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Empowering Agents with the Right Tools

Empowering your agents is a continuous process of providing them comprehensive training, resources, motivation, encouragement and the right tools. This practice shows your agents you trust them. Giving them the confidence and tools to find customer solutions will allow them to take that power and deliver on providing a remarkable customer experience. The agent is the first impression the customer will have of your business so this agent’s ability to effectively help the customer could have a much larger impact than what it may first appear. Customer’s satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, has a ripple effect so it is imperative to make sure your agent’s are properly prepared with the right tools. Poor customer experience is normally because of an agent who is not well equipped to meet the customers’ needs. To mitigate this, your agents need the right tools to get the job done well. Here are some necessary tools for your contact center agents:- Automated Caller Identity Pop Up Call center software that provides the agent with the caller information such as name, location, address, phone number, company, etc. plays a huge role in helping the agent start of the interaction with a boost of confidence. Knowing this basic information allows the agent to already have some basis on the customer which makes the building rapport phase more natural. Call Conferencing One of the most agitating events is having your call transferred to another department and essentially having to start the whole process over again. This can be eliminated by call conferencing whereby you connect the other agent who can resolve the issue immediately without transferring the caller. The customer will be much more pleased to have his issue addressed with one simple phone call thus leading towards a positive customer experience. Interactive Voice Response Superior customer service begins the moment a customer makes a call, not when the agent responds. Interactive voice response technology engages the customer in pre-recorded messages that help identify the right agent to handle the customer. For example, if the customer speaks Russian, then he will be routed to an agent who can speak Russian. This saves the time spent in resolving customer issues resulting in a higher customer satisfaction level. It also helps the agent to be proficient in his service delivery because he handles the appropriate customer. Call Monitoring and Whisper Coaching Equipping your Managers or Sales leader with the ability to monitor their agents will drastically help increase your metrics. This practice allows your Managers to actively pick up on key areas of opportunities for their agents and allows them to provide the most accurate and timely feedback to their agents. Another tactic is the manager can train the agent on the job by whisper coaching. This is where the manager guides the agent on how to respond to the customer without the customer hearing it. Both of these practices leads to improved quality assurance and top down customer support. Historic and real time recording An agent answers to so many customer on a daily basis, providing them with historic recording that reminds them of previous interaction with the customer and real time recording of what is ahead of them improves their productivity. On the customers end, they are able to see the number of people ahead of them and the average hold up time. They are both no flying blind but this crucial data helps in managing their expectations. Call Recording The fact of the matter is, managers don’t have the time to monitor all of the interactions handled in a particular day by their agents. The solution to this dilemma is making sure you have all of your interactions recorded. Giving your agents and managers the ability to go and pull particular interactions, will allow your agents and coaches to have specific, one on one coaching opportunities that will result in the most effective coaching time. If a agent realizes that he or she could’ve improved on a particular call or chat, having the option to go and pull that interaction and go over it with their respective coach or manager will allow them to review the interaction and learn for the next time that an opportunity such as that arises. In conclusion, empowered agents will be more creative in their solution thinking, enjoy high levels of job satisfaction, make faster decisions for the customer, and create a remarkable customer experience for your customers. Without these tools, the agents will feel ill-equipped and it will become evident in the interaction with the customer, resulting in a lower customer satisfaction score. As Marissa Mayer at Yahoo quoted, “In technology, it’s the people. Getting the best people, retaining them, nurturing a creative environment and helping to find a way to innovate.”

Developing Strong Loyal Employees

One of the things that I enjoy most about leading Etech Global Services is the fact that I get to work with a group of people who truly enjoy what they do and have a strong sense of loyalty to our organization. I’m often asked by peers in other organizations how it is that Etech has such a consistent and loyal staff and I truly believe it is because of our strong core values as an organization. People like to stick with those who know what they believe and live out that belief system, this is something we strive to do daily. As I sat down to write this article I asked myself, “What are the factors that develop strong company loyalty?” I came across an article that talked about the importance of having strong company values as the primary tool that builds company loyalty. I agree with that 100%. Here at Etech, we have 12 Character Commitments that are the foundation of everything we do as an organization. In 2007, we made the decision to implement and cultivate a leadership culture that is based on the willingness and dedication to making a remarkable difference in the lives of our customers, our people and our communities by serving first. We believe that every person has value and deserves to be included, respected and valued. We also believe that any person can accomplish far more when inspired by a purpose far beyond meeting deadlines and hitting quotas. In addition to having strong core values, it is important that employees feel they have a future at their place of employment. The opportunity to advance is very important in developing company loyalty. No one wants to work in a dead-end job, and when a person feels they are in a dead-end job, that can lead to dissatisfaction and high employee turnover. At Etech, we believe that hiring from within is a great way to build company loyalty. When we see that an employee possesses certain skills, we make every effort to develop those skills. For example, if we see strong leadership skills in an entry-level employee, we offer them the opportunity to take advantage of leadership classes that we offer that are designed to develop future managers. When a young employee sees that his/her manager has confidence in their abilities and is given the opportunity to develop those abilities, that employee begins to develop a sense of ownership and connectedness to the organization that is priceless. Finally, offering perks and good benefits is another means of developing loyalty. When an employee feels that they would have a lot to lose by leaving an organization, they are far more inclined to stay at that organization. At Etech, we believe it is important that a person be able to pay their bills and provide for their families so we offer a very competitive salary and benefits package, along with a 401K. We have events throughout the year that employees and their families can be part of and we also encourage community involvement. Over the years, as I’ve been at Etech, I’ve seen how this aspect of our company culture has been a major factor in building loyalty and a sense of community within our corporate walls. I truly believe that building a strong and loyal staff is the foundation of success for any corporation, large or small. When employees feel that they are truly “part of the family” they are far less likely to want to leave. Sure, we’re all concerned about profits and being successful financially, but developing a staff that is loyal and committed to the success of your organization lays a foundation for success that is beyond measure. This blog entry was written by Matt Rocco, President and Managing Partner of Etech Global Services. If you would like to learn more about Etech and contact center technology and service solutions, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

4 Ideas to Reduce Customer Complaints

If you’ve worked in a call center long enough, you’ll learn that customer complaint are among the least enjoyable to take. While complaints are simply part of the call center experience, there are four ideas you can put to good use to both reduce the number of customer complaints you receive and boost your quality monitoring capabilities. 1. Resolve the Issue on the First Call There are a few things that customers hate more than having to be put on hold, transferred, and made to call back before an issue is fully resolved. While you can’t prevent complaint calls, you can change the way customers feel about calling your company with an issue. Make sure your agents have the skill, authority, and knowledge they need to offer refunds, make promises that can be kept, and make it so customers don’t have to contact your business with the same complaint. 2. Implement the Right System You should also consider implementing a quality assurance system that gathers information on calls to provide you with valuable information you can put to good use improving your call center and your agents. The way QA technology works is it examines keywords used by your agents and callers so you can get a firm understanding of why customers are complaining and why your complaint resolution skills might not be as great as you’d like for them to be. 3. Keep the Lines of Communication Wide Open Not only do your agents need to maintain clear and constant communication with your customers, you also need to ensure your managers and agents can easily communicate with each other. You can take this one step further and see to it that your managers relate to other necessary departments and company personnel to allow them to be better. In addition to implementing quality monitoring solutions to help with this tip, it’s also a good idea to hold meetings to review past complaints, how they were resolved and how they can be better resolved in the future for even better results and happier customers. To make meetings more efficient, it’s a good idea to implement a complaint-logging system. 4. Stay Consistent Your agents should be consistent in their problem-resolution skills. If the same customer calls about two different issues and has two different experiences, that customer might feel you aren’t consistent or aren’t properly training your employees. Again, this is a good reason to hold regular meetings, to make sure your training efforts are the same across the line, and to see if any changes need to be made to your training. Make it so that when your customers have to call with a complaint, they know they’re going to be taken care of by your agents and fellow call center leaders. While you can’t please everyone, there’s most certainly no harm in trying. Put these tips to good use, and don’t hesitate to reach out to us here at Etech if you need more assistance or guidance in your quest to reduce customer complaints. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Leveraging Technology to Measure Customer Experience

