Ask any contact center leader faced with higher-than-usual turnover and they will most likely tell you the challenges they have with training and, more specifically, getting new hires up to speed. But what's a realistic expectation? How long will it be before lifts in rep performance are gained? Dina Vance, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, North American Operations at Ulysses Learning, gives her unique perspective on this pressing issue, along with three tips to foster your team members' growth and strengthen their performance and confidence.

There is no turning back. It's clear that customers' expectations have changed and many contact centers are experiencing more challenges with each passing day as they do their best to identify and deliver what customers want and need. In this article, Dina Vance, Senior Vice President and Managing Director at Ulysses Learning, discusses recent research findings from Ulysses team of behavioral scientists. As a bonus, Dina also shares pertinent solutions prompted by key research findings designed to help contact center leaders keep reps engaged, achieve business results, and deliver exceptional service in an efficient and effective manner... while operating in an ever-changing environment.

We recently spoke with a CEO who beautifully articulated what many contact center leaders have found to be true as well. After a worldwide pandemic which forced us to rethink and test out new business models, we are no better off and, in fact, in some cases our contact centers are struggling more than ever before. It's like we slipped into an alternative reality from which there is no return! And that's the focus of this edition of Challenge Solved featuring the insights of Dina Vance, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, North American Operations at Ulysses learning.

In this timely article by Dina Vance, SVP with Ulysses Learning, you’ll learn how to create a thriving contact center practice despite a shrinking labor pool, new and evolving worker preferences, growing complexity in handling customer questions and needs, increasing levels of stress from everyday life, widespread economic uncertainty, and fallout from technological advancements. Three success factors are shared, as well as eye-opening insights from a new research study by Ulysses.

With all the outside distractions in the world today it's getting tough to keep our contact center reps focused. This article by Dina Vance, Ulysses' Senior Vice President and Managing Director, North American Operations, offers up fresh insights to help contact center managers lift their teams above the distractions, ultimately, to gain more enjoyment and meaning from their work and each other. Each of the seven tips Dina shares are proven and powerful tools designed for the unique challenges of today's contact center environment.

Given the many rapid advancements in AI and other contact center technologies impacting our businesses, along with the increasingly complex world in which we operate, Ulysses Learning’s team of researchers and experts have been looking very closely at ever-evolving customer expectations and what contact center leaders can do to improve customer experience. This article explores the top three findings, supported by insights from Dina Vance, Ulysses' Senior Vice President and Managing Director, North American Operations.

Contact center managers continue to work hard to get reps energized as they finish the year strong, but they’re experiencing some rather vexing roadblocks. Unfortunately, many managers report reps just seem like their "hearts aren't in their work" anymore and that a growing number of reps exhibit a “general lack of enthusiasm” not only for serving others but for life. Ulysses Learning's consulting team has observed reps’ workplace malaise in action and have had success in helping clients “amp up” team energy. Learn about one of Ulysses' surprisingly simple but high-impact recommendations in this newest article by Dina Vance, Ulysses' Senior Vice President and Managing Director, North American Operations.

It's back to school and that means contact center managers are looking for ways to help agents transition from a "laidback summer vacation fun" to a "let's push to crush our annual goals" mindset. Some agents will welcome the cooler temps and uptick in contact center activity, while others will pine for the beach! Either way, here are a few ideas to help them make the transition and kick-up their productivity with positive energy and ease. Enjoy this new article from Dina Vance, Ulysses' Senior Vice President and Managing Director, North American Operations.

With pandemic-related restrictions loosening up, more and more contact center teams are transitioning back to their contact centers once again after months of working from home. What can contact center managers do to ensure a smooth transition back? Plenty. Read what Dina Vance, Ulysses’ Senior Vice President and Managing Director, North American Operations, has to say on this timely and pivotal topic

Contact center managers are baffled by the fact that even though they coach team members consistently, they just aren't seeing much improvement in their contact center team performance. Weighing in on this topic with a unique perspective and plenty of practical advice is Dina Vance, Ulysses' Senior Vice President and Managing Director, North American Operations. SPOILER ALERT: What Dina shares can be applied to most priorities not only in your contact center…but in life!

Curious about other contact centers’ top priorities? We certainly care about this topic and wanted to share what we learned through a recent survey we conducted with our clients—top North American contact centers in the health insurance, energy, and financial services industries. We hope you find value in what we learned and enjoy additional insights offered by Dina Vance, Senior Vice President at Ulysses Learning.

At Ulysses Learning, one of the most frequently asked questions we receive is this: What's your REAL secret to contact center success? In this edition of Challenge Solved you’ll be treated to how Dina Vance, trusted contact center performance improvement thought leader and Ulysses' SVP and managing director of North American Operations, fields this question. We hope you enjoy her response and, in the process, learn a bit more about Ulysses Learning.

One thing the Coronavirus pandemic has made clear—humans need contact centers more than ever before. As increasingly large numbers of businesses and families are faced with what feels like unimaginable disruptions, contact center teams provide information and comfort to millions of Americans. And if your center’s call volumes have been down recently, that will most assuredly change in the weeks ahead. Read what contact center expert Dina Vance says can help you prepare for the coming surge in activity and strengthen your business starting now. .

Now that more of us are coming out of quarantine contact center leaders are asking, “What can we do to ensure everyone’s successful re-entry once reps return to our contact center environment?” In this article, Ulysses Learning’s Dina Vance responds with five thoughtful tips. For all 10 tips, connect with us on LinkedIn (@Ulysses Learning).

For many companies and those they serve, contact center representatives are in every sense - essential workers. As the number of work-from-home representatives continues to grow not only in response to COVID-19, but also to ensure a stable workforce going forward, it pays to keep your reps fully engaged and onboard. In this article, Dina Vance offers seven tips to help get you through these coronavirus days and beyond.

At the heart of most customer service training programs, is a series of steps or strategies to create and ensure an organization's ideal customer experience. But what happens when your reps are trained in how to use customer service steps and then don't use them consistently on the job? This is an issue that has been confounding contact center executives for about as long as they’ve been implementing customer service initiatives. For a fascinating take on this mission-critical and pervasive issue, we turn to Dina Vance for her inside view in our current Challenge Solved.

Every effective contact center is engaged in launching new initiatives. If you're not evolving and growing with new strategies and tactics, there's a good chance your business may falter. But the question is this: How can you maximize your new initiatives this year, especially given the incredible complexity of the contact center environment? Dina Vance, SVP at Ulysses Learning, shares four creative ways and one "secret" strategy to crush your major performance improvement initiatives this year and in years to come.

Contact center executives are acutely aware of the need to achieve a return on investment (ROI) for every initiative they implement. But what about complex initiatives that aim to improve customer experience and customer satisfaction through first call resolution and concierge-style best practices, among other multi-faceted strategies. What kind of ROI can you expect? Here are six ROI measures to target, along with additional strategies to maximize your results from top contact center performance consultant, Dina Vance.

Gain important insights into a major industry research study just completed on Customer Experience. Plus, read what one top thought leader, Dina Vance, urges contact centers to do now to optimize CX in a business environment that's becoming increasingly complex.

Learn what to do if you audit customer calls and hear your reps sounding like they don’t mean the words they say. It’s subtle sometimes, yes, but can be very destructive to your contact center’s bottom line in numerous ways. In this eye-opening read, Dina Vance, Senior Vice President for Ulysses Learning, tackles the topic head on with techniques to not only address damaging rep behavior but to remedy it as well.

Spring is a busy season for implementing new contact center training initiatives. After months of planning and preparation, the excitement (and expectations) for tangible post-training results are high. What can you do to ensure your team's hard work pays off? Read what Dina Vance, Senior Vice President for Ulysses Learning and respected industry expert on the topic, recommends to ensure your training initiative checks all the right boxes.

Most contact center leaders will be charged with implementing at least one new initiative this year. And, as with any new initiative, leaders will be called upon to navigate change. How a leader navigates change and helps others to do the same is the key differentiator between a successful (and not-so-successful) initiative. Here are eight smart strategies from a top expert on change management to ensure you and your new projects in 2019 get high marks from your people… and deliver impressive results.

Make 2019 the year your contact center really stands out at your company. Dina Vance, Senior Vice President from Ulysses Learning, shares a powerful combination of five strategies and tactics to hire and retain reps who connect to your mission and deliver on the promise of your customer experience. This quick-read article is packed with nuggets of useful wisdom gained through Dina's noteworthy career as a contact center executive and leading industry consultant.

At a recent meeting with contact center execs, Dina Vance, Senior Vice President from Ulysses Learning, was asked what to do if you have a center staffed with plenty of reps who truly enjoy working with customers, but they're just not delivering the type of customer experience the company needs. Dina's answer, as one director exclaimed "was a real eye opener" and is explored in this fascinating article

Read what Ulysses’ colleague Wayne Turmel has to say about how to effectively lead remote contact center staff. Wayne knows quite a few things about remote leadership. He not only co-founded the Remote Leadership Institute with Kevin Eikenberry, but the duo just released a new book on the topic The Long-Distance Leader: Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership.

