Brand building refers to boosting a brand’s equity directly through advertising campaigns and indirectly through promotions such as event sponsorship. In order to build your brand effectively, you need to employ an exceptional brand building process. Now, what all does an effective brand building process do? Well, It does a lot! For instance, it:
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This is an era of digitization. You can find everything from a newspaper to books to apparels online. There is no need to hop stores to purchase something that you require. You just need to browse and click and that’s it! Though online shoppers experience convenience with the help of online shopping, there are a number of difficulties they have to face:
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Lead generation refers to the marketing process of stimulating and capturing interest in a product or service for the purpose of developing sales pipeline. It is very important to have qualified leads so as to have qualified leads.
Lead generation is all about brand awareness, pulling down leads and making sales. Therefore, employing the best lead generation strategies can prove to be beneficial for any business in the long run. Here we have piled up the best lead generation strategies that you can leverage to boost your lead generation:
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The quality of customer service you provide to your customers plays a vital role in the success of your business irrespective of its size. Therefore, almost all companies try to improve their customer service performance by employing the best strategies. Also, a productive support team will be consistent at all times. Here are the best strategies employed by the most successful businesses in order to maximize their performance in customer service:
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Customer relationships need to be nurtured as they play a vital role in the success of a business. Companies should work towards the enhancement of customer relationships. Here are a few tips on how you can deepen the customer relationships:
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In a typical situation, customer queries are addressed when they arise. Though an instant query resolution would make them happy this reactive approach may not provide you with the desired customer satisfaction level. So, a better option for an inflated customer contentment rate is the “proactive approach”.Now, what exactly is a proactive approach? Well, it means, you solve problems before customers have to call you. With a proactive customer support, you can solve customer queries even before they become aware of them. Let’s see how you can accomplish this highly efficacious strategy.
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ASA stands for “Average Speed of Answer”.
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
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.
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.
We made you familiar with the concept of occupancy in our previous post. Now, let’s have a look at the most effective tips for improving call center occupancy:
There might be days when the traffic at a call center is not much. These days are referred to as the quiet periods. Productivity and occupancy levels can be increased by asking agents to take on different tasks during these quiet periods. As an example, call centers that normally handle only incoming calls ask agents to make outbound calls during quiet periods or ontact customers to ask if they were satisfied with the service they received. These periods are even utilized to call customers who have recently purchased a product to offer them information on other products of interest. This ultimately improves the call center ocupancy.
You can consider offering customer self-service facilities through website, e-mail or voice mail. These facilities help reduce staffing levels and call volumes Providing customers with self-service options for services such as requesting service calls, placing and tracking order etc. ultimately reduces the call volumes and helps in optimizing the call center occupancy.
Call monitoring is yet another powerful strategy for improving call center occupancy. You can consider monitoring the call volumes at different times of the day and on different days in order to identify busy periods and quiet periods. Thereafter, you can schedule staff levels to reduce the time customers have to wait in a queue during busy periods.
You can provide additional resources for peak periods by outsourcing a part of your call center operations. Moreover, you can consider switching resources between the main call center and the outsourced call center instead of asking permanent staff to attend more calls during peak hours. Apart from improving the occupancy rate of each staff, it also ensures that their efficiency is not getting affected during peak hours.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1.Optimize call queue settings:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
In order to measure the performance of a call center’s customer service representatives individually and as a whole, call center analytics is used. Also, this is used to gauge a call center’s overall approach to customer relationship management (CRM) in a quick and responsive manner. Call center management uses this analytics to evaluate interactions, spot patterns, identify knowledge gaps, and make corrections through more training or other means.
1. Text analytics:
The term text analytics refers to a set of linguistic, statistical, and machine learning techniques that model and structure the information content of textual sources for business intelligence, exploratory data analysis, research, or investigation. It is extensively used to respond to business problems, whether independently or in conjunction with query and analysis of fielded, numerical data. Also, the communication with customers these days is not limited to just the written documents. It is also carried out through email, secure messaging, Facebook, Twitter, and other text-centered media. Text analytics, as call center analytics, can review and monitor not only the messages sent to customers but also the message they send to the company. This helps in having a thorough knowledge of customers’ issues.
