NEW Agent Soft Skills Course!

The best agent soft-skills training in the industry is now easier to access! Our acclaimed College of Call Center Excellence agent training curriculum has been made into an on-demand course – and already has received high praise. 


Click here to learn more: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-training/ondemand-training/agent-training-courses

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Contact Center Achieves Certification as a Center of Excellence

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis customer contact center has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal for the second year in a row.


Click here to read more: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/press-release/2014/07/federal-reserve-bank-st-louis-contact-center-achieve

CallTalk Caramels: Compensation Strategies For Agents and Supervisors Part 2

CallTalk is a monthly internet radio program featuring the most innovative managers and thought leaders in the customer contact field, interviewed by BenchmarkPortal CEO, Bruce Belfiore.  “Caramels” distills key moments from these interviews into practical, bite-sized nuggets to inform and assist you as a contact center professional.


Studies show that the majority of call centers set their agent compensation purely to meet that offered by the “call center down the street.”  Experts, however, say that compensation should be viewed as a corollary to company strategies and mission. Therefore, managers should ask “does our compensation strategy promote the goals and mission of the company in a concrete fashion?”

Consider how your compensation program lines up against these Best Practices considerations:

Click the following link to continue reading this article: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/news-articles/2014/07/calltalk-caramels-compensation-strategies-agents-and

Lincoln Financial Group’s Life Insurance Customer Care Center Achieves Its Second Certification as a BenchmarkPortal Center of Excellence

BenchmarkPortal recognizes the exceptional efficiency and effectiveness of the Lincoln Financial Group’s Life Insurance Customer Care Center by awarding it Certification as a Center of Excellence for the second year in a row.  The granting of certification is based on a company’s operational metrics, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction.

 

July 25, 2014 -- The Lincoln Financial Group’s Life Insurance Customer Care Center has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization. “The achievement of the Center of Excellence represents a contact center’s commitment to delivering customer service that is both effective and efficient.” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore. “ It is the culmination of important initiatives that were undertaken to achieve sustainable service excellence.”   

Click here to continue reading the news: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/press-release/2014/07/lincoln-financial-group-life-insurance-center-of-excellence

Ameritas Contact Center Achieves Its Seventh Certification as a BenchmarkPortal Center of Excellence

BenchmarkPortal recognizes the exceptional efficiency and effectiveness of the Ameritas Contact Center by awarding it Certification as a Center of Excellence for the seventh year. The granting of certification is based on a company’s operational metrics, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction.

The dental, vision and hearing contact center at Ameritas Group, a division of Ameritas Life Insurance Corp., has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization. “This certification attests to the fact that call center leaders have successfully balanced efficiency and effectiveness in their operations,” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore. “By optimizing their cost components and their ability to satisfy customers, they exemplify best practices in a very important consumer sector.”   

Click the following link to continue reading this article: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/press-release/2014/07/ameritas-contact-center-achieves-its-seventh-certifi

Brother International Contact Center Achieves Certification as a Center of Excellence

BenchmarkPortal recognizes the exceptional efficiency and effectiveness of the Brother International Contact Center by awarding it Certification as a Center of Excellence. The granting of certification is based on a company’s operational metrics, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction.

July 21, 2014 -- The Brother International customer contact center has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization. “Only the top 10 percent of those benchmarked annually achieve this distinction,” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore. “Achieving Center of Excellence certification is an acknowledgement of strong management and leadership in the call center industry.”   

Click the following link to continue reading: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/press-release/2014/07/brother-international-contact-center-achieves-certif

TrialCard Contact Center Achieves Its Second Certification as a BenchmarkPortal Center of Excellence

BenchmarkPortal recognizes the exceptional efficiency and effectiveness of the TrialCard Customer Experience Center by awarding it Certification as a Center of Excellence for the second year in a row. The granting of certification is based on a company’s operational metrics, customer satisfaction and agent satisfaction.

The TrialCard Customer Experience Center has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, a leading contact center research and consulting organization. “This certification attests to the fact that call center leaders have successfully balanced efficiency and effectiveness in their operations,” said BenchmarkPortal CEO Bruce Belfiore. “Achieving Center of Excellence certification is an acknowledgement of strong management and leadership in the call center industry.”

Click the following link to continue reading: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/press-release/2014/07/trialcard-contact-center-achieves-its-second-certifi

CallTalk Caramels: Social Media and The Call Center

CallTalk is a monthly internet radio program featuring the most innovative managers and thought leaders in the customer contact field, interviewed by BenchmarkPortal CEO, Bruce Belfiore.  “Caramels” distills key moments from these interviews into practical, bite-sized nuggets to inform and assist you as a contact center professional.


Companies need to have a defined strategy toward Social Media in order to leverage it properly.  This means managers must understand SM and feel comfortable engaging with the SMNs such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. To avoid disaster and gain the optimal experience, our experts suggest close monitoring of SM platforms and development of appropriate engagement mechanisms.

