3rd Party Remote Call Monitoring Feature

The term “customer experience” refers to every step in the process that a customer makes from initial contact with a brand to the service after the sale. A good customer experience covers all of these and improves the likelihood the customer will return to buy. The call center, meanwhile, is one of the biggest parts of the after-sales part of the customer experience. That's why it's important to ask—as a report in Forbes did—if the call center's operations are properly aligned with sales and service strategies.

Call center operations have taken a beating in recent years, as pop culture and plain experience combine to say this whole operation is terrible. Its staffers are often poorly-paid drones who'd rather be anywhere else—if they're even in the same country as those calling in—constrained by a massive bureaucracy, a nonsensical script, and last decade's bargain-basement technology. Getting a problem solved can be an ordeal in every sense, and ultimately, make us wonder if anywhere else is any better.

This poses a great opportunity for businesses to get and hold customers; after-sales service is a huge part of the customer experience, and that's not the only part the call center can impact. The call center can also deliver information about products and services, about company policy, and about return and warranty policies. The call center also is left with the job of fulfilling most every promise made by sales and marketing, so getting the “what we're telling customers” and “what we actually can do” points together will make the difference in customer experience.

Improving a call center isn't easy. There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to a call center, and since this is the public face of the organization, it's generally not a good idea to staff it with warm bodies who on average make less than the janitor. The call center needs to know all about the current product released so as to be able to talk about it effectively both before and after the sale. The call center needs to be staffed with warm, empathetic people who can withstand a lot of consumer ignorance and sometimes outright hostility. It would be good if these people understood social media and had experience with it. Even things as mundane as the staff's accent and employer policies can come into play.

There's a lot going on in the call center, and many businesses out there just don't understand what it's doing. Getting beyond this lack of understanding, and rebuilding operations accordingly, will be vital in making sure that the call center is on the same page as sales and service. This in turn will make the best customer experience and improve the likelihood of customers coming back for more.