This scene is from the 2006 movie, The Pursuit of Happyness , inspired by the true story of Chris Gardner. Homeless with his young son, Chris was desperate to get a different job that would change his situation. But how does a salesman of bone density scanners transition to being a stockbroker? Transitions to any new role are challenging and that holds true in CX – whether you want to get into a CX role or out of one. Jenny Dempsey, CX Thought Leader and Chief Learning Advisor for CX Accelerator...
Mar 10, 2023•47 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Despite the layoffs in the tech sector, unemployment in the US is at historic lows and we’re experiencing a labor shortage in many other sectors of the economy. Contact Centers have long experienced high turnover with baseline ranges estimated to be between 30 and 40 percent. While 2022 was seemingly the year of Employee Engagement, SQM’s research shows that agent engagement has remained stubbornly low for the industry and turnover is rising. On this episode of Jump the Queue, I traverse the US ...
Mar 07, 2023•35 min
Nelson Mandela would spend 27 of his 95 years of life in prison. When The Ska revival band, The Specials (under the name, The Special AKA), released Nelson Mandela in 1984, he had already been in prison in apartheid South Africa for over 20 years and it would be another 6 years before he saw his release. He became the father of the modern, democratic South Africa, bringing an end to apartheid and becoming the first black head of state in South Africa. Winner of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, Mandel...
Mar 03, 2023•43 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Organizational Change can be difficult, especially when you’re a new leader. And while some skills like engaging with those who may be resistant to change should be encouraged, a top-down approach to change management can be lonely and frustrating effort. Michael Corleone found this out the hard way after taking the reins of the family business. And while most of us aren’t dealing with an organization like his (nor do we have a title like Godfather in that organization), we are all impacted by o...
Feb 24, 2023•47 min•Season 2Ep. 24
After over 160,000 employee layoffs in the tech sector in 2022, 2023 has already followed up with over 100,000 layoffs in the first two months of the year alone. While this pales in comparison to the number of jobs being created in the overall economy, mass layoffs have a huge impact on those affected and the psyche of people in the affected industries. This first episode of Jump the Queue, I talk with 3 people with interesting angles and insights on this subject and over the course of these 3 r...
Feb 21, 2023•29 min
In the 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, we were introduced to HAL 9000, a supercomputer with advanced AI who decided the mission was more important than the lives of his human crew. 16 years later, in The Terminator, we were introduced to Skynet, an AI developed by Cyberdyne Systems that began seeing humanity as a threat to its existence and triggered a nuclear holocaust that would forever change the earth and its inhabitants. These two seminal films, nearly a generation apart, engendered a dis...
Feb 17, 2023•49 min•Season 2Ep. 23
When most people think of the 1990 film Pretty Woman, they think of Richard Gere playing Prince Charming to Julia Roberts’s Rapunzel. But the real hero of that story (at least in my eyes) is Barney Thompson played by Héctor Elizondo. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that character. Let me refresh your memory. You may remember that Vivian (Roberts) was tasked with buying a dress for dinner but couldn’t get the stores on Rodeo Drive to take her seriously. It was in this moment of desperation that she ran ...
Feb 10, 2023•44 min•Season 2Ep. 22
In the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s dog, Toto, pulls back a curtain to reveal the Wizard to be just an ordinary man, operating machinery that projects a gigantic, ghostly, and intimidating image of his face. The Wizard had built his reputation using technology that no one in the merry old land of Oz understood. Today, there’s a technology impacting Customer Experience that few understand – algorithms. My guest this week is Dennis Wakabayashi, and he is on a mission to help people under...
Feb 03, 2023•37 min•Season 2Ep. 21
In 1990, Public Enemy released “Fight the Power” from their third album, one of the most popular and influential songs in hip hop history: People, people we are the same No we're not the same 'Cause we don't know the game What we need is awareness, we can't get careless You say what is this? My beloved let’s get down to business Mental self-defensive fitness Don't rush the show You gotta go for what you know Make everybody see, in order to fight the powers that be The song is, among other things...
Jan 27, 2023•42 min•Season 2Ep. 20
“Everybody lies.” Recently, I started re-watching the TV series House on Netflix. Probably the most famous quote and theme from the show is, “Everybody lies.” As diagnosticians, Dr. House and his team had to use the data presented to them to find the truth about what was really happening to their patients. Surveys may be the voice of the customer, but as Dr. House says, “Everybody lies.” But we have access to other forms of data to inform us about what’s happening with our customers. My guest th...
Jan 20, 2023•56 min•Season 2Ep. 19
Have you ever had a customer experience that made you think, “There’s got to be a better way?” An over-priced oil change did that for Adam Alfia and it led to him opening his first company. His entrepreneurial spirit led to a variety of businesses, including a concierge service and a variety of restaurants and night clubs. Increasingly, he realized customers stopped engaging when there were service issues and simply took to reviews to express their displeasure. Once again, he thought, “There’s g...
Jan 13, 2023•47 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Nearly every startup wants to grow. At certain milestones of growth, however, the structure of customer support must change to successfully support the business. And while change is never easy, knowing what and when you’ll need to change as you scale can help smooth out the process. Over the past 13 years, Reagan Helms has grown from the solo support agent in a start-up organization with less than 10 employees to the Director of Customer Experience leading a support organization of 30 agents. Th...
Jan 06, 2023•55 min•Season 2Ep. 17
There’s a tendency to see mental health issues through a different lens than physical health issues. Whether it’s depression, anxiety, PTSD, or neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, mental health challenges are often hidden from even close friends and family members. Because of the stigma around them and the fact that they often manifest with no outwardly visible signs, they are often not addressed until a breaking point with severe and potentially dangerous consequences. This week, I’m talkin...
Dec 30, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 16
The chasm between the promises of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the reality of what AI can accomplish is closing faster than ever. Whether it’s creating uncanny images, writing poetry, providing better information in a chatbot, writing code, or creating original video from text prompts, the output of AI is increasingly disrupting long-established domains relegated to humans. This week, I’m talking with Boris Cergol, the Regional Head of Data at Endava. He has spent over a decade in the AI and...
Dec 23, 2022•49 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “The contact center is not a cost center.” The idea behind that is great contact centers drive customer loyalty and revenue by creating great experiences. But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be efficient or that they should be immune to cost-cutting measures. Every company should be mindful of costs. But cutting costs for the sake of cutting costs can end up *costing* a lot more in the long run. To discuss how to cut costs responsibly, I talked with Brad Cl...
Dec 16, 2022•50 min•Season 2Ep. 14
NPS® (Net Promoter System℠ / Net Promoter Score℠) was originally designed for B2C (Business to Consumer) as a predictor of loyalty. After working at Satmetrix Systems, the originator of the research behind NPS®, Steve Bernstein helped found Waypoint Group to tackle how to use NPS® in a B2B (Business to Business) environment. B2B has a significantly different buying cycle (both in length and complexity) from B2C, and often, many stakeholders influencing the buying decision. Steve joins Next in Qu...
Dec 09, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Remote work is not a COVID-era invention – it has been evolving for decades. But the COVID era forced many companies to adopt remote work with little preparation. Today, the debate rages inside companies – do we bring people back to the office? Do we continue with remote work? Is there a workable middle ground? Anne Bibb has spent the better part of the last decade advising companies on remote work strategies and this week, she joins Next in Queue to discuss: · How new remote work tools can cont...
Dec 02, 2022•57 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Customer Experience is impacted by the decisions companies make, the systems they build, and the people they hire. A fully formed CX strategy requires buy-in from the C-Suite because it affects every part of the business. To drive CX projects forward, practitioners need to be able communicate in “C-Suite Speak” to have an impact on the business. Diane Magers has worked with some of the most recognizable brands in the world and this week she helps us think about the ROI of CX and how to communica...
Nov 25, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Much like cooking, company culture is an art. It requires a lot of ingredients, time, and tools. But a culture with the wrong ingredients can leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Growing up in a successful family business in the service industry, Jill Raff is very attuned to the importance of both Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) and has made her business to help companies with both. This week on Next in Queue, we touch on: · Why company culture matters · Visible signals o...
Nov 18, 2022•50 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Chatbots are about as popular as cable companies, but every new technology needs time to mature. The continued evolution of Conversational AI (Artificial Intelligence) and NLP (Natural Language Processing) is making both “low-code” and “no-code” chatbot deployments successful, both from a customer standpoint and a business standpoint. But a successful deployment requires a solid strategy, appropriate measures of success, and great conversational design. This week, I talk with Jim Rowe, who has b...
