Call Center Management Featured Article
What Call Center Management Needs to Know About Self-Service
A customer just spent two whole minutes trying to navigate through the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, only to have the system tell them they couldn’t understand their request and goodbye before actually disconnecting the call. I was that customer and I couldn’t believe it when the phone went dead. The first thing I wanted to do was to curse call center management.
While I won’t name the offending company, it was clear that satisfying the customer wasn’t a priority. The IVR was not designed to enable the caller to find what they needed. In fact, none of the options offered in the menu matched. So, I kept digging. When I got frustrated, I decided to hit the “0” so I could get to a live operator. Unfortunately, call center management had neglected to put that option in place.
The call center had one thing right – they implemented a self-service channel to try and empower the individual to identify what they needed and execute on that need without human interaction. The problem was they didn’t really understand why customers call in the first place and neglected to include even the very basic of transactions in their IVR menu. I’m sure I’m not the first customer to get the boot, but it will be the last time the company has the opportunity to do so with this consumer.
A recent Call Centre Helper examined 10 ways to improve performance in the call center by as much as 30 percent. The key to improvement, however, is to understand how the team should function and the experience that should be created for the customer. When it comes to self-service, there are a few things to remember. It must focus on the channels that customers actually use and must place a priority on those calls that tend to dominate the live agent’s time.
When call center management puts an effective self-service strategy in place, it can save considerable cost. The live agent interaction is certainly the most costly. If that interaction can be shifted to a self-service channel, the call center saves that cost and enables the agent to focus on a more critical issue or a higher priority caller.
For those calls that do need a focused interaction, however, it’s important to set the standard for quality. At the same time, agents need to understand the goals when it comes to handling targets. It’s OK to set parameters for how quickly calls need to be answered, the amount of time in which an email needs to be received, how many minutes can pass before a social media interaction must have a response and more.
When the entire call center team understands the importance of the customer experience and performance goals are clearly established, everyone can move in the same direction to ensure the successful launch of any customer campaign.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi