While call center management is a mammoth task, following the latest and most innovative trends can help a call center continue delivering quality customer service to its customers. While trends come and go with each passing year, only the most effective ones can help a call center improve. As 2019 is approaching, one must look into the call center trends that will have a big impact on call centers in the coming year.
Call Center Trends for 2019 and beyond
Trend 1: Customer Experience is of Prime Importance
Every call center should know the power of a positive customer experience.
From the most prominent corporations to the smallest businesses today, know that a poor customer experience is all it takes to lose a customer forever. At the same time, consistent lousy service can ruin any business for good, especially with so many competitors.
On the other hand, customers today are willing to pay more for better service. According to one survey, 86% of buyers would part with 25% extra cash if another company treated them better.
For this reason, customer experience has become an important aspect that call centers can no longer ignore. On the contrary, they are placing increasing emphasis on treating each caller to the highest standard of service to ensure repeat business.
Trend 2: The Importance of First Call Resolution
First-call resolution is excellent for both the call center and customers.
Agents should be encouraged to get the first call right. While some calls will be more challenging to resolve than others, it’s essential to provide customers with the best quality of care possible every single time.
Monitoring call center agents’ interactions with customers will help businesses identify mistakes that leave the caller unsatisfied and frustrated. With proper identification and training, such problems can be avoided in the future.
Trend 3: Social Network is an Important Customer Service Channel
Social networks like Facebook and Twitter remain key customer service channels.
Prospective and existing buyers can contact a business’s support team through its social accounts instead of calling or emailing. Call centers should incorporate this aspect of the customer experience into their operations to ensure that consumers can reach them on as many channels as possible.
Handling queries through various social media channels can be the fastest method. However, as the conversation takes place in a public forum, one must follow best practices. On social media, quick and efficient responses are the key. Ignoring this channel, on the other hand, can ruin a company’s brand reputation.
Trend 4: Every Channel Matters
Customers today expect companies to respond through the same channel they use to interact with the company. So, if they interact with a call center via phone or chat, they would not appreciate the company replying through email.
Therefore, call centers should be ready to incorporate that aspect of customer experience into their operations and give equal importance to all customer interaction channels. Only then will they be able to provide modern customers with the multi-channel customer service they deserve?
Trend 5: Employee Management
Most of the time, call centers fail to meet customers’ needs due to disengaged agents who lack the power and freedom to improvise or make a decision. Therefore, it is very important to empower the agents with knowledge, give them some decision-making freedom, and engage them through a reward-based culture. A company can also arrange interim training wherever needed to train their agents better.
These are some of the most important call center trends that will help call centers become successful in 2019 and beyond.
