Vistio Knowledge: Insights for happier agents, happier customers, and better contact center performance.

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Is it Time to Dump Your Outdated Knowledge Base?

Many contact centers are still clinging to their outdated knowledge bases like travelers refusing to give up paper maps in a world of GPS. Sure, they technically work, but do they empower agents to deliver exceptional service?

How Agent Stress Can Tank Your Customer Service Scores

Stress among agents isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s a silent performance killer. Studies show that agent stress levels directly impact customer experience (CX) scores, leaving many organizations wondering why their customer satisfaction rates aren’t hitting the mark.

The Training Mirage: Why More Training Doesn’t Equal More Skilled Agents

This “training mirage”—when too much training actually hinders agent performance—often creates a false sense of preparedness, leaving employees overwhelmed rather than empowered.

Buyer Beware: How to Choose AI Software That Won’t Let Your Contact Center Down

If you’re feeling the pressure to jump on the AI bandwagon but are cautious about the hype, you’re in good company. AI isn’t a magic fix—it’s a tool, and its success hinges on choosing, implementing, and using it with a clear strategy.

Vistio Recognized in the 2024 Talented Learning LMS Awards for Best Supporting Learning Tech

Vistio has been named one of the top companies in the Best Supporting Learning Tech category in the prestigious 2024 Talented Learning LMS Awards, placing Vistio among the best in the learning and development industry.

Using Training Analytics to Improve Agent Retention

Agent retention is a critical challenge in customer service and support. As the workplace becomes more data-driven, advanced analytics is emerging as a key tool in understanding and improving agent retention.

Why Agents Graduate Training with Missing Skills

In a field where customer interactions often define the brand, underprepared agents on the front lines can lead to poor customer experiences, reduced productivity, and costly turnover. So, why do agents graduate from training programs with missing skills?

How Can You Personalize Training So Agents Focus on Content That They Don’t Know?

Too often, training programs are broad, treating every agent the same and wasting precious time reviewing content that some agents already know. What if you could tailor the training process to focus specifically on the skills each agent lacks?

The Role of AI in Emotional Intelligence Training for Agents

By leveraging AI, companies are now able to better equip their agents with the skills needed to handle emotionally charged situations, providing not only improved customer experiences but also a more supportive environment for agents themselves.

Get More Out of Your Contact Center Investment Through Better Training

Your agents are the frontline of customer interaction, and how well they perform directly impacts your company’s performance. But achieving high performance in your contact center isn't just about hiring the right people—it’s about equipping them with the right training.

The Hidden Costs of Too Much Classroom Training in Contact Centers

Training is vital for the success of any contact center, ensuring that agents are well-equipped to handle a wide variety of customer interactions. But when it comes to classroom training, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Creating a Culture of Continuous Learning in Your Contact Center

To keep pace with shifting customer expectations to emerging technologies, organizations must foster a culture of continuous learning within their contact centers. This not only helps agents stay updated with the latest industry trends but also empowers them to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Five Strategies to Give AI Customer Service a Human Touch

As we embrace AI to engage with customers, it’s crucial not to lose sight of the fact that human oversight in AI implementations is not just a safeguard—it’s the key to unlocking the full potential of AI in contact centers.

Can Training on the Fly Enhance Agent Performance?

The demands of modern customer service require agents to be agile, responsive, and continuously updated with the latest information—something that traditional training methods struggle to provide. This is where microlearning—or "training on the fly"—can fill in the gaps.

The New Definition of Hybrid Contact Centers: Striking the Right Balance between AI and Human Interaction

The integration of AI into contact centers is no longer just a trend but a strategic necessity. As contact centers embrace AI, a new challenge arises: how to strike the right balance between technology and human interaction.

Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect—PERFECT Practice Makes Perfect

When it comes to preparing agents for the complex and varied interactions they'll face, practice must be more than just a routine drill; it needs to be realistic, intentional, and closely aligned with the actual challenges agents will encounter on the job.

Three Ways to Use AI in Your Contact Center That Don’t Expose You to AI Issues

For customer success professionals and decision-makers in contact centers, it’s crucial to harness AI's potential without falling prey to it's pitfalls.

Elevate Contact Center Success by Reducing Agent Overload

Discover how to reduce agent overload and improve contact center success using effective strategies and supportive technologies.

The Paradox of Contact Center Training: Why More Training Doesn’t Decrease Agent Anxiety

Extensive training should lead to confident and well-prepared agents. However, a perplexing paradox has emerged: as agents undergo more training, their anxiety levels often increase.

Beyond the Classroom: How AI is Revolutionizing On-the-job Training

While traditional training methods have been effective, they have significant limitations. Enter AI, which is transforming how training is conducted, making it more dynamic, continuous, and personalized.

The Future of Employee Training: Integrating AI to Improve Retention and Performance

Traditional one-size-fits-all approaches are giving way to personalized learning experiences powered by AI, which promises a future where training is not just effective, but also engaging and adaptable.

