Customer Service

Go Beyond Net Promoter Score To Measure The Customer Experience Effectively

Forbes defines the Net Promoter Score (NPS) as an index used to determine how willing customers are to recommend a brand, product or service. Most brands rely on software developers, such as Zendesk, to create this poll. The answers create a popular metric used to evaluate the customer experience. Customers rank the probability of their recommendation on a scale of zero to 10. Companies then convert this into an index that ranges from -100 to 100. Not surprisingly, NPS has played a strong role in call center environments over the past two decades. Even so, managers now want more answers about what it measures, what its shortcomings are and more effective alternatives. What the Net Promoter Score Measures The Net Promoter Score specifically helps companies to categorize customers into groups based on how likely they are to recommend the company. Using the scale of one to 10, they identify the following: Detractors at scores zero to six Passives at scores seven to eight Promoters at scores nine and up Some companies further simplify the process by classing customers who give a score of eight and up as their promoters and seven below as their detractors. Whichever route a company takes, it helps to identify how satisfied a particular customer is. When companies convert the scores into the index range, they can see how well they rank against their competitors in satisfying customers Some business owners also use NPS to manage the customer experience and ensure satisfaction. They do this by following up in person and online shortly after interacting with customers. If the score provided is less than desirable, customer service representatives can then take action to rectify the situation. Shortcomings of Relying on the NPS Score A study by customer experience advisory firm Walker found that, by 2020, customer experience will become a bigger differentiating factor than the product or its price. When this happens, customers will have an even greater impact on what drives a business. Companies will then need to focus on improving this experience to earn loyal customers and their referrals. NPS does play a role in gauging and managing the customer experience. However, it barely scratches the surface. Here are some of the shortcomings that business owners identified over the years: It may encourage service staff to push customers to say they would refer the company rather than exhibit behaviors that would naturally make the customer do so without prompting. It fails to consider consumer demographics. Younger customers are more likely to refer a company than older customers. It may provide no explanation for why a customer would or would not recommend the company. Effective Ways To Measure Customer Experience Some managers believe that it is time to retire NPS altogether. Others believe that supplementing it with other effective measures may enhance the data it provides. Whichever metrics you choose, the important thing is to start with a strategy. Managers often collect data for the sake of collecting it. They then rely on the most popular metrics to measure their own company performance. A much better approach is to start with a strategy. Consider the company’s mission, vision and goals. Then, choose the metrics that align most closely with goals, while also evaluating the customer experience. It is also important to focus on that experience. Too often, businesses begin and end their strategies from their own perspective. To create a better experience, businesses have to first understand the current experience. What is it like to use your own product or service? What is it like to speak with team members at the contact center? Do customers enjoy using your website or app? These are essential to understanding how customers experience your brand and what metrics you should monitor to help you improve it. The following are some of the metrics you should consider First-Contact Resolution: As a well-known metric at contact centers, this determines the likelihood of a customer resolving their issue the first time they reach out to a company. Customers who get rerouted to multiple team members or who have to call back after realizing that the issue has persisted are more likely to become frustrated. To calculate this, divide the number of incidents resolved on the first try by the total number of incidents. The higher the FCR, the higher the customer satisfaction. Average Resolution Time: This is another popular measure of the customer experience for call center managers. As the name implies, it determines the average time it takes for team members to resolve issues that customers may call, email or open a chat to rectify. The longer the resolution times, the more frustrated customers become. However, keep in mind that some industries naturally have longer resolution times than others, so it’s important to compare apples to apples when looking up competitors. Customer Churn Rate: According to an eBook published by CX Network, the customer churn rate identifies how many customers unsubscribed from your service or stopped buying your products during a specific period of time. Managers calculate this by dividing total customers lost at the end of that time period by the number of customers the company had at the start. Remember not to include new sales in the calculation Cart Abandonment Rate: If customers feel that you ask for too much information or you don’t provide the payment methods they prefer, they may jump ship. Hidden shipping fees and taxes may also turn some people away. Cart abandonment is a strong indicator that something is unfavorable in the customer experience. Forbes recommends creating new strategies to make both the website and mobile experience more user-friendly. Social Listening: This is an often overlooked metric. As it is qualitative, it requires more interpersonal skills than analytics. It monitors what people say about your brand, product or service on social media. This often includes information customers may not share directly with the brand itself. Companies then have the opportunity to jump in and rectify the situation before it escalates.

4 Golden Contact Center Quality Monitoring Trends of All Time

When we speak to contact centers about what’s happening in their organizations, Quality Monitoring (QM) and Quality Assurance (QA) are the two challenges that they often mention. Although you can find there are several effective strategies of quality monitoring available on the internet, not everything makes sense. Instead, there are some ideal ideas and trends that are based on solid principles and drive great results. Being into the contact center business for more than a decade now, we, at Etech, believe that the below golden trends for contact center quality monitoring have helped us deliver effortless customer experience over the years. Dissection of interactions   To break down a interactions into different parts and grade these respectively is a smart tactic rather than reviewing and scoring a interactions as a whole. Here’s the idea – You need to start with the standard welcome or greeting. Examine how a specific agent is delivering how most of the customers respond to it. Also, look for whether this approach has the desired effect. Next, you should assess product knowledge. Are the agents prepared to face the customers irrespective of whether it’s an order, a complaint, or a question? Do the agents put the interactions on hold to acquire the required information? Are they following the script? Are the agents speaking with a tone of courtesy and support? Does the agent have developed skills specific to the type of interaction? Lastly, you should review the closing of the interactions while examining what sort of the last impression the agents made on behalf of his/her company. This strategy might be a basic one, but many contact centers don’t practice dissecting the interactions into sections and, in turn, fail to 100% monitor the actual quality of the interactions. It’s worthwhile to note that a solid send-off reduces repeat contacts and improves first contact resolution. Feedback is a Gift Whether your contact center determines the quality performance based on internal scoring and KPIs, accumulated data, or solely on satisfaction measurements like NPS, CSAT, one impacts the other. In the end, the only thing that matters is the customers opinion and assessment of how they have been treated. Many times there is a disconnect in what managers think is the most crucial factor and what customers truly care about. Have the courage to let customers define quality of your contact center’s quality management program based on a frictionless and positive customer experience. Use of Speech Analytics In the contact center industry, it fields approximately more than 50 million interactions every day. Hence, even if they are all being recorded, is it possible to monitor all of them? Quite Impossible! Isn’t it? Here, the Speech Analytics comes into the picture. This technology helps generate automated alerts triggered by voice data. While being alerted to these interactions in real-time, managers can react in time to impact their outcome. It defines the difference between keeping and losing a customer. Additionally, with speech analytics being integrated into a interactions recording solution, it’s easy for contact centers to link customer feedback with specific customer interactions. Hence, you will not end up working from a random sampling. Instead, you will work with a subset of interactions that have been flagged as crucial because of the keywords or phrases that customers have used. AI powered speech analytics takes all the unstructured, valuable data in your interactions and makes it easy to organize, analyze and act upon. Analytics also helps deliver better marketing intelligence in diverse areas at a lower price than the traditional methods. It further impacts the contact center compliance with data protection regulations. Thus, if there is one trend in contact center quality monitoring that will remain consistently useful for years, it is nothing but the speech analytics. The critical business intelligence that speech analytics generates can amplify both agent performance and customer experience. The Importance of Kaizen Mindset The Kaizen Mindset is a business consulting practice that says prioritizing the quality part of any process in everything a company does and making little changes over time can eventually add up to the significant organizational improvement. It requires every employee to identify what are the areas of concern, identify the reasons behind the issues, develop, communicate and implement countermeasure strategies, and examine the results, to achieve success. When it’s followed right, the Kaizen Mindset can make a real difference irrespective of whether it’s an auto manufacturing plant or the quality management department of a contact center. With this strategy, you can embed quality through small incremental improvements in the interaction monitoring approaches, and it will finally help you achieve fantastic results. We, at Etech Global Services, believe that technology is just an enabler; it is the humans that create a remarkable difference. Our quality management department, i.e., Etech Insights, follows the above strategies and team up Artificial Intelligence with Human Intelligence so that they can listen to the customers, identify and analyze the unstructured data, generate actionable insights, improve the processes, and predict better approaches to make the most out of the customer insights. If you strive to implement the best of contact center quality monitoring, contact us today.

