Posted on

Tactics to reduce your call abandon rate: III

1. Offer a callback facility:

In order to reduce the call abandon rate, you can consider replacing hold time with a callback. According to research conducted by Forrester, providing the customers with an option to hold their place in the queue and go on to do something else is highly appealing, with 75% stating a preference for it. Therefore, instead of asking your customers to wait on hold allow them to request for a callback. This will lead to the customer being immediately released from the waiting list. Thereafter, he can be given a callback as soon as an appropriate agent is available. Apart from lowering the call abandon rate it also leads to an increased first call resolution, thus benefiting the organization.

Call back facility
Call back facility

2. Employ omni- communication channel:

This is yet another tactic that can effectively reduce your call abandon rate. Omni-channel communication channel refers to various channels of support other than the phone. Employing omni-channel communication channel would definitely lower the burden and reduce call abandonment. You must consider adopting omni-channel communication to provide a consistent experience to your customers across channels.

Omni communication channel
Omni communication channel

3. Consider changing your on-hold music:

According to a research has shown that 71% of customers like to listen to music while they are on hold. Therefore, your choice of music plays a crucial role in maintaining the customers’ patience. As a matter of fact, the music played at the time of hold could be causing the callers to hang up the phone. Therefore, you need to check the analytics and see when the maximum drop-offs occur. In case it is after the music starts playing then consider replacing it with the customer’s choice of music. This can be done by asking the customers’ feedback about the on-hold music on social media sites. Based on their consensus, the required modifications can be made.

On-hold music
On-hold music

4. Change your queue message:

Customers tend to learn your queued messages when they call frequently. So, they tend to skip the instructions and directly press the required numbers as they memorize the sequence. This causes problems. Thus you can consider changing your queued messages consistently. This will help buy the agents time to finish up on earlier calls. Therefore, by the time the call goes through, there would be a lot less waiting time for the new ones.

Queued messages

Posted on

Tactics to reduce your call abandon rate: II

1. Leverage CDR systems:

You can leverage CDRs i.e. call detail report systems to effectively improve the customer experience and lower your abandon rate. The call detail report systems capture information about which line a call came in on, the time it came through, how long the customer was on hold for, and which agent they eventually spoke to. It also lets you know if they hung up before being connected.

CDR
CDR

2. Manage the call queue efficiently:

Managing your call queue is a clever tactic of reducing the abandon rate. You can leverage these call detail reports to gain insight into your calls including the ones that never got answered. By knowing the KPIs such as who abandoned a call, when they called you, and how long they waited before hanging up, you can make informed decisions regarding problem resolution. Since it provides you a detailed understanding of your callers’ patience, so you can actually employ this information to improve the customer service.

KPIs
KPIs

3. Consider changing your welcome messages:

You can consider replacing the generic messages with a short welcome message which informs your customers that they are being held in a queue. As an alternative, you can also include a compliance message such as “all calls are being monitored for compliance purposes”. Also, providing them additional information will keep them on the line for longer, increasing the chance that they will get through to one of your agents.

Welcome message
Welcome message

4. Alter the frequency of queued messages:

As a matter of fact, callers would much prefer to hear music until they get through to an agent. Since in most cases, the callers get occupied with additional while they are kept on hold, every repetition of the message will draw them away from their activity, hopeful that their call has finally been answered, only to find out that they are still on hold. So, you can consider alternating between automated messages and hold music with varying intervals. As an example, you can first play the automated message and then play the hold music for 1 minute. This can be followed by another automated message and then the hold music being played for two minutes and so on.

In-queue messages
In-queue messages

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

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.

Customer support training
Customer support training

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.

 

Tech Support
Tech Support

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.

 

Platform skills
Platform skills
Posted on

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!

Good customer service
Good customer service

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.

Product knowledge
Product knowledge

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.

Chatting skills
Chatting skills

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.

Friendly customer service
Friendly customer service