Adding the Right Technology Instead of Just Adding More Technology

Discover how choosing the right technology, not just more, can enhance customer service in contact centers efficiently.

The (Not-so-secret) Secret to Boosting Agent Performance: Practice

Theoretical classroom learning and innate talent can only take your agents so far. The real transformation in training happens when they step out of the classroom and start applying what they've learned through consistent, intentional practice.

5 Signs Your Contact Center Training Regimen is Broken

Effective training in contact centers is crucial for both operational success and employee satisfaction. Unfortunately, many organizations face persistent issues that indicate their training programs might be fundamentally flawed.

Contact Center Innovations: Exploring the Power of Agent Guidance Software

Agent guidance software can revolutionize contact centers by enhancing agent capabilities, expediting training, and ensuring consistent customer service.

The Role of Advanced Analytics in Improving Customer Experience

Advanced analytics, leveraging the power of AI and big data, have become crucial tools in understanding and enhancing customer interactions.

Why You Need to Finally Kill your Knowledge Base

We don't use physical maps anymore, so why would we ask contact center agents to utilize physical knowledge bases as well?

AI in Agent Training: Enhancing Skills and Efficiency

Integrating AI simulation into the training process brings a multitude of benefits for both new and seasoned agents.

AI is Ready for Your Contact Center—But Maybe Not How You’d Expect

The rush to incorporate AI into customer-facing roles has led to some high-profile mishaps. These public instances can serve as a cautionary tale, highlighting the importance of a thoughtful and phased approach to AI integration.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Agent Retention in the Remote Work Era

As combined remote and on-site work models continue to gain popularity, the shift to hybrid work models the advantage of expanding the talent pool but also means agents have more job options than ever before.

Navigating the AI Landscape: Your Roadmap to Successful AI Implementations in the Contact Center

The promise of AI to revolutionize customer service with minimal human intervention is enticing, but the road to successful implementation is often fraught with pitfalls.

Unlock the Psychology Behind Intentional Practice for Enhanced Learning

In addition to traditional classroom training, effective learning is essential for agents to grasp the concepts they learn while preparing to handle interactions with live customers.

Tailoring Training to Agent Learning Styles

When it comes to developing essential agent skills, the conventional classroom-based training model may not be sufficient to prepare agents for the diverse and demanding challenges they face daily.

AI in Customer Service: Risks & Challenges To Consider

As AI's impact continues to ripple throughout the CX industry, many recent AI failures in the customer service world have illustrated that, while such innovations hold great potential, they are not without their challenges and risks.

The Future of Contact Centers: Personalized Recommendations and Enhanced Efficiency

Explore how AI-driven personalized recommendations and enhanced operational efficiency are shaping the future of contact centers and discover the transformative power of technology in improving customer support.

Staffing Plan Fundamentals: Setting Service Goals

If customers were willing to wait for help indefinitely (which they aren’t…) then we wouldn’t have staffing constraints! But staffing requirements are driven largely by how timely we want to be for our customers.

Boost Agent Confidence to Reduce Attrition

Trying to keep a full staff of experienced agent can feel like trying to fill a leaky bucket. But here's a secret: contact center managers can stem the tide of attrition by focusing on confidence-boosting training techniques.

Unleashing the Full Potential of Agent Training

The key to unlocking optimal agent training lies in understanding the process, leveraging cutting-edge technology solutions, and developing strategies that highlight individual growth and performance.

How to Do Role Plays that Totally Suck

Role playing is supposed to let new hires practice customer service skills in a completely safe environment. Sounds good in theory, right? Well, it’s more difficult than it looks.

AI Simulation: Cultivating Confident CS Teams

Recognizing both the challenges and immense opportunities in elevating customer service delivery, forward-thinking organizations are turning to innovative, technology-driven solutions.

Are You Sure Your Agent Training is Effective?

The success of your business often hinges on the effectiveness of your agent's training. But how can you tell if your training program is actually doing the job?

ServiceSim: A 2024 Stevie Award Finalist

Vistio's ServiceSim has secured a finalist spot in the Contact Center Solution category at the 18th Stevie Awards in Las Vegas in April.

Understanding Occupancy in Staffing Plans

People often use the terms “Utilization” and “Occupancy” interchangeably, but they are definitely not the same thing. Understanding that as Service Level goals go up, Occupancy goes down can be critical to optimizing your contact center.

Quality Management That Motivates! — Nate Brown

The quality management program within any contact center is where the best service centers in the world consistently raise the bar for themselves. Even so, it is often one of the most overlooked core disciplines in a service environment.

Mastering Customer Personalities With AI Training

Learn how ServiceSim's AI-enabled simulated customer training can equip contact center agents with the knowledge and skills for exceptional customer service.

Future-Forward Service: AI Simulation Revolution in CX

The Internet is filled with legendary customer experience stories that begin with a customer service professional going the extra mile. What are these companies doing differently? Memorable customer experiences begin with a customer service vision.

Anatomy of Effective Contact Center Conversations

Whether it’s called a one-on-one meeting, or a coaching conversation, or a performance check-in, this regular conversation between a supervisor and an employee is essential to an effective and high-performing contact center.