5 Strategies to Enhance Proactive Customer Service

Proactive customer service is about foreseeing client needs and meeting them before they have to ask. This type of service is also aimed at increasing retention rates while boosting performance. Unfortunately, many companies do not employ proactive strategies. Instead, they flounder with reactive services, which means that they are always behind the curve when it comes to customer satisfaction. Before truly understanding the difference and highlighting proactive strategies, however, it is necessary to draw attention to proactive approaches, specifically messaging. Types of Proactive Messaging Many reactive companies struggle to limit customer turnover or suffer from flooded inbound call center services. Often, these struggles are due to poor communication between a brand and its customers. For instance, some companies fail to explain or notify consumers when updates or changes to service are going to occur, meaning that when those things happen customers are rightfully confused and sometimes upset. Also, reactive companies often fail to retain customers who do not fully understand the benefits offered by their products or services. These situations can be avoided with the use of the two types of proactive messaging. • Broadcasting – Broadcast customer service messages are aimed at early influence. These messages do not depend on specific user data or timelines. Instead, they are designed to highlight broader aspects of a product or service. For instance, these messages may display as pop-ups or banners notifying all customers of product updates or outages. Primarily, this messaging tactic is used to inform and reduce confusion in the event of product or service changes. However, broadcasting can also be used to deliver announcements of newsletters and other customer-friendly information. Remember knowledge is power and in this case informative power. • Trigger-based –Trigger-based messages are automated and designed to suggest a user takes action at a specific time. For example, these messages could be used to encourage nonactive users into action by offering support material, or the messages could encourage a customer to use certain aspects of the system that they have not explored yet. In either case, trigger-based messaging is directed at a more specific piece of the customer cycle, and as with all proactive messaging it is designed to encourage user or customer participation whether that is to explore a new feature or purchase an upgrade, service or product. 5 Strategies for Proactive Service While implementing a proactive approach is ideal, it does take work and should not be rushed into recklessly. Implementing this type of strategy requires the identification of common issues and customer concerns as well as the collaboration of ideas for the development of appropriate solutions. However, any successful plan will develop its solution around five tried and true strategies. 1. Acquisition – During the acquisition phase, proactive customer service will guide customers throughout their buying experience. This can be done through live chat services or even guides that help customers understand how and what to fill out in a form. 2. Influence – When discussing influence, proactive service is all about highlighting new or compatible products or services. Therefore, if a consumer places an item in their cart, a message would alert them to similar items. 3. Education – Trigger-based messaging is often used to educate consumers. However, unlike physical customer service, these messages are likely automated and provide instructions or advice on unused features. 4. Support – While many reactive companies can become overburdened with support tickets, leaving their call center services in a constant cycle of angry customers, a proactive trigger-based or even broadcast message can be displayed for those instances of shared issues, like outages or glitches. 5. Retention – While there is no great method for customer retention when discussing reactive companies, there are numerous proactive solutions. Customer service centers can be alerted to users who are not actively participating in the provided service through trigger messages. Therefore, inactive customers will experience a personalized message, encouraging them to remain loyal and active users. Reason Proactive Service is Superior The main difference between reactive and proactive customer service comes down to wants and needs. Reactive services are only concerned with the immediate want of a client, ignoring the greater need. Sure, they will still sell products and services, but their retention and satisfaction rates will likely suffer. Proactive service is about resolving the underlying needs of consumers, resulting in improved customer experience with higher retention and satisfaction rates. Is your company suffering from high levels of user turnover? Is your call center overwhelmed by repetitive consumer complaints surrounding similar issues? Don’t waste another minute being reactive. If you are interested in implementing a proactive customer service strategy, then contact Etech services, where serving your customers is the only priority. Yours in service David A. Carrizales

