Highlights:
- Excellent customer experience plays a key role in the overall success of contact centers.
- Agent competency and modern digital technology are principles drivers in improving customer experience.
- RingCentral offers innovative tools to simplify the job of agents and enhance customer experience.
Keeping customers satisfied is a top priority for any business because it can make or break a business. This holds especially true for contact centers. How does your center perform in terms of overall customer satisfaction?
Because excellent customer experience can fuel customer satisfaction and overall brand success, every call made to your contact center offers you a chance to meet and exceed customer expectations.
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Here are seven ways to boost customer experience in your call center:
1. Understand your customer
Not every customer who calls in to your contact center has the same experience, issues, or questions. Even though you may know some details about the individuals calling in — such as their expectations and demographics — your agents might not know much more about them.
To ensure a more positive customer experience, it’s helpful for agents to know as much about customers as possible. According to Microsoft, 72% of customers say they expect agents to know who they are, including details about past interactions with the call center. Give customers what they want by taking steps to getting to know them better.
2. Train your agents well
Every employee should be properly and thoroughly trained for the job they’re expected to perform, and contact center agents are no exception. Training agents appropriately can help prepare them for the role they play in delivering excellent customer service to callers. The better agents are at what they do, the better the experience will be for customers.
Well-trained agents are more comfortable and confident in their jobs, which often translates into being happier and more productive as well. Good training that includes both initial onboarding and continuing education can encourage agents to stay put in their assignments. That, in turn, leads to a more productive environment that promotes better customer experiences.
3. Understand all phases of the customer journey
In a perfect world, a customer would call in to a contact center, get connected with the right agent, and have their question answered. However, this doesn’t always happen. Some customers encounter a much lengthier process due to either the complexity of their issue or routing problems in the contact center. In either case, contact center managers should be aware of the customer journeys that are taking place.
To ensure a more positive customer experience, agents should be interacting with customers in a way that is appropriate for their role in the customer’s journey.
For instance, new versus existing customers will have different experiences. A customer who has called in several times before will have helped the contact center gather specific information about a specific problem. This will allow the agent to provide a more personalized message, leading to a better customer experience.
4. Cut back on hold times
One of the most frustrating parts of a customer’s experience when calling into a contact center is waiting on hold for a long time. Ideally, customers should reach a live agent as quickly as possible.
According to recent research, nearly 60% of customers who think they’re waiting on hold for too long will eventually hang up. This is not the intended result that customers or contact centers expect or want.
To counter this issue, contact centers should leverage omnichannel capabilities to streamline call processes. This gives customers a variety of options in terms of how they choose to interact with a call center while ensuring that agents use their time wisely.
5. Ask for customer feedback
Before tackling any process issues with your contact center, you need to know that they exist in the first place. Identifying problems with customer-agent communications is the first step in rectifying them.Perhaps the best way is to simply ask customers for their feedback.
Requesting information from customers will help pinpoint issues that need to be addressed and make customers feel as though they are being heard. This can go a long way toward enhancing customer experiences.
6. Use live chat
Today’s modern customers appreciate choice when it comes to how they communicate with a contact center. This is why having an omnichannel communications platform has become a must for every contact center.
In particular, customers like the instant and accessible support they can get through a live chat option. The ability to get an immediate response from their computer or mobile device is very attractive to customers, particularly those in the younger generations.
If customers don’t get the answers they’re looking for through a live chat communication channel, they can be directed to an appropriate live agent to take over.
7. Simplify the customer experience
Consumers have limited patience when it comes to how much time and effort is required to get through to a contact center and have their questions answered or problems solved. Contact centers must take steps to simplify the entire communication journey to prevent them from seeking out better options elsewhere.
Improving the overall customer experience can include using technologies such as automatic call back, instant customer support, and first call resolution. These are just some of the ways contact centers can cut back on customer efforts and boost customer satisfaction.
RingCentral’s cloud-based solutions offer all this, and more. Learn more about other contact center best practices to ensure that your call center is living up to its full potential.Get in touch with RingCentral today to request your free demo and discover the benefits of an omni-digital platform for your contact center.
Originally published May 11, 2022, updated Aug 14, 2024