Monitoring, measuring and improving the customer experience is a high priority for most forward-thinking businesses in this day and age. Company owners are largely aware that they should be gathering feedback at various ‘touchpoints’ along a customer’s journey and many do have programs in place to capture the data, either to get an overall rating of customer satisfaction levels or to evaluate experience at each of the touchpoints in turn. However, many businesses are failing to make the most of the technology available to them, gathering only a tiny fraction of the available data, using valuable manual resources to process and analyze the data they do get and presenting the findings in an incomplete or unnecessarily complicated way. By leveraging the latest customer experience technology, businesses can now streamline all areas of the above process: Capturing Customer Experience The first task in measuring customer experience is to capture feedback, and many businesses use surveys and questionnaires to achieve this. However, a lot of data is missed by ignoring sources of unsolicited feedback (e.g. on forums, blogs, social media sites and review pages), and not contacting customers fast enough or by using their preferred platform. For example, a customer who has just made an order for a service using their mobile phone is less likely to respond to an email survey a week later than they are to an SMS survey within the hour. In addition, they are less likely to have rationalized their feedback based on prior or more recent experiences. Social media monitoring and advanced survey platforms are just two forms of technology businesses need to be looking into right now. Integration and Analysis Once sufficient data has been collected, this needs to be collated and analyzed to produce predictive patterns that can inform future business development. The main challenge companies face here is with sampling and use of resources. Incomplete or ‘dirty’ samples (where information has been recorded incorrectly) can skew results, while manual data integration and analysis ties up staff who could be employed doing other things. By implementing automated data integration technology with sample control and cleaning functions can lead to more accuracy and efficiency, and can also avoid flaws such as ‘over surveying’ individual customers. Visual Summaries Finally, there is little use in collecting reams of data and crunching the numbers at supersonic speeds if the reporting at the end of it makes little sense to anyone, especially those in charge of directing business policy. Again, technology can come to the rescue, with programs specialized in enterprise-wide visual access that can be user-access controlled. In this way, data can be summarized and presented in the most appropriate way for the department viewing it. Power and Simplicity – for Every Business Perhaps the greatest news of all is that the kind of technology mentioned above is no longer only within the price range of large, cash-rich corporations. The advance of open source technology and a competitive marketplace has made leveraging technology easier and more affordable than ever. Once the powerful, up-to-date customer experience technology is in place, you will find that employees who had previously been bogged down in data processing and compiling reports can be redeployed to other parts of the business or trained to interpreting patterns in the numbers and to help shape company strategy. Ultimately, everybody in the business, from senior directors to customer-facing agents, will experience more clarity about how the business is performing in the eyes of its customers.

Lead Qualification: An Important Step in a Successful Sales Process

“Etech Global Services is a leading provider of intelligent sales, service and technology solutions specializing in inbound and outbound voice and live chat. For over a decade, we have been helping companies cost effectively acquire new customers and maximize profits by servicing and growing existing customers.” The paragraph above is the very first paragraph on the homepage of Etech’s website. This is a very good overview of what we do as a company and the broad range of services we provide. However, today I’d like to focus on one very specific aspect of our services which is Lead Qualification. What is Lead Qualification anyway? Well, according to the Dictionary of Marketing Terms, lead qualification is the marketing activity focused on evaluating the readiness, willingness and ability of a lead to buy. At Etech, we take Lead Qualification very seriously since a qualified lead is the first step in closing that sale. We partner with our clients in order to gain a deep understanding of their value proposition and then we basically become an extension of their sales force and an active participant within their organization. Our on-shore, off-shore and near shore locations allow us to offer 24/7/365 support to our clients. Our services cover every time zone and we support both English and Spanish speaking customers. Our lead qualification service spans many communication channels including voice, live chat, email and text messaging. Additionally, our lead qualification program includes a dedicated account manager and analytics team. With this, we also overlay our Quality Assurance services to ensure potential customers have the highest quality experience possible. During the process, we also gather critical business intelligence data to help management understand what is resonating with their audience and where they need to improve. All of the data is housed in a sophisticated CRM database and our clients have full access to their data at all times. Some of our common lead qualification services include: Appointment Setting Event Registrations Demo Setting and Presentations Lead Nurturing Sales Prospecting Customer Database Cleansing Phone Surveys Our Lead Qualification process has yielded very positive results for our clients. They have seen: 105% Increase in Lead Volume 85% Reduction in Cost Per Lead 96% Customer Satisfaction 103% Increase in Sales Team Retention If you find that Lead Qualification is one aspect of your business that is falling through the cracks, contact us at Etech Global Services. We will work closely with you to determine your specific needs and then implement the appropriate steps to strengthen your lead qualification, turning leads into happy customers. This Blog entry was written by Matt Rocco, President and Managing Partner of Etech Global Services. If you would like to learn more about Etech and contact center technology and service solutions, please contact at info@etechgs.com.

