Customer Experience Blog

Expert insights on customer experience, employee engagement, and service leadership. Stay ahead with Brad Cleveland’s blog—featuring CX trends, actionable strategies, and real-world solutions to help you improve customer satisfaction, streamline operations, and drive business success.

Enabling a Supporting Culture

Enabling a Supporting Culture

Studies show a strong link between engaged employees and higher levels of productivity and profitability. In one example, Gallup found that companies ranked in the top quartile for employee engagement are 18% more productive and 12% more profitable than those in lower...

Empower Your Workforce to Fix Things for Customers

Empower Your Workforce to Fix Things for Customers

Real-time management is often viewed as a matter of responding to workload quantities. What’s often missed in these discussions is how to respond to the nature of the workload. If it’s heavy, there usually are underlying issues driving it. You can throw all the...

In Customer Service Timing Is Critical

In Customer Service Timing Is Critical

The right place at the right time. It's a common phrase, but in customer service, it matters more than ever. Timing is critical. In customer service, we're like pilots or stage hands. Like them, we also work in a time-driven environment. It's not just what we do, it's...

Does Your Executive Team Understand Staffing Tradeoffs?

Does Your Executive Team Understand Staffing Tradeoffs?

Are you working through difficult discussions related to resources and budget? Just remember, contact centers must handle most customer-related work as it happens, so resource mismatches quickly result in big problems. It’s essential that those making decisions have a...

Knowing Your Customers

Knowing Your Customers

How do you know what a customer needs? If you mention customer advocacy and pose that question many executives will say, "Well they tell us, right?" I think they picture a frustrated customer across the counter or perhaps calling or posting a message that describes a...

Guidance for Customers

Guidance for Customers

During a time when customer service wait times are longer than usual, here's a short broadcast that played in local TV markets:

Developing – or Reconsidering – Your Service Strategy

Developing – or Reconsidering – Your Service Strategy

In these unprecedented times, you may find yourself rethinking your organization's strategy for serving your customers. Strategy is the bridge between your organization's vision and mission and the specific decisions required to make them a reality. This video from...

What to Say to Angry Customers

What to Say to Angry Customers

With the current crisis, contact center representatives are grappling with heightened workloads and anxious customers. It takes practice to find ways to ensure your impact is as positive and helpful as possible. Remember that you’re doing important work. It’s hard...

Controlling Contact Center Costs the Right Way 

Controlling Contact Center Costs the Right Way 

With the current economic challenges, many organizations are likely looking for ways to control costs as they serve customers. Done right, these efforts can succeed. But the wrong approach can backfire and result in new and/or hidden costs, frustrated employees and...