Resource Center

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 […]

You already know that the quality of your customer service depends heavily upon the quality of your customer service agents. But it’s easy to imagine that you can solve that problem by building a robust agent profile and a strong hiring strategy. Spoiler alert: It’s not that easy. When you’re outsourcing your contact center, the […]

The procurement process for seeking an outsourced contact center is naturally focused on the tangible functionalities, capacities, competencies and capabilities of a potential vendor. A buyer is looking for a partner who can deliver cost savings, improved profitability, and lower risk, not to mention exceptional customer service. These factors are essential, of course, but they […]

The RFP is the friend you love to hate. The necessary evil. The document that will make or break your decision of which new outsourcer to partner-up with. A generic vendor RFP template may promise to make things easy, but when you’re about to hand over your customer interactions to an outsourced contact center, generic […]

Considering outsourced customer service for the first time? It’s likely you already outsource many other areas of your business, but we get it: outsourcing those critical frontline interactions with your customers feels like a whole new ballgame. Which choice is better for your business? Below we discuss the pros and cons of in-house versus outsourced […]

  Choosing a strategic partner to deliver an outsourced customer care solution is a significant business decision – maybe one of the most significant decisions you’ll make in your career. You’ll task your team with running a tight procurement process to assess potential contact center partners. Undoubtedly, that will involve a number of stakeholders on […]

For brand-conscious organizations who have never outsourced before, there’s a common fear that putting your customer care in the hands of an outsourced partner effectively builds a wall between you and your customer. We get the reasoning – after all, your customers are your most important asset and anything that adds a layer between you […]

Looking for an onshore contact center partner? One that can wow your customers while simultaneously delivering an unparalleled ROI? Your answer may just lie to the friendly north. Yes, we’re probably a little biased, but the proof is right here – check out our top 10 reasons to outsource your contact center to Canada. 1. […]

The RFP is the friend you love to hate. The necessary evil. The document that will make or break your decision of which new outsourcer to partner-up with. A generic vendor RFP template may promise to make things easy, but when you’re about to hand over your customer interactions to an outsourced contact center, generic […]

Picture this: You’re in the RFP process for a new contact center partner. You have a short list of participants. You give them a couple of weeks to return their answers, and then you spend a few more weeks poring through those answers with your team to eliminate the deal-breakers and discern the winner. Finally, […]

It’s 2019, which means contact center metrics from 1999 are almost old enough for their first legal beer (and already knocking them back in Canada.) Those metrics were born in an era when customer service was a race, where whoever got to the finish line first (i.e. off the phone) – upsetting the least number […]

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 […]

You’ve heard it before – stress is the outcome of reality not aligning with expectations. And nothing takes a toll on relationships quite as quickly as stress. When outsourcing your company’s customer support – whether for the first time or the fifth time – the relationship is understandably complex. You simply can’t rely on an […]

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 […]

The Client This multinational communications, electronics and IT corporation has a health solutions arm delivering connected devices for which Blue Ocean provides both sales support and customer service support. The Challenge For both types of customer calls – sales and support – the client was using an IVR system which directed calls, by type, to […]

Admit it, you love it when you’re handed that Starbucks beverage with your name spelled neatly and correctly on the side. Maybe that’s where it all started: that innocent coffee cup with the green mermaid staring back at you. The trend of personalized customer experience has since transformed almost every industry as we know it. […]

We don’t want to ruin your good mood, but humor us for a moment and think back to a time when a company made you angry. Specifically, remember that moment you contacted customer service because of some error, mishap, or malfunction, only to hang up the phone feeling even more irritated. Perhaps you were on […]

Think back, for a moment, to a time when you made a purchase of a product, service, or membership that has, for any number of reasons, caused you stress.  Maybe the payment didn’t go through, maybe something was broken or malfunctioning, maybe it’s just not what you expected. Perhaps you check the troubleshooting manual or […]

Remember those sandcastles you built as a kid? Constructing sandy towers and driftwood drawbridges was a blast. That is, until a powerful, unexpected wave swept the beach and water flooded that little kingdom. Only those prepared with a deep and expansive moat remained safe. For everyone else, all of that hard work would be undone. […]

Ever try to predict the outcome of anything? It’s no easy feat. Sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke said predictions about the future can be a “discouraging, hazardous occupation.” Either you sound believable, but are proved pitifully shortsighted or you sound loony, and are proven right too late. For prediction-makers, it’s often lose-lose. But we’ve been […]

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 […]

Don’t we all wish that customers came with a lifetime guarantee? They’d make their first purchase and be irrevocably smitten for life? In that perfect world, customer retention would be at 100% and customer turnover would be zero. Since that’s not the world we live in, customers need to experience prompt and dedicated attention at […]

“My goal is that our reporting is concise, honest, accurate, and actionable.” – Reporting Coordinator, Blue Ocean Contact Centers Many company leaders share that same goal. However, aligning your contact center reporting strategy to your goals is no simple stroll in the park. It starts by questioning everything. Is the data valuable? Is the data […]

In the ground transportation reservations business, accuracy is critical. Any small error could result in a customer being stranded in transit or missing flights. For our executive ground transportation client, we have an SLA requirement to meet certain measures on incident rates attributed to Blue Ocean as a percentage of cases. While we were operating […]