I once was told by a chat representative that “I've spent years having people yelling at me — chat is a nice change."

I’m often amazed at how elegantly contact center representatives can diffuse frustrated or angry customers, and I am not surprised that many of these employees reach a tipping point. But chat should not be the resting place for telephone-weary service representatives.

A contact center that provides an excellent customer experience is not created by accident. Kerry Bodine has recently published a document that discusses how call center culture can create an amazing customer experience, including abandoning metrics that encourage bad behavior by ditching those that don’t have a material influence on customer experience such as relieving agents from handle-time targets that focus on efficiency at the expense of customer experience.

This research is highly applicable to eBusiness professionals who offer live help via chat and manage contact centers directly or indirectly. It is tempting to get distracted by the online experience of chat and overlook the efforts that will improve the experience between an agent and a customer. Chat has the potential to be a meaningful customer experience. For insight into how this can be achieved, I encourage you to read “Elevate Chat From OK To Outstanding By Reinventing The Contact Center Culture.”