Contact Center Solutions
have to go that one step beyond customer service to customer engagement to
really capture and retain brand loyalty. The difference between the two simply
being that customer engagement is a proactive attempt to establish a sense of
connection, whereas a service is simply a reactive response. How best can you
employ contact center solutions to generate better customer engagement? Here
are the top 3 things to consider:
1.
Availability
The first
and most important aspect to consider is how available your contact center
solution is. Increasingly in this day and age, with the undeniably strong
influence of the internet culture which is open 24/7, it makes sense to have
your business run 24/7 as well. Nothing is more frustrating to a customer than
to have to wait till the office opens in your local time zone to have pressing
concerns met.
- Does your contact center solutions provider offer the option of 24/7, round the clock availability to provide an immediate response?
- Are their numbers toll-free (super plus!) with local reach and local language options for international clients?
- Are they available on multiple channels across multiples devices, for example, mobiles, emails, online chats?
2.
Product Knowledge and the Ability to Communicate
That Knowledge
Placing
fresh hires on the telephone is the most disastrous thing that anyone can do
for their business. Whilst there is a case for on-the-job training, the last
place this should be implemented is at customer contact points.
- Customers want people who can understand what they are talking about.
- They want people with previous experience in dealing with the same concern to really set their mind at ease.
- They also want to communicate with someone who is able to suggest options and give alternatives based on his/her extensive knowledge of the product.
- Most important of all, customers want the agent to be on the same level of communication; speak the same language they are most comfortable in, and be able to generate understanding and connection based on the way they use the language?
3. Problem Resolution
Last but not the least,
your contact center solutions provider has to have an inbuilt mechanism for
dealing with and resolving customer complaints.
- Are your agents fully trained on how to deal with different types of concerns and/or complaints?
- Do your agents know how to react empathetically with effective problem resolution skills?
- Do they have an effective leadership team in place that can respond proactively to queries outside of the norm or those that require specialized expertise?