Customer experience.
Those two simple words are the cornerstone of business success.
A high-quality customer experience (CX) cultivates a positive brand image, builds trust, boosts retention rates, and drives sales all at the same time. It’s no wonder that 84% of businesses that enhance the CX see their revenue go up too!
Are you trying to do the same thing? Well, improving the experience in your call center is a great place to begin.
After all, this part of the company engages with customers more than any other! Having a few call center tips up your sleeve can facilitate service delivery and leave customers more satisfied as a result. Sound good?
Keep reading for 6 top tips on improving a customer’s call center experience.
1. Treat Your Agents Well
Happy employees always deliver the best results. They’re more productive, positive, hard-working, and committed to both their role and the company.
Keep that in mind in your bid to enhance the call center customer experience! It’s in your absolute interest to focus on the wellbeing of the agents alongside anything else.
After all, answering the phone, solving customer problems, and handling their complaints all day isn’t easy! You have to stay calm, friendly, and helpful, which is challenging at the best of times. But it’s even worse when you’re in a negative frame of mind because of your job.
Strive to create a positive working environment that facilitates employee satisfaction instead. Provide the right support, words of encouragement, financial rewards, and so on. Your customers will benefit from having happier and more helpful agents on the line in the process.
2. Upskill Your Agents
Part of doing right by your agents is providing them with an appropriate level of training.
Trust us, the last thing you want is for inexperienced, untrained team-members to answer the phone to disgruntled customers! It’s a recipe for trouble.
They won’t have the information they need to solve the customers’ problem(s). They won’t have the confidence they need to handle the high-emotion. And they won’t have the skills required to stay patient and deliver a positive overall outcome.
Training them up is better for everybody! The agents will feel empowered, the customers will enjoy a better experience, and your business will reap the rewards down the line.
3. Listen, Understand, and Update
Improving the customer experience doesn’t have to be difficult. Oftentimes, the answer to your problems is as simple as listening to what they tell you!
Your customers might have valuable information on how your service can improve. They might express frustration at how long they’ve been waiting (more on this coming up), vocalize disappointment at an agent’s tone of voice, or offer explicit advice on various components of their recent experience. It’s up to you to then listen to that feedback, verify their concerns, and alter course accordingly.
Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from surveying your customers as well.
At the end of each call, you could ask if they’d be willing to answer a short survey on their experience. In time, you’ll see patterns start to arise that should reveal what you’re doing well and what needs to be improved upon.
4. Reduce the Hold Time
It’s always worth remembering that people are busy!
They live hectic existences, juggling work, family, and social commitments. With limited time at their disposal, the last thing they want is to spend an afternoon on the phone to customer service.
That’s why it’s crucial that your call center handles their calls quickly and efficiently. There’s nothing more frustrating than a) having to wait for ages to speak to someone, and/or b) being put on hold for minutes (or hours) at a time. It’s a recipe for sky-rocketing levels of customer dissatisfaction.
Conversely, minimizing these waiting periods will work in your favor.
Reduce the initial wait time by having enough agents available (especially at peak times). From there, anything from upskilling your agents to simplifying internal processes can minimize hold-times. Customers will be left far more satisfied as a result.
5. Improve IVR Scripts
Does your call enter use interactive voice response (IVR) systems?
Well, having high-quality scripts is essential if it’s going to work well. In the same way that theatrical productions are only as good as the writing behind them, the quality of your IVR is dictated by the script you use.
Done well, it’ll solve customer problems by directing them to the relevant resource and/or providing the answer they need. Done poorly, it’ll leave customers yearning to speak with a real-life person instead of the unhelpful automated voice that picked up the phone.
Alas, writing IVR scripts that handle, screen, and allocate calls effectively can be a challenge. Our advice? Pay a professional service to do it for you!
6. Focus on Tone of Voice
Let’s face it, there’s nothing more off-putting than being spoken to rudely over the phone. Whether the other person intended it or not, you can come away feeling hurt, bitter, and resentful.
That, of course, is the last thing you want your customers to feel when they phone the call center!
Avoid that fate by training your agents to speak in an affable, pleasant manner. Do role-plays, provide examples of exemplary telephone exchanges, and make sure they’re aware of your expectations in terms of the conversational tone. It can also help to teach agents how to handle difficult, abusive customers in the most effective way possible.
With a bit of practice, your team will become masters of the sought-after ‘telephone voice’! They’ll answer calls in a polite, easy-going style that enhances customer satisfaction every time.
Read More: 5 Call Center Management Tips
Improve the Customer Experience With These Call Center Tips
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of CX in relation to running a successful business. You’ll retain clients with newfound ease, develop stronger consumer relationships, drive new levels of revenue, and build your brand’s reputation all-around.
That’s why improving the customer experience at your call center makes complete sense. Hopefully, the call center tips in this post will help you do exactly that!
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