Top Five Tips to make Call Center Business Successes .......
1. 100% of the representative's
attention
2. Resolution with little to no
effort on their part
3. Be heard
4. Feel special
5. Accuracy
1. Don't want to be trapped by a
voice response or overly standardized system
2. Don't want to call back or be
transferred
3. Don't want to wait
1. Help the customer
2. Tools that efficiently and
effectively help them do their job
3. Feel confident that their
manager will support their decisions
4. Time to dialogue and debate
about any changes with one another
5. Leave their work and not bring
their work home
1. Don't want to escalate the
call to their supervisor
2. Don't want to worry about how
much time they spend on the phone
3. Don't want to tell you the
wrong thing
Tip One: Give the customer a choice
to select an option to address their specific question or speak directly with a
customer service representative. Voice response systems must always have a zero
to transfer to an operator. Call centers are not doing themselves any favors by
forcing someone to pick an option that doesn't fit the reason why they are
calling. This leads to dissatisfied, irate customers in addition to unnecessary
dial transfers and call backs.
Tip Two: If scripts do not fit the
situation, include alternative solutions or attachments to assist the call
center representative. If call center services representatives' are following
scripting, they must always have a "none of the above" and/or
"additional comments" and/or "additional attachments" option.
We must put technology back in its place in a supporting customers and
employees not working against them. Escalated and repeat calls based on these
types of scripting mistakes are an unnecessary capacity planning nightmare.
Tip Three: Allow appropriate time for
the call center representatives to engage a conversation with the customer to
fully understand and resolve the customer's inquiry. Give call service
representatives' time to understand what is being asked of them. Call center
representatives are human beings that not only want but also need connection.
They need time to absorb, discuss and debate. We all have budgets, however if
something is a major change, or things are changing back to the way they used
to be done, customer service representatives' need time to learn and grow from
one another. At this point in the process, multiple types of communications are
necessary. Communications such as team meetings, town halls, morning huddles,
small workgroup interactions, etc. A single electronic communication - chat,
email; computer based training (CBTs) will not be effective.
Tip Four: Listen and encourage
employee feedback. The call center representative feels the pulse of the
customer and can often be proactive to problems that may arise rather than be
reactive to issues. If a call service rep. tells you why something won't work,
listen to them. Empowering people means that they have a voice. It means
"We heard you, and we are taking action in very specific ways. You make a
difference." Most call center representatives are in the position because
they want to help people. Let them help you too! Don't fall into the trap that
if you give representatives too much empowerment, they'll do whatever they
want. Let me repeat. Customer Service representatives want to help. Let them
participate in pilots so they can influence their peers.
Tip Five: Use performance metrics and
customer surveys performed by an objective third party to arrive at Best
Practices. Pick no more than three to five key performance metrics. One of
these metrics must be a Voice of the Customer related. Customer Satisfaction
surveys must be conducted by an objective third party. We once helped a company
understand why their outsourced call center vendor should not conduct Voice of
the Customer Surveys. "Traditional" metrics such as Availability for
calls, "Auxiliary time" and "After call" time are not the
best metrics to tell you what's happening from the customer's perspective. One
particularly effective yet tricky metric is to balance (or weigh) Average
Handling Time with First Person or First Call Resolution. This requires
efficient and effective call center analytics to help with measurement and
enable improved performance.
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