This article offers four proven tips for increasing customer service, empowering employees and running your business more efficiently.
Originally published in H2 2018 D365UG/CRMUG Magazine
With a little more communication and a few discovery tactics, you can increase your overall Customer service, make your employees feel more empowered, and be on the road to a more efficient running business.
Invest in Your Team
Your employees are often the only voice a Customer receives from your organization, so training them to interact with Customers in the appropriate tone for your business, but without making them come across too robotic, is the sweet spot you want to find.
First, encourage agents to illustrate their individuality by asking them unconventional questions about themselves and guide them through scenarios where they can casually add them into Customer interactions. When done correctly, this keeps agents from sticking solely to the Customer service scripts and makes for a more memorable interaction for the Customer.
Second, schedule regular training sessions for all employees on a variety of topics—from new software launches to soft-skill sessions like patience, empathy, and clear communication. This keeps them feeling empowered with their skills regardless of their experience level, and continued education increases overall employee job satisfaction.
Choose the Right Software for Your Organization
Before you head to Google, there are a few questions you should ask yourself about your organization. Consider what kind of calls your contact center takes: Do you receive solely inbound communication or outbound? Perhaps you need both? Do you only take and make phone calls, or do you have an omni-channel contact center? After you’ve familiarized yourself with your agents and Customers’ needs, what goals do you have for the software you want to purchase?
Do you need the solution to implement post-call surveys or create a single set of reports for easy decision making?
Keep the main goals in mind when speaking to and researching vendors so you don’t get distracted by features they may offer you. Creating a checklist of the features you’re most interested in and comparing it against each vendor will keep them all on an even playing field for the reasons you’re shopping for a solution in the first place.
Implement Customer Service as a Business Strategy
Similarly, to upper management guessing what employees need to make their job easier, organizations often make assumptions about Customers’ overall opinion of their business.
So, it is important to first find out Customers’ actual opinions by implementing Customer service surveys, which will give decisionmakers accurate data. Based on the overall results of these surveys, create a Customer service vision that easily defines the type of Customer service you want to deliver, and reflects both who you are now and who you will aspire to be in the future.
Second, turn this vision into Customer service goals with anticipated results that can be reviewed periodically. Making sure everyone who impacts these goals is fully aware of their meaning and ways to reach them is essential to success.
Measure
Before making any changes to your contact center, look at the key performance indicators (KPIs) you are currently using and interpret the information to see if it is still relevant to the way your organization operates today. Keep in mind that finding the right balance of metrics is essential because too much reporting can be just as ineffective as too little reporting.
Once you’ve established the KPIs that are most important to your organization, benchmark where you currently are before implementing any changes. Be sure to continue incrementally looking at the reports and noting the dates when changes took place to see which may have had an impact on the results. If this list seems somewhat intimidating, keep in mind two points. First, remember that every organization is different, and what works for you will be based on your requirements. Second, seeing positive results could be a process of trial and error. Try making one change at a time to see which has the most impact!
This article was originally posted as a blog by AMC Technology.