Being a part of a lucrative market is beneficial as well as tricky at the same time. It’s often seen that people dealing with similar kind of work tend to follow some practices blindly. Also, these practices are not always the best ones but mere myths that need to be busted. Customer service is no different. The key to a better customer experience is identifying these myths and not falling a prey to their consequences at any cost. There are a lot of myths related to this field, that are blindly believed by the people dealing with it. Let’s have a look at some of these myths that have prevailed in customer service for quite a long time now:
Live chat is a clear preference among the users over more traditional customer service channels like email or phone. It is capable of delivering immediate responses and providing instant query resolutions in real time. Whether the customers crave information or have pre-sales queries or require post-sales support, live chat is the best resolution to all of their queries. As an online channel, this service meets the customer exactly where and when they need it. All these features make support via live chat effortless and more user-friendly as compared to phone or email support.
As a matter of fact, not all the website visitors like to engage. They rather like to be engaged. That’s where a proactive chat steps in. These chat invitations facilitate customer engagement so that you do not miss out on any opportunity of conversion. However, proactive chat can be beneficial only if you use it in an appropriate manner. There are certain mistakes that if committed can actually have a negative impact on your visitors. Read on to know what they are:
Live chat is undoubtedly an untapped potential to grow your business. A live chat feature on your website can drive numerous benefits towards your business. However, you need to use the live chat software wisely to enjoy those benefits. Here are the best strategies that can profit your business through live chat:
All the CRM software are specially designed to help businesses meet the overall goals of customer relationship management. As a matter of fact, a CRM software can work wonders for your business provided you choose the right one. Let’s have a look at the best CRM software available:
No business wants to witness customer churn. In other words, every business fears losing its customers but some customers are past saving. These are the ones who’ve made their decision and are about to leave soon. Now all you can do is prevent more of customers from following the suit. How can that be done? Let’s have a look:
ASA is a call center key performance indicator (KPI) typically referenced by managers while assessing their team’s performance, efficacy and degree of accessibility to their callers. It is a term pertaining to the service industry where it is also known as “Average Seconds to Answer” and “Average Time to Answer” (ATA). It is further defined as the average waiting time for a caller before he is acknowledged by a service representative.
The mathematical formula is:
Average Speed of Answer = Total Waiting Time for Answered Calls/Total Number of Answered Calls
ASA
Factors affecting ASA:
1. Customer satisfaction:
Customer satisfaction is associated with an average speed of answer. This is because the time spent queueing is one of the main factors that affect how customers judge the level of service. Low waiting times do not automatically indicate high CSat. Customer satisfaction is understood from the contact center’s perspective. It starts from the instant when the customer is placed in a queue after they have navigated IVR. As a matter of fact, long or confusing IVR processes can lead to a bad customer experience. This is because lengthy IVR processes cause frustration in the customers. Moreover, they make the customer experience much more drawn out than the ASA figures would ideally indicate.
2. Call abandonment rate:
Call abandon rate is yet another factor that affects the average speed of answer data. In the cases where customers end the calls before they are connected to an agent, their calls do not count towards the ASA figure. Various factors may be responsible for the agents abandoning a call. Of all the possible reasons, a prolonged wait has the highest probability of triggering call abandonment. As a result, the worst offenders, in terms of answer speed, are often discounted from the understanding of the actual figure.
Agent occupancy refers to the percentage of time that call agents spend handling incoming calls against the available or idle time, which is determined by dividing workload hours by staff hours. It is a statistic used in calculating the productivity of a call center. When agent occupancy is the final outcome of how staffing is matched to incoming call patterns to a call center, the desired level of occupancy may drive staffing decisions in a sequential work environment. This useful metric can be utilized to measure instant messaging interactions as well.
Agent occupancy
Utilization rate, also known as call center occupancy, is measured as:
Handle time (talk time + after call work time) / time signed into a queue.
This metric is expressed as a percentage and tells you the amount of time that work is being performed in support of the call center’s queue. It also tells you how hard the call center agents are being driven. Higher the occupancy rate, shorter is the amount of time between calls. According to a research, 80% occupancy rate means that 20% of the time the representative was available for a call and the remaining 80% the representative was either on a call or in after call work status.
