7 Small Changes for Big Improvements in Customer Service
How to improve the customer experience by making relatively small changes that leave a major impact.
It may be tempting to think of improving customer service as a monumental task, but the truth is there are big improvements you can make with relatively small investments of time and resources. All that’s required to accomplish an impressive improvement in your customer service model is a simple paradigm shift.
To make small changes that result in major impacts, you have to stop thinking of improving customer service as a complex or impossible task. Merely changing the way you think about improving the customer experience is the first simple step toward accomplishing a major overhaul. And if you think you can keep skating by without making customer service a top priority, consider this finding from the Walker Information Customers 2020 report: it is expected that by the year 2020, customer experience will outpace both pricing and products themselves as the most important brand differentiator.
In order to stay competitive, you must begin taking steps to improve the customer experience now. Small changes can make a big impact, so let’s examine seven relatively simple steps you can take to improve customer service in your contact centre.
1. Improve Your IVR Menu
A well-designed interactive voice response (IVR) menu is an excellent way to gather important customer information and even redirect simpler inquiries to be managed without agent interaction. This can save on labour costs and cut down customer wait times. However, a poorly functioning IVR menu or one with too many layers can generate major customer frustration. If you’re using IVR, take some time to work through the menu and remove any kinks to be sure you’re providing top-notch service whether or not a live agent is involved.
2. Test Drive Your Agents’ Desktops
Think you’re arming your most important resources — your agents — with the tools they need to provide excellent customer service? Put it to the test. Take a test drive on one of your agents’ desktops to see whether you can make sense of it, quickly access all the information you need, and provide a top-of-the-line customer experience. If you can’t master the desktop, perhaps it’s time to invest in a better contact centre software platform.
3. Streamline Client Service by Unifying Communications
Speaking of the above-mentioned test drive, if you discover that your contact centre isn’t functioning in a streamlined fashion you must upgrade to a sleeker, more efficient interface that will allow you to keep tabs on the entire operation from one powerful control panel. To give fast, accurate answers to caller questions, you and your agents need to be able to quickly and easily access the entire customer history — including information from all channels. Investing in an upgraded contact centre management software solution will manifest major improvements in both agent performance and customer satisfaction.
4. Use Skills-Based Routing
Getting the proper call to the proper agent is a quick and relatively easy way to improve the customer service experience. Rather than bouncing frustrated callers back and forth like pinballs in a machine, be sure you’re using a smart call centre software solution with skills-based routing capabilities to direct their calls to the proper agents or departments. This will minimize hold times and increase the likelihood of resolving their issues the first time they call.
5. Share Examples of Good Work
Did you hear a great example of a successfully handled inquiry when listening to recorded service calls? Share it with your entire contact centre staff so they can learn from the victories of your best agents. Keep a repository of these calls so you can include them as part of your new hire training curriculum, and your new inexperienced agents will hit the ground running as well.
6. Focus on FCR
Rather than concentrating exclusively on service levels, shift your paradigm again and put more emphasis on completely solving customer problems the first time they call — first contact resolution (FCR). This simple change in focus will go a long way to improving the customer experience.
7. Examine Your Workforce Management System
Are you properly balancing staffing levels? Is your contact centre understaffed during peak call times? Are you paying for excess labour costs when the phones simply aren’t ringing? You may need to upgrade your workforce management system to optimize staffing levels. It may be time to consider outsourcing part of your operation to a third party contact centre service so you never leave your callers high and dry or your coffers drained while paying for staff you don’t need.
Small changes can make a major impact on the customer experience. Try out the above steps to improve the customer experience in your client service centre. When you’re ready to take the next steps to meeting or exceeding customer expectations, check out our free white paper.
