ICMI

By | Date Published: August 17, 2026 - Last Updated August 17, 2026 | Comments Not long ago, I had an experience as a customer where the same issue was handled very differently by two people within the same organization. Same problem. Same company. Completely different outcomes. One interaction felt transactional. The issue was addressed, but the experience felt rigid. The other felt thoughtful. The employee slowed down, asked better questions and took ownership from start to finish.

By | Date Published: August 11, 2026 - Last Updated August 11, 2026 | Comments One of my favorite television shows of the past few years is The Bear. For those who haven't seen it, the series follows a Chicago restaurant that begins as a struggling sandwich shop called The Beef and evolves into The Bear, a fine-dining destination that eventually earns two Michelin stars.

By | Date Published: August 03, 2026 - Last Updated August 03, 2026 | Comments Most contact centers have more metrics than they know what to do with. Recently, a leadership team walked me through a dashboard containing dozens and dozens of measures: wait times, staffing levels, quality scores, handle times, customer satisfaction, sentiment analysis, AI-generated insights, and more.

A senior operations leader at one of the largest national defense contractors in the country recently shared a leadership challenge I hear often: “How do I effectively manage the newer generations?” He felt some younger employees gave up too easily at the first sign of difficulty and was struggling to understand how to coach, motivate and connect with them in a way that worked.

Jump to main content By | Date Published: July 27, 2026 - Last Updated July 27, 2026 | Comments You know you're capable of more. Maybe you've got your eye on a leadership role. Maybe you've been managing a team for a while and you're ready for the next step. Or maybe you're finding that leading people is only part of the job, and now you need to influence executives, navigate change, and earn a bigger seat at the table. The truth is, those transitions can be hard to navigate alone.

By | Date Published: July 27, 2026 - Last Updated July 27, 2026 | Comments How do you use AI at work? That’s a question I ask myself every day. Over the past year, I’ve incorporated AI into nearly every phase of the improvement process: from identifying operational problems to training employees during the implementation of a new AI process.

By | Date Published: July 24, 2026 - Last Updated July 24, 2026 | Comments Today is one of my favorite days of the year. It's the day we get to recognize the people, teams, and organizations who are raising the standard for customer service and support. These finalists are solving tough problems, finding new ways to serve customers, investing in their people, and demonstrating the kind of leadership that moves our industry forward. The judging process is never easy, and this year was no exception.

By | Date Published: July 20, 2026 - Last Updated July 20, 2026 | Comments We're going to call him Bob. We're going to say that he's fictional, but I think we all know a Bob. I met this fictional and totally non-real person, Bob, at the ICMI Contact Center Expo. Bob came up to me because he is a workforce management professional, just like I am, and he was clearly proud of his team, his software and what he'd built.

By | Date Published: July 13, 2026 - Last Updated July 13, 2026 | Comments I remember being in my twenties, working as a sales manager for a consumer products company. The owner was a self-made multimillionaire who had earned his first million by age 25. By the time I went to work for him, he was 35 and had a remarkable ability to move people. He could motivate a room, inspire confidence and create belief in people that changed their performance almost instantly.

By | Date Published: July 13, 2026 - Last Updated July 13, 2026 | Comments There’s no shortage of webinars these days. What makes the HDI & ICMI Idea Exchange different is that it's actually interactive. And not in the sense that we just throw up a few polls and save time for Q&A . Every session starts with insights from an industry expert, but the real magic happens when service leaders break out in small groups, to swap ideas, compare experiences, and crowdsource solutions to everyday challenges.