One of the major problems that any call centre faces in its operations is to achieve high customer satisfaction levels.
This means that most call centers struggle with the fact that their customers end up angry, agitated and frustrated.
While some of these problems happen due to the basic service that the parent business or client (in most cases) might be providing, many of these problems could also arise because of some shortcomings on the part of the call centre itself.
Problems like long queue time, bad lines, unavailability of backlogs to facilitate the right contexting and profiling of the customer, are now old problems.
With constant innovation and enhancement in the standards of technology, many of these problems have been taken care of.
However, the customer expectations still fall short many - a time.
Let's look into how some of these customer expectations can be met to meet higher customer service - or CSAT, as we call it - standards.
Technical Leverage Technology is upgraded constantly and researched upon with a purpose.
Use it! If you're running a call centre, invest some money in technology.
This will pay in the longer run.
This means getting rid of the spring and bubble gum telephones and investing into the latest and sophisticated technology that ensures better voice quality, and thus doesn't need your customer to repeat their customer ID number thrice.
If you have been following the latest trends, there are voice biometrics and linguistic analyses being brought into picture to ensure that irate, frustrated, annoyed or angry customers are recognized and put in the queue for a lesser time.
This means that you will need to follow the latest trends as well, if you wish to remain competitive in the market.
Invest in training We understand that agent training costs any organization a lot.
And frankly speaking I do agree that one of the major overhead areas for call centers is agents who get trained, hit the floor and quit after a month.
But then these are the downsides of trying to run an otherwise profitable business.
Well trained and empathetic agents are a pleasure to talk to, trust me.
I've been talking to agents and monitoring their calls for years now and I do understand how a bored-sounding agent is the last person I want to talk to.
I want agents who can rephrase, summarize, and make sure that they understand me correctly, without trying to sound patronizing.
I want agents who know their systems in and out.
While this might mean increasing the training time and the soft-launch period by a week or two, this makes sense.
At the end of the day, you want a customer to feel confident in the person and the company that they are talking to.
Brew it right between AHT and customer experience Reduced AHTs are good for everyone is one of the very common understandings.
The Ops manager is happy, so is the agent, the business has to pay less so they are happy too and the customer's wait time is reduced as well.
But does it necessarily hold true every time? I would say no.
Sometimes a reduced AHT could mean a rushed call.
And while this might not frustrate a customer, this certainly won't be a heavenly experience for them either.
So make sure that your AHT (especially for the newer members of the team) doesn't become a reason to cut down on the quality.
There are multiple other factors for a call centre to consider, in order to ensure higher customer satisfaction scores, but these three I've realized have always been the most important and for a long term will continue to be so.
This means that most call centers struggle with the fact that their customers end up angry, agitated and frustrated.
While some of these problems happen due to the basic service that the parent business or client (in most cases) might be providing, many of these problems could also arise because of some shortcomings on the part of the call centre itself.
Problems like long queue time, bad lines, unavailability of backlogs to facilitate the right contexting and profiling of the customer, are now old problems.
With constant innovation and enhancement in the standards of technology, many of these problems have been taken care of.
However, the customer expectations still fall short many - a time.
Let's look into how some of these customer expectations can be met to meet higher customer service - or CSAT, as we call it - standards.
Technical Leverage Technology is upgraded constantly and researched upon with a purpose.
Use it! If you're running a call centre, invest some money in technology.
This will pay in the longer run.
This means getting rid of the spring and bubble gum telephones and investing into the latest and sophisticated technology that ensures better voice quality, and thus doesn't need your customer to repeat their customer ID number thrice.
If you have been following the latest trends, there are voice biometrics and linguistic analyses being brought into picture to ensure that irate, frustrated, annoyed or angry customers are recognized and put in the queue for a lesser time.
This means that you will need to follow the latest trends as well, if you wish to remain competitive in the market.
Invest in training We understand that agent training costs any organization a lot.
And frankly speaking I do agree that one of the major overhead areas for call centers is agents who get trained, hit the floor and quit after a month.
But then these are the downsides of trying to run an otherwise profitable business.
Well trained and empathetic agents are a pleasure to talk to, trust me.
I've been talking to agents and monitoring their calls for years now and I do understand how a bored-sounding agent is the last person I want to talk to.
I want agents who can rephrase, summarize, and make sure that they understand me correctly, without trying to sound patronizing.
I want agents who know their systems in and out.
While this might mean increasing the training time and the soft-launch period by a week or two, this makes sense.
At the end of the day, you want a customer to feel confident in the person and the company that they are talking to.
Brew it right between AHT and customer experience Reduced AHTs are good for everyone is one of the very common understandings.
The Ops manager is happy, so is the agent, the business has to pay less so they are happy too and the customer's wait time is reduced as well.
But does it necessarily hold true every time? I would say no.
Sometimes a reduced AHT could mean a rushed call.
And while this might not frustrate a customer, this certainly won't be a heavenly experience for them either.
So make sure that your AHT (especially for the newer members of the team) doesn't become a reason to cut down on the quality.
There are multiple other factors for a call centre to consider, in order to ensure higher customer satisfaction scores, but these three I've realized have always been the most important and for a long term will continue to be so.