Content Library

Heading out of the office this holiday to grab some eggnog and enjoy the lights? While so many of us are off celebrating the festive season for days at a time, there are scores of people on the frontlines working to keep everything running smoothly in industries ranging from health care, to transportation, to broadcasting […]

As the holiday season unfolds, we wanted to share the amazing words of gratitude that flow every day from our clients’ customers to our agents.  Below you’ll find the best customer service kudos of 2019 (so far!) with quotes directly from the mouths of customers we interact with. MVP Agent. MVP Customer Kudos. This is […]

Quick, is Gen Z old enough to work yet? No checking Wikipedia… Answer: Yes. While there is a bit of a gray area between where exactly Millennials stop and Gen Z starts, demographers pretty much agree that the starting birth years for Gen Z are in the late 90s. So, with the oldest of the […]

Quick, how many services or memberships do you subscribe to? One? Two? Twenty? You know your wallet is stuffed with membership cards (roadside assistance, your local gym, and Costco) and your front porch welcomes monthly subscription boxes (Blue Apron, Trunk Club, and Honest Essentials), while your go-to entertainment is no longer cable TV but subscription-based […]

The oldest Millennials are now hitting their late 30s (gulp… really?) They make up more than 30% of the workforce with a cohort that consists of 75 million people. What does that mean for outsourced contact center employers? In our opinion, it means we better be doing a good job setting up an employment experience […]

It seems so long ago now that Lockdown Life has faded into some barely-remembered bad dream, but the global changes it triggered are still top of mind, especially the ongoing dialogue/debate about the relative merits of work-at-home versus work-in-office. In our world of outsourced customer care solutions, one of the big challenges we continue to […]

  Every year, this national sports association holds their annual pro championships. However, along with everything else in the world, the pandemic forced them to cancel the 2020 event. In 2021, the championship went forward but with many restrictions. By 2022, fans were starved for action. As a result, record numbers of attendees and, consequently, […]

We often hear from our readers how helpful our published content is when they are in the decision-making process for partnering with a new contact center outsourcer. We were excited to see that the readers and award committee of the 2022 Customer Contact Central MVP Awards agreed! Our article, How to Launch a Successful Outsourced […]

*Big News! This article was a winner in the reader-voted Customer Contact Central MVP Awards 2022!*  Picture yourself on the other side of the arduous RFP process (woohoo!) with your chosen contact center outsourcer on your side. Now, you can take a deep breath and get down to the serious business of implementing your program. […]

Just a few short years ago (say, 2014 or 2015) when it came to technology, outsourcers were happily touting the cost benefits of their telephony platforms and on-prem systems, showing prospective clients how, instead of having to invest in and maintain their own IT infrastructure, it was a real value add to the client to […]

The RFP is the slog you need that 3rd cup of coffee to get through—especially when it’s an RFP for outsourced customer care. After all, we’re talking about a complex, customer-facing solution that needs to align seamlessly with your brand. In our experience, technology, attrition, and business continuity are the hot three areas of any […]

We’ve said it before and we’re not afraid to repeat it until the cows come home: using a boilerplate RFP in the process to find a new customer care outsourcer is a quick road to failure. You’re looking for a strategic partner who will interface with your customers day in and day out. That requires […]

Attrition seems like it should be an easy enough term to define, and determining which bidders’ attrition results best match your own requirements should be easy enough in a contact center RFP. In this article, we are making the case that it’s not always so straightforward. Not all attrition is created equal, and there are […]

2020 marked the workplace like no other year in recent history. For more than two years, everyone worked to settle into new patterns of working and communicating, and we’re finally seeing a return to “normal.” We rejoiced when our favorite coffee shops re-opened, and we got all dressed up again when the commute to work […]

  “I love building RFPs!” Said no one ever. We get it. When you’re evaluating new outsourcers for your contact center, you know that a boilerplate RFP isn’t going to cut it. But writing a new RFP is a headache. That’s why, at Blue Ocean, we’ve never been shy about sharing what we believe are […]