Occupancy rate
Call center utilization or agent occupancy is not controlled at an individual level. It is rather a group, queue or center measure. Also, it is a function of forecasting and staffing, the workload offered by the calls arriving randomly and the handle times. As a matter of fact, smaller groups have lower occupancy than the larger ones. Also, higher occupancy rates do not always correlate to an increased productivity. Therefore, call center agents can generally handle short bursts of increased activity but sustained high occupancy can lead to burnout. You need to know that call center occupancy needs to be considered along with other factors such as overall productivity, error rates, quality scores etc. in order to make the most out of it.
According to a research, agents who have worked in the contact center for more than six months have these top three priorities namely:
i) salary
ii) progression
iii) nice environment
On the other hand, the top three priorities for those who have been in the role for less than six months are as follows:
i) nice environment
ii) salary
iii) company culture
Therefore, incentive planning needs to be done on the basis of these priorities in order to lower agent attrition levels in customer support centers. This further helps you can gain the most out of the rewards that are offered. Apart from this, customer support managers also need to focus on the salaries of jobs which require similar skills to the agent role. Also, they need to make sure that the rates of pay that you offer are competitive.
Priorities
2. Consider benchmarking against good agent skills:
The act of benchmarking the skills of new agents against their well-skilled counterparts will help benefit the quality of calls and provide the required guidance. In order to reduce agent attrition, benchmark advisors against their colleagues instead of alongside metric based targets. Further, suggest them what to pick up from them in call quality monitoring sessions.
Benchmarking skills
3. Monitor customer-centric metrics:
As a matter of fact, the most effective call center agents are typically the ones that make a personalized connection with their callers and derive the most satisfaction from their job. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor customer-centric metrics such as contact quality, customer satisfaction, and first contact resolution. Thereafter, measures need to be taken to enhance them. Also, the contact center managers need to ensure that quantitative metrics such as average handle time or calls per hour are not overvalued. This will help increase customer satisfaction and curb agent attrition.
Agent satisfaction is the key to reducing agent attrition. This can be achieved by allowing agents the opportunity to work from home, on a flexible schedule, or in an office with an ergonomic workspace. This will make them more satisfied with their work and achieve a healthy work-life balance. Simply put, if you want that each agent loves coming to work, you need to provide them with satisfactory working conditions.
Good work condition at office
2. Choose the new agents wisely:
As a matter of fact, if someone left their last role as a contact centre advisor after six to nine months, there is a possibility that they will leave again. This happens because agents who leave after this time often do so as they realise that there was not much room for job progression in their previous role. Hiring process needs to be more specific so as to find the most appropriate agents. So, in order to reduce agent attrition, you need to consider this factor to ensure that they are aware of possible growth within the contact center.
Hiring the right candidate
3. Try to find the right balance:
Agents who are good at taking calls may not necessarily be good at managing people. However, keeping them in the same position for too long may frustrate them due to the lack of progression and move on. Therefore, it is necessary to find the right balance to curb agent attrition. For this, consider developing leadership in the contact centre to find agents who have the right leadership capabilities, such as organisation, influence, and motivation. Also, ensure you don’t make the decision based on call handling alone. Moreover, if you are seen to be helping the agents progress their skills by developing their leadership, you can lower attrition. This is because they will interpret your actions as preparing them for future opportunities and their betterment.
Implementing peer recognition and rewards program is yet another powerful method of curbing agent attrition. It involves ensuring that each agent receives feedback that is directly tied to their performance and that they receive rewards when they meet key milestones. This enhances an agent’s motivation and helps build engagement with their work. On the other hand, filling open positions within call centers by promoting internal candidates can also help motivate them to work better. This can actually be used as an incentive for agents to work harder at their job and be sure to promote top performers.
Rewards and recognition
2. Strive to tackle your advisors’ grievances:
Exit interviews are the ones conducted to gather information on why an advisor is leaving and to learn how a customer support center can stop attrition. Instead of these exit interviews, conducting internal interviews, after an employee’s first few weeks of joining, can help tackle their grievances and know their pain points before it is too late. Thereafter, strategies can be employed to exempt these grievances. These interviews convince the employees that the company cares and supports for each of them. It further boosts their morale and job satisfaction and leads to a lowered agent attrition rate.