Nov 11, 2022•53 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Employee Experience (EX) and how it relates to Customer Experience (CX) is a hot topic, but an often-overlooked aspect of EX is the workspace environment – layout, colors, scent, etc. As more and more people work from home, the environment these employees work in can become an afterthought. At the risk of sounding “woo-woo”, Claire Boscq set out to improve working environments (even if it’s also your home) by fusing traditional Feng Shui, neuroscience, and modern business principles like Maslow’...
Nov 04, 2022•51 min•Season 2Ep. 8
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is deployed in a variety of ways in contact centers. But can AI improve hearing between customer and agent? Jacobi Anstruther, founder and CEO of IRIS Technologies, originally sought to improve F1 driver performance by inducing flow state through sound. This quickly shifted gears (!) to more low-hanging fruit: improving communication between driver and pit crew during races. As the pandemic began and the team migrated to remote work, Jacobi realized the technology he...
Oct 28, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Whether you believe in The Great Resignation or The Great Reshuffle, recruiting and hiring has become as important as ever. With an unmatched enthusiasm for the contact center business and over two decades of experience, Matt Beckwith shares insights on how to improve the recruiting and hiring process. We touch on: · Why recruiting and hiring is so important for contact centers · How Recruiting and Hiring has changed since the pandemic began · The biggest opportunity in contact center recruiting...
Oct 21, 2022•55 min•Season 2Ep. 6
We’ve all heard of Uber. Maybe we know multiple people participating in what’s been dubbed the “Gig Economy,” whether it’s for Uber or some other type of gig work. Megan Neale founded Limitless in 2016 to help create the brand support model of the future – GigCX. While gig work is a significant trend in the workforce, GigCX is more than just workforce flexibility – it’s a way to leverage loyal customers who are experts in your platform to help other customers and get rewarded for doing so. We to...
Oct 14, 2022•37 min•Season 2Ep. 5
David Powers, host of Caffeinated CX and CXO for Rooter Hero Plumbing, and Drew Gorringe, Contact Center Technology Consultant at C-lect Consulting, join this bonus episode to discuss the future of the Contact Center, including emerging technologies. Connect with David on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidjpowers2/ Connect with Drew on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewgorringeucaas/ Music courtesy of Big Red Horse - https://bigredhorseband.com/ Brought to you by Happitu - htt...
Oct 10, 2022•36 min
While in high school, I was gifted a book titled 2000 Most Challenging and Obscure Words . I thought using some of those words made me sound smart. What they really did was get in the way of communication because the goal of communication is not to demonstrate knowledge. The goal is to be understood. An expert in effective business writing and advocate of the use of Plain Language, Leslie O’Flahavan joins me this week and shares skills and tips to write more effectively to achieve that goal. We ...
Oct 07, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Mark Levy got into technology in the late 90’s – the early days of the internet. In the years that followed, he’s worked with some of the largest brands in the world on their Digital and CX strategies. It’s no surprise, then, that he’s an evangelist of improving the Digital Customer Experience (DCX). We touch on: · What Digital Transformation means · First Steps for Digital Transformation · How to measure the success of your digital transformation efforts · The role and future of Conversational ...
Sep 30, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Sandy Murphy started her own offshore BPO in 2021 after years cutting her teeth in the industry. But she found her true purpose after Typhoon Rai (Odette) hit the Philippines in December of 2021 and impacted her team members. Her mission became to change the way customer engagement professionals are treated. We touch on: · How cloud-based systems have lowered the barrier to entry for starting a new BPO · How low overhead allows for higher agent pay · Hiring and promoting people who care · Leadin...
Sep 23, 2022•39 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Amy Smith, VP of Effortless Experience at Challenger, has been involved in best practices research and implementation her entire career and has been focused on Effortless Experience implementation since 2016. We touch on: · What is (and what isn’t) coaching in the Contact Center · The barriers preventing effective coaching and how to overcome them · Communication Styles · Building a Coaching Competency Framework · Identifying behaviors and skills to develop · Developing Bench Strength · The most...
Sep 16, 2022•43 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Dave Derington’s started his career as an analytical chemist, but it was teaching people how to use computer systems used in the lab that really excited him. This led to a role known as Customer Support Scientist. He honed his customer experience skills hosting LAN party events in the early days of online gaming and eventually got hooked by video game design and how games “help us define the experience we want to have and iterate upon it.” He uses his deep understanding of gamification to design...
Sep 09, 2022•54 min•Season 1Ep. 51
