Customer satisfaction is crucial for maintaining any successful business, and often your call center operations are a direct result of how satisfied your customers are with your brand. Customers value the personal interaction a phone call has, so take advantage of that human connection.
So how can you set the bar with customer service and grow your consumer base? The following tips will help you effortlessly improve customer satisfaction.
Reduce hold time
Product and price aren’t the only factors that matter in the marketplace. Arguably customer satisfaction is even more important than how useful and affordable the product is. According to a survey conducted by Gartner, 64 percent of consumers say their experience as a customer is more important than the product’s cost.
So when it comes to market competition, having the best customer service likely trumps a cheap price tag. Low customer satisfaction can directly impact your business’s bottom line. It’s common to see customers switch to a competing company after just one negative experience with customer service.
A long wait time can significantly reduce your customer satisfaction. People are busy and don’t have time to wait endlessly on the phone to help solve a problem. Hold time is directly tied to customer satisfaction with calling companies. And the longer you make a customer to wait, the more money it will cost you. Recent data shows consumers will only stay on hold for an average of 13 minutes before hanging up.
To help reduce hold time, make sure your call center is staffed with enough agents to take in the amount of incoming calls. And if an unpredicted spike in calls occurs, give customers the option to leave the queue and provide a call-back number so an agent can get back to them.
Measure your CSAT scores
Use customer satisfaction as a key performance indicator, and then track that metric to ensure success. Measuring customer satisfaction (sometimes shortened to “CSAT”) is usually done with a survey via phone, email, or standard mail after the end of the call.
This CSAT score highlights a customer’s overall perception of your brand and their experience with your company. The score can predict the customer’s loyalty to your brand and whether they’ll be a repeat customer.
No industry standard exists when measuring customer satisfaction as rating systems vary from company to company. But traditionally, survey questions ask whether the customer was satisfied with a “yes or no” response. Or they might ask customers how they would rate the satisfaction on a scale of one to ten, or by using the words “unsatisfied, somewhat satisfied, or very satisfied.”
Utilize omnichannel software
Omnichannel software helps streamline communication between agents and customers, which is an easy way to dramatically improve customer satisfaction. Omnichannel software gives sales representatives access to a customer’s information before even interacting with them.
The software unifies customer experience across all communication channels (email, chat, and phone) so the user doesn’t have to repeat themselves when speaking to someone new. While customers have been demanding omnichannel service, only a handful of companies truly offer it and even fewer use it to its full potential.
When purchasing omnichannel, look into call center software prices to see what best fits for your budget. But don’t be discouraged. Omnichannel technology is a great investment when it comes to improving customer satisfaction and is expected to become the mainstream approach.
