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You've invested in both technology and personnel to optimize call center services and increase customer satisfaction. In fact, your agents are more service oriented than ever, using all the tools at their disposal to resolve issues quickly and efficiently on the first call. Fraudsters know this. That is why call centers are a prime target for fraudulent activity. Criminals use social engineering methods to dupe helpful agents who are focused on resolving customer issues efficiently and not on filtering out fraudulent callers.

An effective performance management process can help everyone in the organization understand how their actions and contributions create value, and is much more involved than merely providing an annual review for each employee. It is about working together with each individual employee on a personal level to identify the strengths and weaknesses in their performance. Then, once those traits are detected, developing a detailed plan to close the performance gaps and implement the necessary improvements to set them up for success and enable them to evolve into a more productive and effective employee.

Engaged employees are a significant resource and widely considered to be one of the most important factors of competitive advantage. Over the past several years, greater consideration has been focused on the subject of employee engagement. This increased attention has resulted in many organizations actively developing strategies to help them get the most from their employees. It is a worthwhile pursuit and an ideal business plan, but what exactly is employee engagement and why is it so important?

To operate a successful call center, organizations need to be mindful of the numbers. The most important numbers – by far – are those of the staff in place to handle incoming customer contacts. And that's where workforce management (WFM) for call centers comes in. In the simplest terms, WFM is a set of processes designed to achieve and maintain operational efficiency by ensuring that the right number of agents, with the right skill sets, are staffed at the right time.

​IVR is a widely used contact channel because it allows customers to accomplish simple and straightforward tasks independently and conveniently. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a telephony menu system that enables the dial pad for identification, segmentation, and routing of callers to the most appropriate agent in your contact center. Even though companies are providing new contact channels such as web portals, chatbots, and mobile apps, the self-service IVR channel still accounts for 73% of contact center traffic!

Artificial intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are two of the most successful technologies for organizations to achieve the seemingly incompatible goals of increasing customer satisfaction and employee morale while reducing operational costs.