5 Tips for the Call Center’s Agent Success

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While a happy customer will tell one person about his experience, an unhappy customer will most likely tell everyone. Negative thoughts spread with light speed, and thus it’s important to avoid them as much as possible. But what exactly is the source of unhappiness? A bad product? More likely, a bad service. And the best way to resolve this inconvenience is to attack the source: you have to prepare the agent for dealing with the customers’ issues with confidence and calmness. How can you do this? Well, here are 5 useful tips in this regard:

1. Reduce staff’s turnover

Replacing the contact center agents entail substantial costs. However, by optimizing the general HR policies, companies can reduce staff’s turnover and the overall cost of customer service with ease. Here are some opportune directions: improving the employment mechanism, collecting feedback from operators, providing career development programs and coaching.

2. Prepare the agents effectively

A sure way to reduce costs is to optimize staff’s time involved in preparing, but without neglecting the customer experience. This is possible if you offer employees a functional knowledge base, covering all levels necessary for ideal communication with the client.

Agents might also be more proactive if you use the right software solution for customer support, customized according to customers’ needs. You can dramatically reduce the volume of calls and emails from clients with a customized application. Choose the right tools and the results won’t cease to appear.

3. Use appropriate outsourcing solutions

Outsourcing is the best alternative for growth and optimization of business. It doesn’t inquire huge investments, since it is an economic resource to customer service that ensures value added to your business’s services. It is imperative for the chosen supplier to be certified and niche-leading for increased competitiveness.

A division of top customer service approach to starting any customer need, not just the company. To stay in the top position in the market, you must overcome consumers’ expectations consistently. Sometimes it takes 10 to 12 positive experiences to offset one negative customer experience. Call centers are the most vulnerable customer loyalty channels that can generate profit. Clever corporate sectors are already implementing programs such as Voice of the Customer (VOC).

4. Extend the agent’s reach

It’s no longer enough for companies to reach their customers over the phone. Nowadays, in order for a company to be effective, it needs to make use of the web environment and the social media channels. A live chat solution is a strategic move in the fight with your competitors.

In addition, make sure that your customer service department is active over the social media networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, and that it replies to the customers’ queries in the shortest time possible.

5. Monitor and evaluate the call center’s workflow

A Continuous monitoring of all activities (historical charts, evaluation forms) leads to an improvement of solutions. By ensuring the transparency of each step of interaction with the customers, you can come up with ideas that make things faster and better, and you can correct the problems encountered by beginning to create real challenges.

Using an innovative software architecture for reporting and analysis can redefine the entire operational system Therefore, to be always one step ahead, companies should invest in modern tools, which reduce the overall costs and resolve important issues such as transactional data management.

By covering all these aspects and ensuring that the agent is ready to meet customers’ expectations whenever its needed, you make a one step forward towards the success of your company.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Stefanie Amini
Stefanie Amini is the Marketing Director and Specialist in Customer Success at WalkMe, the world's first interactive online guidance system. She is chief writer and editor of I Want It Now (http://ow.ly/gOU3a), a blog for Customer Service Experts. Follow her @StefWalkMe.

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