2. Speech analytics:
The process of analyzing recorded calls to gather customer information to improve communication and future interaction is known as speech analytics. This process is used by customer contact centers to extract information buried in client interactions with an enterprise. Using speech analytics, companies can monitor calls in real time and unearth inefficiencies in their current model, and make process improvements, such as moving to a call script or developing systems for call center agents to utilize in order to achieve the desired outcome. Moreover, the technology can pinpoint cost drivers, trend analysis, identify strengths and weaknesses with processes and products.
A screen pop is an enticing feature of a computer telephony integration (CTI) application. It automatically displays all of the relevant caller and account information on a call center agent’s screen during a call. In order to match the incoming call against a customer database, caller ID , voice response or an automatic call distributor (ACD) may be used. This is done to identify the caller before the connection is made to the agent.
In other words, a screen pop is a feature that automatically displays caller information on call center agent screens when a call rings into the system. It is also known as automatic screen pop, automated screen pop.
How it works:
i) A customer or prospect reaches out via a phone call
ii) As soon as the call center software receives the call, it alerts the agent.
This alert includes information that there is a caller on the line and other relevant caller information found in the system. A screen pop can pull the data from a number of sources. As an example, some of this information can be pulled from public databases like data.com. However, the main information present in a screen pop should come from a company’s robust database as accessed through their call center software and helpdesk systems.
A number of advanced call center software solutions allow for customized screen pops, where companies can choose specific information to be displayed. Generally, this may include the caller’s name, phone number, address, email address, company, job title, information entered in your IVR, and other relevant information.
The screen pop feature is of utmost importance for a customer support center as it is a way to ensure that call center agents are primed to help customers even before the call is answered. Also, it is easy and automatic. Moreover, it allows agents to personalize conversations from the get-go, which improves customer satisfaction. This personalized service speeds up call resolution and helps your company stand out of the crowd.
1. Forecast down to appropriate intervals:
A particular number of agents is needed at different times of day to handle typical call volumes. This number is termed as “Base staff” and varies by time of day or day of the week. It is said to be a good practice to forecast down to about 15- or 30-minute intervals and to take into account variations in both volume and average handling time. This would help reduce call center shrinkage to a large extent.
2. Employ WFM application:
A WFM application with schedule adherence allows you to measure call center shrinkage at a granular employee level. It has the ability to track the exact time spent in planned and unplanned shrinkage. It can help manage shrinkage in a suitable manner in the season based environment. Moreover, it enables you to calculate the impact of absenteeism, late individuals etc on the service that you deliver to your customers.
3. Avoid flat lining or rounding off the shrinkage:
You should avoid flat lining the call center shrinkage across the year. Instead, consider analyzing the trends related to shrinkage. The reason being, categories such as sickness, training etc cannot always be the same every week or month of the year. Also, you need to make sure that you use decimal points and do not round off the figures in the respective calculations. This is because even 0.1% has the potential of adding up to a cost over the course of a year.
4. Consider individual calculations for different departments:
In a multi-department call center, shrinkage should be calculated individually rather than for the centre as a whole. This leads a better and more efficacious calculation.
5. Determine strategies that would reduce shrinkage for your business:
Based on the trends related to call center shrinkage and further calculations, base staff can be determined so as to facilitate a productive work schedule. Consider analyzing the data gleaned from monitoring the factors affecting shrinkage and discussing it with the entire team. Thereafter, you can determine and employ strategies that would work best to reduce shrinkage in your business
Callback messaging is a service that allows callers to leave personal contact information, either spoken or through the number pad so that an agent can call them back and they retain their place in the queue. This is very useful when call volume is high. This amazing feature offers the caller an alternative to either holding on the line or losing their place in the queue.
1.Shortens the call length:
Keeping your customers on hold for long intervals can cause frustration. They tend to loose patience with time and finally when the call is connected they often waste time complaining. Instead of starting off with the query that they called for, they angrily talk about their bad experience hence, increasing the length of the call. Callback messaging can help you start every conversation off smoothly, resulting in lower handle times.
2. Exempts call abandonment:
With high call volumes, call centers are left with the only option of telling their customers that “your call matters to us, please be patient” so many times. As a result, they hang up the phone and abandon the call. With the help of a callback messaging solution, customers have an option of receiving a call whenever an agent is available. This reduces call abandonment to a large extent.
