A Customer-centric Universe for Customer Service

Whether you’re a customer service rep or a customer yourself, we’ve all heard that “the customer is always right.” Perhaps our philosophies on how we deal with customers and how we act as customers have evolved somewhat, but business VoIP provider Nextiva say that, at least for customer service agents, putting the customer at the center of the universe is imperative for successful business.

Consider the customer-centric approach to business processes. What does this mean, exactly? It’s putting the customer ahead of extraneous stressors. We’ve all had that rough day getting to the office. We’ve all had that morning when anything and everything has gone horribly wrong. Nothing in the office is working properly today. Whatever the circumstance, it is no matter to the customer. When you’re on, you literally have to be on, regardless of the environment, with the customer as your hub as the wheel starts to turn.

Customers today demand higher quality, competitively priced products and improved service while contact centers are continually tasked with striking the balance between service quality, efficiency and effectiveness, and revenue generation, cost cutting and profitability. What makes it doubly challenging is the social factor; call centers are being tasked with the multi-channel experience for their customers through social media, like Facebook and Twitter.

So how can we make customers happy? Happiness in the call center may seem like a difficult task to obtain, but the quality of service depends so much on the people who take the calls, so much that a happy attitude can easily be extinguished by one fuming customer.

Agents deal with a plethora of obstacles, which include talking to either irritated or even very angry people through the phone.

Contact center operations need to go beyond managing employee satisfaction while still getting the most work out of them while they’re at the phones. Agents are, for all intents and purposes, at the forefront of any operation, so keeping them trained, happy, rested and alert means a better customer experience.

Nothing is more frustrating for a customer than calling into customer service, only to speak with an agent who isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. When a customer has a problem, they want a solution. Having to talk to an agent who is supposed to be helpful yet is anything but will only turn the customer off and is a surefire way to lose business.

Create the space you want for your customers and give it to your agents as well.

Edited by Alisen Downey