Understanding Staffing: Shrinkage & Utilization

Shrinkage and Utilization are some of the least understood aspects of staff planning in the contact center. (And why we drive ourselves crazy with real-time monitoring...)

Unlocking Workplace Happiness for Success

Investing in the emotional well-being of learners can significantly enhance cognitive processes, such as perception, attention, memory, reasoning, and problem-solving, within a business context.

Five Elements Every Customer Journey Map Needs

A well-crafted customer journey map can show you where to invest your limited resources to create the greatest impact on customer experiences and business objectives. But if you’ve never created a customer journey map before, it’s hard to know what to include.

Journey vs. Process Maps: Key Differences

Questions about journey maps come when working with Customer Experience (CX) and bringing other departments into the project. Often, those stakeholders haven’t been exposed to journey mapping and that leads to misunderstandings.

AI Solutions That Will Transform Outbound Sales Training

By incorporating AI-powered training tools, salespeople can improve their communication skills, increase their ability to handle objections, and adapt their approach to meet the needs of each prospect.

Enhancing Agent Onboarding With AI Training

Discover how AI-enabled simulated customer training can transform your contact center agent onboarding process by equipping new agents with essential communication and problem-solving skills.

Forecasting Handle Time in Staffing Plans

When it comes to building staffing plans, the focus on average handle time isn’t about changing it, it’s about accurately forecasting it.

Unlocking In-House Expertise: Pathways to Career Advancement

What are the actionable steps to create a genuine pathway to career advancement for the valuable team members in your contact center?

The Great Debate: Price Versus Customer Service in Securing Brand Loyalty — Stacy Sherman

In the quest to understand where consumers decide to invest their money, the battle often lies between the allure of an unbeatable deal and the promise of an exceptional experience.

AI Practice Partners vs. Role Play in Training

While contact centers have relied heavily on one-on-one role play during training, this method has its limitations. This is where AI practice partners, such as ServiceSim, prove to be game-changers for call center training.

Elevating Agent Success in Call Center Training

Training call center agents can be a daunting task. Traditional training methods often fall short in preparing agents for the dynamic and unpredictable nature of customer interactions. That's where Vistio's ServiceSim comes in, revolutionizing call center training with its AI-enabled capabilities.

Staffing Essentials: Importance of Forecasting Workload

Most contact center leaders know that forecasting incoming call volume or transaction count is required to build a staffing model that aligns to demand. Do we simply look at historical volumes and assume it will carry forward?

Boost Remote Agent Performance With AI Training

Discover how AI-enabled simulated customer training can enhance remote contact center agents' skills and confidence, ensuring they deliver top-notch customer service even in a remote work setting.

The Importance of Quality Assurance in Contacts

QA is an essential practice in any contact center — arguably that you cannot live without. While contact center managers are busy and overworked these are the true reasons why QA is so important.

Introduction to Staffing Plan Fundamentals

Appropriate staffing is the cornerstone of your contact center. Without the right staffing levels, you will find yourself constantly firefighting, only living for today, and unable to plan and innovate for tomorrow. So, how do you get staffing right?

How Generative AI Will Enhance—Not Erase—Customer Service Jobs

AI is set to fundamentally change customer service jobs, not by erasing them, but by enabling human augmentation and improving agents' ability to handle complex queries.

Leverage AI-Enabled Agent Training with ServiceSim by Vistio

Training using traditional methods like role-plays and classroom learning often falls short, as simulations may not always offer a genuine representation of the issues agents encounter on the job.

Should Contact Center Leaders Map Customer Journeys?

While customer journey mapping is a strategic investment for contact center management, what factors should you consider before committing resources to the project?

The “Servant Challenger” Mentality — Nate Brown

A core concept that has recently been repeated by a variety of thought leaders recently jumped up from the page and hit me square in the kisser. It’s the idea of awakening the CHALLENGER mindset in the workplace.

Winning CX: A Next-Best-Action Contact Center Guide

Learn how utilizing next-best-action guidance and automation can revolutionize your contact center and empower your agents to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Elevate Customer Service Leadership in 2024

As we’ve entered 2024, let's analyze how starting, stopping, and keeping particular practices can reshape the customer service industry. It is a lens that we can use to understand how these principles are changing the customer service landscape.

Why Real-Time Data-Driven Insights Are Crucial for Effective Customer Support

Why are real-time, data-powered insights not just important—but indispensable—for delivering top-tier customer support in the digital age?

Navigating Outsourcing: Onshore to Offshore Strategies

Choosing the right geographical location for outsourcing can be an important decision. What considerations should you consider when weighing Onshore vs. Nearshore vs. Offshore outsourcing locations?

The Human Touch: Call Center Agents’ Crucial Role

In today’s digital age, where automation and AI rapidly transform industries, the human touch remains irreplaceable. This is especially true in the realm of customer service, where call center agents play a pivotal role.