What if you could learn about a new technology just by directly asking it questions? That’s not always an option, but in the case of ChatGPT, the AI chatbot taking the world by storm, it made all the sense in the world. So with this concept in mind, we decided to approximate a podcast interview […]

  For all the grief, losses, and setbacks the pandemic unleashed, there is a general consensus that it also sparked a revolution on the technical front. The adoption rate of new and evolving technologies accelerated at unseen speeds—resulting in 10 years’ worth of change within a mere 10 months. Contact center technologies are certainly in […]

You’ve got your game face on. You’re prepared for the future of customer service. And you’re ready for your outsourced customer service RFP to hit the road and bring you some stellar options for a new contact center partner. But are you asking the right questions about artificial intelligence? While AI capabilities in the contact […]

Did you know that 32% of customers worldwide will quit doing business with a brand – even if they love it – because of just one bad experience? This statistic from a PwC survey is an eye-opener for any organization that interfaces with customers on a regular basis. But what constitutes a bad experience? Although […]

Say hello to the future: the robots are right here. Artificial intelligence is flipping all kinds of traditional business models on their heads. In the customer support space, AI is changing the customer experience for better or for worse depending on the elegance of your deployment. And the new world of AI is creating out-of-this-world […]

We had another member of the wonderful ONQ family on the podcast: Sean Hammerle, who is the company’s Chief Operating Officer and an award-winning motivational leader and speaker. I first met Sean back in June of 2022 when he was awarded the title of Best Contact Center Executive at The Contact Center World Awards in […]

  Are you ready for the customer of the future? Today’s 6th graders—who are playing video games on a TV while their laptop shows someone else playing video games on YouTube all while talking with friends through a PlayStation headset—are tomorrow’s customers. And it’ll happen faster than you could ever expect. That’s just one bite […]

In the current landscape of customer service, brands must put themselves in the shoes of their end-users to stay competitive and differentiate themselves. The customer experience reigns, and frontline agents must deliver on customer expectations with reliability and consistency. But what about when crisis hits? If the pandemic has taught us anything it’s that reliability […]

  As the Vice President of Client Services for Blue Ocean, I am fortunate to work with a wide variety of companies. Clients of all types turn to our company to make sure their customers receive a high level of service excellence. Not everyone gets to follow their passion at work, so I consider myself […]

  Few industries are quite like travel. Can you think of any other industry where anxiety is baked into the product or service? Even before the pandemic, customers found themselves faced with myriad rules, restrictions, and bottlenecks to navigate before reaching their destination, leading to many a meltdown at checkpoints and terminals around the world. […]

  Call volume forecasts are inarguably an essential tool in the successful delivery of customer care excellence. Your program’s forecast is the map that tells you where to go based on where you’ve been. Without it, you’re lost at sea. With it, you’re one significant step closer to delivering an exceptional customer experience. But customer […]

  What do mattress sales, wildlife populations, and peak customer service times all have in common? These seemingly random data points have all been impacted by COVID-19. Mattress sales have skyrocketed thanks to people spending more time at home—and discovering new sleep challenges as a result of the pandemic. Meanwhile, wild animals are appearing during […]

  We believe that every outsourcer should earn your business by delivering value day in and day out whether your relationship with them is in its first year or its 20th year. After all, continual improvement and striving to evolve are the hallmarks of long-term success. Great companies are regularly assessing the ongoing value of […]

If enhancing your customer experience is a strategic priority over the next 12 months, you might be looking at putting out a contact center RFP or RFI early in the new year. Because the partnership you have with a contact center is core to your customers’ journey with you, it’s a relationship that matters more […]

A GPS unit that provides a general sense of direction based on landmarks (“turn left at the train station, head South after the statue of the town mascot”) could feasibly get you from point A to point B. But if you want to cut the confusion, speed up your journey and create an overall less […]