customer Archives - Page 2 of 2

November 3, 2024

How to deal with a difficult customer: II

1. Let your customer’s know that you care:

In order to deal with a difficult customer, numerous of strategies can be employed. It becomes crucial to show concern for the customer’s feelings. Your voice communicates your attitude when handling customers on call. People respond more to how you say something than what you say, so, try to be as polite as possible. Your words should be convincing enough to make your customers realize that you care.

2. Let your client vent:

Never try to interject with a solution or even interrupt with clarifying questions when your client is bursting out. In most cases, clients are looking to release their frustration. Since it is a part of the job, so, it cannot be ignored but a clever tactic can be your savior. You can mute your end and let the client vent. As a matter of fact, giving the client full rein over the conversation for the first few minutes helps him or her get out those frustrations, blow off some steam, and eventually, be able to focus on getting to a resolution.

3. Exclude the blame game:

Instead of blaming others or your company, use indirect approach or “I” statements when trying to clarify. In order to explain what went wrong, use either the indirect approach i.e. asking relevant questions before refunding or “I” statements like “I need additional information.” as much as possible. Never acknowledge that you or your company is to blame as it could lead to lawsuits.

4. Use caller’s name in the conversation:

Interjecting the caller’s name into the conversation is yet another strategy to deal with unfavorable situations and a difficult customer. Addressing your client with the given scripts without using his/ her name sounds a lot more formal and much less sincere. Once you use a name, you are suddenly speaking with a real person who has a legitimate reason behind his or her frustration.

5. Go above and beyond to solve customer problems:

Try leaving no stone unturned in solving your customer’s issues. Never avoid solving their problems even if solving the customer’s problem isn’t among your job duties. Try to get all the facts you can, and then tell the customer how you can help. This would further help you tackle a difficult customer as well.

November 2, 2024

How to deal with a difficult customer: I

In today’s era, quality customer service is a necessity when you are trying to stand out of the crowd. It helps you differentiate your competitors. Businesses with poor customer service risk losing revenues, profits and even going out of business. You need to know that dealing with difficult customers is a part of any business and it is inevitable that you will need to deal with a difficult customer from time to time. As a matter of fact, you can’t control anyone else’s behavior. All you have control over are your own actions. However, you can influence how customers respond to you to some extent. Here are some steps to handle such situations:

1.Listening is the key:

Understand that the customer desires to be listened. So, just tune in to the customer rather than looking for the nearest exit. Strive to acknowledge and understand the customer Let the person talk, and pay close attention to whatever he/ she says. You may even repeat or paraphrase some of what you hear.

2. Mirror your customers and connect accordingly:

In order to prepare yourself for handling difficult customers, you first need to mirror them. Some of your customers may have high technical knowledge and others may need high-level explanations. Some may need extra reassurance that things are going to be fine while others do not want to waste time unless you can offer a solution on the spot. Identifying and categorizing your customers accordingly can help you connect better with them. They will feel more like you truly understand what they want you to. Moreover, this will help them be more open to your assistance.

3. Never argue or show lack of interest:

Make it a point to never argue with customers when they are angry, displeased or complaining. When you allow a customer to push to an extent where you lose control of yourself, you lose control of the situation. Showing boredom, irritation, disdain or displeasure can make you lose a good customer.

4. Think before acting:

Dealing with difficult customers requires thinking before responding. Responding when angry can lead to nasty situations. Therefore, responses should exclude personal emotions and be given carefully.

November 1, 2024

Uses of automatic speech recognition system: I

By now, we are familiar with the automatic speech recognition technology. We have already discussed about its basics, working and benefits. Now, let’s take a look at its uses. Automatic call recognition can be used for the following purposes:

1. Handle high volumes of customer service enquiries:

Automatic speech recognition system is highly beneficial for businesses that have very high volumes of calls from repeat customers. It is useful in cases where calls occur in irregular peaks. The problem of high volumes of customer service queries can be solved by diverting the calls depending simply on their nature.

2. Identity authentication:

ASR technology proves to be highly useful where you need to authenticate someone’s identity on the phone without using personal data. Some advanced speech recognition systems provide an answer to this problem in the form of voice biometrics. The system allows you to create a voiceprint based on specific text such as ‘Name’ and ‘Account Number’. This information is then stored against the individual’s record, so that whenever they call again, they can simply say their name and if the voiceprint matches what they have stored, then the person is put straight through to a customer service representative. The benefit of this technique is that it takes less than 30 seconds and also bypasses the need for the individual to have to run through a series of tedious ID checks such as passwords, address details and more.

