Virtual Call Center

When an organization is focused on customer service, it would stand to reason that their customer churn rates would be low and customer satisfaction would be high. That is not always the case, however, and now those running a virtual call center must take a step back and examine whether or not they are focused on the wrong elements of customer service and not creating the experience for the customer that they mean to create.

This Contactual (News - Alert) blog highlighted this phenomenon, referring to the writing of business scholars in the Harvard Business Review. A recent article suggested that while 80 percent customer service organizations, such as a virtual call center, use customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores to gauge their success, they might actually be focusing on the wrong metric. Customer service, it turns out, has little to do with loyalty and a whole lot to do with disloyalty. 

While customer service executives within the virtual call center have great intentions, 84 percent of customers still leave their interactions dissatisfied. Instead of fostering loyalty, these customer service organizations are actually breeding discontent. The authors suggest that if the organization wants to keep customers coming back, they need to focus on product quality, brand and helping them to solve their problems easily and quickly.

Too many virtual call center leaders are trying to get their employees to bend over backwards to satisfy the customer base. Instead, they should be focused on removing obstacles to resolving customer service issues so that attaining satisfaction is easy. The authors in this report suggest there are three simple steps to follow that enable an organization to build loyalty and keep customers coming back time and again.

First, it is important to get it right the first time. Customers do resent having to repeatedly contact the company to find resolution for their complaints. Second, stay on track. It is always a bad idea to force customers to switch from one service channel to another. If the organization offers a solution online, they need to make sure satisfaction is produced the same way. Finally, employees need the power to solve customer problems. Customers hate to be transferred, especially if they have to repeat their issue. The process really just wastes everyone’s time.

To truly reduce customer churn, the virtual call center needs to focus on reducing the hassles customers experience when something goes wrong. It is still important to build a great product and a strong brand, but great service means addressing a problem head-on and resolving it quickly.