Favorite Quotes From ICMI’s Contact Center Expo

This post was originally published on the FCR blog on May 20, 2016. Click here to read the original.

Twitter has revolutionized conference-going for me— and others familiar with the hashtag, #CCExpo16. Tweets are reserved for only the best stuff and by my count there was a lot of really good stuff at ICMI’s Contact Center Expo and Conference this year. Here are some of the things I learned in very bite-sized, dare I say “tweetable,” chunks.

1. Customer Journey Mapping

My first session of the conference was on customer journey mapping with Jim Tincher ofHeartoftheCustomer.com. Journey mapping is an incredible exercise that I highly recommend in all organizations. In the session he said:

A bad customer experience is usually one that’s undesigned. @jimtincher

2. Getting Your Agents Obsessed with Service

In a session with Jeff Toister, he talked about the importance of a customer service vision:

If you want agents to be obsessed with customer service you first need to define what that looks like. @toister

3. Tuesday Keynote Address

In his keynote address, Scott McKain did an extraordinary job motivating us as customer service and contact center leaders to make a difference. I loved this stat about getting our teams excited about supporting our customers and representing our companies:

70% of your customer service team can’t explain why your company is better than the competition. @scottmckain

4. Transforming Customer Experience

Actually this was my presentation on the customer experience. When talking about action to take on customer feedback, here’s my favorite quote:

Ken Blanchard said “Customer feedback is the breakfast of champions,” but sometimes it tastes like dirt. @jtwatkin

Stay tuned for my next post where I summarize what I said in my session.

5. Gamification

Nate Brown and Neal Topf did a smashing job in their session on gamification dressed as the Super Mario Brothers. Here are three quotes I loved:

Gamification is the contact center easy button…said no one ever. @nealtopf

Gamification starts with identifying a problem you are looking to solve. @customerisfirst

Your gamification strategy should bring your team together! @customerisfirst

6. Mobile Customer Service

In a session co hosted by BoldChat and Ovum they talked about the opportunities that are ahead of us with mobile customer service. This stat was alarming:

No industries are over 70% customer service on mobile. @boldchat and @ovum

7. Wednesday Keynote Address

Justin Robbins kicked off the Wednesday keynote address by talking about the opportunity for contact centers to make an impact on the customer experience. This stat was particularly interesting:

42% of contact centers aren’t looking at repeat contact drivers. @justinmrobbins

Lu Battaglieri shared his story of the way they transformed the culture at Delta Dental. As a customer service leader, I found this quote particularly useful:

Contact center leaders should prepare elevator pitches to communicate the top problems they face, their top needs, and their organizational value to the c-suite.

8. Lean Approach to Quality

Jennifer Richard from McKesson shared some practical advice on trimming down their quality process in the contact center so they could review the most essential aspects of customer interactions and have more time to review more interactions. Here’s her advice:

Your quality forms should be more like a carry-on, not a suitcase.

9. Measuring Quality in Social Media Customer Service

Customer service writing pro, Leslie O’Flahavan led an incredible session on quality monitoring for social media customer service. I loved this advice on the importance of really answering the customer’s question via social media rather than pawning them off on another support channel.

If you can’t answer the question, find someone who can BEFORE you hit send– regardless of channel. @leslieo

Finally, one of the real highlights of the show was meeting up with the group (pictured) from the weekly ICMI chat on Twitter. If you’re fanatical about customer service and contact centers, join us Tuesdays at 10am Pacific time for the weekly #ICMIChat on Twitter.

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