5 Effective Tips to Raise Your Customer Service Standards

What Are Your Company’s Customer Service Standards? According to the Institute of Customer Service, your company’s customer service standards should include clearly defined and communicated expectations for timeliness, applicability, and accuracy. Service-level agreements are ideal examples of defined standards. It’s not enough to say that you’ll answer all calls within a reasonable period of time. Instead, a defined service level agreement would state that between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, calls will be answered within an average of 30 seconds at least 98 percent of the time. Applicability relates to inquiries from customers, clients, or potential clients. The expectation is that 100 percent of the time, the response to an inquiry will answer all the parts of the question correctly. Setting applicability standards makes it clear to internal and external stakeholders that giving out incorrect or incomplete information is unacceptable in your organization. Applicability is a strong proponent of an effortless customer experience. Accuracy as part of customer service standards, for every business, should be 100 percent. Nothing less is acceptable in-house because nothing less is acceptable to your customers. Accuracy and applicability go hand in hand – applicability applies to information, and accuracy to products, or service delivery. How Can You Raise Your Standards? Now that you’ve defined your standards and expectations, how can you improve their success rate? No matter how good you are, you can always aim higher. These five tips can help you move the needle Omni-Channel Experience: Omnichannel is a cross-channel content strategy that organizations use to improve their user experience. Rather than working in parallel, communication channels and their supporting resources are designed and orchestrated to cooperate. Whether your client interacts with your business via voice call, chat, email, social media, text messaging, website, or some other method, every interaction is recorded and related so that future touchpoints all share the same information. An example of a seamless omnichannel experience would be when a customer sends a message through your Facebook page with a question about a product and later calls the customer service phone number, the phone representative can see the information from the Facebook interaction and have a complete and up to date picture of the situation. Empowerment: Even in the age of so much technology, the human touch still reigns supreme when it comes to customer experience and satisfaction. Consumers expect a confident, knowledgeable voice on the other end of the line to take care of their questions or issue accurately and efficiently, preferably on the first interaction. However, your team members can only do that if they are knowledgeable, empowered to make decisions for the customer and the company, and have the technical toolbox required to deliver on each interaction. You must make sure they have the tools at hand and the authority built into your policies to take care of your customers without having to climb ladders for permission. Agent Experience directly translates into Customer Experience; any friction points the agent encounters will ultimately be felt by the customer. Developing a culture of servant leadership combined with purposeful training, coaching, and development provide agent the confidence they need to expertly handle each customer. Tie Your KPIs to Customer Service: Key performance indicators (KPIs) have traditionally been tied to quantity measurements, such as the number of calls processed per hour. Times-they-are-a-changing; more and more organizations now understand the value of tying customer satisfaction to the company’s overall performance measures. Team members who use everything within their power to create satisfied customers are now recognized as some of a company’s most valuable assets. They have the powerful ability to encourage loyalty and a deeper relationship with your customers. Prioritize culture, training, and employ enrichment and the numbers will follow; a robust and action-oriented ESAT program creates an environment of engaged employees and shared success. Consolidate Your Data: Gone are the days when each department within your company kept a separate file on each customer. With customer management software available in almost every industry, it’s easy to pull together a profile on each customer that the different areas can share. Your sales department can see how a client interacts with materials from marketing, for example. Your customer service team should have immediate access to client profiles so they can make the best decision possible. Data consolidation is the first step toward a cross-channel strategy. Integrate Artificial Intelligence: Artificial intelligence (AI) is not ready to replace your human customer service agents, but it has advanced enough to handle routine tasks or common inquiries. Many consumers consider it a good customer service experience when they can quickly and easily find what they need on your website or through your app. Automation adaption and bots can efficiently handle high-frequency, low-value interactions. This frees up your agents to handle more complex issues that require in-depth support. This balance of human and artificial intelligence can create a winning combination for satisfied clients. Why Does It Matter? Your company probably spends a significant part of its budget on marketing to draw in new customers. However, it’s equally important to hold onto the clients once you have them. Establishing high standards is only the beginning. Maintaining those standards requires constant vigilance, data gathering, communication, and analysis. With the advent of social media, the customer’s voice is amplified, and word of a bad customer service experience spreads like wildfire. That makes high customer service standards critically important to your company’s success. If you’re exploring service standards and experience management programs, Contact Etech today. We specialize in setting the bar high and consistently exceeding it! This blog was earlier published on LinkedIn.

Essential Customer Service Skills for Every Call Center Agent

As the primary point of contact in the customer experience, call center agents to play an integral role in the success of a company. A negative encounter with a service representative may drive a potential long term customer to a competitor, while a positive interaction can result in long-term retention and referrals. Quality customer service is so vital to the bottom line of a business that 81 percent of companies implementing a robust call center agent training program with a heavy focus on an outstanding consumer experience will outperform their industry rivals. However, simply directing your service agents to follow a boilerplate procedure on calls won’t result in the high customer satisfaction rate you need to thrive in today’s hypercompetitive, global exchange. Instead, you need to guide your team in developing a specific skill set that will foster consumer trust and confidence and ensure the longevity of your business. 1. Stress the Importance of Empathy. Your call center agents will regularly encounter customers who are confused, angry, and frustrated. While it’s natural to respond to negative emotions by becoming defensive or dismissive, your team needs to know that such reactions are unacceptable. Instead, they should strive to see a situation from the consumer’s perspective to gain insight and understanding while working to resolve the issue. Train your agents to use empathy statements when handling complaints that will help to build a rapport with the caller, such as “I’m sorry to hear that,” and “I can imagine how upsetting this situation must be for you.” Emphasize that they need to take ownership of a negative customer situation, which means transferring calls to a supervisor or another department only when necessary. Quality customer service begins with respect and understanding, so instill these values into your team training program to elevate the front-end experience. 2. Promote Attentive Listening. Recent studies have shown that 72 percent of consumers will rate their service experience negatively when they must explain their complaint or issue to multiple company representatives before reaching a solution. Therefore, it’s vital that your team of live chat agents understands that outstanding customer service skills entail listening as much as speaking. Encourage them to allow callers to vent about a substandard product or service without interrupting or immediately offering feedback. They can then begin to ask to follow up questions to develop a deeper understanding of the problem while relaying the customer’s responses back to them to ensure clear communication. Above all, make sure your agents understand that a customer should never feel rushed to end a call before their issue is resolved. Allowing consumers the opportunity to detail their frustration while actively listening to their complaints and developing a personalized solution is one of the most effective ways to provide quality customer service. 3. Emphasize Product Knowledge. Since over 66 percent of consumers consider the features, design, and quality of a product or service the most important factor in brand loyalty, ensuring your chat agents can comfortably discuss every aspect of what your business offers is a fundamental element of a seamless customer experience. Initiate thorough training for each new hire that includes a detailed overview of company products, services, warranties, return policies, and shipping procedures. You should also consider administering a written test to service agents before they are permitted to take customer calls to confirm they have a working knowledge of your business and can adequately address product or service related questions and complaints. To keep quality customer service at the forefront of your company culture, institute continuing education in the form of product updates and refresher training courses. When it comes to establishing outstanding customer service skills, knowledge is power, so give your chat agents the tools and support to succeed. While marketing and new customer acquisition strategies are important ways to grow your business, the fact remains that you’re about 50 percent more likely to sell to an existing customer than a fresh prospect. And one of the most reliable ways to retain established consumers while converting new ones is to offer an unparalleled customer experience. Your call center agents are the front line of your company, so it’s essential to provide them with the fundamental communication skills they need to resolve problems and handle complaints. By teaching your team to empathize, employ active listening, and demonstrate product and service knowledge on every call, they’ll be providing the quality customer service that is the lifeblood of your company. With over 20 years of experience in providing superior outsourcing solutions across a wide range of industries, Etech is a world leader in helping companies develop a seamless customer service experience that allows you to compete in a diverse and globalized marketplace. Contact us today to learn how we can help you develop a customized consumer satisfaction strategy. This blog was published on LinkedIn.