Dina Vance, Senior Vice President, Managing Director North America, from Ulysses Learning describes another 30-Day Challenge to quickly improve contact center team performance and customer experience. Read more about how you can infuse new energy in your center, while leveraging the performance improvement programs you already have in place.

If you already have a customer service training program in place and are looking for a simple way to energize your representatives and get better training results, read this fascinating article by Dina Vance, Senior Vice President, Managing Director North America, from Ulysses Learning. Dina discusses a creative way to noticeably improve your contact center team’s performance and customers’ experience in only a month.

As customer expectations continue to evolve, you want to measure the right metrics in your contact center to ensure a best-in-class customer experience. In this article you’ll learn recommendations from one of the most trusted resources in the contact center metrics space – SQM Group. Ulysses Learning has had the good fortune to work with SQM group for over 15 years. They are the leading research specialist firm for measuring, benchmarking, and improving customer and employee experience. Read what Andrea Pow, Senior Vice President of Client Advocacy with SQM Group, has to say on this vital and significant topic.

Contact centers with reps who consistently apply good judgment enjoy above average customer satisfaction scores and many are considered to be best-in-class. Find out which best practices can transform your contact center into a customer experience-focused operation that gets high marks in this article by Dina Vance, Senior Vice President, Managing Director North America, from Ulysses Learning.

If your "to do" list is a long one, check out Dina Vance's thoughts on how you can accomplish all you've set out to do, while optimizing your contact center results. She shares business insights gained from a recent trip to Hawaii, including a harrowing trek to the edge a 300,000-year-old crater!

Dina Vance addresses a topic that’s keeping more and more contact center executives up at night as the number of virtual agents continues to rise in their centers. Dina’s response also features best practices from two Ulysses Learning clients—Jeff Schmidt and Courtney Kaylor.

Check out a top expert's recommendations for what contact center managers must do to extract the real value from employee satisfaction surveys, including ways to engage reps further with survey results. Ulysses Learning's long-time colleague, Anne Slough, Vice President from LSA Global, weighs in on the topic.

Dina Vance is among the first to be featured in a special project sponsored by Corporate Learning Institute and Fulcrum Network. The project Road Warriors: The Making of Organizational Trainers and Consultants, showcases advice from training and development industry experts to assist others in their professional development. The focus of Dina's article is on developing the skills and knowledge to build healthy client relationships.

Read part two of a two-part series on what top call centers are doing to create and support high-performance coaching cultures. Learn from some of the best. Four Ulysses-Certified Master Coaches are featured, including Stephaine Huston.; Denita Johnson, Crystal Halter-Spratt and Carol Troxell.

Hear what some of the most progressive contact centers in the U.S. are doing to create and support a culture where coaching is a mission-critical priority, not only for rep development but for achieving business goals and objectives. Four Ulysses-Certified Master Coaches are featured, including Stephaine Huston, Denita Johnson, Crystal Halter-Spratt, and Carol Troxell. This is part one of a two-part series.

Personality profile training has been around for decades, yet the application of this psychology-based practice continues to vex and perplex managers, especially those leading contact center operations. Tap into the wisdom of the frontline in this thought-provoking read from Dina Vance. While Dina has been a senior executive in the contact center industry for over 20 years, she remembers with great clarity her experience as a front-line contact center representative

Ronnell Lovings, Senior Market Business Support, Call Strategy Facilitator and Coach, offers best practices and tips for transforming a technically-focused call center into one that delivers a memorable, world-class customer experience. As an esteemed client of Ulysses Learning, Ronnell, offers a unique blend of perspectives with his extensive experience and proven track record in both learning and development, as well as business and call center customer service operations. Ronnell holds a Six Sigma Black Belt certification and is a recipient of the University of North Florida Excellence in Employee Development award.

Carol Troxell, Business Analyst, Senior Care Division, helps Ulysses tackle a topic that (surprisingly) impacts many contact centers, but is not typically discussed at executive roundtables – supervisor engagement. Carol has more than 30 years of experience in Customer Service and supervision and is a highly respected Master Coach. Her perspective is invaluable

Read what Vince Pepper, Director of Customer Operations Support at one of the nation’s leading energy companies and longtime client of Ulysses Learning, has to say on how you can create even greater prosperity and prominence for contact centers today.

With over 30 years in the customer service and contact center space, Vince has seen our industry grow from its humble beginnings into one of the most sophisticated, high-stakes, and must-have businesses of today. Always the pragmatic visionary, we think you’ll enjoy reading Vince’s insights.

