Simplified Success: Easy Fixes for Great Call Centre Service

Achieving better call centre performance may be easier than you think.

As they say, the devil is in the details.

This is particularly true for customer service; it’s the small things that make a quality customer experience and set you apart from your competition. The 2014 State of Multichannel Customer Service Survey by Parature listed the three most important aspects to quality customer service: getting issues resolved fast (41%), first contact resolution (26%), and polite customer service reps (12%).

These goals seem simple enough to meet; so why did that very same survey reveal that 65 percent of consumers have quit a brand due to poor customer service?

Customer service can be thought of as a business, and like any business, you have to stay on the cutting edge to be competitive.

What’s the Holdup?

Ask any customer what their biggest service complaint is, and you’ll likely hear a similar answer across the board: too much waiting!

While waiting for an agent is sometimes unavoidable, integrated call centre technology makes these situations rare. At the very least, you can address your customers waiting in queue and let them know that their call is just as important to you as the caller you’re currently with. Another alternative is to offer callers self service options or options for a call back.

And speaking of the queue—does your call centre company use hold music? In an interesting study conducted by AT&T, callers who had nothing but dead silence to listen to during their hold period perceived their hold time to be 6 times longer than those who had music—even though both hold times were exactly the same.

While hold music won’t save you from the wrath of angry callers kept waiting, it may mean the difference between keeping a customer’s business and losing them to a competitor.

Friendly and Personal

Using tricks to speed up your caller’s perceived wait time can help, but what about when your callers are actually on the line? Friendliness and personalization are the two keys to quality service once your agent makes contact, yet both can be hard to find naturally.

Let’s review a few easy ways to reach these goals:

A Positive Place to Work

If you want engaged employees staffing your call centre, as a manager, you must create a more engaging environment. Institute incentives to boost morale and inspire positivity throughout your call centre. Look for innovative ways to increase productivity that don’t require tremendous manpower to implement:

• Provide rewards for the agents with the best sales records or best caller feedback
• Create friendly inter-agent competitions with incentives for the highest performers
• Offer encouragement when your agents succeed, and foster an environment based on personal growth

Happiness and energy are contagious; when you light the spark in your agents, it’ll naturally be transferred to your callers.

Customized Content

Friendliness is one thing, but how do you ensure that your agents have the available information to personalize their customer service?

Data is essential here. Each time you speak with your customer, (or your customer works their way through your IVR,) they provide you with relevant and valuable information that you should be tracking. The more you have, the better—there’s no such thing as “too much data,” and having a comprehensive view of your caller’s buying habits, service issues, and demographic info can help your agents personalize the service experience.

Applying this goal is only possible when all caller records update simultaneously. Customer information you gather during tech support should be instantly transmitted to the sales and marketing departments. That way, if a customer needs to be transferred to a separate department during their call, their new agent will have all the information necessary to deliver efficient service. This type of collaboration requires consistency across your systems, yet will save your callers (and your agents) some serious “I’m-tired-of-repeating-myself” headaches.

Integrating your CRM systems with your data collection tools isn’t just about increased efficiency; it’s about telegraphing competence to your callers. As we mentioned above, emotions are contagious—when your agents sound confident in their ability to provide service, your callers will feel confident in your centre as well.

Improving the Service Experience

Better customer service may require work, but it doesn’t need to be painful. Many small adjustments can be made to your contact centre infrastructure that will yield big benefits to the effectiveness of your service.

Are your agents feeling down? Perk them up with incentives and a positive work environment. Are your callers on hold too long? Give them something to listen to and assure them of their importance. By making some easy changes to your call centre’s hold time metrics, service personalization, and overall friendliness, the effectiveness of your contact centre will be hard to match.

Dying to learn more contact centre service tips to bring out the best in your agents? Check out our free white paper!