How to Provide Customer Service With Servanthood

Regardless of how many employees your call center has, customer service should always be on everyone’s mind at all times. Treating customers in a cordial and friendly manner should be a requirement, not an option, and call center employees should understand the value of providing exceptional customer service. When a customer calls, the person who answers will essentially serve as a representative for the entire company, and if the interaction goes imperfectly or the customer does not feel their needs have been addressed, they will simply take their business elsewhere. This sounds harsh, but in reality, by using the principle of servant leadership in call centers, you can prevent loyal customers from looking elsewhere. The Strength of Leadership and Customer Service Combined Many people do not know customer service is a leadership skill that must be properly taught and executed. Unlike other types of leadership, which emphasize an overt assertion of authority, servant leadership is based on using leadership skills to serve others. This involves actively listening to customers and addressing their issues in a timely and professional manner. Cultivating an attitude of servitude and leadership can be difficult for call center managers, but there are steps you can take to encourage your employees to use hone their servitude leadership skills. Establish a Customer Service Vision or Mission Before a company can begin to implement any type of servant leadership principles, they must first establish a customer service vision or mission. Having a vision gives call center workers something to work towards, and when times get rough, they will remember why they must provide stellar customer service at all times. Talk to your employees about what behaviors they should display (ex: happiness, active listening) so everyone will be on the same page. Make Customers Feel Appreciated Everyone wants to be appreciated, especially customers who remain loyal to a single company or brand. Encourage your employees to make customers feel appreciated by using words such as “please” and “thank you.” Always let your customers know their business is valued and it is a privilege for your company to serve them. Monitor and Measure the Performance of Employees As a leader, you must be capable of evaluating your call center employees’ performance. There should be measurable ways to evaluate an employee’s performance, such as providing customer feedback forms, sending out surveys, and speaking directly to customers. If an employee doesn’t meet your customer service goals, they should receive additional assistance until they are capable of doing so. When discussing the performance of an employee, always provide constructive feedback if you believe they can improve in a certain area. Take Pride in Your Commitment to Customer Service It is immensely important to take pride in your culture of customer service if you are a manager or supervisor. This shows employees how serious you are about serving customers, and your enthusiasm will lay the groundwork for integrating service leadership into your company’s vision and framework. Providing customers with the respect and professionalism they deserve is a must for any successful call center. By employing the service leadership skills listed above, it is possible to create an atmosphere of servant leadership throughout your entire call center while keeping customers satisfied at all times.

4 Pillars to Customer Service Strategy to Deliver Extraordinary Customer Service (Part 1)

Keeping customers happy is a top priority for businesses across the board in this highly competitive market. An unhappy customer or a customer who has been unable to get the information, resolution or help they need will almost always find another business that does exactly the same thing as yours, only with better customer service. So, what is the secret recipe for delivering extraordinary customers service that will encourage loyalty, not to mention increase conversion rates? Here are 4 pillars of customer service strategy that can boost CSAT levels in an effective manner. 1. Overcoming Customer Objections There is truly no way to meet customer needs if you cannot figure out what those needs are. Gaining an understanding of each customer goes far beyond a lengthy probing phone conversation. Instead, contact center agents must find a way to help customers have an effortless customer experience. Engaging frequently with customers is one way to more fully understand their needs, challenges and pain points. This is especially important at the beginning of the customer relationship before they feel any loyalty. Blog-call surveys asking for customer opinions, concrete examples and based on the customer’s true feelings about their experience can be invaluable in figuring out how to overcome objections. 2. Gathering Operational Insights Another way to enhance the customer experience is by gathering operational insights. Before technology was quite so advanced, managing contact center agents tried to listen in the background of a percentage of calls and figure out what could be done better. Today, this can be achieved with a reliable analytics program gathering information in the background of each phone call. This information can then be compiled, analyzed and provided to contact center management as actionable data points. 3. Applying Improved Soft Skills Soft skills are frequently referred to as interpersonal skills. In a contact center, these are skills that, if used correctly, will help agents to build rapport with the customer through a personal connection. Some of these soft skills include: Reflective listening Positive communication Friendly assertiveness Self-awareness and control Empathy Contact resolution Communicating clearly and positively with customers helps them to feel more positive about the interaction resulting in increased customer loyalty. 4. Knowing Competitive Insights In a great customer experience, contact center agents must be able to gain the trust of each individual calling in or starting a chat. This trust must include the customer’s faith that the person helping them knows not only about the products or services their company offers, but also knows what the competition offers in the same industry. This type of competitive insight can be used to build better relationships with customers as agents are able to more easily anticipate needs and increase conversion rates. A good customer experience is simply not enough anymore, as customers can leave a call or a chat with the simple click of a button. Instead, businesses must find ways to help customers have experiences that border on the extraordinary. Let Etech Global show you how to track down the data that will help you with each of these pillars so that your customer service can deliver superior results This blog was first published on LinkedIn

Live Chat Best Practices to Deliver Superior Customer Service

With the Internet being the primary source of shopping and finding information before making a purchase, offering a customer-friendly browsing experience is paramount for any business website. A common feature on websites today is the live chat service. Live chat service gives customers the opportunity to ask questions before making a purchase and address concerns efficiently. From a business standpoint, chat support service allows you to strike while the iron is hot and encourage visitors to make a purchase immediately. If you don’t already have an online chat support service, check out this blog post about the best live chat software. If you already have live chat services in place, here are some of the best practices for delivering superior customer service. Breathe and Smile Before Chatting Regardless of if a person can see you or not, your tone can become abrupt or ambiguous during text conversations; if you are feeling frustrated or stressed. The simple act of taking a deep breath and smiling before beginning a conversation can help you transition into customer service mode If the conversation becomes difficult or the customer is disgruntled, feel free to take five seconds to breathe and reset again before typing. Being in live chat customer service can be challenging, but the last thing you want is to display your frustration to the customer. Even worse, you might carry those feelings over to your next conversation. Take a Moment to Proofread Before Hitting Send You may feel rushed as you try to assist a customer. This can result in misunderstanding the issue at hand or making unnecessary grammatical errors. Many people experience the frustration of noticing a mistake immediately after hitting send. Take a moment to scan your words and even read them aloud to yourself before sending. This will ensure that you appear competent and thoughtful. Keep the Customer Informed and Be Courteous Solving a problem can sometimes be a timely, arduous process. If you know that something will take ten minutes, let the customer know. Thank them for their patience and apologize for the inconvenience. Repeatedly validating the importance of their time and reiterating your appreciation of them as a customer can help keep their morale up during the call. Think of it from their perspective. If a potential customer is asking questions about a product, they will be more likely to make a purchase if they feel that their business is appreciated. If the customer is experiencing a problem, knowing that you are working to correct the mistake will make them more likely to buy from you again, despite the issue. Be Human Your advantage over an automated program is that you have the ability to make a human connection. Take this opportunity to build a rapport. If a potential customer is wondering if an item will be a good gift for her daughter’s fifth birthday, don’t just say yes or no; comment on how exciting that experience will be for her! Alternatively, if you have someone who is worried the item they purchased won’t arrive before they need it, empathize with them. Let them know that you understand their frustration and do everything in your power to rectify the situation. Making a human connection in a technology-dominate world is immensely powerful and memorable. To deliver superior customer service via live chat service, it is important to remember that your job is to help the person on the other end of the chatbox to the best of your ability. This blog was first published on LinkedIn