Stop Guessing and Start Acting With Artificial Intelligence

It seems that more and more everyday processes and jobs are starting to include a measure of automation, where there’s less for flesh-and-blood humans to do a specific task to be completed. That’s most certainly become apparent when it comes to call centers. With that in mind, you should know there’s much to be gained when you harness the power of AI and people rather than let it become a source of anxiety. Specifically, it’s your quality monitoring solution that can become better and more efficient than you’ve ever imagined when coupled with modern AI capabilities. Make the Most of the Data You Already Have on Hand What’s the use of having mountains of data if you aren’t sure of how to put it to good use? Thankfully, AI can help call center managers make sense of all the data they have at their disposal, making it easier for managers and their call center teams to know how to take the best care of their customers and their individual needs. Some specific ways AI organizes big data is helping call centers better deal with a variety of customers, better-anticipating customer pain points, making solid predictions and finding new opportunities for you and your agents. Now all the data you have on hand is becoming useful rather than just taking up space. Following are four ways in which AI has reshaped the customer (and representative) experience with quality monitoring. 1. Better Representative Satisfaction While it’s good to use the same method to onboard all your new call center representatives, it’s even better to onboard them with new methods that can make them better at their jobs and feel confident while helping callers. Better training is one advantage of implementing AI with your current call center capabilities. In addition to training new employees, AI is also great for your current and more experienced representatives. For instance, AI can use voice analytics to show your agents areas of improvement depending on their overall delivery, use of your call center script and use of phrases and sentence structure. This way, you can step into a situation in real time before things start to unravel and you run the risk of losing a customer or your agent having a negative interaction. With AI doing more of the heavy and complex lifting, you and your quality assurance team have time and resources freed up for other professional pursuits. This means you can take care of projects and tasks that have been pushed to the curb because you were consumed with analyzing calls and customers interactions for ways you could make your call center better and your agents more capable at their jobs. Your QA team is sure to appreciate this, as it means working on something new, which might be just the thing they need to keep from feeling bored, unmotivated or generally unsatisfied in the workplace. When it comes to quality monitoring, you’ve got to think just as much about the quality your call center representatives enjoy as you do the overall quality your target audience enjoys. Besides, your call center workforce plays a monumental part in the overall satisfaction of your customers. Going back to the point about employee satisfaction touched on above, the insight and information AI provides for your agents allows them to perform their jobs better, which is sure to maximize their overall satisfaction, which benefits everyone involved. More satisfied agents equals happier agents equals better performance. It’s a never-ending cycle of positive results, so make sure you’re doing your part to keep the good times going long and strong. 2. A More Efficient Experience for Everyone Something else to keep in mind with it comes to AI and quality monitoring solutions is the fact that AI can eliminate a lot of the riffraff that keeps customers from having the best customer experience. This means fewer useless menus for shoppers and customers to work through to obtain answers or useful information. AI can also keep an eye on what individual customers search for to better anticipate their needs and questions, saving everyone time and energy. After your agents have worked at your call center for a while, they become used to certain questions and customer interactions. Rather than having your representatives handle “ground-level” customer interactions, which might not be the best use of their time and skills, you can instead have chatbots tackle the task. What’s so great about AI is that it learns on the go, allowing it to become more intelligent and capable over time, which benefits you just as much as the customer. Just like with your QA department, this allows your representatives more time for other projects and professional pursuits. And just like with your QA department, this freedom can lead to better job satisfaction without your overall quality taking a hit. 3. More Satisfied Customers There are times when customers won’t always come forward with a problem or voice their concerns, choosing to instead let the situation, and the opportunity it presents, fall to the curb because they feel it’s not important. This sometimes happens because customers know yours isn’t the only company specializing in your specific services or products. Rather than let shoppers silently abandon your business, AI can instead give you a concrete idea of just how pleased your customers are with your company using the same voice analytic software used to help your call center representatives become more adept at their jobs. This information gives you the opportunity to address unspoken grievances or annoyances and keep your current customers right where they are rather than letting them go to your competition and wonder why. While AI is combing through all that big data, it can also provide you with detailed information regarding your customers’ shopping patterns and preferences. This is possible by studying individual browsing patterns, what the customer has bought in the past and which specific pages the customer has visited before. This means you have targeted marketing and advertising opportunities

4 Tips to Help You Become Great at Email Communication

An email has become the lifeline in business communication. Billions of emails are sent daily from managers to employees, from sales representatives to customers, and between friends and family. It is an effective way of communication that has seen tremendous growth in the way we communicate with each other; it is faster, cheaper, and keeps records of conversations. However, there is a danger to watch out for as you continue to utilize emails. You may be sending out the wrong message if you lack email etiquette. Recently, I had a not-so-pleasing encounter, an official email was sent out, and soon after notifications of new emails kept popping up. The content of the incoming emails will shock you. “Noted” “Thank you for the information” “Well received” “Congrats” You guessed it right, they were all hitting “reply to all”. It is an awesome function when it comes to passing important information to many people at once, but needs some special rules for it to maintain its power. Here are some tips that will help you use your emails better, especially the reply to all function, they did help us:- Consider who needs the information Just as you think carefully when typing the recipient of your new email, do the same before clicking the “reply”, reply to all” or “forward” button. Who really needs your response, is it the sender of the message or the entire team? For example, if the email comes from your immediate manager and copied is the Vice President, you need to reply to all. However, if it comes from your manager to all the staff members, you simply click reply. Most often, the people copied on the email do not need your response and it applies to you, you do not need their response. Be diligent by first understanding the purpose of the email and then your right response and recipient. Choose your words wisely Remember that the internet never forgets when responding to mass emails. Even if the sender is your new best friend forever, you should choose your words wisely and carefully. You have a choice of replying to him only and you can crack any joke you want, but if you are replying to all, you must maintain language etiquette. For example, using the above official email sent, one of the responses was “I thought you mentioned this yesterday night, or was it just my drunk head hearing stuff?” and then the person hits “reply to all”. It was not everybody’s business whether you knew and talked about it before, but you have made it public and probably embarrassed the email sender. Maintain professionalism in your email responses. Be helpful There are emails in which your input or suggestion is required; it is prudent to be helpful. For example, a mass email seeking advice on a particular client account that has some serious problems reaches your inbox. What should your response be? Under no circumstances should you shoot the question back to the sender that is not helpful. If you want more information to make an informed decision, reply to the sender only asking for it. Replying to all with useful information saves your colleagues time in thinking about a solution that you already have, and they can make it better. Do not add more people It is rude to add more people to an email thread that they were not included in the first place. What message does it send to the sender and added recipient? If you feel a person should be included in that conversation, reply to the sender asking them to add them or their reasons for not including them. In conclusion, these four tips, considering who needs the information, wisely choosing your words, being helpful, and not adding more people to the thread will help you in dealing with mass email communication. Your email etiquette reflects on your personal character, which can either build or sabotage your reputation. This blog was written by Veronica Chimney, Vice President of Human Resources for Etech Global Services. If you would like to learn more about Etech and how to develop a socially enabled call center, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

How to Identify the Right Offshore Contact Center

Any business large or small that deals with a high volume of customers is bound to receive a constant flow of questions and enquiries. While your in house employees can generally handle the questions with ease, this will take up a significant amount of time and focus off of the core business activities. Utilizing a call center offers you an opportunity to outsource these processes to allow your business to keep running at a smooth and efficient manner. An offshore call center is an effective solution that acts as an extension to your business. Some of the most common benefits you will notice right away are: It is cost effective compared to having a fully-fledged in-house customer service department. They bring in expertise and experience in providing superior customer experiences. There are options such as Inbound, Outbound, or a mixture of channel Call Center’s that can specifically meet your needs. It saves you time and money from virtually every aspect. Training, hiring, production, etc. With the above benefits in mind, the next step is selecting one that will compliment your business. Here is list of factors to consider as you make that important business decision:- Location Most Contact Center companies nowadays have locations around the globe. You will hear terms such as Onshore, Nearshore, Offshore and descriptions of that sort. This is something that will need to be evaluated before you officially start “looking” for a partner in a Contact Center. While most Offshore or Nearshore companies have much lower rates than that what you would find Onshore, you may want to look a little deeper into issues such as poor government infrastructure as this could affect your call center’s quality of service in the long run. The other things to look into include the economy strength, exchange rate, environmental issues and culture. Call center specialization As you can imagine, there are numerous different types of call centers with very diverse specialties. It is imperative that the partner you ultimately select have a proven track record in performing the specific task or service that you are looking to outsource. For instance, if you are looking to outsource your Customer Service department and the Contact Center partner you have chosen has never handled this type of work, than you may see the negative side effects in your campaign’s performance. Language/Accent A growing concern/issue we are seeing with companies placing their work offshore is the feedback from our customers on the agent’s language or accent “barrier.” One of the most important aspects you need to make clear from the start to your offshore partner is that the quality of the agents who will be representing your brand and company be up to your standards. As the agent answering the phone or reaching out to a potential customer is essentially an extension of your brand, it is imperative that that agent sound and behave in a way that would make your company and customers proud. Company Information Security As always, security has to be an area of importance when selecting a partner. Before making the final decision, expect to dedicate a good majority of your time to ensuring that the partner’s IT security is in place and monitored, as these agents and your partner will most likely have access to vital company information. Flexibility The Contact Center industry is constantly evolving. Business processes and demands keep changing. Your partner of choice should have the flexibility to meet and grow with these changes as they are presented. As your business continues to evolve, you should expect the same from your Contact Center partner. Finding a partner who is willing and dedicated to making your process as seamless as possible is the ultimate goal. Management Communication The organizational communication structure of your chosen partner is another key area that needs to be evaluated. As this Contact Center and their management team will be handling your customers directly, you need to make sure that if there is ever an issue or if you want to ask a question about the operations, you aren’t going to be going through five different people before you get your answer. A partner with a clearly defined, effective, communication flow demonstrates that they are organized and experienced in handling issues in the way they need to be handled. Reliability In conclusion, the choice of outsourcing a part of your business to an Offshore Contact Center is a huge decision. These seven factors: location, specialization, accent, information security, flexibility, management communication, and reliability are just scraping the surface. I encourage you to dig deeper into the company history to make a wise decision and push your company forward. The right contact center can be a valuable asset to your business. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

