Best Practices
The Gist
- Immediate response. US customers exhibit stronger brand loyalty when issues are resolved quickly.
- Positive experiences. After a positive interaction, customers may spend 140% more compared to a negative one.
- Call center preference. 88% of US customers prefer speaking to call center agents rather than automated services.
According to recent US statistics, 90% of customers respond with a greater sense of loyalty to a brand if there is an immediate response to an issue or question they raise. In fact, US customers are likely to spend 140% more after a positive experience rather than a negative one.
Businesses know that when customers feel they are experiencing a helpful personal interaction where they are listened to and heard, their brand loyalty strengthens, potentially proving more resistant and resilient as a result.
The Role of Call Center Customer Service
In recent studies, 88% of US customers affirm they prefer consumer conversations with the customer service call center team instead of dealing with an automated call center customer service line.
More to it, nearly all consumers (96%) feel that customer service is an essential factor that affects the choices they make. They rate the experience they have with a brand to be equally as important to them as the product or service they want to purchase.
Not only do call centers provide an essential element in good customer service management, but they are also invaluable data sources in terms of identifying customer expectations and tracking customer feedback.
These information clusters can help customer service teams to improve customer service processes and, ultimately, deliver enhanced and consistent customer satisfaction.
On consumer feedback platforms, forums and social media, such as Quora, Reddit and Twitter, customers often comment on the ways customer service works and how call centers help them resolve issues.
In fact, consumers have completed almost 800,000 calls to customer service call centers via the PissedConsumer review platform. A positive perspective on call center customer service is also demonstrated with additional statistics revealing that approximately 45,500 of these consumers managed to resolve their issues with the company during the call.
Here are some ways your business can craft better customer service and improve call centers.
5 Ways to Enrich Call Center Customer Service
1. Work out What Your Customers Want
It makes sense to take a deep dive into the journey your customers take to assess how they interact with your brand and what experiences they have on the way. In this respect, you can then truly understand their needs and, if your communication with them is successful, they will be your brand’s biggest supporters.
Many call centers deploy customer data management systems, which provide a plethora of data shared with you by your customers that can inform, refine and enhance how your team relates to them.
These systems can collate all types of valuable information, such as previous purchase history or if they have had contact with your customer service call center before.
It’s true to say that a large amount of call centers use AI-assisted interactive voice response (IVR) technology, which has the capability to assess the tone and mood of the caller to help support the call process.
A pressing challenge for many companies is to integrate all these data sources to present a coherent and helpful picture of the consumer and their needs. This can support call center customer service management and their teams to quickly identify and resolve any issue or question customers raise.
Related Article: What Is a Call Center? How They Work
2. Develop Clear Customer Service Call Center Standards
Your whole call center customer service team should have a crystal clear working knowledge of customer service standards that elevate the whole consumer journey in regard to your brand.
There needs to be a clear, simple and effective customer service checklist for all employees to follow and implement in their call center practices day-to-day. This checklist could include:
- Appropriate language and tone for all call center interactions.
- Well-defined roles so everyone knows who is in charge of responsibility areas.
- Quick, streamlined processes that enable the escalation of issues if required.
- Detailed knowledge of the company’s customer service and complaints protocols.
3. Expand Expertise in Call Center Teams
There’s no doubt that call center customer service teams have to deal with challenging and potentially stressful situations. If employees aren’t specifically trained to handle these in a professional, calm and proactive manner, then customers may come away from the call feeling unsupported and possibly negative about your brand.
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
May
30
ChatGPT and the Future of Conversational AI
This discussion explores various aspects of AI implementation, ethical considerations, and challenges for your organization.
Webinar
May
31
The Evolution of Employee Listening - 2023 Trends & Best Practices
Learn proven effective methods and solutions to supporting an inspirational future of Employee Voice
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1
How organizations can design, build and run Generative AI into the Customer Experience
Discover how to drive enhanced CX through Generative AI
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The Future of Social Media: Emerging Trends and How to Stay Ahead of the Curve
The impact of emerging technologies like AI on social media
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The Building Blocks of Personalization
This webinar will explore how personalization can create powerful ecommerce shopping experience.
Webinar
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The Future of Contact Centers with AI at the Helm
Learn how to balance human intuition and interaction with the potential uses of AI to create delightful and lasting CX
Webinar
May
30
ChatGPT and the Future of Conversational AI
This discussion explores various aspects of AI implementation, ethical considerations, and challenges for your organization.
Webinar
May
31
The Evolution of Employee Listening - 2023 Trends & Best Practices
Learn proven effective methods and solutions to supporting an inspirational future of Employee Voice
Giving your customer service team the ability to flexibly manage customer service inquiries in an independent way builds trust and turns them into experienced professionals.
To achieve this, there has to be a consistent level of training and education around call center processes and how to communicate well with customers in order for this whole system to be successful.
Maximizing the customer data you collect from call center systems can feed into and optimize call center training procedures so that your call center teams are consistently learning and refining their practices based on customer needs.
For example, following up with customers post-purchase can help your teams cultivate their experience while ensuring your patrons feel satisfied with their journey to the extent they may want to buy from you again in the future.
4. Provide Evidence of Call Center Performance
Every aspect of your company is undoubtedly measured, assessed and monitored for continual appraisal. Your call center should be no different. Keeping close track of KPIs, such as call waiting times, call response rate and call length, can help you improve your call center processes and ultimately the service customers feel delivers on their needs.
5. Blend Customer Service Into Your Entire Brand
When you have effective and successful call center customer service for your customers, you can showcase this productive solution for consumers to achieve as much exposure as possible.
Celebrating your proactive call center customer service can be a solid win when it becomes an integral part of your marketing strategy.
If you’re communicating with customers wherever they are, be it on social media, by email, or by phone, then try using approved customer service success data and real customer feedback to illustrate what a useful and efficient element it is in the customer journey.
Potential customers love to hear how other consumers have fared with brands they are interested in. Being brave and sharing negative as well as positive reviews can also reap rewards as you can show, with call center evidence, how you’re taking steps to improve the service.
Related Article: How to Improve the Call Center Customer Experience
Empower Call Center Teams to Exceed Customer Expectations
Your call center can deliver a huge amount of valuable information to help you tweak procedures and cultivate a distinctive culture of call center quality.
In essence, listening closely to your customers and learning how to quickly resolve their questions is the key to exceeding expectations and delivering a great call center service.