……It's not enough, and dare I say, it can be downright dangerous to share your data with CSRs and tell them they have to hit a certain number (or numbers). I know this because for 16 years I worked with contact centers around the world to benchmark their performance internally, as well as externally, comparing their data to their peer groups. As you probably already know, ultimately, the goal of good benchmarking is to better understand the customer experience and what is needed to improve that experience going forward. What I learned is that getting and sharing the data is only part of the equation, how the data is understood and acted upon at the point of customer contact matters most. he short answer to this question is that you need to start sharing very specific communications (both in writing and verbally) with everyone on your team right away. At the minimum, your people must have a clear understanding of these key questions...

…The short answer to this question is that you need to start sharing very specific communications (both in writing and verbally) with everyone on your team right away. At the minimum, your people must have a clear understanding of these key questions...

……I think the challenge that we have, particularly with folks close to the contact center industry but not necessarily in the industry, is that there is some confusion between a multi-channel and omni-channel customer experience. As I mentioned, omni-channel is a newer concept. Oftentimes, people like to focus on what’s new without having a true or deeper understanding of it. They may talk about an omni-channel experience but what they really have is a multi-channel experience. There is a distinct difference between offering customers access to multi-channels – whether it be phone, Email, some SMS texting, or other self-serve options – and offering them a truly seamless omni-channel customer service experience where all the various channels are tied together…

…If you really want to send the right message to agents, have them focus on the customer experience…and that’s it. And have your managers focus on the customer experience, as well as all other measures that matter most in your contact center.

I’m not saying that other business measures or areas of focus should not matter to your reps. They should. It’s just I have found that it can be very dangerous to have reps focus on measures other than the customer experience. Rarely does it work out well for the contact center. Having been a frontline manager, I can tell you it can cause numerous business disruptions, poor morale, and many, many, many sleepless nights…

Before beginning anything, I would exam to see if any trigger pops up as to why the morale began to decrease. Was there a layoff? Did a very well respected leader retire or change jobs? Is the company going through a merger or acquisition, or possibly a takeover? You mentioned that it is a contact center team – and, in which case, have they been burdened with excessive workloads for an extended period of time? If the time frame can be isolated, and then from there isolate a cause of the decline, the senior management team has place to begin…

With over 25 years’ experience in running domestic and international contact center environments, average handle time is a misnomer as related to performance or contact center metrics. Organizations that focus on average handle time or even attempt to balance average handle time are missing the point of customer service and relationship management…

According to recent studies published by Gallup, only 30% of employees are actively engaged in their job and disengaged workers cost the United States between $450 billion to $550 billion each year in lost productivity. In addition, the disengaged workforce is more likely to negatively influence their co-workers, miss workdays, and drive customers away. Given this information, the question becomes what can be done to increase employee engagement and motivation?

Aristotle once said, “Anyone can become angry - that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way; that is not easy.” Substitute any emotion for the word “angry,” and the same is true. Many have experienced how emotions can get in the way of making good decisions, but may not realize emotional intelligence is the key for individuals and organizations to keep a competitive advantage in order to rapidly respond to change and maintain a motivated and talented workforce.

As a leader and coach, you have the ability to make an amazing impact to draw out the talents of your representatives and other coaches that were previously hidden within each individual. The investment of your time, efforts, and expertise are critical to maintain energy within your organization. Over time, however, there's also opportunity and methods for you to evolve your own skills to continue the dynamic process of unceasingly delivering the best possible customer experience.

Henry Ford is quoted as saying, "Quality means doing it right when no one is looking." Applying this thought to customer contact centers means that quality is woven into the fabric of an organization's culture. This quote also suggests that quality is everyone's responsibility rather than nestled in the QA Department or QA Manager. The challenge is, how do we accomplish this?

Perhaps when you were younger, you knew you were in trouble when your parent said, “Don’t use that tone of voice with me, mister!” In a contact center, voice tone conveys 80% of our message, especially when we don’t have body language to augment our intention or meaning. As important as it is to pay attention to our words, it is how we say it that ultimately conveys our intended message.

Providing feedback is critical to successful communication and employee support for every call center manager. Our research and experience indicates that a balance of feedback, including a combination of monthly one-on-one’s, immediate coaching after a call, quality reviews and silent monitoring encourages employees to grow in their job. There are several important characteristics for feedback to be effective.

We make judgments every day throughout the day when confronted with caller concerns, all of which impact our customer’s experiences. To ensure First Call Resolution (FCR), using past experiences enables good judgment which is imperative for high quality customer conversations. To make good judgments (decisions) we need to understand WHY we make certain decisions.

Building competencies in an ever-changing customer-centric organization is a continuous challenge for training personnel, because demanding customers require a heightened level of decision-making from customer service associates.

As more organizations turn to customer experience as a competitive differentiator, contact centers must ensure that staff at all levels and functions are fully prepared to drive customer-centric goals.