How Can you Focus on What Customers Want?

Focusing on what your customers want from you as a business is the cornerstone for any successful venture, from the smallest corner shop up to the largest multinational corporation. After all, without customers you have no business! Even if you started your business as a way to make a positive difference in the world, you will soon run out of resources if your customers aren’t happy with what you are supplying. Being really in tune with your occasional customers’ needs is also a great way to turn them into loyal brand advocates – worth five to seven times as much as one-time buyers (depending on the source you read). That answers the question of why you should be focusing on your customers’ needs but this article is about the ‘hows’. Don’t reinvent the wheel Start your quest for information with your closest competitors; after all, their target market is likely to overlap considerably with yours. Also compare your products and services with those offered by industry leaders. Use the ‘four Ps’ of marketing as a measuring stick. In other words, are these businesses successful because they offer: The right product At the right price In the right place Using the right type of promotion? It could be that you’re doing almost everything right but you’re not promoting yourself through the right channels, or you might be selling similar products at a price that’s too high or too low. After your competitor research you should have at least identified some areas which are ripe for improvement. But unless you get some actual data to work with, you are still shooting in the dark. You need to start asking some questions. Surveys and focus groups The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as: ‘the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” Market research is the activity that focuses on the first element of that list: identification. Two key tools for effective market research include surveys (online or offline) and focus groups. These can work well in tandem, with surveys used to gather the raw numbers for an overview of a market’s needs and focus groups set up to gather more qualitative information. For example, if you are a sportswear manufacturer entering a new town or city you might send a survey to your target market asking which sports they participate in and watch. If you identify that sailing is big in the area, you could follow this up with a focus group aimed at the sailing community. Focus groups can be as simple as booking a venue, organizing some light refreshments and asking a set of open questions to generate in-depth discussion. A skilled facilitator will maintain the focus of the group while exploring interesting avenues of discussion. Putting market research to work Once your customers’ current wants and needs have been identified, a clear and measurable market strategy can be drawn up, again focusing on the 4 Ps of product, price, place and promotion. Measurable aims (such as increasing market share by 2% or competing in the local sailing wear market by the end of the year) should be drawn up so that results can be analyzed and evaluated. Evaluation and renewing the cycle Finding out what your customers want is a dynamic process since trends, new technologies and social and economic conditions cause priorities to change. Your marketing strategy needs to be cyclical ,with customers given the opportunity to feed back on your performance, and that data used as part of the next round of market research. The more quickly you can react to changes in the needs and wants of your customers, the more likely it is you will start to anticipate the market and stay one step ahead of your competitors.

Empowering through Servant Leadership

The dramatic globalization of industry and the rapid enhancement of technology have changed today’s business environment and will continue to do so. In today’s fast paced global market, businesses are called to move more rapidly than ever before while doing even more with less. While globalization and technology are the drivers behind the change, I firmly believe that the only way to achieve and sustain success is through the empowerment of people. Empowering people is a great concept, but what are some steps we can do at Etech to make this happen. Here are some ideas that servant leaders embrace! Share Power. At team meetings and team huddles, give the lead to your team members, allow them to facilitate, brain storm and make decisions. Encourage and shepherd them through the process. Seek feedback. Ask your team members how you are doing as a leader. Listen to what they say and be open to change. Focus everyone on pleasing the customer. Turn their attention outward, to the market, rather than inward at the boss. This points everyone’s focus toward the same goals and helps to produce better results. Involve your team in embracing change. Identify the changes impacting your team; engage your team members in developing strategy and implementing the action plan. Serve, don’t dominate your team! Don’t try to win by intimidation. Define leadership in terms of creating environments for success for everyone — you included. Break down silos. Identify areas where territoriality is getting in the way; find strategies to engage others in ways to foster cooperation. Lead and serve by example! Be the change. If you ask others to adapt but are unwilling to change your own ways, how effective do you think you will be? Show humility. By admitting when you are wrong and demonstrating to your team how to learn from these moments, you create an environment of accountability and continual learning. What we learn from mistakes can be an incredible source of intellectual capital! Celebrate and value the team! Share the credit and spread the praise—emphasize that “we are a team and we are all in this together.” Servant leaders are intentional in finding ways to motivate and inspire others by empowering them.

Employee Empowerment: The Secret to Encouraging Team Members

A team is only as good as its leader, and that’s most certainly true when it comes to call center employees. Etech is here to show you the intersection between employee development and team encouragement, mainly because both are inextricably linked to one another. Learn how to lead by example to bring out the best in your team and to help them help themselves become more adept at their jobs. Why Leaders Should Lead by Example Employee empowerment and satisfaction are connected to the overall satisfaction of your customers. Think about it: if your employees are happy and satisfied with their jobs, that happiness is bound to spill over into their interactions with customers. When employees are dissatisfied, customers are likely to pick up on that and respond accordingly. Much like you’re attracted to happy people and repelled by negative individuals, the same applies to companies and their employees. One of the best ways to empower employees is to lead by example. When your call center employees see you putting company practices and their suggestions into action, they witness the results first hand and have a goal to strive towards. Whatever advice you offer your employees, make sure you can provide firsthand experience on how effective that advice is. Just like customers are more likely to buy something after a demonstration, employees are more likely to take your advice to heart when they know the outcome of following that advice. How to Boost Employee Motivation To motivate employees and help them with personal development at the same time, there are a few strategies you can put to good use. The first is to ensure your employees can perform their job per the latest techniques. While it’s great to have several decades of experience in the industry, it doesn’t mean as much if that experience is with outdated techniques. Offer mentorship opportunities for employees who want to cultivate their skills in ways that aren’t always easy or possible in standard training scenarios. For instance, some employees might want to become leaders, and your experience will be invaluable in this regard. For some employees, their work performance suffers when their minds aren’t being stimulated or challenged, which can happen when they perform the same task day in and day out. This is when cross-training can be a great asset to both leaders and employees. Employees get the opportunity to see how other departments of the company work and expand their skills, and the change of scenery could be just what they need to keep from taking their talents elsewhere. Another way to keep employees motivated is to have them set goals for themselves. Doing so gives them something to focus on at work, provides them with the chance to better understand their professional capabilities and can relieve them of some of the monotony of the standard workweek. Just make sure the goals are realistic. Employee encouragement is great personal development for your team and for you as a leader. Use the above tips to motivate your employees and help unleash their potential. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

CALL CENTER METRICS: What are they and how do we measure them?

