Today, customer experience is considered a key brand differentiator. It can make or break a purchasing decision and significantly improves customer retention and loyalty. Therefore, most companies today are keen to improve customer experience. With the right call center services provider, it is possible to deliver an excellent customer experience at each point of your customer’s journey, leading to improved customer loyalty. Outsourced customer experience services can drive transformational focus on call outcomes and first-call resolution.
Introduction to Outsourced Customer Experience Services
Customer experience is your customers’ impression of your brand throughout all aspects of the buyer’s journey. It affects their view of your brand and factors related to your bottom line, including revenue.
Positive customer experience is crucial to the success of your business because a happy customer is likely to become a loyal customer who can help you boost revenue. Here are a few essential statistics that will help you understand the importance of customer experience:
- According to research, 73% of buyers say customer experience is an important factor in purchasing decisions.
- 65% of people in the US also feel that a positive experience with a brand is more influential than great advertising.
- According to a report from RightNow, 82% of respondents say they have left a brand over a poor customer experience.
Therefore, customer experience is something brands can no longer ignore. They should ensure that customers have a positive experience throughout their journey. The call center plays a major role in delivering this experience. Therefore, brands should opt for a call center outsourcing partner focusing on customer experience while delivering a service.
Putting Customer Experience at the Core of Service Delivery
With the right call center partner, delivering a quality customer experience becomes much easier during each customer interaction. When these outsourcing partners design their call center services, keeping the customer experience in mind. They can incorporate little changes to the standard contact center services to improve the experience. Here are a few ways the call centers can improve the experience.:
Ensuring Minimum On-Hold Time for Your Customers
No one likes being put on hold during calls, especially if it is a call to a call center. Most customers tend to feel frustrated when a call center agent puts them on hold for an extended period of time. These customers do not care if their issues need some time to be resolved, and the agent needs time to find a solution while putting them on hold.
Most customers see an inbound call center as a one-stop solution for all their problems. So, when an agent puts them on hold, they tend to feel angry, which leads to a poor customer experience. According to research, 47% of US, UK, and Australian online shoppers deemed speed “critical” to a great online experience, while another 47% said it’s “important.”
While eliminating waiting time is not possible, at least at present, there are many practices a call center can employ to minimize the on-hold time. These include providing the agents with all relevant information in one place, using AI and bots to suggest a correct solution, and providing the agents with a list of FAQs and resolutions to common issues. These will shorten the wait time and keep the customers happy and satisfied with the services.
Efficient Call Flow Management
Efficient call flow management is a crucial feature for call center success. Ensuring quality customer service and a positive customer experience is difficult without a call flow management plan. Therefore, measures must be implemented to manage the call traffic and redirect the calls to the necessary extensions.
An agent often encounters a customer issue that he/she cannot resolve independently. Different agents have different expertise and may not know everything. Proper call center software allows aligning the right customer with the right agent who can handle the issue. This will make customer interactions more satisfactory and result in a positive customer experience.
Ensuring One Call Resolution Wherever Possible
Nothing makes your customers happier than a fast and hassle-free resolution to their issues. If a customer has to contact a call center time and again just to resolve their issues, they will feel frustrated. Therefore, call centers must work on providing customers with quick resolutions to their problems, preferably in a single interaction.
Training the agents better, providing adequate knowledge, and empowering them to make small decisions without their supervisor’s interference can help them deliver one-call resolution and improve customer experience.
Fostering an Emotional Connection with Personalized Call Center Service
Customers today prefer to have an emotional connection with their brand. They want their brands to reflect their values, care about what they want, and know them well. It can be done using your call center service provider. If a call center agent can forge a personalized connection with the customers he is dealing with, the interaction can lead to a great customer experience. All your call center team has to develop emotional intelligence.
Agents must move away from classic and unemotional customer service and implement emotionally intelligent tactics to improve customer experience in call centers instead. They should adopt storytelling techniques to help customers better relate to the brand and agent. Personalized customer service can go a long way to improving the customer experience. Surprises like an unexpected discount or loyalty reward for returning customers can also improve customer experience. These tricks will boost the emotional quotient of your customer service and lead to better customer engagement.
Focusing on Reducing Customer Effort
Research shows that online shoppers value speed and ease as two important factors in their experience. So, besides speed, businesses should also focus on reducing customer efforts. When customers find it easy to access customer service and receive support, the customer experience improves.
Some of the key ways to improve customer experience in a call center are:
- Asking for the customer’s contact number and offering call back in case of a long call queue or disconnection
- Enhancing your agent’s understanding of customer queries to minimize the need for the customers to repeat themselves
- Availing FAQs and Knowledge Base articles for self-service and additional information
- Providing additional materials after a call to enhance the service
- Making an effort to solve the problem during the first call
Following these steps can improve customer experience and increase customer loyalty. Improved customer loyalty boosts customer advocacy of your brand and can boost your revenue.
Outsourced Customer Experience Services from Fusion CX
To sum it up, a company can improve its customer experience and brand experience using its call center partner. With highly personalized and prompt call center services from both inbound and outbound call centers, it is possible to ensure customer engagement and satisfaction and deliver a superior customer experience. With the right call center partner, you will gain customer loyalty and retention, leading to better revenue and a highly engaged customer base. In this age of competition, that’s the biggest asset a company can have.
