Call Center/CRM
Info Tech 
IP Communications 
Mobile 
Green 
Satellite 
Robotics 
TMCnews Featured Article
Call Center Operations Benefit from Actionable Feedback
By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor
Call center operations often serve as the primary point for establishing customer satisfaction. The official measurement, C-Sat, doesn’t actually capture an accurate number or percentage, but instead seeks to capture customer sentiment, acting on it to continue to enhance the overall experience for the customer.
As captured in this Knowlagent blog post, too many call center operations will applaud their own efforts for simply putting a C-Sat measurement process in place. Capturing stats tends to be enough for these organizations, but without a clear plan for tracking how effective this process is in driving improvement, loyalty or revenue, it does nothing more than capture information for the sake of capturing information.
The call center operations that claim a 90 percent C-Sat rate tend to be less impressive than the operation that can show how it used feedback from customers to move from a rate of 75 percent to a rate 85 percent. Without action and movement, that C-Sat means very little. Call center operations need to be focused on impressing customers and by embracing three features listed here, a measured change can take place.
1. Post-contact surveys
These need to be provided often and accurately. A solid C-Sat survey process will allow call center operations to capture actionable customer feedback. These surveys can be administered via IVR, email or even live phone, and should be done immediately after the customer interaction has taken place. The survey should ask no more than eight to nine questions, and no fewer than four to five. It should also include questions regarding the customer’s satisfaction with the agent’s knowledge or competency level, professionalism of the agent and the overall experience. Most importantly, the survey should ask whether or not the customer’s issue was solved.
2. Alerts on disgruntled customers captured in real-time
With surveys put in place to immediately capture feedback from the customer, call center operations can stay on top of and quickly recovery from any issues or incidents that occur during the customer interaction. If a customer indicates a particularly bad experience when interacting with the call center, a “danger, danger” ding sounds for the Recovery Team. Once the call has been reviewed, the team can contact the customer, apologize and then beg for forgiveness. This type of personalized attention following a service issue helps the customer to feel better about the brand than if the problem had never occurred.
3. Optimize service and offerings with C-Sat survey results
There is little point to capturing survey data if call center operations do not use this information to consistently improve their offerings. Customers provide valuable information about what they like and dislike about a company’s offerings when surveyed immediately after an interaction.
Once call center operations understand the value of the C-Sat score, implement the right processes to capture valuable and actionable data, and then use it to make consistent improvements in performance, revenues can increase and customers are much more satisfied.
Edited by Jamie Epstein