Top 7 KPI’s to Measure Your Customer Experience Levels

Enhancing customer experience is an absolute priority for corporations today. To determine if customer service meets expectations, you need the ability to measure the key performance indicators (KPIs). There are numerous KPIs for measuring the success of your customer service strategies. Following are the top seven KPIs your business might consider utilizing to measure customer experience and service levels. Net Promoter Score (NPS) Customers who are pleased with your customer service may suggest your business to family and friends. This becomes your company’s NPS. The rate of people who recommend your company to others can be a valid measure of customer satisfaction. Brand attributes Obtaining feedback about how customers describe your brand is a good measure of customer service and an indication of where you stand in your customers’ eyes. Also, you’ll discover what qualities to focus on to enable customers to see your brand in a selective light. Competitor comparison While customer retention and overall satisfaction are useful metrics for measuring service, it is critical to discern how your company stacks up against competitors, because even loyal customers may choose competitors for single purchases or interactions. External industry benchmarks It is crucial to recognize how your brand stacks up against the competition. Collect external benchmarking survey data to compare your brand to your closest competitors because even the highest-rated companies only succeed about 88 percent of the time, leaving plenty of room for improvement. Conversion rate Following an interaction with a customer, determine the likelihood that they will take some action, such as making a purchase. This number should be high if your customer service is excellent. Resolved issues Looking at all of the issues that your customer service team has fixed is an ideal method to form a snapshot of your company’s customer service. Regardless of your firm’s success, there will be problems and grievances. However, if your team can solve them efficiently and in a manner that creates a good experience for the customer, that is evidence of valuable service experiences. Overall satisfaction Although every business aims for 100 percent satisfaction 100 percent of the time, it just isn’t realistic. What is realistic is to expect customer satisfaction KPI to always be rising. You can track whether or not your rating is going up by setting internal benchmarks. You can target problem areas, set goals, and make changes to enhance your customer satisfaction rating the intelligent way. To improve upon something, it must first be controlled. To control something, measurements are required. Your business provides an experience, satisfies the customer, and builds a relationship that ultimately translates to conversion. Monitoring the health of your business requires measuring customer experiences and understanding which KPI to select to enhance customer experiences. With the right KPIs, you can recognize the direction your business is going and whether or not your customers are satisfied with your service. Etech Global Services delivers intelligent sales, technology, and customer service solutions. Contact us today for help building a stronger brand, strengthening customer relationships, and gaining your share of the market.

Organizing Customer Support on Social Media the Right Way

These days, social media and customer services are essentially one and the same. Companies are better able to take care of their customers, and customers are better able to connect with the companies they support. No matter how large or how small your company is, there are a few things you can do to better organize your online customer services. Respond in a Timely Manner Technology has accelerated our expectations, and that has never been truer than when it comes to social media. Take a lesson from airline companies dealing with customers with lost luggage and work on responding to social media questions and comments as quickly as possible, at least within 60 minutes. If not, you risk angering and potentially losing a customer. Use Tools to Better Manage Your Social Media While it’s good to have several different social media accounts, those multiple accounts can become a bit of a hassle when you have so many different lines of communication to keep up with. If you find that you’re constantly feeling overwhelmed, consider offering customers live chat and implementing social media tools like HootSuite, Tweetdeck and Klout to manage all of your platforms in a single place. Make Your Responses More Personal Instead of sounding like a robot in your responses, make them more personal and inject them with a bit of personality. A canned response can not only send the wrong message about your company, it can also anger the person and make it seem as if you don’t pay attention to what’s being said. A bit of humor can also help to lighten the mood while making sure the individual is still being taken care of. Train Your Customer Service Employees Utilizing the most effective and up-to-date online customer support strategies and technology won’t do your company or your employees much good if your customer services team doesn’t know how to use the technology or strategies the right way. Before you cut your team lose to dominate the world of customer service, train them properly and thoroughly. Not only that, but you should update and refresh their training as necessary. Just as businesses aren’t operated the same now as they were ten years ago, the same is true of customer service. Give your team the tools and education they need to stand the best chance of succeeding. Have a Backup Plan in Place Just as there are bound to be people complaining about your products or services no matter what you do, there are bound to be times where you experience a power loss or lose your network connections. Despite unfortunate circumstances, your customers still want answers to their questions and want to have their concerns addressed. Have a customer service backup plan in place to handle these situations and make sure your company’s reputation doesn’t take a hit during times of technological crisis. For instance, you might have to temporarily outsource your customer service department. If you do, you’ll want your outsourced team to be familiar with how you handle customers to keep things flowing as smoothly and as normally as possible. An organization is one of the essential cornerstones of operating a successful business. Keep your online customer service department well organized and informed and you’re sure to remain in your customers’ good graces. Original Source : LinkedIn

9 Effective Tips for Customer Service on Social Media

Not only has social media changed the way we communicate and reconnect with old classmates, family and friends, it’s also changed how companies connect with their customers and audience. Learn the nine steps of the customer service dance as you strut across the social media floor. 1. Make Sure Your Support Teams Are Well Trained Anyone who is assisting customers should know where to direct customers and the overall responsibilities of each of your company’s departments. This knowledge ensures questions are fully answered and answered in a timely manner. Some companies have created social media profiles devoted to customer support that are separate from their main company profiles, which makes helping customers even more efficient. 2. Consistency Is Key It’s essential that you have the same individual or team oversee your social media customer services to that customers have a consistent experience. Not only is this a good way to ensure the customer doesn’t feel as if he or she is being passed around, it also helps you to deliver consistent service from customer to customer. 3. Be Prompt Realize that your customers are expecting their questions to be answered just as quickly as they are expecting to connect to the internet or order food. It’s best to aim for taking care of customers within 60 minutes. If you’re unable to answer a question or address a concern in this amount of time, at least let the customer know you’re working on it. 4. Show Your Human Side Don’t make customers feel as though they’re talking to a live chat robot. Show videos and images of your employees having fun at work and add some humor to your responses when appropriate. Taking this route is good for generating goodwill and getting a smile from your customers. 5. Take Responsibility There are times when the customer is clearly at fault for a problem and other times when it’s you who needs to own up. Humans make mistakes, and we should take responsibility for those mistakes, even if there’s a chance of damaging your company’s reputation. 6. Act Rather Than React Instead of always reacting to customer complaints or questions, take out time to act on customer concerns. Sometimes simply acknowledging a customer is enough to restore their faith in your company. Remember that not everything has to be about the bottom line. 7. Man Your Customer Service Stations If you have more than one social media profile, make sure you have someone paying attention to each of them in order that questions don’t linger on the vine unanswered. For multiple social media profiles, you can use services such as Hootsuite to manage all of your platforms in one place. 8. Anticipate Questions Problems are an inevitable part of owning a business. Rather than waiting for customers to ask a question about a website glitch or a product recall, inform your customers of what’s going on and keep them updated on developments. 9. Ensure That the Right Person Is Answering a Question Just like you wouldn’t take a problem with your cable to your doctor, you should make sure an employee with technical knowledge is answering the more technical questions. Putting these nine tips to good use on social media is one of the best things you can do to put your business on the fast track to customer service success.

