9 Steps to Improving Call Centre Customer Service

Improving call centre customer service should be a top priority for any customer-facing business. Good customer service is a core expectation of any valued client and ensures your business continues to do well in a competitive world. There are many critical aspects to making changes that benefit your business, including using client data, reducing holding times and streamlining the user experience. It can take a while, but here are some suggestions.

Access to Field Agent Data

It doesn’t make a good impression if your call centre staff don’t have access to up-to-date data, including data from field agents. This can be embarrassing and only increases the waiting time to resolve an issue. A reliable field service management app such as BuildOps can help keep agents informed, especially for businesses where data is updated constantly as is needed for the satisfactory resolution of a specific problem, such as regular historical payment data.

Call Centre Customer Service Relies on Understanding

No two customers that call a centre are ever the same. Some have different issues, variable challenges and even accessibility needs. For these reasons, and of course, others, your staff must be aware of understanding each customer. As a call centre, your staff may not have many details about a customer. Then again, they may have access to private and sensitive data. In either case, it helps to understand them based on available data, needs and past interactions.

Invest in Staff Training Programs

Even a small call centre gets busy and requires rapid response, problem-solving and relevant problem escalation. A bump in the road of any systems along the customer journey delays resolutions and lowers expectations while negatively impacting the service overall. This harms your brand and customer relations. Therefore, training must be a priority so all agents understand their role and the role of colleagues. This helps with escalation and experience.

Understand the Customer Journey

As mentioned, not all customers are the same, and some have different expectations. It is rarely the case that a customer calls and has a problem resolved immediately. Often there are escalations, data finding and time dedication to individual customers. This is because some issues can become complex as they continue as more data is added to the ongoing problem. Multiple calls can help gather more useful data, but the number of calls should be minimal.

How to Reduce Customer Hold Times

Customer hold times annoy customers and don’t make you look great. However, it also increases revenue losses and can even end up in hiring more agents. So how do you reduce waiting times? It is a hard thing to implement, but here are some suggestions for doing so:

Use data analytics to monitor where agents are spending their time at work.
Implement a customer callback feature to reduce the number in the queue.
Direct customers correctly using interactive voice response (IVR) systems.
Offer communication via as many channels as possible to spread out customers.
Include systems such as automatic call answering services.
Play random hold music and constant messages to inform customers what’s happening.
Help agents be prepared for calls using CRM integration software such as CTI pops.
Ensure agents use up-to-date call scripts and interactive knowledge bases.

The majority of customers, 60% actually, will hang up after just 1 minute of waiting. This isn’t long, but for a customer, it can be annoying. You must immediately inform customers what’s happening and direct them as quickly as possible to enhance their overall experience.

Request an Act Upon Feedback

Customer feedback is gold for improving services. As a business owner or call centre manager, you only have a one-dimensional view of operations. As a result, you can only improve systems as you see them, but this isn’t the same as from the point of view of a customer. Fortunately, this is very easy to do. Ask agents to request feedback at the end of a call, and request feedback from the customer directly when they first call. If nothing else, a customer will feel more valued.

Use Multiple Interaction Methods

No longer is a call centre just for taking calls, and some customers prefer having multiple options available to them. Some may not be able to use a phone due to disabilities, and others just prefer to use other channels. Popular channels these days include email, contact forms and live chat software. Live chat, in particular, is popular because it provides instant messaging with immediate communication. It’s also easier for the agent to access data at the same time.

Better Call Centre Customer Service with AI

Live chat is an excellent system to use for your call centre, but customers expect this and use it more and more. So what do you do to handle large volumes on the same system? Well, you can use AI to route messaging to the relevant departments. Any good live chat app should use AI as a touch point before any message is sent to an agent. You can also use AI tools that collect data for safe storage to add to your CRM database. This helps coordinate users and agents better.

Make It as Easy as Possible

No customer wants to go through a complex system when trying to have a problem resolved. This isn’t fair to them and makes your business look bad. And it isn’t fair for agents who take the brunt of complaints. Therefore, the entire process of contacting them should be as simple as possible from start to finish. Features like automatic callbacks, ticketing and support and first-call problem-solving should be top priorities in an effort to enhance customer satisfaction.

Summary

Even from a call centre, access to field agent data can help boost productivity and reduce issues for customers. Of course, all agents need to be trained to use any such systems in order to ensure smooth operations. Methods of reducing call waiting times, such as automatic callbacks, can go a long way in helping agents and reducing customer frustrations. But even in the best-run agency, using AI can help streamline call centre efficiencies even further.