Applications and hosted services are available to monitor your SMN’s. It is important to have the ability to monitor and respond where you are being mentioned, and your customers tend to aggregate. Select the Social Media Networks that fit well within your plan, using the P.O.S.T. system:

Click here to continue reading this article: http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-newsresources/news-articles/2014/07/calltalk-caramels-social-media-and-call-center

Your input wanted! Headset Research - Sponsored by Jabra

Complete this 6 question One Minute Survey and be entered into a raffle to win 1 of 5 Jabra Solemate™ Wireless Speakers - the go anywhere speaker with rich Dolby® sound*.
Headsets are commanding increasing attention in the contact center industry due to impact on:

• Sound Quality - Headsets Support the Overall Customer Service Experience
• Agent Satisfaction - Ergonomics, Comfort, and Hearing Safety
• Functionality and Cost Savings - Potential Benefits of Wireless Headsets

We would like your valuable feedback for our important study. Give us your opinion and enter to win!
Solemate packs a custom-designed bass slave together with a powerful woofer for deep bass and dual tweeters for soaring highs. Transform your laptop, tablet or phone into a portable jukebox – wirelessly. Or use the handy cord in the sole. The rugged design makes the Solemate resistant to knocks, splashes and dust so you can take your music anywhere!

Start Survey Now

Please email me with any questions & Thank You For Your Participation! 

Eva Grossman Survey Manager, BenchmarkPortal 1-800-214-8929 x25 surveys@benchmarkportal.com

QBE Center of Excellence 8th year Running

About the Center of Excellence Certification:

The Center of Excellence recognition is one of the most prestigious awards in the customer service and support industry.The certification process is management's best path to a World Class Quality Call Center. Contact Centers achieve the Center of Excellence distinction based on a best-practice metrics drawn from the world’s largest database of objective and quantitative data that is audited and validated by researchers from BenchmarkPortal.

A contact center that has been certified as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal has met and/or surpassed rigorous standards of efficiency and effectiveness. This certification is unique in that its achievement is ascertained strictly “by the numbers.” This means that the BenchmarkPortal team audits and verifies the center’s key performance indicators and compare that data to data from other peer organizations. This is different from other types of contact center certifications that typically focus on less results-oriented measures, such as process handling methods and procedures. 

BenchmarkPortal awards the "Center of Excellence" designation to customer service call centers that rank in the top ten percent of the call centers surveyed. They are judged against a Balanced Scorecard of metrics for efficiency and effectiveness. Those contact centers that demonstrate superior performance on both cost-related metrics and quality-related metrics compared with their industry peers earn the award.

http://www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-certification/certified-call-centers-excellence/qbe-first

Complete the complimentary survey today and receive an Instant Benchmarking Report, Instant Gap Analysis, and an Emailed PDF Report!

BenchmarkPortal, a leading call center consultant, is conducting a survey for Inbound and Blended Sales Centers. All participants will receive the results of this survey immediately after they have completed it.

 

Call centers will now have the opportunity to participate in a study for inbound and blended sales. Online surveys conducted by BenchmarkPortal are available for anyone to complete at http://benchmarkportal.inbound-sales-survey.sgizmo.com/s3/.

This is BenchmarkPortal’s fifth year of collecting metrics for call centers involved in inbound and blended (inbound and outbound) sales. This competitive market intelligence is not available anywhere else and is BenchmarkPortal’s way of showing their appreciation for their customers input.

Participants will receive the following:

• Instant Benchmarking Report – Call centers can find out how their operations stack up against up-to-the-minute averages on all reported metrics for the inbound sales industry.

• Instant Gap Analysis – Call centers can find out where to direct business resources and how to get the biggest returns by identifying a center's performance gaps.

• Emailed PDF Report – Find out where to direct call center resources and get the biggest returns by identifying a center's performance gaps.

 

Click the following link to access the Inbound and Blended Sales Survey.

“This survey is intended for call centers that primarily handle inbound and blended sales calls," said Crystal Robertson, BenchmarkPortal's marketing director. "Please complete the survey and forward the survey link to other appropriate contact centers. Participation in the survey should take no more than 20 minutes and responses are confidential. Participants will receive an online Benchmarking and Gap Analysis report at the close of the survey, and a pdf version via e-mail, at no cost.”

BenchmarkPortal’s benchmarking surveys are the easiest way for a call center to benchmark themselves against peers in their database of thousands of call centers. BenchmarkPortal, has collected key performance indicators from thousands of contact centers worldwide, creating the world's largest database of best practices statistics.

About BenchmarkPortal

BenchmarkPortal’s founders pioneered the first contact center benchmarking study in 1995. Now custodian of the largest database of contact center metrics in the world, BenchmarkPortal is a leader in certification, training, consulting and research for the customer contact industry. Its team of professionals has gained international recognition for expertise and innovation in best practices. BenchmarkPortal’s mission is to help management optimize the performance of their center in terms of both cost and quality, encourage customer loyalty and build enterprise value. For more information on BenchmarkPortal, call 1-800-214-8929 or visit www.BenchmarkPortal.com.