Needless to say that it is very challenging to manage a multi-channel, multi-site, multi-shift , multi-business and multi-partner customer service delivery to provide consistently high quality customer experience during each and every contact by the customer.
The following tips may help you deliver, monitor, measure and boost the customer contact experience which will in turn accelerate the business benefits.
Agent Interactions
- Train the agents on conversational skills. Agents well trained on conversational skills give greater satisfaction to the customers, who often criticize scripted interaction with agents.
- Take feedback from Agents to identify the gaps in their knowledge and further train them on their weaker area. Getting the agents’ feedback also makes them feel important in the organization.
- Ensure uniformity of the quality of Agents and their knowledge level. Inconsistency in the quality of response can be a huge dampener on a positive Customer Experience, especially when multiple contacts are made. Contacts should be escalated if the problem cannot be resolved soon.
- Measure Agent, Supervisor and Manager performance through fundamental customer centric metrics such as CSAT score, First Call Resolution (FCR), Average Speed to Answers (ASA), Number of Transfers and Hold Time which affect customer experience directly.
IVR Interactions
- Publish your IVR menu tree in your website and keep the changes updated always. Email the IVR tree to the frequent callers whenever there is a change
- Provide adequate time to enter details like credit card number to avoid time-outs
- Use tools to know how your customers are using your IVR and what their pain points are in using your menu tree design
- Along with screen pop-up, include ‘IVR menu pop-up’ as well to tell the agents what menu path the callers had traversed before reaching them. This will help the agents empathize with the callers if they had been through long, painful menu traversals within the IVR.
- Keep IVR prompts short and simple. Avoid complex words. Most frequently accessed options should be in the front.
- Provide adequate exits to talk to an agent
Multi-channel Tools and Systems
- Use tools to see how your customers are using your web, IVR and contact center channels and for what purposes
- Make information like previous interaction with the company or purchase history available to the Agent to enable them give the customer more personalized attention.
- Don’t let your supervisors search for MIS / performance data; free-up their time to coach agents better. Empower them with tools to assess the agents’ performance in a comprehensive way and not in a superficial manner.
- Provide desktop tools to the agents for them to access information easily and in real time. Monitor how Agents use these tools to train them further
- Show the agents in real-time how they are performing. Provide them feedback within few days of the call, if not few hours.
- Monitor customer experience (queues etc) in real-time, as historical data can be deceptive.
- Use multi-dimensional root-cause analysis tools to fix performance bottle-necks
- Use to tools to re-build customer experience across channels.
Customer Feedback Channels
- Take customer feedback soon after the call. Conduct periodic surveys with free form text feedback section.
- Capture customer sentiments not only through contact center channel, but also through Internet forums, blogs and social media channels.
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