Customer Service Tips for your Contact Center

Written by KOVA Corp

Contact centers more even than sales departments are dedicated to customer service. So identifying ways to enhance the customer experience is an ideal way to take a good performance program and make it great.

Principles To Please

A train can’t travel meaningfully without a destination, so a common vision of where you’d like the customer to be after completing a session with your contact center team is a must. The simplest way to craft a vision is to begin with identifying a small set of customer experience principles. Aim for a set of short sentences, phrases, or words that encapsulate the way a customer should be treated. A great way is to arrange them into a mnemonic device.  For example, SMILE could mean Sharp, Mirror, Interact, Listen, and Energy. Whatever works to make your vision attainable for your contact center team.

Practice And More Practice

The principles you establish for your contact center team only work if they’re substantiated in action. They need to be locked in everyone’s memory. Print them out and place them in team members’ work spaces. Make them a key indicator of performance reviews. A great way to get your team excited is to make an employee of the month award based on that period’s best performer in your program.

Caring For Customers A Priority

You’ve got a vision and a set of principles set like the rungs on a ladder to success. But good customer service is never a set of boxes to tick off and complete. Caring about customers is the vital component of delivering efficient service that makes the experience a rewarding one. Customers who feel that a contact center agent has formed an emotional connection with them are far more satisfied.

It’s How You Say It

You can’t overestimate the importance of the feel good element of a truly great customer experience moment. It’s efficient, all the boxes get checked off, but there’s that extra component of showing the customer that your team really does care that they get the service they need. The best way to achieve this ultra crucial element is simple: It’s how agents speak to customers. Real, authentic concern. You can’t beat it.

Load Up On Feedback

You need a metric to measure the impact your program is having on customer satisfaction both about the program itself and about individual team members’ performance. The best way is in a real-time format – either through post-call polls and surveys or through a random selection of customers whom you call to elicit comments from about their satisfaction.

And don’t forget to get employee feedback. The troops on the front line can be an invaluable source of excellent data.

Train That Brain

Using a feedback driven training/retraining program is a great way to help iron out rough spots and help your contact center workforce meet goals.

The Bottom Line

You’ll know your program is working from the performance of your business. A reduction in customer churn, an increase in first time resolutions. Happy customers combined with team members who are on board and engaged in your institutional vision make for a customer service operation that ensures future customer revenues in a highly competitive market.

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