Raising your call center KPIs translates to more business opportunities and higher customer satisfaction. If you are struggling to move the needle in your call center department, here are some additional steps you can take to improve efficiency and the customer experience.
Omnichannel is crucial
One of the top customer frustrations is the number of times they have to repeat themselves when multiple calls are necessary or a single call gets transferred to multiple technicians. Customers may choose to connect with your team via web chat, but then decide to call in for more clarification on more complex issues. Nobody wants to waste precious time rehashing old news, so CRM software platforms that seamlessly integrate all potential channels of communication are the key to streamlining your customer’s experience.
The ability to communicate via social media, text, phone, or email right from the same sales force call center screen puts all the information and capabilities your team needs at their fingertips in real time. This saves everyone time, gives customers the confidence that your representatives are well-informed and efficient, and enables problems to be resolved far more quickly. If your call center representatives are still scrambling between screens to text or chat on a support ticket, playing phone tag with customers, or taking too much time to resolve tickets or address new leads, consider switching to an omnichannel platform.
Forensics mentality
Work to foster a “CSI” kind of forensics mentality in your call center. Reps who fail to obtain detailed information from potential customers or help desk requests can create a trail of unsolved cases that ultimately leads to lost sales or tickets that appear resolved in your system but weren’t resolved in reality.
Capturing a full-range of critical details also gives your team a solid foundation upon which to build the next time you speak with that customer in the future, which builds trust and confidence both internally and externally. It can also help management quickly determine the solution a problem if the frontline technician needs assistance, without increasing the customer’s impatience or dissatisfaction by going back to them several times for clarification. It can also give your sales team fresh insights about their target demographic.
One option is to incentivize details, whether it’s a word count or a checklist. Continuous training on product and procedural knowledge helps inform your representatives what questions they need to ask when troubleshooting, overcoming objections, or fine-tuning a sales pitch on the fly. No matter what your team needs to accomplish, gathering detailed information from your customers will help them achieve goals.
Promises kept
Some call centers push representatives to close out tickets or leads as quickly as possible so they can move on to the next opportunity. While finding the right balance can be tricky, a manager needs to make sure customer records are closed out appropriately. Designate a staff member to follow-up on a random selection of closed tickets or leads to ensure that reality mirrors the disposition in the software system.
If you begin to consistently find that customer issues are unresolved or leads were not put through an appropriate process, then the detective work begins. Have you given your team the tools or authority they need to adequately resolve certain issues? Are hand-offs or closers constantly unavailable or busy, resulting in lost opportunities?
Some issues might be resolved by re-evaluating metrics and providing additional training or streamlining of workflows, while other issues might be resolved by using predictive or AI technologies to make your process more efficient. A customer service department is an unspoken promise made to the customer ensuring they have a place to go when they need help, so make sure your team is dependably giving customers help they require.
Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash
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