Solving Customer Problems: Features, Bugs, Insights

Contact center agents don’t actually like to tell customers they can’t do something. It’s not until they are slowly beaten down by product limitations, silly policies, and unapproachable leaders that they resort to the dreaded “no.”

Uncommon Strategies for Successful BPO Partnerships

Crafting a successful outsourcing strategy isn't just about finding the right partner. It's also about shaping the relationship in a way that aligns to the goals of both organizations.

AI Innovations: Supporting Humans in Customer Experience

High training costs, high attrition, agent burnout, and outdated systems get in the way of empowering agents to provide excellent customer service. So, how best to fix these issues to boost agent productivity and morale?

Why Customer Journey Maps Fail

Despite the growing popularity of customer journey mapping, many organizations struggle to benefit from the activity. Why are all these customer journey maps failing to show a return on investment?

Navigating Public Customer Comment Etiquette

Nothing can derail a perfect day in the contact center like a public comment from a customer calling your company out for a feature or service that you lack or something you failed to do.

Unlocking In-House Expertise: A Guide to Talent Development

Your customer support representatives are the front lines, engaging with customers day in and day out. Leveraging this firsthand can be a game-changer for your organization.

Building a “Best-Friend-at-Work” Culture

The research is in, and the results are positive. According to a A 2022 Gallup poll, best friends at work are good for business.

Thinking Outside the Box in Customer Service

Customer Service work can quickly slip down to a non-strategic layer of “ticket taking.” But that’s not the type of work anyone is going to want to do for long. Especially not your top talent who are capable of so much more.

How To Cultivate a Heroic Workplace Culture

Heroes aren't solitary figures. They thrive in a culture that encourages and supports their success. I like the way my friends at IntouchCX say it - "Ironman Had the Avengers".

Engaging Five Key Stakeholders in CX You Should Not Ignore

Whether you’re creating a customer journey map or leading a customer experience transformation, you can’t do it alone. You need other people to buy-in and take action on your CX initiatives to achieve your CX vision.

Transform CX With ServiceSim and AgentHub

By improving the training agents receive, and then providing real-time on-the-job assistance, you can significantly reduce the stress and frustration agents feel while simultaneously improving the level of service they deliver.

How To Promote Heroic Adaptability at Work

Sometimes it feels like the only constant in the contact center world is change. Whether it's adapting to new technologies, evolving customer expectations, or unforeseen crises, the ability to navigate change can set you and your team apart from all the rest.

Victim to Hero: Embracing a Powerful Mindset Shift

As a leader in the contact center world do you ever feel like things are constantly happening to you? Emails go out to customers without your knowledge, there's a persistent product bug, and other departments seem to be operating in silos.

No More Whac-a-Mole: Tackling CX Pain Points Effectively

With limited resources, you’re forced to direct your activities toward changes that produce the biggest business outcomes. But without a view of the customer journey, you risk wasting those limited resources on the wrong opportunities.

AI & Human Element: Modern CX Training Blend

AI doesn't just offer automation; it can elevate the entire agent learning and development process, making training more aligned with real-world scenarios, more adaptive to individual agent needs, and more proactive in offering timely support and feedback.

How To Maximize BPO Partnerships in Staffing

What are the advantages of collaborating with Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) partners in effectively managing contact center workforces?

The Power of Augmenting Humans with AI

Introducing ServiceSim, a cutting-edge tool that uses AI to augment humans’ abilities rather than replace them, leading to a safer, scalable, more user-friendly, and value-driven solution.

How Obsession With Metrics Harms Customer Experience

We’re obsessed with metrics. We fixate on the results, creating scorecards and setting improvement targets. But is the customer experience getting any better?

Effective Customer Experience Measurement

With NPS survey response rates dropping into the single digits and customers who outright lie on them, can you really expect to measure the customer experience?

Contact Center Staffing: Virtual, Geo-Focused Strategies

In this post, we'll explore an aspect of many modern staffing strategies: virtual, geographical-focused sourcing.

Agent Feedback: The Untapped Value

If you have a contact center, you're sitting on a goldmine of customer insights. What you may not realize is you also are able to get direct feedback from the people who deal with your process everyday.

Mastering Contact Center Staffing Processes

You’ve probably heard the adage that contact center planning is about having the right people, in the right place, at the right time. Having a clear and repeatable process and timeline positions you to achieve that goal.

Everything is CX

Many would argue that business is all about sales and playing the numbers game. Guess what? They're wrong. The truth is, without customers, there is no business.

Strategic Staffing for Contact Center Leaders

As contact center leaders, we understand the critical role our teams play in delivering exceptional customer experiences. And behind every high-performing team is a well-thought-out staffing strategy.

Using Contact Center Experience for Promotion

The question I most often receive is, “How will my contact center job help me get to where I want to go?”

Elevating Customer Service: From Repetitive to Strategic

As the conversation around artificial intelligence heats up, the role of the frontline customer service worker has become crucial in delivering exceptional experiences.

Evaluating the Role of Agents in the CX Marketplace

When deciding on how to build out a support team, it's important to analyze the tech and tools you'll be utilizing to do so.

