It is impossible to delight every customer on earth, but it is necessary to identify what went wrong. Building a reputation, satisfying customers, and creating a huge customer base is not a day’s thing. It takes years to work hard. But a single negative comment or a frustrated customer has the power to wash all the goods in minutes. To avoid any such situation, as a business, you must analyze the challenges.
Challenges can be technology related or others. Let’s begin understanding both with possible solutions to combat them.
Technology-related
1. “It’s been ages now. Every time I call your business, you make me wait for so long. After this purchase, I will never wish to come back to you.” – LONG WAIT TIME
It is a severe issue for callers. Their minds are already filled with queries and anxiety and wait time adds to the stress. Hold time or wait time is a concern for customers and the business. The Average Handle Time (AHT) increases with long hold time. It is one of the key performance metrics for the contact center. 60% of customers hang up after 1 minute of call hold.
2. “You people keep asking me the same things time and again. It isn’t delightful. How inefficient you guys are and your age-old systems that can’t keep my information stored?” – REPEATING ISSUES
New or old customers calling your business get annoyed when asked to share their details repeatedly with the agents. It is not just after saying hello, the saga continues when the call is transferred to different departments. In the 21st century of the technology boom, how your call center business is yet untouched by the digital transformation? Honestly, customers expect to connect with a brand to ease their lives and not to get tangled with such issues.
3. “What I will have to call again to confirm this tiny thing. You don’t understand how short of time I am. I was expecting a quick resolution but you people appear so inefficient to me.” – NO FIRST CALL RESOLUTION (FCR)
Another major problem customers face is not getting their issue resolved in the first go. 67% of customer churn can be avoided with first call resolution. A business must value the time of a customer. Such incidences make a customer think of your business and agents as inefficient
4. “What are speaking, you a new agent to this business? You don’t even know how to guide your customer? Connect me to an experienced or knowledgeable agent instead of wasting my time anymore.” – NO AGENT SCRIPT
There needs to be a consistency of what your agents pitch to the customer for a seamless journey with the brand. This consistency comes with a well-defined agent script. A newbie handling a VIP customer’s call without proper script can shot the caller temper and make your business lose a valuable customer in the long run.
Solution
For technology-related problems, the solution is also upgraded technology. Most of the above issues can be resolved with an advance agent desktop for your Cisco, Avaya, Genesys contact center. It must include features such as
- Unified interface to view customer information on a single screen to save agent’s significant time lost in switching screen and putting the caller on hold.
- Seamless integration with 3rd party application for quick resolution and avoid customers from repeating information.
- Industry-specific interface for agents to view only the fields that are necessary for them and customize it further with drag and drop functionalities.
- Switch screen by IVR inputs for focussed conversation and better resolution.
- Built-in scripting tool that has a series of guided dynamic scripts for a newbie to handle customers like a pro.
Other issues
In addition to the technology, there are other issues that customer face, including
Behavior – Agents’ attitude or action has a significant impact on call quality. Uninterested reps can never resolve issues even with the best knowledge base and technology. Agents are the foundation for the contact center business. The friendly behavior of agents keeps the customer comfortable. For agents to have the best action, keep them motivated with incentives, technology, and more.
No feedback, no follow-up – Not asking for customer feedback is a big-time failure. It is essential to know what people think of your product and service. Customers need to feel valued. Similar is the case with follow-up. When no follow-ups are being done on time, you miss a significant share of loyal customers.
Solution
- Be proactive
- Listen to your customers with patience
- Ask and appreciate customer’s feedback and notify them of the actions
- Handle customer frustration calmly with some resolution
- Train agents on soft skills
Conclusion
People are ready to pay more price for experience over the product quality. A customer’s challenges might never end, but you always have scope to handle them with technology and consider other parameters. This improves the CSAT score and NPS that boot revenue with an increased customer base.
