Category

call center

Dec 09
0

60 Minutes Just Backed Up Our Core Learning Philosophy

By | Adaptive Learning, AI, bots, call center, contact Center
On Sunday, December 8th, the show 60 Minutes featured a story about how AI was being used in the classroom to help teachers and students learn with the help of AI tutors (via Open AI).  The AI is used with the curriculum to help students move through a series of question-and-answer interactions that help them use critical thinking to solve math and science problems. The system developed by Sal Khan, and Open AI, provides a dashboard for the teachers to use to follow the flow of conversations with the student and their AI tutor. The teacher can focus on students’ identified trouble areas vs. trying to spread their attention and feedback with less data to tailor their feedback for more immediate impact and retention.   

This parallels with Dr. Benjamin Bloom’s 2 Sigma theory on the best way to teach a student a new skill/knowledge and retain it longer.

Similar to the AI Tutor in the classroom, Benjamin Bloom analyzed teacher-to-many, peer-to-peer, and tutor-to-student methods of learning. The results of the tutor-to-student had the highest results. At the time his study was done, there was no scalable and cost-effective way to provide this in the classroom.

AI has allowed these tutors to be deployed across a large population base and respond at lightning speed.

Our ACES simulator does the same thing. We use AI to play the role of the built-in tutor or coach. Managers have access to very detailed analytics, just like the teachers have, to focus on the tasks an employee may be struggling with in the simulator as a roadmap to use as a way to provide the most relevant coaching and feedback. This allows the manager or trainer to be more Proactive than Reactive. 

The report on 60 Minutes also addresses the risks or negatives of using generative AI in the classroom. As with a lot of these systems, there needs to be some form of guardrails in place.

For this reason, our ACES platform uses a combination of rules-based AI and NLP. When using our simulator in a call center, you want to design the simulations based on best practices for any given interaction in that call center. When using generative tools to help you “build” the learning activity, this runs the risk of not having consistent learning for each agent that challenges them to perform the proper tasks following your best practices. Call centers know what type of calls they have and the types of situations employees will be tasked with. Simply pulling examples from the hours of recorded calls can be used to create the scenarios that agents will need to learn how to respond to.

We all know these new generative tools are very attractive and can reduce our workloads tremendously. We still need to be mindful of when we use them and how. I believe we still have a ways to go before we can blindly deploy LLM (large language models) at scale but there is no doubt they are a technology disrupter.

Oct 30
0

What do Dairy Cows and Contact Centers Have in Common?

By | AI, call center, collaboration, contact Center, empathy

Cows and Contact Centers

Check out some samples of our contact center simulations

Always On Duty

Dairy cows have to be milked twice a day every day – no days off. Just like contact centers, someone has to tend to them 24 x 7

Bread & Butter

Dairy cows are the prime focus to driving revenue on a farm, just like excellent service from your contact centers make or break your customer retention

Wholistic Systems

Dairy cows rely on the farm equipment to provide food, sanitized environments and supply chains to keep running. Same with contact centers, agents need to have reliable systems, collaborative work environments and safe non-toxic work settings to be productive.

Proud 4-H Member

Jan 31
0

Why didi I name the Company Verbal Transactions?

By | AI, call center, collaboration, empathy, simulations

Why did I name my company Verbal Transactions? Think about it. Any time we speak to someone there is a transaction taking place. Asking your child to take the trash out has a value to it. You want to teach them responsibility and you need to get the garbage out of the house.

When speaking to a customer, you’re providing value to the relationship and the customer is expecting something in return – a transaction.

Recently Peter Cardon, the Bennis Chair in Teaching Excellence at the USC Marshall School of Business published an article in Fast Company to explain that with the increased use of AI, employers are placing more value on soft skills than ever before.

He states “72% of frequent AI users reported that oral communication will become more important, while 50% said that written communication will decrease in value as AI becomes better able to write in a convincingly human way.”

With the threats that AI brings into our lives and workplaces, the values of integrity, compassion, empathy etc. will rise higher in value to help protect us against deep fakes and hallucinations.

We’re seeing more and more employers wanting to provide soft-skill training to employees. One reason may be that the younger employee’s ability to harness their soft skills were stunted during COVID-19.

Just recently I was speaking to a manager in a call center who was stunned at how casual and non-professional some of their younger employee’s chat conversations were with customers.

By using a conversation simulator like our ACES software, we can provide a realistic and scalable way for employers to practice relevant co-worker or customer conversations and put into context why they should steer the conversation in one direction or the other.

 

Sep 12
0

The Power of Practice: Why Sales Reps Need to Practice Conversations Fifty Times

By | Adaptive Learning, call center, sales training

coaching employeesIn the dynamic world of sales, the ability to engage in effective conversations is paramount. Whether you’re pitching a product, negotiating a deal, or building relationships with clients, your communication skills can make or break your success. One key principle that many successful salespeople swear by is the idea of practicing conversations at least fifty times to become proficient. But why is this so important?

1. **Confidence Building**: Practice instills confidence. When you’ve rehearsed a conversation multiple times, you’ll feel more self-assured when facing real clients or prospects. Confidence is contagious and can significantly impact the way potential clients perceive you and your product.