Voice of the Agent Blueprint – Part 4

Conducting annual employee satisfaction surveys is a common practice to gauge team sentiment and job satisfaction. However, are your survey results meaningful and actionable, or do they end up being a mere "check the box" activity?

Why a Voice of Authority (VOA) Playbook is Essential

It's very easy for companies to claim they support improving the agent experience and giving them a voice. But how do you actually demonstrate that?

Voice of the Agent Blueprint – Part 3

As leaders, we understand the value of giving our team members a voice in shaping the company culture. That's why another essential tool in our playbook is the agent engagement team.

The Five Pillars of Agent Impact Strategies

What keeps many leaders up at night, prevents organizations from achieving their customer experience goals, and paves the way for the belief that AI is better suited for this work.

Enhancing Agent Experience With Generative AI

Why generative AI technology like ChatGPT should be your next contact center investment.

Empowering Women Leadership in Customer Experience (CX)

Live from CCW in Las Vegas, we're be bringing back two of our "CX QA Live!" regulars—Dr. Hui Wu-Curtis and Stacy Sherman—for a very special discussion on the most important asset in your CX leadership teams.

Voice of the Agent Blueprint – Part 2

This is the 2nd post in a series focused on developing a Voice of the Agent Playbook. You can follow along on LinkedIn by following the hashtag hashtag #VOAPlaybook.

How Real-Time Guidance Can Transform Customer-Service Interactions

Every customer interaction matters, and the pressure on agents to deliver top-notch service is higher than ever. That's why real-time guidance is becoming essential in contact centers.

How to be “People Fertilizer” as a Contact Center Leader

Lisa Guzman is here to help elucidate what exactly it takes to be the "people fertilizer" in your contact center, and why you need to start doing it today!

A Special JEPPPisode

We are very excited to welcome Justin Robbins with us back on the podcast to discuss how what's going on in the world of AI and contact centers.

The Role and Value of Humans in Customer Service in an Age of AI Innovation

We are very excited to welcome Justin Robbins with us back on the podcast to discuss how what's going on in the world of AI and contact centers.

Addressing The Causes of a Bad Agent Experience

Agent satisfaction is often a challenging puzzle to solve, largely because the experience of our agents is overlooked, leaving our agents overwhelmed and our customers unhappy.

Voice of the Agent Blueprint – Part 1

Most leaders agree that the satisfaction and engagement of their team is critical to success, but many of those same leaders haven't developed a specific plan and don’t know where to begin.

Strategies For Doing CX (and AX) Right!

Agents are working in the front lines just as much as your sales team, so it’s important that they are being treated right. This starts with the leaders and the empowerment that the leaders give to their agents to do their job properly. Business will thrive when they put focus on their agents and their experience.

The Best Qualities That Will Lead Your Agents to Contact Center Success

Any given contact center can take upwards of 1,000+ calls a day. Whether you're a part of a BPO, an auto dealer, or in telecommunications, how exactly can you retain a mighty workforce to handle that kind of workload?

The Agent Metrics Obsession That’s Killing Customer Experience

Today we’re analyzing actual stories and case studies of the unintended consequences of performance management systems with our guest Dave Seaton.

How to Maximize Your Investment in Contact Center Software

New technology often ends up sitting on the shelf, unused. Learn how to maximize your investment and get agents to adopt new tools.

The Impact of AI on CX Quality

Continuing the topic of AI, today we are being joined by Doug Rabold to discuss how AI impacts the quality of our work and how can learn how to properly use AI.

Vistio Updates: Pilot Announcement of New AI Software

Vistio is proud to announce the launch a pilot of new software with several of its key partners that integrates OpenAI’s GPT to revolutionize the way agents are trained and work in contact centers.

Why Differentiating Your Brand Starts with Your Agents

Differentiating your brand is crucial. And the best place to start is with the people who talk to your customers the most: your agents.

Human Intelligence vs Artificial Intelligence in CX

We continue to explore AI and its impact on the CX community with Fred Stacey, specifically by viewing the relationship of human intelligence versus artificial intelligence.

The Impact of AI on Today’s Labor Realities in CX

As technology continues to advance, AI is being integrated into businesses everywhere. AI is seen as one of the most efficient ways to cut costs and increase efficiency, which are very important parts of CX. So how does Al impact CX?

Benefits and ROI When Investing in Agent-Focused Software

Investing in and adopting agent-focused technology into your CX business can be a great way to improve your efficiency and benefit your company. Today we are joined by software expert, Adam Saad, to discuss the benefits of integrating agent-focused technology into CX.

The Impact that Community Has on the Greater CX Industry

Throughout the greater CX industry, there are so many benefits to being involved in a community. Today Rob Connelly and Jakob Mattice, discuss the impact that communities have on the CX industry.

Soft Skills Are the Key to Delivering Customer Satisfaction in the Omnichannel Journey

In the world of omnichannel CX, live agents often work with customers frustrated by digital channels. Which makes it crucial for them to have strong soft skills.

