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 […]

  This blog post has consistently ranked as one of our most popular since we wrote it a few years ago. The insight about customer service and the customer experience is still rock solid, and so we decided to revisit the article as we prepare for Customer Service Week 2021.   When it comes to […]

  For many organizations, in-house customer care feels like the right choice. It keeps you close to your customers and ready to serve them with your exhaustive knowledge of your products or services. But doing it all in-house also comes with its challenges. The newest publication from the Ryan Strategic Advisory reports on these challenges, […]

As we slowly emerge into recovery, the post-pandemic world looks very different and we’re seeing it with new eyes. Our social lives have shifted, our work environments have changed, and how we spend our money is also quite different. Today we look at how this last consideration applies to the way companies are investing in […]

After a year flirting with the ever-present “pause” button, we’re seeing many more businesses hit the gas on their customer care program—in particular, seeking out the right outsourced partner. Sound like a familiar scenario? If so, the RFP is about to become the friend you love to hate. It’s a necessity—but it doesn’t have to […]

  Have you ever been more ready to end a calendar year? In our world of customer care, empathy has always been the cornerstone, the key to happy customers and happy clients. When 2020 came along and turned the world upside down, empathy became simply priceless. Impacted by the pandemic, unemployment, health issues, wildfires, lockdowns, […]

  This blog post has consistently ranked as one of our most popular since we wrote it a few years ago. The insight about customer service and the customer experience is still rock solid, and so we decided to revisit the article as we prepare for Customer Service Week 2021.   When it comes to […]

  Decision making got a whole lot more difficult in the wake of the pandemic, didn’t it? From the most basic choices, like where to shop for groceries or who to visit in-person; to the most complex business decisions, like what to do about employee safety or how to ensure business continuity—suddenly there were more […]

After a year flirting with the ever-present “pause” button, we’re seeing many more businesses hit the gas on their customer care program—in particular, seeking out the right outsourced partner. Sound like a familiar scenario? If so, the RFP is about to become the friend you love to hate. It’s a necessity—but it doesn’t have to […]

  That RFP process is a grind, eh? The peak experience is when you finally get to call your new strategic partner and let them know they are the successful bidder. After that, it would be nice to take a breather. But you’re ready to implement and transition into your new outsourced customer care program […]

  Over the years, we’ve written many articles singing the praises of on-site visits with potential customer care outsourcers. We firmly believe that shaking hands with leadership and frontline agents, seeing capabilities in action, and experiencing the corporate culture first-hand are the intangible, immeasurable, yet essential final steps in evaluating and comparing potential partners. Do […]

  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 […]

Siri, Alexa, and OK Google… these are the virtual interactions that Sci-Fi movies have portrayed for decades past. The future is, it seems, here at our fingertips. These technologies are sparking new expectations in today’s consumers on an almost daily basis. We want intelligent interactions that are personalized to our own situations and we want […]

  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. […]

  Once upon a time, we could count the number of subscriptions we had on one hand (the newspaper, a magazine or two, and that trusty gym membership). These days, we’ve lost count (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Stitch Fix, Costco, Blue Apron, Hulu, BarkBox, plus the usual magazines, gym memberships, and more). And that’s not […]

  Brand loyalty is a reflection of a customer’s commitment to a relationship with a given retailer or service provider. But, of course, the pandemic changed everything about all our relationships. We quickly got used to holding everything and everyone at arm’s length – and for many customers, that included the brands they had once […]

In this article, we share a first-person experience from our Vice President, Client Services, Susan Preiss. She explores the tale of two customer experience scenarios, comparing online versus in-person customer experiences in the quest to buy a new car. The takeaways for the world of customer care are tangible and actionable. Read on! Vehicle Shopping: […]

  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 […]