Customer experience is becoming increasingly crucial for both customers and businesses. Third-party contact centers strive to provide superior customer service, recognizing the rising demands of customers. Maintaining strong customer relations is essential for brands. Delivering a next-generation customer experience is and should be one of the main goals of a company seeking to improve its customer experience.
According to Calabrio there are four essential factors to keep in mind when developing the customer experience:
- Instant Response
- Personalized Service
- Empathy and Human Connection
- Omnichannel Experiences
With 7 years of experience in contact center work, these are all factors that I fully agree with. Time is money also for the customers. With that in mind, customer service should be readily available whenever you need it and the primary response should come with as small a delay as possible.
Due to most information being available online, customers nowadays reach out with more complex questions requiring more personalized service. Listening to the customer and finding out their needs is essential.
Listening skills are probably one of the most important skills a customer service representative should have. While automized customer service channels have become commonplace, customers’ needs for human empathy have increased. Validating the customer’s concerns is important to make the customer feel heard.
Flexibility in using different channels as contact points is appreciated by customers. A good CRM ensures that whatever channel the customer is approaching through, the customer service is always on point with the customer matters.
I would also add honesty as one essential factor in creating a superior customer experience. Honesty is great in building trust and credibility, contributing to a positive customer experience. Honesty is a humbleness to say that you’re sorry or to admit that you are not sure about something but you will find out for the customer.
Loosing customers is expensive
It is 500% more costly to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one. One in three customers will leave the brand after only one bad experience. 92% leave after two or three bad experiences. One in four customers has left a brand after a poor contact center experience.
In my opinion, these numbers reflect well why an excellent contact center is essential for a business. Because being on the front line dealing with customers who have had a bad experience, contact center agents have a huge role in making the customer stay loyal to the brand. It can be a very draining task, but the reward you get in the form of a satisfied customer makes it all worth it.
How to build the ultimate Contact Center
So what should the contact centers do to stay a step ahead of the customer’s expectations? Calabrio has listed a 9-step Voice Of Customer -driven strategy to improve customer experience.
- Optimizing the omnichannel experience
- Identifying customer friction in near-real time
- Enhancing cross-selling and upselling
- Increasing customer retention
- Improving marketing ROI
- Increasing agent engagement to improve performance
- Staying ahead of evolving customer needs
- Enabling robust, intuitive self-service reporting
- Creating a business intelligence engine
Following and developing processes in these strategic points enables a contact center to improve its service to excellence. I can identify all these steps from my career in a contact center environment. Having engaged agents is crucial for any contact center.
Situational awareness of the agents is a key factor in making many of these strategic tools work. A profound orientation and also continuing training throughout the employment relationship of the agent is a key to excellent service.
In-house contact center or outsourcing?
The Calabrios article focused on third-party contact centers. Business process outsourcing (BPO) is becoming a typical way for brands to handle their customer service. Don’t take me wrong, outsourcing can be an excellent choice in many cases. However as I have worked at an in-house contact center along with a BPO contact center, I can’t help to feel that the BPO lacked in understanding the depth of organization structures and problems and possibilities that it brings.
Based on my experience BPOs can be great in handling simple issues. But when the issues become more complex BPOs can struggle if they don’t have a profound understanding of all the lines of activities performed by the company. However, given the correct tools and information, a BPO can provide excellent service as the primary contact point for the customer and the in-house contact center can use its knowledge as a second step support for the BPO.
With this kind of collaboration between the BPO and the in-house contact center a company can be assured that their customer service stays ahead of the customers’ expectations delivering a next-generation customer experience.
Source:
Calabrio 2020. Delivering the Next-Generation Customer Experience