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In 2020, contact centers around the world tore up their customer service scripts. From Fortune 500 companies to small businesses to nonprofits, public-facing organizations faced a daunting task. They had to address the urgent needs of their customers, all while providing a safe work environment for their employees and agents. As we reflect on the past year, we are proud of our efforts to assist customers new and old. Here’s a roundup of our top insights and recommendations as contact centers look to capture the lessons of 2020 to inform a more digitally agile foundation for years to come.

There’s a common misconception that employee engagement is tantamount to employee happiness or satisfaction. Although great benefits, pay and other perks like a game room or free snacks can make employees happy and excited to come to work, these incentives don’t necessarily translate to more productive workers who are committed to customer delight.

To learn more about how the latest advancements in customer service technology can be applied to help reduce the cost of collections, increase repayments, and help prevent your customers from becoming indebted, download ContactEngine’s whitepaper Collections – prevention is better than cure.

So often your employees are completely overwhelmed by the large scope of varied tasks that they need to complete within a day, that it becomes so easy for the finer details to fall through the cracks. Unfortunately missing the finer details can result in bigger issues such as lawsuits, due to lack of employee compliance. I have seen the negative ripple effect that this can have in a business, in terms of generating more legal costs and placing more pressure on management.

When we talk about the “customer experience”, some also think “customer journey” and mistakenly use these interchangeably. These terms can be confusing and difficult to follow, but it’s actually a simple distinction. First, yes, they are two different things. Second, yes, they both require your attention. What’s important to realize is that the journey is much more insightful for business planning and growth because it offers a more detailed look at every move the customer makes.

We live in a real-time world. We get flash-sale notifications in real time, get real-time alerts for every bank and credit card transaction in real time, know how many “likes” we have on a social post in real time – heck, I even know when my daughter’s diaper has been changed at daycare in real time (evidence that there is such a thing as too much real time). So why shouldn’t agents get real-time coaching, improvement feedback, and performance insights?

There’s more than its products contributing to Wine Country Gift Baskets’ growth. The company’s philosophy informs its everyday practices, which are built around a family-based culture, relationships, the quality of its interactions with customers, and the tools it provides to workers. And with baskets being ordered by and shipped to customers all over the world, the company’s contact center is central to its customer satisfaction and success.