2. **Refinement of Pitch**: Repetition allows you to fine-tune your pitch. Each practice round enables you to identify what works and what doesn’t. You can adjust your tone, language, and key points to create a compelling and persuasive message.

3. **Adaptability**: Through practice, you become more adaptable. You’ll learn to adjust your approach depending on the person you’re speaking to. This flexibility is crucial when dealing with a diverse range of clients, each with their own unique needs and preferences.

4. **Overcoming Objections**: Sales conversations often involve objections and pushback. By practicing these scenarios repeatedly, you can develop effective strategies to handle objections with finesse, turning potential obstacles into opportunities.

5. **Memorization**: Repeated practice helps you internalize key information and details about your product or service. This means you can speak confidently and authoritatively without relying on scripts or notes.

6. **Improved Listening Skills**: Effective communication is a two-way street. Practicing conversations allows you to develop your listening skills, helping you better understand client needs and tailor your responses accordingly.

7. **Consistency**: Consistency in your messaging is vital for brand integrity. Practicing conversations ensures that your team conveys a consistent and coherent message, reinforcing your brand’s identity.

In conclusion, the adage “practice makes perfect” holds true for sales reps. Repetition is a powerful tool that can transform a good salesperson into a great one. By practicing conversations at least fifty times, sales reps can build confidence, refine their pitch, become more adaptable, and consistently deliver outstanding results. In the competitive world of sales, mastering this art can be the key to achieving and surpassing your targets.

Dec 20
0

Simulations Speed time to Proficiency

By | Adaptive Learning, AI, bots, call center, contact Center, simulations

It’s a well-known fact that many call centers are challenged with getting agents up to speed as quickly as possible with a high degree of proficiency. The chart below shows the average time it takes for agents to become proficient. But we want to encourage you to start using simulations – like our ACES simulator

 

When we work with our customer’s call centers the #1 reason they use us is to get their agents up to speed faster.

Click here to see some examples

Jun 14
1

Not All IA is Evil

By | AI, bots, call center, simulations

It seems that AI (artificial intelligence) is getting more bad press than good these days. But my spin is that the good still outways the bad when it comes to the benefits of using AI-based applications and products.

For example, we are using AI to help accelerate the rate at which you can learn a new skill. I’ve seen this approach to using AI in education only at the K-12 level vs. the enterprise level as we are using it.  Most other training companies using AI to curate content to help cross-train employees on skills they need for their job. I would say this is one of the easier ways to apply AI technology.bots

Here is a list of some other “good” ways AI is being used to learn a new skill

  1. Using AI to learn how to speak in ASL (American Sign Language)
  2. Carnegie Learning is using to help teach math in a new way for K-12 students
  3. ACES (our own platform) for ensuring call center employees can demonstrate the appropriate level of English proficiency

One tail of caution though, we really want to ensure that we try to reduce the amount of bias that inherently may be embedded with these systems. I was recently asked by one of our clients if we could prove our AI did not contain any bias. I applaud them for asking this question as — again, this would suggest some sort of “evil” intent is being used.

We were fortunate to find a third-party study that showed our AI back-end (Microsoft’s NLP engine) scored the lowest word error rate. So as Spider Man’s uncle says “With great power comes great responsibility”

Sep 24
0

Simulations to Teach Coaches How to Coach

By | call center, contact Center, empathy

Practice without a purpose is wasted time

Many organizations are great at taking a top performer and promote them into a manager’s role. But what they forget is that not all good frontline employees are good managers.

Recently I was working with a client who wanted to find a new way to teach her managers how to be good coaches.

Let’s first define the difference between “telling” vs. “coaching”. In an article written by Julia Milner & Trenton Milner, in the Harvard Business Review, it presents a great case study on how you can teach managers to be good coaches. Many of them start off with telling employees what to do — this is NOT coaching.

Coaching is a combination of skills that allow the employee to come to a solution of their own accountability vs. being told exactly what to do. I made a two-step recommendation to my client. As she was overseeing Quality Analysts for a global software company, I recommended she first take a look at a Coaching for Performance certification program from Benchmark Portal. They have many certification programs but this seemed to be a great way to give the foundational skills needed to understand coaching. coaching employees

Then I recommended that she use our simulator to build tailored coaching conversations her QA could use to practice various scenarios. As stated in the HBR article, you need to let coaches practice in a safe environment. This is exactly why companies use our simulator. It provides realistic experiences that can blend all of the skills needed such as:

  • active listening
  • questioning
  • giving constructive feedback
  • assisting with goal setting
  • showing empathy
  • letting the coachee arrive at their own solution
  • recognizing and pointing out strengths
  • providing structure
  • encouraging a solution-focused approach

The embedded smart analytics reporting system will allow my client to access detailed metrics in real-time to see how well her QA’s are doing in the capstone activity of completing coaching simulations.

With many people still working remotely, it’s even more imperative that managers have the right skills to help their employees succeed.
If you’re curious to see how to use our simulator to build your own coaching simulations, please contact us.

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