Do you experience a mild sense of dread when you need to call a company you do business with to resolve a problem? If so, you’re not the only one. We’ve grown used to expecting less than stellar experiences when it comes to interacting with CSRs, and receiving timely, helpful, and courteous resolution to our problems.
In this always-on age, your company’s door is always open, and customers may choose to contact you through any support channel you’re willing to provide—including email, phone, web chat, social media, IoT, Chat-bots, and self-service IVRs. These OmniChannels aim to make things easier for the consumer, but for businesses some of today’s biggest challenges are a direct result of this newly added complexity. There are a few things that every organization can do to ensure that the human beings at the other end of any given service interaction receive the help and care they deserve. Here are five of the best:
1. Empower Your CSRs
CSRs need to be empowered with the right tools, which might include software that provides a complete view of customer interactions across all of your service channels. Before you buy any new tools, starts with your CSR staff—the people in your business who interact the most with your customers. If either a frustrated customer or a confused CSR is forced to escalate an interaction to a supervisor, you’ve already lost the battle. That’s why you have to empower your customer care staff with the training and autonomy they need to cut through that complexity and do their jobs well. Give even your most junior CSRs permission to use their best judgment, and then give them everything they need to succeed—then you’re going to see more happy faces.
2. Play to Your Workers’ Strengths
It’s always good to remember that your CSR staff consists of human beings. And that means, no matter how hard you may strive to iron out these differences to create a group of 50 or 500 CSRs. The best customer care managers find ways to use the human differentiation to their advantage, so you can then best match those skills to the appropriate caller or situation. Maybe that means assisting a customer in a different skill groups: language, up-selling a customer, or dealing with a particular tech support issue that some agents have more experience than others. If your company has a collection department; staff it with CSRs who are mainly adept at helping customers who are angry and upset. Certain people can defuse tension, respond to objections, or deal with upset people more effectively than others.
3. The Right Script for Unusual Circumstances
In the normal course of business, there’s rhythm at which customers make contact with your company, and it’s smart to staff your CSRs accordingly. But then there are the special occasions:
- A big product release
- A marketing campaign
- A natural disaster
- A technical interruption
If your customers received an email about a special promo and called in to request more info, and your CSRs continued with a scripted response to “unusual” request, this is not good but this happens all the time. You need a solution to empower the supervisor, to make the needed script changes.
4. “Grandmother Test”.
If your company’s OmniChannels are confusing or difficult to navigate, and the user experience that makes more sense to Engineers than to your actual customers, maybe it’s time to rethink your strategy. Try applying the “Grandmother Test”. Ask yourself, “Would my grandmother understand this?” If she wouldn’t understand your company’s OmniChannels, then you’ve just identified another obvious source of friction to eliminate. Just a few extra instructions for the human beings at the other end of your brand—will go a long way.
5. The Golden Rule
CSRs must always remember that they can’t choose which customers are going to contact them. To make your own life easier, I suggest you take the Golden Rule to heart: Whenever possible, offer customers the same care and courtesy you’d hope to receive as a customer.
In the end, providing great customer care is an evolving art, not a science. What works well for one company may backfire for yours. Hopefully to extend the best practices, like the ones I’ve described here, for a better foundation for a great human relationships. Call Center Pros can bring the right OmniChannel software to your Call Center. Please contact us for any call center technology need or telecom challenge.
Thank you,
James W Wilson
Call Center Pros
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswwilson