Microsoft says, “Globally, 54% of all consumers say that they have higher customer service expectations than they did just one year ago.”
Maintaining this expectation for customer experience in a call center is not going to be an easy one for companies or brands, and needs a lot of improvements in certain customer service areas.
So, to get that 5-star review and mentions on the social media channels, we have put together a list of best practices you can follow or implement to improve the customer service in a call center.
In this blog, we will be talking about:
- Prioritizing every customer service call
- Empathizing and setting a tone of voice
- Emphasizing on First Call Resolution
- Utilization of Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
- Enabling better Call Flow Management
- Providing regular training to support team
- Reduction in call hold time
- Taking a different approach for each Customer
- Customer feedback
- Easing support services and making constant improvements
1. Prioritizing Every Customer Service Call
A call center customer support will get about 100 calls every single day and prioritizing each of them is going to be hard.
Also, a recorded voice message that sounds unnatural will not be appreciated by customers. So, having agents attend as many calls as possible would be the best approach.
With that, an addition of a CRM system that displays all of the customer details on a centralized screen will make it easier for a customer support executive to assist a customer.
This approach of having customer details displayed, offers individuality and attention, providing a lot more flexibility for the customer to speak and assist better.
2. Empathizing and setting a tone of voice
Empathizing with customers and resolving their issues will promote customer loyalty and improve customer satisfaction in a call center by a huge number.
For effective maintenance of a specific tone according to different customers, looking at the status of the complaint on a CRM system will allow you to set the tone of voice.
For Instance, if an order is misplaced and a customer is calling you to tell you about it, a CRM system letting you know about the status of the order will let you maintain an apologetic tone.
Speaking to customers in a calm and sorry tone of voice in a tense situation will certainly ease the tension around.
3. Emphasizing on First Call Resolution
One of the key metrics that all the customer support executives extensively work to perfect on is the first call resolution rates.
In our busy times, taking the least amount of time to resolve customer complaints or queries with utmost calmness and quick actions is a welcome move.
One of the popular complaints in the customer support experience is the extended number of call transfers to specific departments.
Customers get frustrated with each call transfer which eventually lowers the customer satisfaction rates.
Resolving issues without any repeats or follow-ups on the issues is a big win-win situation for both- the company and the customer.
You can start off by prioritizing and solving issues that can be solved quickly and then gradually moving up to gather resources for big problem resolutions would be great.
4. Utilization of Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Having an IVR system in place will help customers reach the intended department without any need for an agent actually being present.
Apart from creating a professional impression, an IVR also assists in collecting basic information like name, phone number, area STD code, and more to be directed for a better response.
That’s not all, an IVR system is also equipped with a recording function that enables companies to record personalized messages for occasions leaving a pleasing impression on your customers.
5. Enabling better Call Flow Management
One of the major problems in call flow management is the routing of calls to the wrong departments and customer calls landing in the voice mailbox.
Managing calls according to the industry experts in the specific fields is the need of the hour. So, with effective software in place, the customer calls can automatically be directed to the subject experts.
Adding more value is the automatic re-routing of calls based on the availability status. This would fasten the overall process with the increase in quicker complaint resolution rates as well.
On the other hand, a routine check-up of call management processes, evaluation of the agent effectiveness, and repeated check-up of complaint resolution times will give you some good points for improvement.
6. Providing regular training to support team
For a customer support team, product knowledge is the key and they need to have all the details at their fingertips.
Not having the right information or training in customer support can reflect on customer support calls not being handled appropriately leaving behind a negative review.
A strong customer support team builds a reputation for your company and will attract new customers.
To successfully build one,
- Train your customer support executives with product knowledge.
- Keep them updated regularly with new features.
- Share regular information on industry changes
- Train for different skills-sets,
- Give tutorials on how to treat customers with empathy
With this, training your customer support executives will reduce the need to hire new talents as the present employees are fully trained to take up any challenges.
7. Reduction in call hold time
PRWeb reports that “More than 2,500 consumers, nearly 60% of respondents believe that one minute is too long to be on hold,”
So, with these statistics in mind, valuing the customer’s time should always be the top priority. Setting up the necessary tools and resources for faster customer data access will lower the need for placing the customer call on hold.
If the issue can’t be solved quickly, requesting to call back your customer with the solution would be ideal.
The main reasons for placing a customer call on hold would be to ask for approvals or delays in acquiring the needed information for the customer.
These can be solved by giving the agent authority to make some decisions and creating an internal knowledge base for quick data access.
8. Taking a different approach for each customer
A customer support executive when speaking to a customer should try to build a connection, but this approach is not appreciated by many.
To tackle this, developing an in-depth understanding of the varied customer personality types and crafting exclusive content for their necessities can help.
With analytics being a major part, categorizing customers according to their demographics or unique interests can turn some heads around with good reviews.
9. Customer Feedback
Customer feedback is the backbone of any company and will get stronger over time when the suggested improvements are implemented.
Customers are promoters in the market and one negative experience can affect the whole reputation built up till now. So, remember to request feedback from a customer at all stages of the customer journey.
To attract customer feedback, survey links can be sent right after the call in the form of email and text messages. These results will be evaluated based on metrics like,
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer pain points
- Agent Performance
- NPS (Net Promoter Score)
- First call resolution rate
Also, creating surveys with general scenarios in daily lives can get you valuable responses that can effectively be implemented or considered for improvements.
10. Easing support services and making constant improvements
If a customer support service has too many people to be spoken to or lots of IVR options to reach a particular department, a customer will end up being too frustrated in the end.
So, prioritizing simplicity by providing numbers, email Ids, or extension codes for specific departments can save a lot of time for your customers.
With this, testing the customer support system for errors, directive processes, and enabling changes based on feedback and surveys will get you noticed.
Create a seamless customer experience in a call center
Looking at how to improve your customer experience in a call center? We have an all-in-one customer support solution that can enhance the customer support experience for an organization.
Kapture is enterprise-grade SaaS-based customer support and service automation platform that eases customer support processes for industries.
With features such as 360-degree customer view and support platforms integration, our platform helps your businesses reach high customer success rates in simple steps. You can get a demo from us here.
About the Author | |
 | Sunith Ramachandra |
| Sunith Ramachandra says, “Content writing is all about using the right words for the right audience”. At kapture he does exactly the same writing content to create conversations and conversions online. | |
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