The Switchboard

May 23
Agent Experience

The One Thing You Can’t Afford to Overlook in CX? Your Agents’ Experience

We’re in the Age of the Customer. For many organizations, this translates to a stream of new technologies meant to make customers’ interactions smoother/easier. Here’s why customers are still frustrated, and agents are still miserable—despite these investments. Customers have changed. More than ever before, customers are informed, opinionated, and empowered... read more →
May 15
Customer Service Silos

The Road Your Customers Are Leaving On Is Paved With Good Intentions

  Even though we haven't always talked about the concept of customer experience, it has always been a crucial element of business. Whether to you customer experience (CX) represents an overused buzzword or a competitive battlefield, it has existed—and has mattered—for as long as customers have. Going back to the days before call centers,... read more →
May 10
May 02
customer

Your Customers Deserve More Than a Slogan

Customers are tired of being told how every organization is all about them...especially when their frustrating experiences prove the opposite. All customers want is to have their issues resolved with minimal time/effort. This means not having to recontact an organization multiple times, re-explain their personal information, be transferred, or be... read more →
Apr 19

IVR and AI: Using Automation To Give Your Customer Service A Boost

Automation technology, like IVR and chatbots have become essential technologies in contact centers. Why? Because if it’s too hard to conduct simple business with you, your customers are going to bail...if they haven’t already. While 80% of companies claim to offer superior customer service, only 8% of their actual customers... read more →
Apr 03
Mar 28

Omni-Channel & Single Customer View Statistics

Click-to-Tweet Stats, Graphs & GIFs. Tweet This! In the past 12 months: 84% of US online consumers used web and mobile help or FAQs 83% used the phone 76% used email 65% used chat 56% used communities 43% used Twitter [Source] Tweet This! "A survey by CEB found that "most drivers... read more →
Mar 21

Intimacy is the Key to Every Great (Customer) Relationship

How a single customer view can keep customers hooked. People are developing stronger bonds than ever with their favorite brands, and fostering that intimacy has become a prime focus for marketers. Brand Twitter accounts are more engaging and funnier than ever, personalized marketing messages suggest products we actually like, and... read more →
Mar 02
AWS Outage 2017

What We Learned During The Great AWS Outage of 2017

During the Amazon S3 in US-EAST-1 outage, the Sharpen platform experienced minimal disruption. Here’s why we were okay, what we learned and how we’re using those lessons to get better. We totally agree with the whole internet – the AWS outage was pretty insane. It was slightly concerning when we... read more →
Feb 23
Sharpen Best Place to Work Indiana

We’re One of the Top 100 Best Places to Work in Indiana

We’re excited to announce that we made the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s list of the Top 100 Best Places to Work. ...And it makes sense that an organization that was formed to help companies form great relationships with their customers would naturally take care of its own employees, too. Leading... read more →