Compassionate Boundaries in Connecting Employees to the Resources They Need

Today we welcome back Jeremy Hyde Director of Customer Service for Sun Country Airlines to discuss how to appropriately help employees who are facing crisis in their personal life.

The Importance of Empathy in CX Interactions

It’s very important to make sure that your customer feels heard in their emotions, so we will be diving into what empathy in CX looks like, as well as how to show empathy in CX.

Why Workflow Software is Essential for Agents

It can be difficult to find the right tech to create a comprehensive and integrated system for your agents. And that’s where workflow software comes in.

The Relationship Between Engaged Agents and Brand Differentiation

Engaged and supported agents make a large difference in your company and can either help or hurt your business. Here's how to keep your agents engaged and improve your brand.

The Job No One Wants

If the agent is even remotely the kind of human who takes another person’s frustration and anger personally, the agent is going to be on the receiving end of a lot of negativity.

Designing CX Training to Drive Optimal Business Outcomes

Sheri Kendall is an expert in CX training analytics and is here to help us connect CX training analytics to our business outcomes.

From Stay Interviews to Burnout Prevention: How Your Contact Center Can Invest in Agent Retention

When you find agents who are knowledgeable, empathetic, and great at their job overall, you want to keep them. Here are the top ways to ensure they stay.

CX Agents: Give Yourself Some Love!

Contact centers sometimes take a lot of heat for issues with the functioning of their call centers that end up actually being business issues disguised as call center issues. Suzi Earhart of McorpCX is all about solving problems, giving love, life-long learning and helping others reach their full potential, so she’s here to help us show agents some love today!

CX from East to West

Even with all the differences between the East and the West, it is possible the lessen the cultural disconnect. Remember, improvement over perfection.

Are These Common Agent Misconceptions Ruining Your Customer Experience?

Despite their hard work, public perception of agents isn’t always favorable. Here are the biggest misconceptions about agents and what you can do to change the narrative.

The Contact Center of the Future

Do we really think Artificial Intelligence is going to take out the role of the contact center agent? It already has, but there is no way AI can replace agents completely.

Build Respect for Your Brand

Throughout social media, there is a lot of corporate speech that presents a fake perception of how a company runs. It’s easy to posts if you're a successful business, but how do you become one?

The Agent’s Role in the Omnichannel Customer Journey (And How to Support It)

Although it may seem like agents don’t play a role in the omnichannel customer journey, they’re actually crucial to customer satisfaction. Here’s why.

Buy-In from Agents Builds Buy-In from Executives

Getting buy-ins is everything in CX leadership, so it follows that it would also be the #1 problem that CX leaders struggle with. Today, with the help of Dave Seaton, we will be explaining how to build buy-in and how to appeal to your stakeholders.

Values and Value in CX

Today we are talking about the growing expectation from that market that our companies are bringing value to the world. There is a demand for ethical businesses that make the world a better place.

3 Things Your Agents Want from Contact Center Technology Today

The technology agents use is crucial to their performance. But not all tools are created equal. Here are three things agents want from their tech right now.

Lessons from the Southwest Airlines CX Disaster

We just witnessed the Southwest Airlines holiday meltdown of 2022. Now, with the help of Brannon Stacy, Global Business Development Manager at Fusion, let’s take a closer look at what Southwest did right.

Real Questions and Answers with CX Agents

Today we’re diving right in with two real life customer service calls we recently had in our personal lives as customers. Let’s talk about what makes a a helpful and seamless experience versus a frustrating experience.

What CX Agents Want and How to Give it to Them

Back in front of the mic today to talk about agent satisfaction and how to effectively compensate and motivate our most important assets.

Isn’t This What My CRM Is For? Why Agents Need Workflow Management Software

Not seeing results with your CRM? Workflow tools are the missing piece that empower agents to provide top-notch customer service without complication.

Screening for and Staffing the Soft Skills that Build Brand Loyalty

Jakob Mattice sits down with Kory Kostecka from RemX to discuss his insights into the ways we are staffing our call centers and how we can improve our hiring.

Overcoming the Challenges of Omnichannel for Agents

Let’s welcome Fred Stacey back to the podcast! Today we’re discussing the unique challenges related to the global nature of CX in addition to the improvements we’re seeing.

Appropriate Expectations of Agent Empathy

Leslie O’Flahavan has a refreshing take on the way we empathize with customers. She’s passionate about shifting the burdens off of CX agents so they can focus on connecting with the customers.

Aligning CX Leadership

Delighted to introduce to the show Dave Seaton of Seaton CX. Dave’s consulting firm works with B2B companies to measure, manage and improve their customer experiences. He focuses on leadership, emotional intelligence and getting buy-in for CX.

A New Metric For CX

In CX when issues aren’t resolved quickly it doesn’t just affect your customer experience—it affects your agents, your operating expenses, and your bottom line. Long term, think of the outcomes facing your business. What is the fate of your market share?

The Way Contact Centers Buy Software Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It.