3. Put caller’s through the right department:

By applying speech recognition, you can allow callers to choose a ‘self-service’ route or alternatively ‘say’ what they want and be directed to the correct department or individual. This technique helps in in three ways:

i) It ascertains what the call is about

ii) It takes the customer through security checks or other parameters if required

iii) Lastly, it transfers the customer to the appropriate member of staff.

The details that the customer has already provided appear on the screen so that they do not have to repeat the information. In other words, it helps the customers to voice their needs in the most appropriate manner.

Directing the callers to the right department

October 31, 2024

Incredible benefits of IVR technology: II

1. It encourages automated customer service:

Automated customer service means that customers are enabled to solve their own problems and obtain the required information without speaking with an agent. Therefore, IVR systems simplify the customer service by automating it.

2. It enables handling of large call volumes:

Companies are allowed to easily handle high call volumes with the help of IVR systems. By employing this technology, callers are automatically directed to the most appropriate agent or department or they have to wait in a queue when all agents are busy. Another solution for such instances is that the systems allow the caller the option of having an agent return their call rather than wait in a queue.

3. It helps keep customers happy:

Different customers have different preferences. For example, some would prefer to get the answers they need by interacting with a recording rather than speaking to a live person while others may insist on it. IVR systems let the customers have whatever they require, thus, keeping them happy.

4. It helps create a sense of professionalism:

In case of startups and smaller companies IVR technology can be used to make the company appear larger than it actually is. Moreover, IVR prompts can be configured so as to allow callers to talk to sales, support, marketing or technical support, etc. They will be routed to the person on your team assigned to answer all of the calls, regardless of the department they choose. In other words it helps create a sense of professionalism that can help impress the customers.

Improve company's image — Improve company’s image

5. It reduces operational expenses:

IVR systems are very affordable as they replace a receptionist or a customer service agent who answers calls and directs calls to agents. This in return increases efficiency and reduces operational costs which further results in a huge ROI.

October 30, 2024

Tips to reduce average handle time: II

1. Inculcate short and pleasant customer greetings:

Visitors love being treated appropriately. Therefore, opening and closing greetings are critical to create a positive customer experience and also help in reducing average handle time. Whether automated or manual, it needs to be ensured that such greetings are short and pleasant. Instead of asking unnecessary questions, relevant questions should be asked such as “Hello Mr. ABC, how may I help you?”. Apart from reducing the average handle time, this would also instigate the customer to come directly to the point. Moreover, he/ she would definitely get impressed with the brand’s friendly attitude. Conversations can also be personalized by keeping the customer’s data up-to-date.

2. Ensure system efficiency:

Call center managers must ensure the system’s efficiency. In other words, every aspect of the system should be efficacious including the load time, number of window tabs that could be opened at one time etc. This is crucial because when system response time is slow, agents wait longer for their computer screens to refresh which adds unnecessary minutes to the overall call. Therefore, managers can take note of their system efficiency during the busiest hours of operation in order to employ strategies to reduce AHT. Moreover, the telephone lines should be up and running, with 100% voice clarity and multiple menu options such as mute/un-mute, record, etc.

3. Leverage knowledge repository:

The call center agents should be provided with necessary knowledge base so that they can quickly identify the relevant answers to some tough queries. Such that instead of thinking about the tough questions asked by the customers, the agents can quickly check the knowledge base to find the right answer, hence reducing the average hold time and eliminating customers’ dissatisfaction.

4. Make use of self service technologies:

Self service technologies such as the IVR technology helps in improving the efficiency of the customer support system. IVR collects basic customer information, presents answers to common queries such as address, hours of operations, and routes the calls to the right agent, which saves a considerable amount of time. Therefore, you need to make sure that your call center is equipped with an efficient call center software with features such as ACD, intelligent IVR system and skill-based routing. These self service technologies reduce the workload of the agents to a large extent.

October 29, 2024

Tips for reducing average handle time: I

Average handle time (AHT) refers to a call center metric that calculates the average duration of contact between a customer and an agent. It includes both hold time and talk time.

The formula for calculating AHT is:

Average Handling Time = (Total Talk Time + Total Hold Time + Total Wrap-up Time) /Number of Calls Handled

Therefore, a low AHT indicates good performance, while a high AHT signifies that call handling technique needs improvement. Here are some tips that can be considered in order to reduca the average handle time:

1. Set up regular training sessions for customer support agents:

Customer support agents should have a thorough knowledge of company’s products and services so that they are able to contribute efficiently towards conversions and are also able to resolve customers’ queries at the earliest. They should be trained at frequent intervals in order to help them reduce AHT. All the agents should be aware about the usage of the contact center software and tools such as CRM and chat to ensure that the call is answered in the lowest time possible leaving the customer satisfied. They should also know whom to contact in case of any doubt and from where to extract any relevant information.

