Did you know 82% of consumers say that getting their issue resolved quickly is the #1 factor in great customer experience? This is what a recent survey by LivePerson revealed.
Another study by Forrester validates these statistics, saying that 45% of US consumers will abandon an online transaction if their questions or concerns are not addressed quickly and a whopping 89% will go to your competitor following a poor customer experience, says Harris Interactive. So, can you afford to make the common mistakes that many contact centers make and lose customers to the competition?
Here’s a look at the three most commonly made mistakes and how you can avoid them.
- Putting Callers on Hold: According to Harris Interactive, 69% of customers complain of being put on hold for too long when seeking help from a company. This heightens the dissatisfaction level and thus brings down the customer service experience provided by your contact center. So, make sure that all the required information about the caller is available for the agent while he attends the call. Additionally, to address a customer’s query promptly, without having to put them on hold, all the FAQs or the other reference data should be displayed on the agent’s screen. Also, you can incorporate the call-back feature if all your agents are occupied. For this, out-bound dialers can do the trick. If a study by Forester is to be believed, 75% of consumers agreed that ‘call-back’ is an appealing factor. All these efforts offer undivided attention to your customers and show that you value their time.
- Inadequate Training: Research by Frost & Sullivan shows that 60% of all repeat calls are process or training driven. But usually, contact centers have such a high turnover rate that business owners often overlook the need for training and development. With the ever-changing demands of the consumer, it is important that your agents can cater to their different needs and levels of queries and can also handle omnichannel communication. So, periodic assessment, demo-sessions, training in multi-channel and technology like outbound dialers, auto, and predictive dialers, and CRM software is a must. Also, reward and recognition are crucial to keeping your customer-service team happy. This happiness will then rub off on the consumer.
- Faulty Performance Measurement Metrics: A call center usually monitors the performance of the agents on the basis of the number of calls attended per hour or the limits to which they exceed the average expectation of calls in a day. Performance and services here are associated with quantitative factors rather than the quality of customer service. The call center should focus on evaluating agents on the basis of problem resolution in one call (First Call Resolution). This will motivate agents to offer enhanced customer service and customer-issues will be addressed and resolved more promptly.
According to Harris Interactive, 60% of your consumers are willing to pay more for a better experience. So, give your best to your customer and the best will come to you.