In the Call Center or Contact center world, there are a number of details that we monitor that help us to know how we’re doing. The industry term that we call these details is Metrics and as time and technology has progressed the number of metrics that we measure has progressed as well. While the early years of call center metrics tended to focus on efficiency, in more recent years, we have become much more concerned with quality. There are numerous metrics that can be measured, but I’d like to look at the top five. Quality Scores: These are probably the most important metric because they can provide a great overview for the call center as well as individual agents. We can look at the overall caller experience as well as the conversations the agents are having on their phones. Quality scores are typically measured between 5 and 10 calls per agent per month. First Call Resolution (FCR): This metric can also be known as “First Contact Resolution.” Basically FCR allows contact centers to see how many times a customer needs to call a company in order to get a problem resolved. While Quality scores measure from the Call Center perspective, FCR allows us to measure from the customer’s perspective. We can all relate to this, for each of us has, at one time or another, had a frustrating customer service issue that took a while to resolve. Believe me, call centers like to see high numbers on this metric; high numbers mean that issues are being resolved quickly and customers are not having to call over and over regarding the same issue. Sometimes this particular metric can be a bit murky in that often a customer may call within a seven day period about different issues. Here are some of the ways we measure FCR: Calls are monitored to determine if the agent can give a satisfactory answer the first time. Monitoring the number of callers that call back within a 7 day period. Monitoring the calling party number within a set period Monitoring the reason for call Using a post-call IVR survey Looking at the quality of answer and positiveness measured by a third party. Most importantly a call center must look at some of the benefits it can reap Significant reduction in the call volume Reduction in the operational cost Reduce Cost of complaint call Identification of customer problems Customer Satisfaction: The old favorite amongst call centers. Basically, this tells us if our customers are happy with the service they received from our agents. A simple way to improve this metric is to cultivate the culture in your call center and encourage the agents to always put the customer at the heart of your decision, be focused on problem solving and just not the process and you will see customer satisfaction growing. Capture the customer feedback, use them to identify opportunities within the call center and improve agents. This metric can be easily measured through an IVR survey, follow-up e-mail survey or mobile surveys. Service Level: While some in the call center industry may not see this as one of the top five, I certainly do. It was one of the very first metrics to be developed and it looks at the percentage of calls that are answered within a given time. For example: 80% of the calls are answered within 20 seconds or 95% of the calls are answered within 15 seconds. While this metric does measure efficiency, from the customer’s perspective, not having to sit on-hold for several minutes weighs heavily when it comes to offering their feedback. There can be many reasons that impacts the services levels such as longer call length, fluctuations in call volume, schedule adherence, inaccurate forecast and exception time. Average Handling Time: This metric is an efficiency metric looking at the total amount of time taken to handle a call. This includes talk-time, on-hold time and wrap-up. Some of the customers want low AHT and some don’t. Here are some of the questions you must ask yourself before you decide. What are the benefits of having low AHT? Do your customers want you to have low AHT? Are your agents ready to reduce AHT? As I mentioned above, there are many more metrics that can be measured, but these listed tend to be first and foremost among call centers and they have a way of helping call centers get “back to basics” so to speak when it comes to providing superior customer service. This blog has been written by Etech’s Matt Rocco, President and Managing Member. If you would like to learn more about Etech and our contact center technology and service solutions, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

How to measure call center agent execution exclusively?

Call centers have turned into the fast developing business in various nations due to the requirement for the mass hiring of employees. For instance, many outsourcing companies suit upwards of two hundred representatives in one center. One may state this is all because of its outsourcing nature wherein the call center is excited in taking care of the request of its clients branching out to various aspects and levels of businesses of all sizes. It is troublesome, if not impossible, to reasonably score and measures individual call center agents in light of the call center agent’s performance. It is additionally not a good thought because there is a high danger of compensating underperformers and demotivating the top performers. Further, if the call center is understaffed or not staffed properly for the target service level – both elements absolutely out of the call center agent’s control – the service level won’t be met. Call center measurements are best when they are connected to drive individual performance to help accomplish a common objective. An illustration would be that a call center agent can’t control service level, yet he or she can manage their timetable adherence, which directly adds to the group’s ability to meet process service levels. Call quality and scheduled adherence are both great metric for measuring individual employee performance. Call centers agent performers have their own order of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that managers can use to decide the achievement of their operations. Below we will audit the common call center KPIs. Keep in mind, though, that the key management issue is not what these numbers are, but instead what you do with them. Call Center KPIs There are various KPIs that a call center can oversee. Recorded below are a portion of the regular ones, with short descriptions. Time to Answer To what extent does it take for an agent to answer an incoming call? Abandon Rate What percentages of the calls are lost before they can be answered? Call Handling Time To what extent does it takes the agent to complete the call? First Call Resolution What rates of calls are resolved in a single call? Transfer Rate What rate of calls must be transferred to another person to complete? Idle Time What amount of time does an agent spend after the completion of a call to complete the business from that call? Hold Time What amount of time does the agent keep the caller on hold during the call? Call Center Agent KPI Notwithstanding, the metrics above, which can be precisely measured by an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) telephone system, many call centers utilize Quality Monitoring programs to gauge agent performance against fewer objective metrics, for example, the following. Phone Etiquette How did the caller or the observer rate the agent’s conduct or the call? Knowledge and Professionalism How did the caller or the observer rate the agent’s learning of the item or services being offered or the methods to follow to resolve the caller’s issue? Adherence to Procedures How well did the observer decide the agent did in following the script if there is one, or different techniques determined by the company for dealing with calls and callers? A call center resembles any other business in the sense that it quantifies its performance the way traditional businesses measure theirs. For the most part, performance measures include the comparison of cost against revenues. The higher the real profit margin, the more efficient the company should be. On account of call centers, a significant part of the performance assessment will concentrate on cost per call metrics; while in others, in a manufactory company, for instance, product unit cost metrics will be the most applicable. Call centers normally will be exceptionally worried about what amount is spent on calls in comparison to real revenues produced. Per call cost, keeping in mind the end goal to be an effective measure of call center performance, will be made out of phone bills displayed by telecommunication service providers, the cost of equipment, and different services. Amusingly, these costs account for just a little rate of aggregate per call cost. Work costs, which incorporate worker compensation, paid incentives, and advantages account for a powerful 67%, the greatest element influencing profitability or performance proportions. There is no denying the way that benefits are a definitive measure of business performance and call centers, to diminish per call costs and raise their performance levels, need to take a look at their labor costs intently. Call centers are very much aware of this, and this is the reason a considerable lot of them are falling back on outsourcing to the third world and emerging nations. One approach to eliminate labor expenses is to raise labor performance. This implies expanding call center agent time. Increasing the quantity of calls a call center agent makes in an hour or day can create more business and ought to diminish the rate of work costs to per call cost. This plan is a continuous practice in some call centers. Some even put daily quotas to augment time and agent use. Nonetheless, this plan has certain pitfalls and is just a single of many schemes that call centers use on raising performance. One of the disadvantages of keeping up many customers might be low quality of calls, as agents actually would be pressured to make more calls to meet their quotas. However, this can be remedied by steady coaching. Concentrating on the call center agents is a sound strategy of raising general center and individual productivity and enhancing performance, in spite of the fact that, of course, on account of the last mentioned, the nature of calls must be figured. Obviously, the issues postured by per call cost metrics as a technique for measuring call center performance are sufficiently profound to compel call centers to resort to outsourcing in nations where labor expenses are relatively lower. The number of call centers