2. Record all inbound and outbound calls:

Recording every inbound and outbound call makes it easier to assess the productivity of an agent and other issues that might affect his or her output. Moreover in cases where managers are not able to review calls in real time, they can always refer to the recorded version and get the desired insights. Apart from this, coaching the customer support agents with the help of call recordings is the best way to improve their performance. Making them listen good examples of calls wherein the customer’s problem was resolved and the handling time was less can help them learn the valuable tactics of reducing call handling time.

3. Automate agents’ manual tasks:

One of the best strategy to reduce AHT is tailoring agent’s workflow and processes in order to optimize their productivity. For this purpose managers should work hard so that inefficiencies can be spotted and eliminated thereafter. AHT can also be reduced by automating all their manual tasks which would minimize their busy time to a great extent.

October 29, 2024

Benefits of co- browse technology: I

By now all of you are quite familiar with co- browse technology. Apart from being a great tool for the success of a website, it offers a number of benefits to the companies and sites inculcating this technology. Some of those benefits have been mentioned below:

1. It improves support accuracy:

Co- browse technology helps to improve support accuracy by seeing exactly what the customer is seeing. Through screen sharing you can actually see what steps he is taking, what errors he is getting, reasons responsible for that error and more. Co- browsing helps ensure complete resolution as you’ll be solving the issue together with your customer.

2. Higher conversion rate:

Co-browsing lets the agents have a look at the customer’s browser tab to guide them through your website and support them with the buying process. Resolving purchase related queries during this process helps clarify their purchasing decision which results in higher conversion rates and thus higher revenue per call.

3. Increased customer contentment:

The attention span of visitors is very short and so is their patience level when they are online. So, they appreciate being helped quickly and efficiently, and having their issues resolved instantly. Most communications channels available show that customers demand fast fixes for their problems. Co- browsing is one such technology that can be used to provide quick fixes to customers’ problems. Companies can successfully meet their customers’ expectations by using such services that provide fast customer service.

4. Reduction in call handling time:

Another advantage or benefit that co- browsing offers is the reduction in call-handling time. This further increases agent utilization and reduces costs. Co- browsing involves sharing screen space online and being able to have a look at the customer’s screen which results in more involved and motivated agents. In other words, this technology actually helps to shave off all the time spent articulating what is on the screen, what the customer did previously, and what the customer should do next as it makes chats and calls more efficacious.

October 28, 2024

Strategies for generating B2B leads online: I

In the previous post we talked about B2B lead generation and its components. Now let’s take a look at the strategies that can be employed to generate leads online:

1.Email marketing:

It refers to sending a commercial message to a group of people (typically potential or current customers), using email. It basically inculcates the use of email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Email marketing can be carried out using:

Transactional emails: These emails are usually triggered based on a customer’s action with a company. To be qualified as transactional or relationship messages, these communications’ primary purpose must be to confirm a commercial transaction that the recipient has previously agreed to enter into with the sender, along with a few other narrow definitions of transactional messaging.

Direct email: It involves sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message (for example, an announcement of a special offer or a catalog of products).

Mobile email marketing: It develops large amounts of traffic through smartphones and tablets.

2. Social marketing:

This type of marketing involves leveraging social media to generate leads online. Businesses can use it to generate and nurture millions of dollars worth of leads. As a matter of fact, one of the most obvious ways to generate B2B leads from social media is using LinkedIn. Since social media is an integral part of content marketing, and to some extent, search marketing, so, your blogging or info graphics can be extremely successful if you are active on social media platforms.

In order to integrate social networks into their marketing strategies, companies have to develop a marketing model. One such model includes the following steps:

Selection of the correct social networks to use
Setting out a financial plan for hiring social media brand managers or consultants
Designing organizational structures to manage the social network in the companies’ market
Selection of target markets
Selection of the products, services, brands or company messages that you plan to promote
Performance measures for the social media strategy such as evaluation, data analytics, etc.

October 25, 2024

How to leverage PPC for lead generation: II

1. Ensure relevance between your PPC ad and landing page content:

When online users have queries related to a particular topic or want to know more about a product or service, they search the required information using specific keywords. Also, if your ad is focused on the desired certain keyword or topic, it is expected that your landing page would provide more information about that particular keyword or topic. The users would definitely be turned off if your landing page content talks about everything else except what’s mentioned in your PPC ad. Therefore, your content should be optimized in such a way that it entices landing page visitors to become a lead or a customer.