Redefining Shopping Cart Abandonment In Face Of New Challenges

Abandoned shopping cart rates are a crucial metric for retailers who are concerned about increasing online conversion. Thousands of dollars are invested by businesses to optimize their websites to ensure better customer engagement and higher customer satisfaction. Shopping cart abandonment remains the most touchy issue online retailers’ face despite taking every possible step to counter it. Each abandoned shopping cart represents missed revenue and offers an opportunity for retailers to actively persuade such customers to make up the lost sales. There are many reasons for customers to abandon shopping carts during the shopping process without making a transaction. Some customers give more preference to higher security by looking for SSL certificates on the website, some leave as they can not properly navigate through the website, and others may leave due to poor website design. There can be various other reasons like exorbitant shipping costs, lack of clear information regarding shipping or exchange or a return policy, comparison shopping, bad customer reviews, inadequate information in FAQs, etc. Many consumers even use shopping carts to know the exact price of all items in cart including shipping charges; compare them with other websites, and finally abandoning the cart to actually purchase the items from the store. Time to Rethink the Strategy Nowadays many consumers are using smartphones, tablets, and handheld devices to shop online. During their shopping process, they often add items to the cart but turn to more conventional mediums like PC or Laptop to make a purchase. Online retailers must reassess their notion regarding reasons behind shopping cart abandonment and rethink their strategy to turn website visitors into customers. One idea of reaching out to consumers who abandoned their shopping carts could be to effectively use email marketing to remind the customers about their abandoned carts and close the sale. Incorporating live chat on a website can also significantly reduce the shopping cart abandonment rates as customers receive live help at crucial points instantly. Offering live chat during a crucial checkout point, on specific pages that offer product information, or based on predefined rules can be of great help to customers as they can get answers to their questions quickly and easily. Customers will naturally feel more satisfied which can turn them into loyal returning customers. Because there are a number of reasons behind shopping cart abandonment, the metrics used to judge shopping behavior can be changed to focus on real reasons that can provide crucial insights into customer shopping behavior, preferences, pricing, etc.

Exceptional Customer Service with an Omni-Channel Strategy

The staggering advancement of social media, digital technology, cloud computing and other tools combined with a revolution in how people choose to share information has changed the game for all businesses, and many of them are caught up in the rush to open up multiple communication channels while also trying to focus on keeping their customers happy and loyal. So how do you provide exceptional customer service within an omni-channel strategy? The first step is to realize that these two worthwhile goals are not the same thing! While an omni-channel strategy is crucial if you want to provide exceptional customer service in today’s marketplace, having such a strategy does not guarantee a wonderful experience; there is much more work to be done. Putting Customer Experience at the Heart of your Company It is the customer experience part of the equation that needs to be at the center of your business if you are going to avoid the pitfall of inconsistency which lies in the way of many omni-channel businesses. For example, if a customer opens a Live Chat conversation and an agent arranges a telephone call back within the hour, does the call ever take place? And when it does, has the outbound call agent familiarized themselves completely with the content of the earlier call – and previous communications – or is the customer expected to go through everything from scratch? Customers need to feel there is a personal connection between themselves and those they do business with, and the failure to seamlessly transition from one channel to another is one of the most common sources of complaint. This can be avoided if a culture of exceptional customer experience is embedded from the outset. When everyone in the business, from top level executives to customer-facing agents and operations staff, understands that their number one priority is to look after the customer, half the battle is won. Tracking the Customer Journey To understand what it is like to be a customer of your business, you need to take a detailed approach to mapping their journey. That means analyzing every possible route into and through your business, whether the initial contact is from a link in an email, an online advertisement, a call to your call center or, for bricks and mortar stores, walking in off the street. Next, breakdown the journey into various customer touchpoints along the way and measure current customer experience at each of them (you can use surveys to calculate Net Promoter Score at each point or another customer service metric if you prefer). If you find that certain touchpoints are letting your customer down, you will now be in the position to gather more information and to remedy the situation. Through this method, business owners often discover that customers become dissatisfied when the transition between channels break down. Refining & Adapting the Strategy Creating a system designed to provide exceptional customer service is not a one-off task that can be set up and left to run itself . The ways in which customers engage with companies – and with each other – constantly changes as new channels are created and others fade away. It is vital that you review your processes regularly and adapt them to changing market conditions. However, the same need that customers have for personalization and consistency remain, so if you can focus on providing that experience you will be rewarded with increased loyalty and customers who not only have a high lifetime value, but are also brand ambassadors as they share their positive experiences. far and wide.

Today’s Shoppers Expect Great Customer Service No Matter Where They Shop

With a brick and mortar store, you have a team full of customer service specialists available to help your customers at any moment. For catalog customers, your contact center is staffed full of knowledgeable agents ready to answer questions and take their order. But who is helping your online customers at the moment their shopping? Are you making it easy to answer their questions and ease their concerns? Live chat is an integral part of providing a great online shopping experience today. Companies should invest heavily in certifying chat agents on several different chat platforms. Generations X and Y prefer this method of communicating online with live chat. This along with the advent of new technologies and people wanting immediate answers tells us that “Chat is where it’s at.” As more website visitors become more experienced online, even more visitors will abandon their shopping carts, and online comparison shopping will become ever more commonplace. These comparison shoppers are 84% more likely to research online to ensure they get the best price. More than two –thirds say they like to shop around before making a purchase. What this tells us is that visitors that abandoned shopping carts are very valuable – higher income customers that are more tech savvy, and use this knowledge to comparison shop and find the better deals online. There are two common chat solutions that are best, allowing staff to be on your website ready to answer consumers’ research and pricing questions and assist in closing the sale. If you are not assisting your customers, your competitors will. And when your customer leaves your site to compare, and your competitor has a Live Chat option, your competitor will take that sale. Chat solutions: Live Chat: Completely customizable, fast Java Webstart client requiring no downloads or plug-ins. Customer chat links only appear when Customer Service is available. This easy-to-use interface allows Customer Service to handle up to ten concurrent chat sessions. Proactive Chat: Called Instant Invite, use this automatic method for inviting your visitors to chat whenever you want, for example, when they stall on a page or return a certain number of null searches. Remarkably easy to deploy, customize and maintain. Adjust rule conditions and invitation content on the fly. There are certain ethics involved in tracking down consumers who abandon shopping carts. It is always best to have full intentions to only assist the customer rather than harass. The point being, a customer may feel unsure, have questions or not understand the site itself. As an example, with a brick and mortar store, when a customer walks in they are greeted and if the customer wants to just look around, they will say so. It is the sales associate’s responsibility to be available to answer questions and assist in their checkout process. The thought is the same with chat. Customer Service is there when the customer arrives and prompts them asking if they need assistance. They respond yes, no, or maybe. Through the use of rules and best practices, you can, with some certainty, determine the needs of the prospective customer. With chat you can always be there for the customer to ask questions and they will receive immediate answers. In the event the customer does not wish to deal with the online chat process, they simply just say no thank you and Customer Service will thank them for their time and back away. However, they can always be available through proactive or static chat. This adds to the customer’s experience. Chat services are quickly becoming a must-have for companies dedicated to providing the best service online. The technology continues to evolve and improve and soon, video chat will even become commonplace. For more advice on creating a quality assurance team that drives CX or if you would like to learn more about Etech, feel free to contact us at info@etechgs.com.