3. Deflates telecom costs:
As a matter of fact, a PSTN line is occupied the whole time when a caller is kept on hold. Often, a toll-free DID at a premium per-minute rate. Callback messaging facility eliminates the telecom costs associated with hold time as no PSTN line is occupied.
4. Enhances customer experience:
When customers are kept on hold, they tend to get irritated and abandon the calls. Since their calls go unattended in these cases, so, this leads to bad experience. Replacing hold time with a callback enhances the experience you provide to customers, hence, exceeding their expectations.
5. Increases productivity:
Callback messaging helps make more efficient use of agents by smoothing out the peak periods. this aids in improving call center productivity and reducing the need to hire additional resources. It further lowers the number of repeat callers, hence, reducing spikes efficaciously.
Quality monitoring process aims at evaluating the agents in an effective manner. It is employed to identify the calls failing to meet predefined standards. Thereafter, you can make informed decisions to make the process better, faster and quicker. The following steps need to be followed when trying to design an effective quality monitoring process:
1. Determine and define the objectives:
The very first step of this process is to determine important goals. Once it’s done, these goals need to be defined along with intended results. Based on the goals and intended results, tasks should be assigned to the various individuals.
2. Educate the agents about the process’s merits:
When you decide to install a quality monitoring system, you may face resistance from the agents. You can combat this problem by explaining the merits. This would encourage them to support you.
3. Call selection:
Non-routine customer calls need to be selected for greater effectiveness of your QA program. These calls include the ones:
i) that were transferred multiple times
ii) those were either shorter or longer than usual
iii) that originated from certain geographies or customers
iv) that involved some particular activity on the PC screen of the agent
5. Make use of process maps:
1.Enhances customer satisfaction:
The quality of interaction between a call center agent and a customer decides the efficiency of customer service which further affects customer satisfaction. Therefore, the agent has to communicate clearly, maintain phone etiquette, treat the customer with respect, maintain a pleasant tone throughout the conversation, and provide resolution to all their queries. As mentioned earlier, call recording helps management check whether an agent has efficiently performed in an expected manner or not. It helps managers to resolve customer complaints in an appropriate manner. Also, it enables the agent to play nice knowing that his / her call is being monitored. Moreover, this forces the agent to be consistently professional in all the calls.
2. Improves security:
An appropriate call recording system can be highly beneficial to a company employing it. It helps reduce inappropriate calls and detect any security problems. It enables you to monitor employee interaction to reduce inappropriate conversations. Call recording exempts the chances of agents using the resources for personal use as it also helps to reduce personal phone calls. However, all the call centers are required to inform the customer beforehand that the call is getting recorded. This, in turn, causes the customers to refrain from using abusive language on the call. In other words, a call recording system actually helps to keep the conversations professional.
3. Corporate liability and compliance:
As a matter of fact, even a simple miscommunication can lead to a potential lawsuit. So, almost all companies have the potential to face lawsuits. Hence, a call recording system enables your company to diffuse many such scenarios. Moreover, new and old government regulations require all companies to be compliant with their business practices. So, call recording also helps to maintain compliance with all these regulatory groups. In other words, it exempts any chances of you being prosecuted or fined.
1.Deflates operating expenses:
Speech analytics can help deflate operating expenses by detecting cost savings and ways to avoid spending money while generating incremental revenue. In order to tune a speech analytics application for a specific site, a significant investment in time and resources is required. This highly efficacious technology then filters out and provides cost savings data across the board. This enables the call center owners to avoid counterproductive spending and enhance their reputation among businesses requiring call centers. Moreover, it improves customer experience.
2. Reduces customer churn:
3. Improves customer experience:
This amazing software can be used for audio data analysis. This data analysis includes:i)
i) detecting things like emotion and stress in a customer’s voice
ii) the reason for the call
iii) the products mentioned and more
With the help of speech analytics, organizations can quickly identify a customer’s needs, wants and expectations, and work to meet them. These days, more and more call centers are relying on call center speech analytics to enhance customer experience. Organizations depending on call centers to provide their customers with satisfying and fruitful interactions can actually leverage the power of this wonderful technology to take their business elsewhere by discovering inferior agent-customer synergy.
