4 Ways to Improve Your Call Center

No matter the size or whether you’re using call center software or not, every business has a place where customer questions are directed. While your social media accounts are becoming integral for customer service queries, consumers still want to speak with someone from your business over the phone. Making sure that your efforts are at their most efficient is important for a call center’s success. You can improve sales conversations and customer loyalty. There’s always room for improvement and here are four areas worth focusing on.

Management
Whether your call center is in-house or across the country, it’s important that you are closely managing staff at all levels, management included. Whether you’re the one in charge on location or serve as point of contact for your call center team, you can improve overall management by doing two things:

• Visit more often: You won’t know how your call center is operating if you’re not there. While you don’t need to be present every day, or even every week, be sure to check in at least once a month to ensure things are moving along as they should be.
• Routine training: Prepare training sessions for the once a month visit – or do so via webinar. This is a great way to stay involved, while improving the quality of your call center.

Employees
Even if you choose to outsource your call center, having the right phone system in place with the right employees answering calls can make a huge difference. Personality traits such as the ability to remain calm in stressful situations and clear speech are just two things to consider when hiring call center representatives.

• Screen applicants: Even if your call center is on the other side of the world, make sure you know who is representing your company and that they are doing it well.
• Ask for employee feedback: If you’ve seen a drop or rise in sales or customer satisfaction via your call center, ask employees what they’ve noticed or have been doing different.

Customers
Call centers are about helping customers, whether it’s a complaint or an order placement. Customer feedback and can improve your call center productivity and results. You can cross the fine line of reaching out and becoming an annoyance and it’s a line you want to tread carefully. Consider mobile marketing for obtaining feedback.

• Mobile follow-up: Instead of sending out an easily ignored email that will go directly to the trash, ask 3 basic questions via text; only sending the next questions if the first is answered and so on. By making it an easier process, customers are more likely to respond.
• Use social media: Customers are often honest about experiences with companies on social platforms so monitor the mention of your brand to see what is working and what isn’t.

Evaluation
When a contract comes to a close or you bring in a new team, evaluate your call center to find areas for improvement and the best methods for getting there. Whether you’re interested in taking your budget elsewhere, or investing more in the same company, be sure to evaluate these two areas:

• Investment: Which company can offer you more work for the same amount? Evaluate whether the results of the company have been worth the investment.
• Needs: Look to improve at every opportunity. New possibilities may have come up during the contract period, or perhaps you discovered a better way to serve your customers.

Your call center is one of the most important aspects of customer service. Because your call center is the main point of contact between you and the people that keep your company growing, spending time making sure it’s effective is a necessity. Consider evaluating and reworking these four areas if you see a stumble or want to improve on the solid foundation you already have in place.