Live Chat Helps To Efficiently Cater To Customer Needs

Maintaining a strong online presence is key for virtually any kind of business as it helps in efficiently targeting and converting online consumers. A couple of years ago it used to be looked at as fancy or high-tech to have a chat on a website, whereas today, its almost looked down upon if one does not have a chat feature on the page. Online chat helps to solve the queries of the customers quickly, accurately, and efficiently thereby increasing the customer satisfaction and online conversion rates. Some of the advantages offered by online chat include: Prompt customer service Many times when using traditional customer support service like phone or email, customers have to wait for long periods of time to speak or hear back from a customer service representative. We all know how frustrating and time consuming this is. Sometimes it can be so long that by the time a live person even gets on the phone or you finally get a response back, I’ve forgotten what my initial problem was! Online chat offers prompt and efficient service to the customers. Customers get their answers in real-time as the interaction with the chat agent is entirely live. Reduction in costs Online chat is one of the most cost-effective options for businesses to provide customer service. Unlike other mediums of providing customer support such as phone or voice, where agents can handle only one customer at a time, online chat offers immense flexibility to where the chat agent can efficiently handle 2 or more customers at a single time. This directly affects the companies operational cost and cost per interaction by getting more out of each and every chat agent. High Customer Satisfaction Online chat helps to provide prompt customer service which in turn significantly increases customer satisfaction. Happy customers create a strong base of loyal customers who return again and again to purchase from the website. Providing online chat during some crucial stages like checkout phase greatly improves customer satisfaction and helps in shortening the sales cycle. Online chat helps to increase the profitability of the businesses by boosting the online sales figures. It leaves a positive impression in the minds of the customer by providing personalized and superior customer experience.

How to Take Customers’ Feedback in Real Time

The best businesses are looking to rise above the commoditization of the marketplace and place service at the forefront of their strategy. However, in an ‘always on’ civilization, the demands of keeping on top of customer experience and conversations can seem overwhelming. Most companies now operate some sort of feedback system, but this is not always immediately connected or analyzed which can be a profound problem. The problem with dated feedback There are a number of problems with gathering feedback that is past its sell-by date: If you are trying to isolate issues at a particular customer ‘touchpoint’, you need to capture customers’ raw experiences immediately after they have interacted with it. The longer you delay asking for feedback, the more the customer will balance their experience at that touchpoint with their general feelings about your company. While this is useful in itself, it doesn’t help to identify areas where you are performing especially well or badly. Second, the longer the gap between touchpoint and feedback, the more chance there is that the customer will interact with another touchpoint, again clouding the results. Third, and perhaps most important of all, immediate feedback gives you a fighting chance of nipping a bad experience in the bud. In fact, research has shown that instant feedback leads, on average, to a 27% increase in customer satisfaction scores and an almost 90% success rate in recovering disappointed customers – preventing them from becoming brand detractors. Real time feedback solutions Fortunately, there are various technological solutions to the problem of gathering instant feedback. Automated engagement systems can now interact with customers immediately and on the platform of their choice. For example, surveys or ratings snippets can be presented by email, Interactive Voice Response, credit card machine, QRcode, SMS message, website form, mobile app and social media message. The most sophisticated systems also include real-time data analysis and the capacity to display feedback in a meaningful way on a user-friendly dashboard, even on mobile devices. For an example of how this might work in practice, imagine you have bought a sandwich in a shop on the way into town, and on the wrapper is a QR feedback code. You were disappointed with your purchase or service, scanned the wrapper, and gave the shop a negative feedback rating. Your feedback is instantly flagged and sent to the store manager’s tablet who is then able to issue an SMS apology and a voucher for another sandwich – all while you are still in easy walking distance of the shop. How would this affect your perception of the company?

Five Frequently Asked Questions About Using Call Monitoring to Improve Performance

Ensuring that your agents are producing successful calls depends on much more than a thorough initial training. Quality management should be ongoing, involving regular training and constantly updated goals. Managers often implement a system of quality assurance using call monitoring to improve performance on a continuous basis. Here are a few frequently asked questions about call monitoring and quality management to get you started on the path to continuous call improvement. How Can I Engage Agents During Call Reviews? Regular team reviews are an essential part of quality management. Sharing good and bad calls to discuss what went wrong and what went right gives the group a glimpse into techniques that work for individuals and areas to improve on. It is also important to provide one-on-one monitoring with an agent and a manger after a call. This is an excellent way to give personalized attention and reinforce what managers look for when reviewing calls. Whether you are performing a group or individual evaluation, a few steps will further engage agents in the call reviews: Ask the agents to think of calls that would be helpful to review. Avoid pointing out every issue yourself during a call review. Let the agents find the mistakes and positive aspects of each call. This keeps the agents actively listening and thinking about quality. It also avoids the feeling of a management lecture. Add customer feedback into the discussion. How Do I Interest Agents in the Monitoring Process? Let the agents help decide quality measures you use during call monitoring. Involving agents in quality assurance helps them understand the process behind call monitoring and become invested in it. The focus should be on exceeding customer expectations and monitoring from a customer perspective. Asking agents to take a customer’s point of view creates better quality measures. It also reinforces the concept of customer respect and empathy. How Should I Schedule Call Monitoring? Make sure that you have a predictable schedule for coaching: Rotate listening and coaching through the teams on a weekly basis. Make sure each agent has recent feedback and is anticipating and working toward the next established review. Plan your staffing so that at least one agent at all times can be off of the phone and experiencing quality monitoring. How Can I Keep Agents From Returning to Bad Habits? Before a coaching session ends, make sure every agent agrees with the goals set during the session. Get verbal confirmation that each individual is 100 percent behind every goal. Monitoring and training should include clear goals and extend beyond listening to calls for lasting effects: Ask top performers what is working for them. Team up good performers and less successful agents. Do not end the session if anyone is wavering or seems unsure of goals. How Can I Reinforce Good Habits? Make sure to mention the positive to each agent during call monitoring. Immediate concerns tend to focus on negative aspects of an agent’s performance, but starting with a positive comment reinforces quality work, creates an incentive to continue good habits and opens an agent to your less positive feedback. Call monitoring is a powerful tool for improvement. Involving agents in the review process and in creating quality measurements gets them invested in monitoring and provides them with methods to improve performance. Continuous quality improvement starts with call monitoring, helpful reviews and reinforcement of excellent work.

Top Reasons You Haven’t Added Live Chat to Your Website

Businesses and educational institutions alike have taken to the internet to build their presence and drive customers to their doors, all in an effort to bring in additional revenue in a cost-effective manner. However, many website visitors feel disconnected from help when they have questions. A phone call can involve long hold times and transfers, while email can take days for a response, with several exchanges required to reach a resolution. More and more, consumers want instant, accurate answers to their questions and concerns. Those same consumers tend to prefer to do business with someone who can provide fast, accurate answers as soon as they have questions. Live chat enabled websites allow businesses to provide quick, convenient responses in a way that also positively impact the bottom line. I have a store, a website, a Facebook page, an 800 number, and email. Isn’t that enough? Actually, no. In your store, you have sales and service personnel to assist the customer and make a sale. You have people who answer the phone and email, assist the customer, and make more sales. Hopefully, you also have someone monitoring your company Facebook page responding to customer comments in order to protect your brand, help your customers and increase sales. A recent Forrester study showed a 19% increase in Average Order Value for a company offering chat-assisted sales versus the typical ecommerce transaction. So, if you have a website, wouldn’t you also want to provide a way for consumers to ask for assistance in completing a sale? You wouldn’t open a store without salespeople, would you? It’s not really that important to MY customers, is it? Many businesses see increased interest in chat, but believe their customers will always prefer to talk to a live person. It is important to meet with your clients where and when they want to talk with you, on the communication channel that best meets their needs of the moment. When a customer is on your website, on the cusp of a purchase decision, the ability to respond to their questions and immediately remove any barriers is crucial to your brand and your ability to make the sale while improving your customer’s overall satisfaction. According to a July 2012 study by Boldchat, two-thirds of online consumers have engaged in a live chat, up from 50% in 2009. After experiencing chat, most consumers prefer sites that have it available over those that do not. Live and proactive chat are effective tools that provide assistance with online ordering, technical support, enrollment, service, appointment setting, retail banking and much more. It’s all about providing timely and reliable customer service, increasing sales and building loyalty. Only a few of my competitors seem to be using it, so why should I worry about it? A recent survey by The E-tailing Group indicated 47% of online retailers surveyed were using live chat (up from 43% in 2010), and a growing portion were moving to proactive chat (21% in 2012, up from 12% in 2011). “Someone was visiting our site and asked me to tell him what we did better than our competitors. I asked in return “Were you able to chat with any of them today online?”. He said “no :)”, signed up, and paid for our service that day. :)” – Josh Ledgard, KickoffLabs.com, 2011 I was bombarded with pop-up chat invitations on a website I visited once (and only once). I don’t want that for my website. It would anger my customers and hurt my brand. Any company with a site with that problem today should listen closely to the voice of their customers and take action to improve their processes. A properly implemented chat tool works well for almost any brand. The key lies in preparing a plan with clearly defined goals, and using the right rules to target your invitations to the most valuable potential customers based on THEIR behavior on YOUR website. That means reviewing performance and tweaking rules to reduce intrusiveness and increase effectiveness should be an on-going part of your business processes. The immediate help provided by a well-tuned proactive chat platform and well-trained agents has proven to increase order completions by as much as 18%. This way you avoid angering your customers, reduce unprofitable communications, and meet the right customer in the right place at the right time (when they actually want your help AND are ready to spend). From a marketing perspective, there just doesn’t seem to be any added value to spending on chat. So, what’s the point? With chat, you have the ability to read chat transcripts in real time allowing you to gather actionable data for analyzing. Chat rules and related web analytics allow an unprecedented opportunity to gather a tremendous amount of information about your customers so that you can most effectively bend your efforts to high-value customers based on historical and current website behaviors. I am not confident chat can really reduce abandoned shopping carts on my website. Chat provides your online customers with an expert to talk to, right away. It allows your agent to answer customer questions and increase their comfort level to shorten the sales cycle. Your agent can do competitor comparisons and price-matching FOR the customer, allowing you the opportunity to proactively get the sale through enhanced customer care, discounts, free S&H, without allowing the customer to leave and then hoping they come back. I’m not too sure about how to manage this. Can my phone agents do chat as well? Yes, but it may come as no surprise that the skill sets for voice and chat agents are quite different. Rather than stretching voice agents to do double duty, it is usually better to use dedicated chat agents with the proper skills and appropriate training. You may want to start small and let the traffic dictate your growth. I don’t have time for all this. It sounds complicated. There are reliable contact centers who can guide you to a straightforward evaluation of your needs and

Improving the Customer Experience in Your Call Center Means Looking at the Whole Picture

Quality assurance in the call center is a critical piece to success. It can help to improve each customer experience, improve efficiency and give productivity a robust boost. In order to make improvements, managers must stop trying to randomly pinpoint and repair problems. Call centers tend to thrive when a bottom-up method is used to address issues in an organized fashion. Measurement Really Does Matter Numbers are a critical part of call center quality measurement and monitoring. In fact, 85% of QA leaders hold the belief that a successful call center must find ways to evaluate how agents are performing as well as quantify if training requirements are being followed. The sheer volume of data that is collected in order to measure your call center’s success can be overwhelming. Lagging technology frequently leaves quality assurance managers frantically working to analyze large batches of metadata in order to make sense of the numbers. A reliable call center monitoring solution that provides reliable analytics and insights is the first step to freeing up time so these same managers can instead work on identifying problems and helping the team come up with effective solutions. A Bottom-Up Look at The Whole Structure No matter what type of industry a call center supports, each goes through the same phases of growing and building over time. When quality assurance managers take time to look at key call center metrics and indicators, while also considering these phases, they are more capable of identifying key performance indicators and setting long term goals. In essence, it is critically important to look at the “whole building” in order to see where the problems may be. Start With a Solid Foundation Some may think that focusing time and energy on the basics of operational quality assurance is a waste of time. In truth, making sure that certain goals are being met is helping to set a strong foundation that can be built on. Some of these goals include: Being able to recognize poor performers. Track how call center agents are progressing. Hit service delivery goals consistently. Track if procedures and processes are being handled correctly. While it is ok to take a group bow once these markers are being consistently met, remember that this type of quality assurance is only the foundation and must be added upon for maximum effectiveness. Build the Supporting Walls Once the strong foundation of your call center is up and running, it is time to build the theoretical supporting walls. To do this, you must identify some goals that have more foresight and flexibility. This type of goal is rarely set in stone. Instead, they tend to shift and change as the call center develops. Your team of managers may decide that some of this type of goal should include: Identifying the reasons for poor customer service Finding ways to improve customer retention rates Institute accurate reporting of trends Lower staff turnover Pinpoint places where retraining might help By taking a closer look at this type of quality assurance goal, managers and staff alike can begin to more fully understand the type of experience each customer is having. When call center agents are encouraged to give themselves a score on each call, they will be able to see and mentally review how successful they have been at achieving the goals. The collected data can then be used by quality assurance leaders in retraining efforts. By taking ownership of the metrics of each call, agent retention tends to increase along with performance. Create an Impenetrable Roof It may seem simple to complete this process by sticking rigidly to current quality assurance goals and practices. However, doing so simply keeps the call center status quo going. In order to attach an impenetrable roof to the foundation and walls you have worked to build, a company must be willing to change current practices, though it may not be an easy process. This type of large-scale changes must come from upper management and employees must be a part of helping the shift happen. Employees that are forced toward such changes in the company are much less effective when compared those who are encouraged to be part of the change. At this step in building the call center, the focus should change from QA scores and begin to look at actionable behaviors such as improved caller loyalty, increased percentage of customers who purchase or increased net promoter scores. In this final step, each employee should be involved in reaching the goals which should cause company culture to shift from one where micromanagement is essential to a more effective environment of listening, offering solutions and respect. This dynamic shift brings with it an overall experience of happier customers and agents which raises your overall ROI. If You Can Describe it, You Can Do It Most call center agents can describe how a perfect call would go, from start to finish. Unfortunately, not every call is the same. Because of this, it is important for agents and management alike to understand that a great customer experience consists of three different parts. These are customer needs, expectations and the need for consistency. When your call center team works together to make sure that each of these customer needs are met, you should see that your team begins to evolve and think differently about quality assurance. When paired with measurable analytics, a call center can, indeed, become exactly what it was meant to be. For more advice on creating a quality assurance team that drives CX or if you would like to learn more about Etech, feel free to contact us at info@etechgs.com. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

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