When buying software, contact centers often look for a quick fix. But there's a better way. Here's how you can buy software that delivers real results.

Wish You Could Measure Agent Satisfaction? Why This Will Be Your New Favorite Metric

To reduce turnover, you need to know what matters to agents. The ASAT metric will give contact center leaders the insight needed to make smarter decisions.

Mistakes to Avoid in CX Training

EX is the New CX

What can we still do to enhance the work life of our employees? How can we engage with them and support them? And what is the ideal role of technology in supporting employee experience?

How CX Leaders Can Engage with Agents

Customer service tops the in-demand skills list. We need agents with these skills to take care of our customers. And, then we need to take care of our customer service agents in return, or they’ll leave. They will. They have other options in the employment market.

Why Training Environment Matters: Setting Agents Up for Success with Realistic Training

The right training environment is critical for contact center agents. Switch to realistic technology training for successful agents and happier customers.

How to Realize the Actual Value of Your CX Agents

The Adoption of Technology, CRMs in CX

Vistio’s Co-Founder Gregg Antenen joins us today to discuss the adoption of technology in CX. As you may know Vistio provides software, technology and tools to equip CX agents, namely Customer Relationship Management software or CRMs.

Turning Agents From a Contact Center Expense Into a Revenue-Generating Advantage

What if we viewed agents as the protector of our customer base instead of a business cost? Here's how an agent-focused strategy delivers better outcomes.

Competitive Job Offers and Agent Retention

The shift in labor dynamics that we’ve seen over the last two years has given call center agents the advantage of being able to work from home, take new jobs without having to relocate and elect better opportunities as they come along.

Creating Opportunities for CX Agents

Learn how to improve the lives of your CX agents so that they have supportive training, work-life-balance, and a safe place to vent so that we can extend and elevate their roles in the company promote the longer success of the business.

Great CX Starts with Your Agents: 4 Ways Agent Experience Impacts Customer Experience

Agent experience and customer experience are directly linked. Here’s how happy agents lead to happier—and more loyal—customers.

Relieving CX Agent Trauma

When most people think of trauma, they think of people who fought in wars or who have witnessed crimes, but trauma can be found in any extended period of stress, including being a CX Agent.

Buying the Technology that will Serve Your Agents the Most

Leadership, IT, Operations, and Training will all want to weight in, but when it’s time to buy CX technology, the secret is to keep your agents in mind.

These Common Contact Center Mistakes Are Costing You Agents—and Customers

When your agents don’t have the training, tools, or support they need to do their job well, they become frustrated—and so do your customers.

The Future of Contact Center Technology: Where Do Agents Fit In?

Contact center technology spend is often focused on the promise and possibility that these technologies will instantly transform your customer service. But it doesn’t always work out that way.

The Agent and Company Culture

To really measure company culture you have to look at how agents actually live. Do we have unreasonable expectations of them? Do we have expectations that are inconsistent with the culture we claim to have?

How Workflow Management Software Simplifies and Improves the Agent Experience

The key to ensuring agents deliver excellent customer service is to simplify their job. When their jobs are easier, agents train faster, stay longer, and are happier.

The Right Technology to Boost Customer Self-Service

The wrong technology or poorly implemented technology can work against the safe, successful and satisfied agent and can impact the metrics we expect of agents.

Why Your Contact Center Needs an Agent-Focused Customer Experience Strategy—and How to Implement It

When you focus more on customer experience than agent experience, the needs of your single most important asset get overlooked. And that could be a costly mistake.

CX Training at its Best: Integrative, Cost Effective and Psychologically Fortifying

Our call center agents act as our brand ambassadors, talking to and taking care of our customers all day long. We need to provide them with effective training to set them up for success.

The Key to Contact Center Success? Focus on Your Agents

Contact center success relies on delivering an outstanding customer experience. And great customer experience starts with your agents.

Your Most Valuable Asset: The Agent-Centric Call Center Philosophy

The call center agent is the single most important asset that you have. With the right training, tools and connection with your company the happy and fulfilled agent can keep your customers, produce more and contribute to the long-term success of your business.

Looking at Future Trends and Technology in CX : A Deep Dive Interview with CX Trend Expert, Stephen Loynd

AI can include everything from voice commands for playing music or switching on a light and all that stuff. But is AI stuck at the moment because the system's capabilities are still narrow relative to a human agent?

Enhancing Customer Satisfaction Through Data-Driven Decision Making

Learn how data-driven decision making can enhance customer satisfaction in contact centers with effective strategies and best practices.

How Giving Contact Center Agents Less Helps Them to Do More

The key to training contact center agents and combating attrition by using a less is more approach.

BPO Best Practices and Blockchain: A Deep Dive Interview with Expert BPO Consultant, Steve Weston

Expert advice on what to look for when choosing a BPO partner and how blockchain can be utilized to improve CX.

The Impact of the Customer Experience Function: A Deep Dive Interview with Customer Experience Executive, Erica Mancuso

Insight into the impact of having a CX function rep at the C-suite level, breaking down organizational silos to increase customer satisfaction and more.

