Best Practices and up to the minute news on Customer Experience Management and Service Excellence
Best Practices and up to the minute news on Customer Experience Management and Service Excellence
Let’s face it. Nobody gets excited about needing to call customer service with questions, frustrations or complaints. Many times, however, contacting a call center agent is the best way to find answers or figure out a solution to the customer’s problem.
Because that call center interaction can make or break the customer’s satisfaction and/or loyalty, it’s essential that your company provides a great call center experience.
“If you provide a negative experience to a customer, not only are they more likely to tell their friends and colleagues, they may abandon you for a competitor,” according to “Customer Experience,” a report from customer service software company Zendesk.
“The good news is the opposite is also true: When you provide positive experiences, customers will choose your business and tell others, time after time.”
Read on for five on making the most of your brand’s customer call center experience.
Train your call center agents or other employees to interact with customers with empathy, the act of putting themselves in the customer’s shoes. For example, when a customer has several questions about a product, technical aspect or service that seems like it should be obvious to the agent, taking time to patiently answer the frustrated customer’s questions.
“[Empathy] is a mode of relating that asks you to reach within yourself and discover commonalities with someone who you sometimes have never met before,” according to computer software company Wix Answers. “Therefore, it makes sense to train your support team to develop this must-have character trait in order to make sure customers are walking away singing your praises.”
Practicing empathy isn’t restricted to just call center agents, either. Zendesk recommends taking on the point of view of your customers by providing personalized experiences that are best for them rather than focusing mainly on what’s best for your company.
“Personalize emails and respond quickly to social media posts so your customers feel like they’re communicating with a person,” says the Zendesk report.
While some callers may be calm, others can be impatient and even explosive due to their frustration. So, train call center agents to deal effectively with both scenarios.
“If you do encounter an extremely upset [customer], one way to handle the situation is by actually letting the customer vent,” says computer software company Wix Answers. “Many times, all people really want is to blow off some steam, which could do more good than you think. The customer might even thank you for it, as in a sense, it is a way to show empathy.”
Share feedback from customer surveys and other methods of gauging the customers’ call center experiences with call center agents, recommends Zendesk. Also make sure that agents are meeting your brand’s customer experience standard by conducting regular quality assurance checks on agents’ calls and tickets.
“Use ticket routing best practices so customers don’t have to speak to more than one agent (avoid the repeat game),” says Zendesk. Then take time to celebrate successes with call center agents and the entire organization.
Your brand should provide multi-channel customer support that may include call center, email, chat, social media and/or text messaging, according to Zendesk:
“To [customers], support should always be available. When they can access a website, view a Facebook page, or dial phone number, they expect a reply. Customers think with a multi-channel mindset, but they just want it to be easy to get a quick answer to their question.”
“It can be difficult to keep up with the constant influx of social platforms and programs, but do it anyway,” says the Zendesk report. “Use social media to gain insights into future needs and understand customer behaviors and patterns along their journey.”
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