2. Employ convincing tools to support your ad claims:

For effective lead generation support your PPC advertising campaigns with evidence. This will help you gain the trust of your target audience. You may employ convincing tools such as customer testimonial, slideshows, white papers, and eBooks. these tools could support your claim as a reputable product or service. You can also feature prominently trusted seals from organizations or agencies that will increase your credibility, gain your targeted audiences’ trust, and convert them into long-term customers.

3. Entice your visitors with giveaways:

You may entice your visitors by including rewards and offers that you would give them in exchange for their sign-up information to a blog or newsletter. These giveaways may include webinars, ebooks, videos, presentations and more. Make sure that these rewards and offers are well-designed to give your web visitors something of value that will tempt them to know more about your brand, product or service. Also, it is suggested that you place your offers near your lead generation form, with customized graphics and text that will convince people to make a response to a particular call-to-action.

October 24, 2024

Tips to enhance the performance of your support agents: III

1. Arrange weekly meetings:

Arrange regular meetings for knowledge sharing. The basic idea is to discuss and understand the overall experience of your support agents with your clients. Try to understand what obstacles they face while they carry out a live chat with the website visitors, what kind of tricky questions customers may ask and how to resolve their queries. Agents can uncover important techniques of live chat support in this knowledge sharing process. This can aid in improving their overall performance.

2. Club videos with training sessions:

As a matter of fact, humans are visual learners. They tend to learn things more effectively if taught through graphics and videos. You don’t need to spend extra bucks on video tutorials. There are thousands of useful videos available on YouTube which can be utilized for this purpose. This is one of the best customer service training ideas that gives tremendous results.

3. Help them know their actual roles:

Yet another concept of your training should be to help your chat agents understand the actual role they need to play in building customer relationships. Educate them about the lifetime value of a customer as well as the consequences of a bad customer interaction. Let them know how the quality of customer support impacts on sales conversion, customer retention, and brand image. Once the support agents have this basic understanding, they will be more efficient in providing top-notch service.

4. Train them practically:

Practicing something practically helps you learn it better. Team up all of your agents and assign them different chat scenarios. Encourage them to try their best to deal with those given situations. Give them enough time to understand the whole support process, your products/services and most importantly, how to manage the live chat software. These practical sessions are very important to cultivate a capable workforce.

October 24, 2024

Tips to enhance the performance of your support agents: II

1. Review your live chat agents’ performance:

Make it a point to review your live chat agents. Their training should include mock chats, secret evaluation and much more. Apart from that, distribute customer success manuals amongst your agents where all important tips and techniques of online customer support have been mentioned in written format. This will help them to go through the important tips whenever they have any doubts.

2. Inculcate tech support along with live chat:

In order to create a power-packed support environment make use of live chat features such as canned messages and links, the ability to push files and screen sharing and co-browsing. Also, train your agents to go slow and ask short, simple questions to get to the root of problems and to make solving them easier and faster. More important than training your agents to provide tech support is ensuring they have the resources they need readily available. Ensure your tech support agents are provided with canned links for knowledge based articles, how-to tutorials, videos and other resources they need to help customers resolve issues or problems instantly. Make sure the agents know how to find the resources quickly and then send them to the respective customers whenever they need them.

3. Help them to be platform experts:

LIve chat agents need to have thorough knowledge of the platform they are working on and the tools they are dealing in. When chat agents are familiar with the tools they are utilizing while assisting customers, they perform tasks with a higher level of confidence. Task your agents providing both a customer and organization friendly experience when chatting. It’s important to be fully trained on all customer and agent facing platform features. For this purpose, customers might be presented with a pre-chat survey while initiating a chat request, which gives the ability to choose the reason for wanting to communicate.

October 23, 2024

Tips to enhance the performance of your support agents: I

Today’s era is an era of digitization. These days the purchasing decision of any customer is not only based on the quality of your offerings but also on the quality of your customer service and support. Customer support refers to the process of building a healthy relationship with your customers by convincing them that you value them and you are there whenever they need you.Thus, the quality of your support service can improve or destroy your brand image and ultimately your business revenue. So, you need to train your live chat agents with the right customer service skill. Here, we have mentioned some of the customer service training ideas!

1. Good product knowledge:

Educate your support agents about the products and services you provide. Good product knowledge not only improves the support speed but also helps to build a much stronger, long- termed relationship with the customers. If your chat support agents lack the knowledge of products and services you are dealing in, they will tell customers to hold for a while for finding the solution or transfer the chats to a more knowledgeable person, which becomes time-consuming. Therefore having proper knowledge shows confidence and builds trust amongst customers.