Vistio Featured as HFS OneOffice Hot Vendor: Q1 2022

Vistio recognized as a HFS OneOffice™ Hot Vendor. These are providers hand-picked by HFS analysts to help solve today’s complex business problems.

The Ultimate Guide to Enhancing Agent Performance with Automation

Contact centers are continually seeking ways to improve efficiency and enhance agent performance and they're embracing automation technologies to do so.

Busting 5 Common Myths About Customer Service and Workflow Technologies

There are a lot of misconceptions about customer service and workflow technologies. Here we’re debunking the five myths we hear most often.

Navigating the Work-From-Home Contact Center from A to Z: An in-depth interview with Customer Service and Work-From-Home Expert, Michele Rowan

Michele Rowan, President of the Work From Home Alliance, gives expert insight on how to best hire, train and retain agents in the WFH environment and more.

Workforce Optimization and GigCX: An In-depth Interview with CX Subject Matter Expert, Terry Rybolt

Terry Rybolt gives expert insight into the impact of agent attrition on an entire organization, the transformation of moving agents to a WFH environment, and the benefits of GigCX.

Contact Center Technology: 5 Ways to Increase Adoption and Improve Customer Service

5 easy ways to increase contact center technology adoption and improve the customer service of agents.

A 360 Degree View of the Contact Center Floor: An Interview with Customer Service Operations Expert, Jenny Dempsey

Jenny Dempsey gives expert insight into improving agent morale, important communication strategies, what the ideal agent technology toolbox looks like and more.

From Making Sandwiches to Making the CX Journey Better: An Interview with Customer Experience Expert, Nate Brown

This episode of Recorded for Quality Assurance, we are joined by Nate Brown, where he speaks on the key to truly delivering excellent CX, how we set agents up for success and CX metrics we should to be focusing on.

The Key to Contact Center Success in 2022: Focus on Process

How are you going to remember 2022 a year from now? Will it be the year that you worked harder and spent more money? Or will it be the year reached contact center bliss?

QA and CSAT Scores: The Whack-a-Mole Game of Contact Center Metrics

How you can use QA and CSAT scores together to result in tangible, meaningful, and lasting improvement for the customer experience.

From 411 Operator to Contact Center Geek: An Interview with Contact Center Operations Expert, Matt Beckwith

Matt shares his unique take on contact center technology, how he has successfully created a 100% WFH contact center and how he is tackling agent attrition.

From Agent to Innovator: An Interview with Contact Center Technology Visionary, Sean Murphy

Sean shares his journey of how he became an innovator of contact center software and what he believes are the technology elements that can truly improve customer experience.

Self-Driving Cars and Self-Service Contact Centers: How Close are We?

What if we took the same approach to contact centers that we took with creating self-driving cars? What would we add and is a self-service contact center the goal when striving for CX excellence?

BPO with a Purpose: A Candid Conversation with Hui Wu-Curtis

Hui Wu-Curtis shares her insights on the BPO industry, finding the correct talent, and the importance putting people first.

Top 4 Challenges for Utilities Contact Centers

Simple issues that should have been resolved in a few minutes have now taken an hour or more, frustrating not only your customer but also your agent. Just one of the many challenges contact centers face, but Vistio can help.

From CTO to CX Industry Analyst: An In-depth Conversation with Mark Hillary

Mark Hillary shares his original view on CX technology and how the CX industry is often on the cutting edge of implementing emerging tech.

Top 10 CX Leaders to Follow Now

A list of leaders in the CX field that are great resources to utilize to help you stay on top of this ever-evolving industry landscape.

Selection, Implementation and Use: The Journey of Contact Center Technology with Joe Rice

Joe Rice, CEO of CXponent share his insights on CX technology implementation, stakeholder participation, the importance of organizational alignment and more.

The Key to CX Success in the Work-From-Anywhere World

In the emerging work-from-anywhere environment, the first step to doing the job right (ensuring consistent customer service) is defining uniform processes.

The Evolution of the Contact Center and Process Evaluation with Rod Jones

A pioneer of the contact center industry discusses the importance of setting clear processes for agents and the importance of executive participation.

Agent Retention: 4 Mistakes You’re Making in the Work-From-Anywhere World

Agent retention has always been a difficult aspect of the contact center industry. Gain some insight into the mistakes you're making and how to combat them.

Onboarding and Training in the Work-From-Anywhere World: 3 Key Steps to Achieving Excellence

Key steps leaders need to take in order to onboard and train contact center agents effectively in the work-from-anywhere world.

Recruiting Smarter: Key Tips for Hiring Quality Agents in the Work-From-Anywhere World

Practical key tips for recruiting and hiring quality contact center agents in the emerging work-from-anywhere environment.

Expert Advice with Seasoned BPO Advisor and CX Specialist, Peter Ryan

Peter Ryan has advised CX outsourcers, contact center clients, national governments, and industry associations on everything from vertical market penetration, service delivery, best practices in technology deployment, and offshore positioning.

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