18:00 - 37 minutes - 8.37 MB

Bruce Belfiore will interviews Kristin Beatty, site analytics specialist with CB Richard Ellis, on the key points to consider when selecting a contact center location. The session reveal's the latest research on site selection and the labor analytics which every manager should know before deciding on setting up at a new address.

Hold Time and Transfers: the balancing act you can win!

November 10, 2010 18:00 - 33 minutes - 29.6 MB

When agents don't have the answers...some centers have them put the caller on hold so they can get the answer, while other centers have them escalate the call to a senior person via transfer. Traditionally centers with lower hold times have higher transfer rates, and vice-versa. Don't be satisfied with this old see-saw! By drilling down into call flows, agent training and knowledge management, centers can optimize results - reducing handle time, minimizing costs and maximizing caller satisfac...

Customer and Agent Loyalty: 5 Questions you need to ask yourself before you leave work tonight.

October 27, 2010 17:00 - 45 minutes - 10.1 MB

Chat, Email, SEO and IVR's...In the age of increasingly less humanized contact, we face a risk of forgetting how important the people behind the magic curtain really are, customers and employees included. After 25 years as the Customer Experience Executive in five major US Corporations, Jeanne Bliss will join us, to make sure we "earn the rave" no mater what the "flave" of contact.

Outbound Calls: Challenges and solutions for both blended and dedicated centers.

October 13, 2010 17:00 - 42 minutes - 7.02 MB

"Hear author and industry expert Alex Demczak share his ideas and answer your questions on best practices in outbound calling. He will draw from three decades of experience and his book Optimizing Outbound Calls, written with Dr. Jon Anton. Whether outbound calls are a fraction of your activity or most of it, this session will provide you with ideas you can use."

Emplyee Incentives: "Stop botching your incentive plans: Get the science behind the results"

September 29, 2010 17:00 - 35 minutes - 5.96 MB

Call Center Information: "Learn from a true expert in call center incentive plans. Dr. Brooks Mitchell will step you through the ways to optimize the bang you get for your incentive bucks - - how to avoid common mistakes, or how to design a plan if you don't have one yet. "

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