With all the CRM, workforce management (WFM) and interactive voice response (IVR) technologies available to contact centers, achieving a high level of customer service has never been easier. But, is it actually being done?

 

Consumer research commissioned by Genesys (News - Alert) revealed that 38 percent of participants indicated customer service is the biggest influence on their loyalty to a company. It’s no surprise that improving the customer experience is the number one objective for most multi-national corporate contact centers (Jacada & Winn Technology Group, “Complex Call Center Desktops Freeze Corporate Profits (White Paper (News - Alert))” 2005.)

 

Technologies such as voice self-service, skills-based routing and workforce management can help take the complexities out of customer interactions and simplify processes. But contact center agents need many different tools to deliver the best possible service to customers. Having the right technology is just the start of the process.

 

To ensure customer satisfaction, contact centers need to focus on integrating people, processes and technology. Top organizations are doing just that, and by following a five point plan — focusing on the key elements for effective customer service — companies can lay the groundwork for optimizing the customer experience.

 

When agents receive the right level of training, they can handle customer enquiries more quickly and efficiently. Developing cost-effective training courses on your tools, products and services can give agents the confidence to do their jobs well.

 

A recent contact center industry report commissioned by Genesys entitled, “Contact Center Realities” looked at consumer attitudes toward self-service and identified multi-channel customer care as one of the most important business priorities for contact centers. Many call centers are fast becoming multi-channel contact organizations. However, failure to capitalize on the new multimedia technology options available often stems from an inability to directly address specific customer needs.

 

The report confirms that the customer experience is enhanced when callers are given greater accessibility to services. If customers can easily get the information from, or complete their interaction through, the contact center — they will feel a sense of control, independence and flexibility, and they will use the service more often as a result.

 

Once an agent has spoken with a customer and successfully responded to the customer’s inquiry, it is important that the promises made on the call are fulfilled.

 

Enterprise Interaction Management (EIM) applications help businesses simplify complex back office projects by implementing contact center strategies, to help achieve cost savings and enhance customer satisfaction. Intelligent skills-based routing means that each task can be assigned to the employee best equipped to complete the job effectively.

 

The aim of an IVR application is to create an effective first point of contact for the customer that will reduce costs while maintaining high levels of service. Many companies incorrectly use IVR technology and often don’t enable the IVR to effectively resolve caller requests. IVRs enable customer interaction with more customers, ease the burden on agents, and boost first-time call resolution rates, and yet many are perceived by customers as confusing and off-putting. It is important that customers do not associate negative perceptions with self-service channels.

 

In any industry, customers are hard to retain. Customer churn will never completely cease, but paying attention to customer needs will help reduce and mitigate the effects of the turnover.

 

E-mail management enables contact centers to apply business rules to e-mail enquiries. If a company has set a maximum e-mail answer time of four hours, and by the third hour the agent has not yet responded to the e-mail, agents will receive a screen pop reminding them to respond. Defining simple priority settings such as this will demonstrate to customers that their enquiry is important and will be answered.

 

To deliver good customer service, understand what customers view as important. Conduct customer satisfaction surveys and implement positive change based on customer responses and suggestions. Make sure contact center processes reflect what customers want and expect in terms of service levels. Finally, don’t stay static — constantly strive to meet their ever-changing demands in order to deliver superior customer service.