Today customer experience is considered a key brand differentiator. Customer experience can make or break a purchasing decision and is a major contributor to customer retention and customer loyalty. Therefore, most companies today are keen to improve customer experience. With the right call center services provider, it is possible to deliver excellent customer experience at each point of your customer’s journey, which, in turn, leads to improved customer loyalty.
What Is The Customer Experience?
Customer experience is the impression your customers have of your brand as a whole throughout all aspects of the buyer’s journey. It results in their view of your brand and impacts factors related to your bottom line, including revenue.
Positive customer experience is crucial to the success of your business because a happy customer is one who is likely to become a loyal customer who can help you boost revenue. Here are a few essential statistics that will help you understand the importance of customer experience:
- According to research, 73% of buyers say customer experience is an important factor in purchasing decisions.
- 65% of people in the US also feel that a positive experience with a brand is more influential than great advertising.
- According to a report from RightNow, 82% of respondents say that they have left a brand over a poor customer experience.
Therefore, customer experience is something brands can no longer ignore. They should ensure that the customers have a positive experience throughout their journey. And call center plays a major role in delivering a positive experience. Therefore, brands should opt for a call center outsourcing partner that focuses on customer experience while delivering a call center service.
Putting Customer Experience At The Center Of The Services
With the right call center partner, delivering quality customer experience at each customer interaction becomes a lot easier. When these outsourcing partners design their call center services, keeping the customer experience in mind. They can incorporate little changes to the standard contact center services to improve the experience. Here are a few ways the call centers can improve the experience.:
Ensuring Minimum On-Hold Time For Your Customers
No one likes being put on hold during calls, especially if it is a call to a call center. Most customers tend to feel frustrated when a call center agent puts them on hold for an extended period of time. These customers do not care if their issues actually need some time to be resolved, and the agent needs some time to find a solution while putting them on hold.
Most customers see an inbound call center as a one-stop solution for all their problems. So, when an agent puts them on hold, they tend to feel angry, and it leads to poor customer experience. According to research, 47% of online shoppers in the US, UK, and Australia deemed speed “critical” to a great online experience, while another 47% is saying it’s “important.”
While eliminating waiting time is not possible, at least at present, there are many practices a call center can employ to minimize the on-hold time. These include – providing the agents with all relevant information at one place, using AI and bots to suggest a correct solution, and providing the agents with a list of FAQs and resolutions to common issues. These will shorten the wait time and keep the customers happy more satisfied with the services.
Efficient Call Flow Management
Efficient call flow management is a crucial feature for call center success. Without a call flow management plan, it is very difficult to ensure quality customer service and a positive customer experience. Therefore, it is essential that there are measures in place to manage the call traffic and redirect the calls to the necessary extensions.
It often happens that an agent comes across a customer issue that he cannot resolve on his own. Different agents have different expertise and may not know everything. With a proper call center software, it is possible to align the right customer to the right agent who can handle the issue. It will make customer interactions more satisfactory for the customer and result in positive customer experience.
Ensuring One Call Resolution Wherever Possible
Nothing makes your customers happy than a fast and hassle-free resolution to their issues. If a customer has to contact a call center time and again just to resolve their issues, they will definitely feel frustrated. Therefore, call centers must work on providing the customers with quick resolution to their problems, preferably in a single interaction.
Training the agents better, providing them with adequate knowledge, and empowering them to make small decisions without their supervisor’s interference can help them deliver one call resolution and improve customer experience.
Fostering An Emotional Connection With Personalized Call Center Service
Customers today prefer to have an emotional connection with their brand. They want their brands to reflect their values, care about what they want, and know them well. It can be done using your call center service provider. If a call center agent can forge a personalized connection with the customers he is dealing with; the interaction can lead to a great customer experience. All your call center team has to develop emotional intelligence.
Agents must move away from classic and unemotional customer service and implement emotionally intelligent tactics to improve customer experience in call centers instead. They should adopt storytelling techniques to help customers relate to the brand and the agent better. Personalized customer service can go a long way to improve the customer experience. Little surprises like an unexpected discount, loyalty reward to returning customers can also improve customer experience. These tricks are sure to boost the emotional quotient of your customer service and lead to better customer engagement.
Focusing On Reducing Customer Effort
Researches shows that online shoppers value speed and ease as two important factors that build their experience. So, besides speed, businesses should also focus on reducing customer efforts. When the customers find it easy to access customer service and receive support, then the customer experience also improves.
Some of the key ways to improve customer experience in a call center are:
- Asking for the customer’s contact number and offering call back in case of a long call queue or disconnection
- Enhancing your agent’s understanding of customer queries to minimize the need for the customers to repeat themselves
- Availing FAQ’s and Knowledge Base articles for self-service and additional information
- Providing additional materials after a call to enhance the service
- Making an effort to solve the problem during the first call
Following these steps can improve customer experience manifold and can even increase customer loyalty. Improved customer loyalty boosts customer advocacy of your brand and can boost your revenue.
To sum it up, a company can improve its customer experience and brand experience using its call center partner. With highly personalize and prompts call center services from both inbound and outbound call center, it is not only possible to ensure customer engagement and satisfaction but also to deliver superior customer experience. With the right call center partner, you will be able to gain customer loyalty and achieve better customer retention, which will lead to better revenue and a highly engaged customer base. In this age of competition, that’s the biggest asset a company can have.