Coaching culture
3. Ease down the shift swapping process:
The rigidness of the schedule in a customer support center can result in staff missing important external events and lower job satisfaction. As a matter of fact, customer support centers are hesitant to allow shift swaps due to the negative impact it may have on workplace cohesion, contact between supervisors and advisors and service quality. However, working towards lowering the rigidness of the schedule and providing an easy swapping of shifts can greatly enhance employee morale. This can eventually result in a reduced agent attrition.
Skipping or shortening the training period, based on the fact that some agents need intense training while others do not can lead to the omission of useful experiences. This may further result in feelings of exclusion, inadequacy, and disorganization and in the worst cases, the agent leaving your company. Therefore, you should consider training each agent equally. Make sure that all the agents are subjected to the same training period so they can acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, become acculturated to the company’s values, and cultivate relationships with colleagues. This training period will enhance team collaboration and bond and will further lead to the exemption of agent attrition to a large extent.
Call center training programs
2. Schedule the staff appropriately:
One of the most effective strategies in curbing agent attrition is focusing on the work-life balance of employees. This strategy works on the principle of mutual understanding, such that, employees need to understand that the business must meet its customers’ demands, while the business must understand that employees have external pressures as well. Thus, you need to develop a flexible approach creating a number of lifestyle schedule options that give employees more choices, whilst still meeting the business needs. Providing options is a great way of finding a suitable solution and satisfying all.
Work life balance
3. Leverage the power of skill development:
Providing skill development programs is yet another powerful strategy that can help curb agent attrition in customer support centers. As a matter of fact, agents who feel their on the job skill-set is not at all progressive are more likely to disengage with their work and are more prone to leaving. However, all these insecurities can be eliminated and job satisfaction can be increased with opportunities for agents to learn new skills and new technologies. This will help them be more competent and confident, perform their work-related duties and stay longer with your company.
An attrition refers to a common problem when call center employees feel stressed, unrecognized or underpaid. It can further be defined as the rate at which members of staff voluntarily leave the workforce over a given period of time. A thorough understanding of all of the reasons employees resign from call center positions can help determine which factors contribute to the call center’s attrition rate. Thereafter employing effective strategies can help combat this situation:
1. Optimized recruitment:
Hiring the right agents for your team is the very first step in curbing agent attrition. Implementing a referral program as well as allowing agents to work from home can help increase the quality of applicants. Consider personality, communication skills, cultural fit, team-oriented attitudes and the skills of the applicant, while hiring. A clear description of job roles, common tasks and performance expectations will help them know what is expected of them and can opt out of the job if it is not a suitable one.
Hiring the right agents
2. Work towards the empowerment of your team:
Agents should have clearly defined expectations, receive feedback based on these expectations and should know who to talk to when they have an issue or concern. Moreover, they should be involved in business decisions, informed about company goals and strategies and be polled about their experience working in the company. Establishing clear communication channels and including agents in decision-making processes will make them feel more empowered and motivated. This will further reduce the problem of agent attrition.
Empowering agents
3. Provide your agents with progressive software and applications:
Providing your agents with progressive call center software that is easy to learn and use, can help them start working sooner and be better at what they do. Providing them with adequate software and applications increases the agents’ satisfaction with their work and reduce agent attrition.
As mentioned earlier, ANI is a feature of a telecommunications network for determining the origination telephone number on toll calls for billing purposes. This amazing feature provides a number of benefits to the customer support centers employing it. We have mentioned some of those benefits below:
1. Call forwarding without operator intervention:
An operator call forwarding will become aware of the caller’s phone number and automatically thank them for forwarding their lines as well as give them the option to go to an operator and arrive in check-in mode ready to get their messages. This will reduce the live operator time and subsequently the billable time.
Call forwarding
2. Call blocking:
Your answering service can block all the unwanted, irritating calls with the help of automatic number identification.
Call blocking
3. Exemption of call screening bills:
Call screening is the process of evaluating the characteristics of a telephone call before deciding how or whether to answer it. The screening process can be excluded from your answering service bill by employing an ANI system. This highly effective technology can help identify their caller ID and dump these calls before an operator ever has to speak with them.
Call screening
4. An increase in agent efficiency:
ANI ensures that the most appropriate number is always displayed. With automatic caller ID, the agents will never have to manually select a number. This exempts all the chances of errors. Moreover, it saves them time and effort, thus, increasing their efficiency.
Increased agent efficiency
5. Boosts call backs and connection rates:
ANI helps in increasing call backs and connection rates as using a familiar number will increase the probability that the recipient will return the call. Moreover, recipients are more likely to answer calls from familiar phone numbers or phone numbers from similar area codes.
Call back
6. Increases first call resolution on callbacks:
Using ANI recipients can be immediately connected with the most appropriate agent when they have missed a call and thereafter call back.
ANI is an abbreviation for Automatic Number Identification. It is a service that provides the receiver of a telephone call with the number of the calling phone. The method of providing this particular information is determined by the service provider (such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and so forth). Mostly, the service is provided by sending the digital tone multi frequency (DTMF) tones along with the call. This technology is commonly used by emergency center dispatchers to save the caller having to report the information and. It can further be used to help locate callers. Moreover, the telephone company’s 9-1-1 service to a public safety point usually includes the automatic number identification feature. It is extensively used in call centers.
In call centers, it displays the number of the calling party to the call center agent in real time. The call center can use the provided information to forward calls to different people for different geographic areas. Automatic number identification is also employed to describe the functions of two-way radio selective calling that identify the transmitting user.
Automatic Number Identification
In cases where the caller ID blocking is activated, the caller’s telephone number and line type are captured by ANI service. The destination telephone company switching office can relay the originating telephone number to ANI delivery services subscribers. Toll-free subscribers and large companies normally have access to to this information as follows:
i) instantly via installed equipment
ii) from a monthly billing statement.
In case of residential subscribers, access to ANI information can be obtained through third party companies that charge for the service. ANI is generally not transmitted when a call is operator assisted. In such cases, only the area code of the last switch to route the call is sent. If a call is placed through an outbound-only VoIP service or some calling cards will cause a non-working number to be sent as the ANI. It is also not supported adequately for calls originated from four-party lines.
Customer service at a call center is defined as the process of waiting for people to call in with a question and then answering the question or solving the caller’s problem. A high-touch customer service can be regarded as an advanced version of the traditional approach. In this kind of approach, the basic aim is to anticipate what questions or issues callers will have at different instants of time. A high-touch customer service also means evaluating ‘first-call resolution,’ which is resolving the callers’ issue the first time they call. Simply put, high-touch customer service is a category of contact center interaction that requires human interaction. Some contact centers train specific agents to deal with high-value customers and complex problems in order to achieve maximum customer satisfaction.
High touch customer service
Software technical support systems employ a grading system for customers. According to this system, the low-touch requests may be handled through mediums such as an online community FAQ section or a customer self-service portal. Such that low-touch customer service often enlists FAQ sections or knowledge bases of articles with how-to answers. On the other hand, the complex issues may require the high-touch approach of a customer service agent who is well-trained in resolving these kinds of problems. In other words, high-touch solutions almost always require human intervention and guidance from a customer service agent for query resolution.
Customer service agents
In order to anticipate the problems or issues that customers may have, a thorough study of the data accumulated over time needs to be done. This data is generally based on the types of questions for which the customers contact the call center. This can help identify areas of the program that require more detailed descriptions and information. This data can also be used by the call center employees for reaching out and educating members or customers in a more personalized and proactive way.
“Longest delay in queue” (LDQ) describes the longest time period that a customer in a queue waits before either connecting with an agent or hanging up. LDQ is tracked through two categories in call center metrics:
i) Longest delay to answer:
This is the longest delay for a caller before being managed by a call center agent.
ii)Longest delay to abandon:
It refers to the maximum time a caller waited for agent interaction before hanging up.
Queue
Delay, whether long are short is not at all good for a company’s success and reputation as well. So, the managers handling the customer care section of a company need to identify and employ effective strategies to curb these issues. In this post, we have mentioned some of the most effective strategies that can be employed to keep customers happy during unexpected service delays, such as being short on staff:
1.Transparency:
The managers should give customers clear and conservative information that will help them estimate their wait time. This reduces their anxiety level caused by the uncertainty of the situation
2. Deliver more than you promise:
Delivering more than what you promise is a clever strategy. Let’s take an example of a restaurant where the host can give customers a longer than expected waiting time, say 25 minutes. If customers end up waiting just 15 minutes, they will be delighted as they expected a longer delay.
