Oh, the horror stories of call center 
customer service: infinite-hour wait times,
calls outsourced to unheard-of regions
of the world, apathetic customer
service reps— the list of common
complaints goes on longer than a
loop of static-coated Muzak.
For years these issues have permeated our daily lives
through personal experiences, tales from friends and
family and uncountable lampoons featured in TV shows and movies.
Yet, the frustrations persist. Thankfully, however, there is hope
on the horizon. With the rise of technology comes new
contact center solutions and those, in turn, bring new, advanced
ways of improving customer service over the phone.
The following five tips, in particular, can help managers to
vastly enhance a customer’s call center experience
with the help of evolving technological tools.
#5 Properly Train Staff
It may go without saying, but a well-trained staff is going to
perform better than a poorly-trained staff.
That’s simple enough. Even more simple: A well-trained staff
is one that knows what it’s doing. Employees should have
no confusion in handling the common scenarios that arise
in a call center. eLearning is thus one of the greatest contact
center solutions currently available— employee training
can be unified and progress can be tracked.
Managers can easily pick the courses best suited for
employees, assign them and watch online as they are completed.
Using one system for staff training helps to ensure that employees
are learning the same information and are educating themselves
on the same topics, which is crucial in creating a unified
staff that communicates and performs effectively.
#4 Maintain Appropriate Staffing
Believe it or not, scheduling shifts does not need to be laborious.
Managers need not slave over spreadsheets and formulas to
produce schedules because it is unnecessarily difficult work.
Software produced as a part of workplace optimization solutions
can easily help to ensure that shifts are covered and that issues
like overstaffing and overtime pay are dealt with, thus lowering
extraneous costs. Service levels don’t have to suffer due to staffing.
A properly scheduled and staffed call center that takes legal regulations,
employee skills and meeting times into account can positively
affect the environment of the workplace and increase
customer service efficiency tenfold.
#3 Monitor Quality
Maintaining high-quality customer service is an on-going procedure.
Beyond the tricky task of call center call recording, there needs
to be uncomplicated, efficient systems in place to provide
employee evaluations based on their performances.
This also means that there has to be an easy way of tracking
staff performance. Additionally, effective methods of
troubleshooting need to be put in place when a staff member
demonstrates a need for more extensive training.
This can easily become a messy process, but thankfully
the optimization solutions are out there to provide assistance.
There are even quality monitoring solutions specially tailored
for call center environments. The common denominator here,
clearly, is technology. Putting faith in software to help
run a complicated business is daunting, but as customers
come to expect increasingly fast service, the companies
they are relying on need to keep up with demand.
Technological solutions, really, are the best way
to integrate speed into quality service.
#2 Problem Solve with Analytics
Customers who receive poor-quality service are far more likely to
talk about their experiences on social media and other websites
than customers who receive excellent service.
Utilizing text analytics is an optimal way of quelling
the service issues that require immediate attention.
The tools exist to help managers comb through multiple
channels to capture feedback, whether positive or negative,
and use it to create objectives that will bring
fantastic change to their organizations.
#1 Be a Coach
Again, quality assurance is always on-going. A call center’s
performance directly relates to workforce management.
The help of technology and flashy contact center solutions
cannot stand in place of a personable leader who takes
on as much accountability as lower-level staff for delivering
the best work possible. Software can provide the information
that managers need to run a business, but in call centers especially,
it takes an excellent communicator to grab the reins and
use the data on hand to deliver constant improvements.
Obviously, no company can provide entirely perfect services
all the time. But in terms of bettering customer service in call centers,
the solutions that are now available can help to meet the ever-present
room for improvement and shake off the negative
reputations associated with the contact center experience.
Author Bio
Article written by By Connor Chan