Human Resource On-Boarding New Employees

How was your first day at work? Were you excited or nervous? Were you warmly welcomed or did you have to find your way around? For most of us, it was somewhat frightening;not knowing what to do, who to talk to or where everything is located. Everyone experiences a frightening first day, including the teams you will be working with. On-boarding an employee is the process by which new hires are adjusted to all social and performance aspects of their jobs quickly and smoothly. They learn the attitudes, knowledge, skills and behaviors required to function effectively within that organization. The market place waits for nobody; it does not care whether you just lost all your employees and need time to recruit new ones. The clock keeps ticking and the competition keeps growing. Proper on-boarding of new hires is vitally important because your success is dependent on their success. Whose duty will it be to see that the orientation goes well? Should it be the immediate supervisor, a colleague, or human resources? The human resource department is likely best suited for this as their key role is talent management. Here are some key practices to keep in mind as you take your new employee through the orientation. Be personal Corporate life can be busy and often the daily amount of paperwork can be over-whelming. However, it is important that this not take priority over integrating a new employee. Take the time to introduce them to the people they will be working with. Perhaps even assign a mentor who can help with the transition. Take advantage of technology to ease the load when possible. Familiarize the people with the corporate structure The new hire might have done their due diligence online and know the organization structure and who the key leaders are, but it’s good to familiarize them with the corporate tree. Show them who is in charge of which department; their name, photo, title and the way information flows. This can help them better navigate in the weeks ahead as they learn with whom they will be interacting. Familiarizing them with the corporate structure, as much as possible, will help them avoid confusion. Keep it interesting and simple Both parties have expectations of the new working relationship. The new employee, while perhaps a bit nervous, is eager to deliver on his promises, while the employer is eager to get the best out of the employee. You can ease the tension by informing the employee ahead of time about the on-boarding schedule, frequently asked questions and other relevant information. This will make them feel welcomed, wanted and excited, enabling them to start strong. Walk with the employee for a longer period While a one-day orientation is great, keep in mind that it takes time for a new employee to grasp everything. Your company has its own culture, benefits, processes and unwritten rules that can only be learned over time. That is why many companies implement a 3-6 month probation period to determine if the new employee will be the right fit for the long haul. These are just a few tips that I have learned along the way. Being personal, familiarizing the employee with everyone, keep a simple interesting model and walking with the employee. A well-received employee will own their roles and responsibilities faster than one who learns things the hard way. Enjoy! This blog was written by Etech’s Chief Operating Officer, Kaylene Eckels. If you would like to learn more about Etech Global Services, please contact us at info@etechgs.com.

How Human Resource Function Positively Influences Performance?

What is Human Resource Management (HRM)? This is a department in an organization which focuses on selecting, overseeing and coordinating individuals who work in it. Call center Human Resource Management manages issues identified with pay, call center agent performance management, organization development, safety, health, benefits, call center agent motivation, training and others. Call center human resource management assumes a fundamental role of overseeing call center agents and the workplace culture and condition. If active, it can contribute enormously to the general organization direction and the achievement of its goals and objectives. Human resources managers work in call centers to support banking, financial services, utilities, retail, and charities to guarantee ideal operational performance, workers engagement, and workplace satisfaction. These call center managers observe efficiency metrics, for example, call volume, resolution time and customer satisfaction, and they work together with directors to make necessary decisions about performance problems and satisfying call center agent’s training needs. Strategy Human resource enhances the organization’s primary concern with its knowledge of how human capital influences organizational. Leaders with expertise in human resource vital management take part in basic corporate decision making that underlies current staffing evaluations and projections for future workforce needs base on business request. Pay Human resource pay specialist creates sensible compensation structures that set organization wages competitive with other organizations in the area, in a similar industry or organizations competing for call center agents with similar skills. They direct extensive wage and salary survey to maintain pay costs in accordance with the organization’s present budgetary status and anticipated income. Benefits Benefits experts can diminish the organization’s expenses associated with turnover, attrition and enlisting substitution workers. They are crucial to the association since they have the right skills needed to negotiate group benefit bundles for call center employees, inside the organization’s financial plan and reliable with economic conditions. They also know about employee benefits which can attract and retain workers. This can lessen the organization’s expenses related to turnover, attrition and employing substitution workers. Safety Employers have a commitment to give safe working conditions. Working environment safety and risks management experts from the human resource area oversee consistency with the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations through maintaining precise work logs and records and creating programs that diminish the number of work environment injuries and fatalities. Working environment safety experts additionally connect with workers in advancing mindfulness and safe treatment of dangerous equipment and hazardous chemicals. Liability Human resource worker relations experts limit the organization’s exposure and liability identified with affirmations of unfair business practices. They recognize, investigate and resolve workplace issues that, left unattended, could go wild and embroil the organization in legal matters relating to federal and state anti-discrimination and harassment laws. Training and Development Human resource training and advancement experts coordinate new call center agent orientation, a fundamental stride in establishing a solid employer-employee relationship. The training and development area of human resource likewise gives training that backs up the organization’s fair business practices and worker development to prepare aiming leaders for supervisory and management functions. Worker Satisfaction Workers relations experts in human resource enable the organization to accomplish superior performance, morale and fulfillment levels all through the workforce, by making ways to strengthen the employer-employee relationship. They regulate employee opinion survey, lead focus groups and look for worker input on occupation fulfillment and ways the employer can maintain good working relationships. Recruitment Human resource recruiters deal with the employment procedure from screening resumes to planning interviews to handling new workers. Regularly, they decide the best strategies for enlisting applicants, including evaluating which applicant tracking systems are most appropriate for the organization’s needs. Selection Human resource experts work in close collaboration with enlisting managers to impact right employing decisions, in accordance with the organization’s workforce needs. They give guidelines to directors who aren’t accustomed to human resource or standard employing procedures to ensure that the organization stretches out offers to appropriate candidates. Compliance Human resource workers make sure the organization agrees to federal-state employment laws. They finish paperwork essential for documenting that the organization’s workers are qualified to work in the state. They likewise screen consistency with relevant laws for organizations that get elected for or receive state government contracts, through maintaining applicant flow logs, written real action plans and disparate impact analysis. These days’ fruitful organizations should be adaptive, resilient and customer focused. Inside such an environment, the adequacy of call center human resource manager is important to business success. Human resource experts build up frameworks for performance advancement, profession succession planning, and call center agent development. This keeps call center agents motivated, happy, personally engaged and adding to organization achievement. Moreover, the call center human resource experts enable the advancement of organizational, culture and atmosphere in which call center agents have the competency, concern, and sense responsibility regarding serving the customers well. Interested to read another Blog with Human Resource Perspective, Click Here.

How Responsible Leaders Achieve Extraordinary Results with Accountability and High Performing Work Environment?

Your team has the skill and the desire to succeed, but they need leadership. As a leader, your job is to shape your call center’s individual employees into a highly effective team that exceeds all expectations. Good leaders know the importance of accountability, it is actually one of Etech’s leadership commitments. Effective leaders know that accountability applies to both themselves and their team, I cannot hold others accountable if I do not hold myself accountable! Here are steps accountable leaders take to develop their teams. Start with A Plan Call centers are fast moving environments. You don’t always have time to stop and untwist a mess that throws off the normal routine. You need a plan to keep processes moving and to help you get back on track when things go askew. Start by establishing a goal for your department that is tangible and measurable. Assess the skills and abilities of your team. Consider strategies that meet your goals. Break those strategies up into smaller steps. Prepare contingencies for inevitable problems. It isn’t enough to imagine a plan. Instead, write your plan down, and make it accessible to everyone. Share your plan with your team, and ask for input. This plan is a tool that you can use to keep yourself accountable to the standards of success that you have set for your department. Refer back to it often. It will help to guide your conversations towards productive outcomes, and it will help to relieve pressure when your team questions your motives or techniques. Be an Inspiration for Your Team Excitement sells. It’s normal to associate selling with the end user or customer, but you also must sell your ideas to your team. It is much easier to get things done when your team members buy into the plan, own the plan! Ask for their input, incorporate their ideas if appropriate. Ask for their commitment. Once the team is committed, implement the plan with enthusiasm & optimism! Follow your own plan. Once you have set a standard, you need to be the first one to adhere to it. Never try to enforce rules that you are not willing to follow yourself. Your employees can see right through duplicity, and it will make it harder for you to secure their cooperation. An accountable leader accepts criticism and is the first to try to improve. Share the success. Job satisfaction is one the reasons employees stay in their careers. When they feel like they have accomplished something, it encourages better performance. Celebrate wins with your team and, give your people the credit they deserve. Get Your Point Across Communication is a critical skill for any effective leader. Great communicators are aware of the signals they send beyond just the words they speak. Your team picks up on more than just what you say. They observe your tone and body language and then make assumptions about your intent. Effective communicators are also great listeners! Speak clearly and directly Avoiding overly complex phrases and technical jargon Use visual presentations in meetings to clarify meaning Graph out ideas to build associations. Use definitive measurements like timelines or production goals Ask for feedback from your team Confirm each team members understanding and expectations before moving forward In addition to getting your point across, you also need to follow through on the things you say. Failure to execute on what you have committed to damages your credibility and makes it harder to communicate. Meet Individually with Your Team Your team is a group of individuals. They each have different strengths and weaknesses. Sit down and meet with them separately. This gives you the opportunity to find out more about the dynamics of your team. Oftentimes an employee will share with you when no one else is present. The insights you gain in these meetings will assist you connecting with your team better. Use these meetings to set clear expectations for all your employees. Coach up individual’s opportunities while encouraging each team member to maximize their strengths. Document a growth plan for each individual team member that is actionable, measurable and time sensitive. Develop an Objective Metric of Evaluations In most cases, employees report that evaluations are nearly meaningless. Not only do your team members have their own ideas about their performance, your management team does not always provide feedback that is consistent. Use an objective evaluation of employee performance. Use sales figures or work output that can be measured Reference employee attendance records Show positive changes in habits and highlight positive outcomes Show positive changes in habits and highlight positive outcomes Show completed projects and the impact they have had Demonstrate mistakes and the costs Discuss changes in the employee’s training and career growth These objective measurements should be standardized. All members of the leadership team need to know how to provide the same feedback for your team. It will help to identify problems and reduce the frustrations that your employees feel when criticized by someone who does not use the same standards. Balance Meetings and Emails Email is a wonderful tool of communication. You can quickly send a string of instructions to different team members or update the entire team with one memo. Emails also track communication. Team meetings are another great communication tool. Getting everyone together to talk about the department’s goals is more than just an opportunity to share your ideas. These meetings provide you with feedback from your team. They are a team building exercise as well. Be careful to use both tools wisely, and strike a careful balance between email messages and meetings. Depending too much on emails disassociates you from your team. Spending too much time in meetings is wasteful and frustrating. Learn to run an efficient meeting, and keep your emails concise. Accountable leaders get results. They know how to create, lead, serve and inspire high performing teams! By implementing these important accountability traits you will be on your way to developing highly productive and accountable teams!

Continuous Process Improvement: A Part of a Call Center’s DNA

No matter what industry your call center is in continuous process improvement, a method of continually redesigning business protocols for increased efficiency is a vital cornerstone of business excellence. CPI can turn a struggling company into a major competitor in whatever industry your business is in. By systematically reviewing current company procedures and introducing incremental changes, you can provide the foundation for a breakthrough. As the changes are incorporated into day-to-day business protocols, you will notice an increase in efficiency that can lead to better response times, faster call resolution and a more positive customer sentiment. All of this translates to more success as a company. By improving processes regularly, contact centers can better prepare themselves to meet major business goals. Making Continuous Process Improvement a Habit If a business really wants to be successful, CPI has to be more than a talking piece. It must be a habit. It must be a predominant characteristic of a call center rather than a technique that is implemented occasionally and forgotten about the rest of the time. If the latter is the case for a company, the executives may find themselves wanting to change without knowing what strategies would be the best to bring about that transformation. What can you do to make CPI a part of your company’s DNA? Consider using strategies, such as: Planning for the change you want to see. If you want improvements to be successful, you need to know what the company’s goals are. Is it more important for the contact center to improve customer satisfaction or safeguard personal data? Once you know what areas need to be improved, you will have a better idea what sort of changes to implement on the current processes. Preparing the team for the upcoming change. In order to test out planned changes, you may want to make the alteration on a small scale first. Even so, you need to be aware that people do not like change. In order to avoid resistance from the workforce, you need to incorporate training and dialogue into the process of improvement. Listening to the feedback. Some business processes seem efficient on paper, but once you have tried out the change on a small group, you may come to realize that the efficiency is lacking. In order to really find out what the merits of your improvements are, you need to be willing to listen to the thoughts of your supervisors and customer service representatives. This is the time to make minor changes to your new processes, so you can better meet your business excellence goals. Implementing the change on a large scale. After the initial testing of the new process, you may be ready to introduce the procedure to the entire center. Remember to still incorporate adequate training, so the larger workforce is able to make the alterations a normal part of their interactions with customers. Incorporating this four-part, cyclical strategy into your business may make it easier for CPI to be a major part of the company. In order to really be successful with CPI, it has to be more than a fallback plan. It has to be etched into the DNA of your call center. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

