Tom DePew, Author at Microsoft in Business Blogs

Published April 2, 2021

Contact centers: Intelligent bots can increase average handle time

All things being equal, reducing average handle time (AHT) in contact centers is a good thing. Any content center manager will tell you how critical this metric is. It is easy to understand why that is the case.

Customer experience

Published October 26, 2020

Always-on customer engagement: Better perspectives lead to better insights

Have you ever thought about what makes a leader different from a manager? Is it skills and experience? Expertise? Natural talent? Think about it this way.

Business transformation

Published September 15, 2020

To optimize or not to optimize, that is the question

Recently, I had a conversation around optimization for a banking customer — specifically, about whether they could optimize a particular activity. It sparked an interesting debate: What is optimization, and where can it be applied? This post offers some ideas about where and when to apply optimization.

Customer experience

Published August 19, 2020

Always-on Customer Engagement: Call centers and agents play a critical role

Companies are putting great emphasis on digital or self-service contact channels. The economics of self-service are undoubtedly compelling: Whereas live support channels cost dollars, self-service channels, by contrast, cost pennies per interaction. Also, self-service channels are improving quickly. With the introduction of intelligent chat bots and other AI-inspired innovations, these channels can handle many more types of transactions than was possible even a few years ago.

Customer experience

Published August 6, 2020

Always-on customer engagement: customers marching to their own drummers

It’s a great time to be a customer. Often, companies are finding that they are at product parity with their competitors and thus look to service to be the differentiator. When Allstate introduced accident forgiveness for their auto insurance products, it wasn’t too long before competitors followed suit.

Customer experience

Published May 26, 2020

Customer intimacy at a distance

Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker defined intimacy as follows: “Intimacy means deeply knowing another person and feeling deeply known.”1 We may not be able to precisely define intimacy, but it’s a feeling we know when we experience it. With the backdrop of human intimacy, what is customer intimacy?

Customer experience

Published March 26, 2020

Always-on customer engagement: It’s not just omnichannel anymore

Customer experience is a big focus for businesses today. Customers have more choices than ever, and they are looking at value beyond the features of the product itself to the entire experience, including the evaluation, purchase, and post-purchase steps.

Tom DePew articles