2. Good writing skills:

Live chat provides instant assistance to anyone visiting your site. Customers utilize the live chat option as it is the fastest way to interact with companies in case they have any queries. A key component of a live chat interaction is the agent’s ability to exercise good writing skills. Utilize the auto spelling and grammar check feature of your live chat platform to ensure efficacious agent communications. Tell them to keep sentences short and to the point. Agents must be able to write as if they were talking on the phone in order to keep the conversation flowing by mixing free form and canned messages. Interject the customer’s name while chatting to personalize the conversation and take care of punctuations.

3. Refrain from taking things personally:

There are instances when the customers are not in a good mood and they interact in an unexpected manner. Teach your support agents not to take those things personally. Complaints are gifts from the customers. They contain customer insights and are a great way to know what exactly are their opinions about your offerings and support quality. Tell them not to lie to the customer. If they don’t have the answer just admit it. Ask your live chat agents to spend some more time with the website visitors and dig personal info like customer’s hobbies, liking and disliking and so on. In this way, the conversation will be friendlier and the person on the other side will feel comfortable and relaxed.

October 23, 2024

Qualified and unqualified leads

The sole aim of individuals involved in digital and outbound marketing and sales is to segment leads into, one of two categories – qualified leads and unqualified leads. Leads can switch from one category to the other with the aid of nurture campaigns.

A qualified lead is a potential customer who has expressed interest in a product or service and meets general buying criteria.

A qualified lead is a person:

i) with need, budget, and purchasing authority.

ii) Working for a company that meets your customer profile for being a customer.

iii) With a buying timeline that falls within the time horizon of the sales representative’s commission plan.

It only takes a few minutes for a true sales professional to qualify a lead. And lead qualification can be done anywhere at a busy tradeshow or on a golf course, provided you have an efficient marketing team.ave completed, or are in the process of

Basically, qualified leads are the ones which have completed, or are in the process of completing your nurture campaign cycle.

Qualified leads are in control of their own buying cycle, completing self-education research who have brainstormed and listed their exact needs in a solution. They have a clearly defined budget to work with and are researching solutions within their means. In addition to this, they have low churn rates because they close on their own terms.

On the other hand, unqualified leads are the ones who have not been nurtured enough to close their sales cycle. They are often unsure of what your company offers and don’t know what they’re looking for in a solution. Unqualified leads may also be the ones for whom your product or service is out of their price range. Though it is possible to convert unqualified leads into customers, the churn rate is comparatively high.

October 21, 2024

Best customer retention strategies: Part VI

1.Make sure no engagement is left behind:

One of the best things that you can do to improve your customer retention is to adopt a policy in your company that no customer engagement is ignored and a response is sent as soon as possible. There are a variety of tools out there like Mention, Hootsuite, and Sproutsocial which are all great for monitoring social media. You can leverage these tools to increase your customer engagement rates and gain higher exposure.

2. CRM:

Customer relationship management (CRM) refers to practices, techniques, and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. CRM helps improve business relationships with customers resulting in customer retention and driving sales growth.

CRM systems are further designed to compile information on customers across different channels.

3. Set up an exclusive club for your loyal and highly active customers:

As a matter of fact, people like to feel special and considered important. So, that’s exactly what you should strive to do in order to achieve customer retention.

Setting up an exclusive VIP club takes time and money but will help you stand out from the crowd. Also, if done well, and optimized, will bring you positive returns.

Benefits for high performance customers — Benefits for high-performance customers

4. Make the most of social media:

Social media, today, is undoubtedly the most efficacious way of engaging with customers and retaining them. It can play a vital role in building more meaningful connections with customers, so they stay with you longer.

You can keep your customers updated and let them know about your latest offers. Moreover, you can also provide benefits like digital discount cards for following you on these platforms.

5. Upgrade your customer experience:

You should keep upgrading your website. You further need to consider these aspects while enhancing your website features:

i) redesigning your website

ii) considering solutions for device compatibility

iii) optimizing the load time

iv) providing easy navigation to customers

v) offering transparency and much more!

September 13, 2024

Live chat – Customer service channels

Live chat has become the unsung hero of customer service. Though it is not popular as Facebook or flashy as Instagram, or a social butterfly like twitter, even not buttoned up and business like as LinkedIn. But when it comes to provide quick, speedy and result oriented customer service live chat is just the best! Continue reading “Live chat – Customer service channels”

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