3. Try to keep your customers busy while they wait:
You can consider giving customers something to do while they wait. It can help cover the issue and keep them distracted and can seem like time goes by faster. Some examples of this strategy are offering magazines or free wifi access to your customers
4. Admit delays rather than apologizing:
When you inform the customers about the expected wait time beforehand, they can be mentally prepared for it. This is far better than apologizing to the customers time and again about additional delays as it will only piss them off.
It is a known fact that customers hate waiting when they want to get their queries resolved. The best solution to this problem is modern contact center software. It offers various features to optimize call queues, reduce the wait time and thus exempt FCD. Some of its features are:
i) Queue to voicemail:
Using this feature, customers can leave a voicemail instead of waiting in the queue. This helps in reducing FCD to a large extent as it exempts the need of waiting a single minute in the queue. This further helps improve the quality of customer service and agents’ efficiency as well.
ii) Queue callback:
This feature allows the customers to exit the queue and leave behind their details such as contact information so that they can be contacted back. Whenever the agents are available, they refer to the details provided and call back the customers so as to provide them the required information or solve their queries.
Voicemail
2. Optimize your staffing:
This does not mean hiring a lot of agents but planning the entire process adequately. Optimizing your staffing in order to reduce FCD calls for adjusting your team size based on predicted call volume, especially during the peak time. Workforce management and efficient call center software can be used to do this. Moreover, the historical data can be analyzed to better understand the peak times, and staff accordingly. You also need to consider making contingency plans for those times when employees call in sick.
Optimized staffing 2
3. Offer self- help service:
In today’s era, customers prefer to get help themselves. A self-service feature on your website or social media profile will help to cut down FCD. By reducing the call flow to your contact center, it will further increase the productivity and efficiency of the agents.
As we mentioned in our earlier post, FCD refers to a scenario where a caller hangs up the call after listening to the notice that ‘our customer care agents are currently busy, your call is important to us, please hold the line’. Fast clear down is a result of the fact that such customers are not ready to wait even a minute or two. This makes it a little harder to tackle FCD in an effective way but by making use of the following tips, it can be curbed to a large extent:
FCD
1. Consider employing advanced call center software:
All your call center needs can be met using the different types of advanced call center software available in the market. They help achieve productivity and benefit you in the long run. Using highly efficacious software, your agents will be able to provide exceptional customer service and resolve the customer’s issue in a very short time. This is because advanced software enables the agents to have all the information at their fingertips. So, the moment they start their interaction with the customer, they can refer to the available information and provide the fastest query resolution. Moreover, the software will help to optimize the after-call work of an agent hence, further increasing customer satisfaction and reducing FCD.
Call center software
2. Train your agents adequately:
When the agents are not adequately trained, they are not completely familiar with a process and this impacts the call. In such cases, the agents are not able to troubleshoot properly. Also, they may have to get help from the seniors on the call which would prolong the overall call time. As a result, the customers may get frustrated with the inefficiency of the agent and ask for the supervisor. In order to avoid all this, and reduce FCD, you need to train your agents thoroughly.
A fast clear down is a call center term for a caller who hangs up upon hearing a delay notice. FCD is basically used for callers who hang up immediately after they come to know about the delay in reaching a customer care agent. This is a scenario where a caller hangs up the call after listening to the notice that ‘our customer care agents are currently busy, your call is important for us, please hold the line’. Fast clear down is a result of the fact that such customers are not ready to wait even a minute or two.
Fast clear down
In such cases where a caller hangs up before the agents get a chance to talk, the call centers are likely missing the opportunity of making them satisfied and happy. For an exceptional experience, a customer should be able to reach an agent and get his/ her queries resolved without any delay. But this is not possible when the call volumes are high and customers have to wait in queues. There can also be many other reasons responsible for a lengthy or even short call center queues. Some of them, are:
i) Sub-optimal staffing: If there are not enough agents, it could lead to the calls getting piled upii
ii) Agent incompetence: It means, the agents may not be competent enough to finish the calls on time.
Unhappy customers
FCD has an adverse impact as it is directly related to call abandonment rates. Since customers call into a contact center to get immediate support and answers to their queries, so, they are less likely to be in a mood of wasting their time waiting in the queue. Also, due to a negative experience, they hang up and never call back. Hence, abandonment rates are related to customer churn.