4 Top Tips To Boost Technical Customer Support

Technical customer support refers to a lot of services by which enterprises give help to users of a technology product, for example, cell phones, TVs, PCs, software product or other informatics, electronic or mechanical products. By and large, technical bolster services address particular issues with a product or services as opposed to the provision of training, customization, or other support services. Most organizations offer technical support for the product they offer, either openly accessible or for a fee. Handling the more technical side of customer services can be tricky now and again. At the point when clients require a more accurate solution to a tech test, there’s value in knowing how to resolve the issue in the speediest, best way. While a significant portion of similar core principles of customer service applies, help desk and tech to support regularly require a more specialized touch to ace. It’s significant that many companies roll the assistance desk and technical support roles together. In general, however, the help desk is most every now and again considered the first line of defense for handling initial customer contact and all the more easily corrected tech issues, while technical support is the more particular second level that harder problems get raised to for resolutions that require further expertise. A technical customer support ticket that comes in through telephone, email or any other channel your team uses will frequently hit the help desk, where agents will work to resolve the issue or gauge whether it should be raised higher up the knowledge stepping stool. If it’s a straightforward solution, for instance, if a customer obtained a product that is feeling the loss of a key component and they’d like a new part it’ll get resolved at the help desk level. If a customer is encountering more top to bottom issues with a product that the helps desk doesn’t have a useful answer for, notwithstanding, their inquiry would be knock up to technical support. For instance, if a gadget is acting bizarre and ordinary steps to reboot or reset the device aren’t working, an agent with more intimate technical ability on the product can help handle the issue. Depending on your call center technology organization, your products, and your team makeup, help desk, and tech support may be either united into one role or separated further into a bigger number of levels or department for every role or product line. Rather than the questionable catchphrases, how about, we discuss genuine, noteworthy technical customer service tips that you can use to do what makes a difference and develop your business. 1) Identify and assess the issue level Customer issues of a more technical nature can run the range as far as many-sided complexity and simplicity of resolution, which is the reason it’s vital to pinpoint the issue promptly and rapidly assess whether it’s something that can potentially be solved with a basic fix. Towards one side of the spectrum, a customer may require guidelines on the most proficient method to recoup a lost password or directions to restore a damaged product for substitution. On the upper end, they may need to troubleshoot a sudden device disappointment or report a software stopping glitch they’ve experienced that is never seen. Guiding customers to an important resource like video tutorials, well-ordered directions, and client gatherings that give quick responses to regular tech issues can be an incredible approach to speed things along. However, it’s additionally valuable to recognize more intricate problems early so they can be routed to colleagues with the proper skill to unravel them. 2) Gage the customer’s technical level Utilizing instinct and hints from the discussion or correspondence, it’s useful to attempt to distinguish the customer’s level of technical experience with a specific end goal to decide an ideal approach to help them. For a few customers, something that may appear like a simple fix could be significantly more complicated if they’re not technically inclined. Alternately, a customer with a more prominent level of technical ability may communicate all the more smoothly and get the solution they require from talking with an agent that has more specialized aptitude on the matter. For instance, cable and Wi-Fi connectivity issues are a typical illustration. An educated customer may make sense of a fix rapidly with access to your company’s learning base, while other casual users may be flustered over the thought of chasing around for the reset button. Making sense of a customer’s level of technical ability makes it less demanding to point your team’s response in the correct direction. 3) Check for previous support tickets It’s normal for some customers who encounter technical issues to experience a portion of similar issues or even related ones more than once. Looking into any earlier support tickets logged for a particular customer can give helpful pieces of information that may help speed the procedure along, which is a good thing for every person involved. Previous tickets may have notes that let you guide the customer to a better resolution or fast track them to the correct office to fathom their issues better. 4) Take detailed, useful ticket notes on each interaction Call center agents don’t need to compose a book on each customer, however keeping detailed, precise notes that help understand issues, their unique situation, the proposed solution, and the final result can be priceless both for following common problems and for helping customers who repeatedly reach out with similar problems. Technical custom service software solutions make the way toward tracking tickets and keeping exceptional customer information less tasking. In conclusion, while many individuals consider technical customer support as a cost of doing business, the numbers don’t lie: customer support pays off. It has been found that expanding customer degrees of consistency by 5% builds business gains by 25% to 95%. By utilizing the techniques above, you can be on the way to accomplishing profits like that for your call center technology organization.

3 Tips to Maximize First Contact Resolution on Live Chat

As a business owner, you want to do everything possible to take proper care of your customers and resolve any issues they might have. One of the best ways to do this is through first contact resolution. This is essentially a concept in which problems are taken care of the first time a customer reaches out to you through live chat. Learn three ways to make the most of this method and better ensure your customers remain with your company for the long haul. Do Your Part to Shape the Customer’s Expectations One of the first things to do after learning and verifying a customer problem is informing the individual of how long it will take to take care of the issue. While it’s understandable you want to resolve a problem as quickly as possible, providing exemplary customer service means taking care of the entire problem the first time rather than resolving only a portion of it, which can draw a customer’s anger or even result in his or her leaving your company for one of your competitors. When you do give a customer an estimate of how long the resolution will take, try to add a few extra minutes, that way you under promise and over deliver, which customers love. Remain Two Steps Ahead Imagine how nice it is to have your needs anticipated, saving time and making things much more efficient. When it comes to maximizing customer experience and first contact resolution, being proactive means pulling up the customer’s profile to see her or his membership details, account number and the like. Profile info can give you an idea of why the person is calling and narrow down potential solutions. Because customers might be doing something else while chatting online, it’s also a good idea to check up on them during long stretches of silence rather than have them ask if you’re still there. Not only is this a way to remain attentive, it also reduces the chances of the customer forgetting he or she is in a chat session only to “call” back with the same problem. Finally, being proactive also means making sure the right person is handling the customer’s problem. Doing so helps keep unnecessary transfers at bay, which people hate because they often must repeat their information and their issue to the new agent. Use All the Tools in Your Chat Arsenal Live chat technology and software have come a long way, and it pays to understand the full capabilities of whatever program you’re using. Make sure your customer service agents are fully versed in the features of your chat software and know how to use those features. For instance, you might be able to share a screenshot with a customer, take a glimpse at the customer’s screen or keep membership details in the corner of the chat window for easy referencing. Achieving first contact resolution is made much easier with the right information and a few suggestions. Make sure you and your agents are working together to keep customers happy and your business operating as smoothly as possible. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

5 Steps to Creating a Winning Culture Without Spending a Fortune

Is it really important that call center agents enjoy their jobs? Absolutely. It’s no secret that happier customer service representatives make for higher levels of customer satisfaction, so it behooves call center companies to establish a fun, supportive working environment. The effort does not have to be costly, though monetary rewards are always popular. Here are some ideas for creating a positive working space that can translate into a better customer experience. Share Recognition Make time to show appreciation for an agent or the team that did outstanding work in the previous week. In large call centers, agents can feel anonymous sometimes. Presenting an opportunity to mention people by name in front of their peers can go a long way toward motivating workers to do their best. Employees can vote to select the most outstanding worker, or management can select the winner. Either way, the recipient will feel appreciated and flattered to have garnered special attention. Celebrate Regularly It is important that whatever type of activity you plan be done on a regular basis, such as once per week. And don’t forget to think outside the box when it comes to recognition. Maybe instead of rewarding top performers with a free lunch, you set up weekly volunteer opportunities and only people who reach benchmarks are able to participate. Not only will you encourage workers to meet team goals, they will be able to help others through the charity activity you set up. Offer Incentives for Performance Rewards are not the only motivation at your disposal. You can also offer development opportunities or project leadership roles as incentives toward strong work performance. Perhaps the team that has the highest customer-satisfaction rating for a given week is chosen to head up a new product launch or to be the test group for a new technological tool the company is considering. War Stories Contest They say laughter is the best medicine, so plan a monthly lunch for employees when agents can tell their tales about challenging – or silly – customer questions. Competitive agents will battle for the most outrageous call story, while at the same time explaining how they handled the issue. That allows other agents to both commiserate and learn from their coworkers’ experiences in order to establish best practices. And all it cost the company was some sandwiches and drinks. Play Time If the culture in your office tends toward the playful side, or at least you aspire to that kind of atmosphere, try adding opportunities for play time during the work day for teams that reach their performance goals. For the cost of some sports equipment or toys, you could offer a chance for employees to blow off steam and get a little exercise in at the same time. For a more compact option, create a basket of small toys that teams can pass around for a short break between calls. There are many ways to motive employees and build a fun company culture without breaking the bank. Look around to see what will motivate agents, and don’t be afraid to get creative about rewards.

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