Serving Your Customers: Defining Excellence in the Contact Centre

Excellent customer service boils down to a single concept: making your customers feel understood, valued, and appreciated.

It’s no secret that quality customer service is the backbone of sales, retention, and loyalty. However, it’s a little harder to define “quality” service these days, given all the improvements in technology and service agility that are the new norm.

Customer expectations are changing, and contact centres can’t afford to stick to the same old routines (no matter how well they’ve worked in the past). Customers are hungry for new solutions and are increasingly vocal about their experiences—a Global Customer Service Barometer report by American Express found that customers were twice as likely to share negative brand experiences over positive ones.

The stakes are raised even higher when you factor in the prevalence of social media. Customers these days are connected to millions of other consumers by the single click of a button, and love to tear apart businesses that fail to deliver on their promises. New Voice Media reported the consequences of poor customer service: 58 percent will ditch your company completely, 49 percent will advise friends to avoid your brand, and 34 percent will post a scathing review on social media. A thorough understanding of quality service, and just as importantly, what quality service means to your market is essential to meet their expectations and keep their angry fingers away from social media.

Taking the Effort Out

So, how does a customer judge the quality of a service experience? Many gauge it based on whether their problem was resolved on the first attempt, how quickly their issue was handled, or how much work they had to put in. In the end, though, all of these are based on the same basic principle: consumers don’t enjoy high effort interactions. Taking the effort out of the customer experience is a necessary part of delivering quality service.

Creating a painless service experience can be managed in several ways, all of which involve a deep understanding of your market. This includes knowing more than just what channels they prefer or what products they use—it involves the ability to proactively assess their needs and provide flexible, empathetic support. When you meet these two goals, your customers receive a painless service experience that leaves them feeling appreciated.

Proactive Support

Nobody can argue that maintaining high FCR rates and consistently solving customer complaints on the first attempt is necessary for quality service. Unfortunately, while many centres strive for this goal, this is the bare minimum for what can be considered “good” service. In the age of modern customer support, simply meeting basic expectations isn’t enough.

Expand your service to include more proactive forms of outreach that predict problems before they arise. This means assessing your customer’s history with your contact centre and identifying possible pain points that they haven’t yet experienced, but affect them in the future. Compiling this information and having solutions ready if (and when) they make contact is known as next issue avoidance. This is a powerful way to demonstrate to your customers that you care, and have the capabilities to address any problems that might come up.

Socializing Service

Despite the necessity of streamlined and efficient service, customer expectations encompass more than mere problem resolution. The skill of your agents can make a huge impact on the overall customer experience. The soft skills and interpersonal abilities of your contact centre agents direct the flow of the call, manage the customer’s expectations, and create a lasting impression that they’ll walk away with.

Even when complex and time-consuming problems come up, the right agent can adeptly guide the customer through the service process. A sympathetic ear and an understanding demeanor goes a long way in taking the edge off a frustrating interaction. A study conducted by ASU revealed an interesting statistic on the power of soft skills for customer support: customers who received only monetary compensation for poor service (in the form of refunds, reimbursements, etc.) reported a 37 percent customer satisfaction rate. However, when a simple apology was added to their compensation, their satisfaction doubled to 74 percent.

Redefining Excellence

“Excellence” is one of those abstract concepts that every centre seems to chase but few can define. What constitutes excellent service depends on your customers and the market you serve, but several concepts remain true across the board. To leave your customers satisfied, you must take the effort out of their interaction through a combination of proactive service and empathetic understanding. While these goals are very different in practice, their end result is the same—a happy customer that feels understood and valued by the company they’re working with. Interested in other ways to boost your service quality to the next level? Check out our free white paper!