Patents, awards, contracts and customers! There are times when you are so grateful, you just have to shout it out and tell all your friends. This year has been especially productive and rewarding making all of us at Envision so incredibly honored and proud.
Since the beginning of time, one thing has remained the same when it comes to consumerism: we naturally gravitate towards personalized products and services. It’s why most of us would rather buy a shirt with a logo or design, verses a generic tee. It’s why some of us would even go so far as to have a shirt custom made if we can’t find what we’re specifically looking for.
“Trick or Treat?” is a fine question to ask at doors on Halloween night, but when your customers come a knockin’ for service, there should be no response that isn’t a “treat.” In other words, with consumer experiences serving as a major differentiator in today’s marketplace, if you hope to remain competitive, your customers should always be “treated” to excellent service when they reach out to your contact center.
So, how do you make certain you aren’t frightening consumers away with scary, or just plain bad, customer service? The best way to ensure you are offering quality customer interactions is to employ well-trained, highly professional contact center agents. And the most efficient, cost-effective way to coach and train agents is to adopt Click2Coach—contact center software from Envision.
While voice is still the primary communication channel preferred by consumers, self-service portals are becoming increasingly popular, according to Forrester. In fact, the use of Web self-service is sure to rise in 2014, with 72 percent of businesses already reporting a surge in customers preferring to find answers and resolve issues on their own.
As the “dog days” of summer roll on, providing and improving customer satisfaction grows both more important and difficult. Why? Because scientific research proves that, for many people, as the temperature increases, patience decreases.
If you’ve noticed a little more of an edge in your customers’ voices recently, don’t panic because it may have more to do with the heat than anything your business is or isn’t doing. Still, bearing in mind that people tend to be a little crankier this time of year, it’s important that you have the tools to make sure your agents operate at peak levels. Even when the mercury creeps toward triple digits, improving customer satisfaction should remain a top priority.
Has your CRM seen better days? Though perhaps still fully functional, does its legacy architecture make it difficult to synchronize data? Are your employees using it for conversation tracking, agent performance monitoring, or any other essential features—or has it become simply an electronic rolodex?
An outdated CRM can undermine your business goals especially with regard to customer service. Companies run the risk of losing customers these days more from service process issues than product quality. A slipshod support experience can decidedly reduce the likelihood a customer will recommend a service or product or repurchase from that same company. Even if they don’t lead to customer churn, service issues can quickly eat away at company worth and profitability, as the cost to support a customer inquiry or complaint can be $2 to $11 per contact, according to aggregated industry reports.
We’ve all experienced it, the dreaded runaround. It goes something like this: You call into a contact center, navigate through the IVR, repeat your contact information, reach a service representative who directs you to another agent, who then puts you on hold... the cycle continues. Unfortunately, this is an all too familiar and frustrating experience for consumers who’ve become accustomed to the expediency of online and mobile self-service.
As a contact center leader, you already know that inconveniencing customers can harm your company’s reputation. But did you know that it could also cost you money? According to the “Avaya Customer Effort Impact Study,” two-thirds of survey respondents said they would stop spending money with a company as a result of a “high effort” experience—or an interaction that requires considerable time and effort to complete. What’s more, survey respondents stated that the following activities contributed most to a poor experience:
Right now, business leaders everywhere are looking for ways to improve customer service without spending a lot of money or overhauling current infrastructure. Now, thanks to recent innovations in workforce optimization software, this is possible.
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