leadership - Brad Cleveland

Customer Service Strategy: Avoid Common Pitfalls

Feb 14, 2020 | Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Access Strategy, Customer Service, Leadership, LinkedIn Learning

Herb Kelleher, co-founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, once said, “We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.” He makes a great point. Developing strategies shouldn’t be an overly academic or formal exercise, with the result...

Employee Engagement: A Key Metric in All Service Environments

Jan 9, 2020 | Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Service, Leadership, LinkedIn Learning, Organization and Culture, Research/Statistics

Employee engagement should be a key metric in all service environments. Research shows that employee engagement influences – even drives – customer satisfaction and loyalty. Retention, productivity, and quality are all strongly and positively correlated...

Hands-on Leadership

Dec 11, 2019 | Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Service, Leadership, Organization and Culture

One of the keys to high levels of employee engagement in contact centers – and the strong performance that follows – is hands-on involvement from the top. For example: Among other endeavors, Dan Gilbert is the founder and chairman of Quicken Loans, the...

The Edge of Service: Principles of Effective Budgeting

Nov 21, 2019 | Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Service, Leadership, LinkedIn Learning, The Edge of Service

It’s that time of the year, and as you head into budgets and budget presentations, I encourage you to make them as complete as they need to be — but as brief and to the point as possible. In a recent issue of The Edge of Service®, I include an excerpt from one...

When Building Your Brand, Be Yourself

Nov 6, 2019 | Call Center, Contact Center, Customer Experience, Customer Relationships, Customer Service, Leadership, The Edge of Service

In a recent issue of The Edge of Service®, I relay my experience meeting actor and author Henry Winkler at a recent ICMI Conference. Winkler reminded me of advice that my mother used to give me, especially when facing awkward or difficult challenges—”just be...