A knowledge management and its management have time and again popped up to register the significance in an organizational scenario. Customer metrics however have always been the end goal. Every metric is inter dependent and thus requires a series of hacks to keep it under control yet casual for your workforce.
In this blog ahead, we are going to journey on how your contact center agents use some basic hacks to enhance their communication and persuasion skills.
Impress your customer
Keep private comments silent
Sometimes an agent might lose their temper and comment on something inappropriate.
Although, it is always recommended to save such temptations for after a call is hung up if you really need to speak, make sure the mic is muted.
Your experience is yours
Do not let your customers know about your experience span. For them, it is always the quality of output that matters. Be it a fresher or an experienced executive, the customers don’t want to hear your figure. All they need is your own job rating and great FCR scores.
Write and record
The feature of auto call recording is obviously normal. Do not forget to continue taking down notes and bullets of important points stated by customers through the call. You cannot put on the recording to hear details while a call is in progress neither shall your notes serve future training purposes
Soft and empathetic
Be soft with customers. Even if they tempt to shout or get abusive, give them a soft landing. Don’t focus on a 3 tier cal composed of “hello-solution-thanks”. Extend your courtesy by being empathetic towards their anxiousness owing to the issue regarding product or service.
Be natural
Don’t take up a fake accent in your speech unless you are mastering it completely. Live call is not a place of experimentation. Tweak the tone of your voice to make it sound promising, optimistic, formal, yet calm.
Support to agents
Benchmark errors
While a customer might not want to leave any window open prone to agent error, agents still are human resources. On the occurrence of errors, agents must own up to their mistakes and learn from them while supervisors must understand the nature of error and benchmark performance evaluation accordingly.
Fun on floor
The agents have a pretty tedious, vocal, and target based day. Make sure your HR department makes enough room for fun on the floor. Even on a daily basis, games and other forms of entertainment must be provided in between shifts to rejuvenate your workforce mentally.
Keep it casual
Your agents are usually the voice behind the line. They need not make presentations and pitches. Allow casual clothes on days when visual assistance or field visit isn’t scheduled. Your agents bring out their best game when they are made to feel comfortable.
Include all suggestions
Your agents deal with customers on a one-on-one basis. They know the demands and expectations better than your textbook scenarios. Spare a seat in brainstorming sessions and derive qualitative information from your virtual, field, and call assistance executives.
Keep updating
Accept it already! Your knowledge management software sets the highest bar of efficiency for agent performance and SLA. See what your users have to suggest. Sometimes it might be possible that you have to create two versions for the same issue; a short hand for agents, and an in depth for user self service.
Refresher training
It might not seem so important but all your employees and agents especially must be provided with timely refresher training sessions. The product’s features keep on changing and innovating along with service packages as well.
Metric focussed hacks
First Call Resolution
Your agents know how important it is to close a ticket in a single attempt. This means the issue must be listed so properly that agents can collect all information related to it and execute the process at once instead of having to push the ticket back. What customers are at fault, agents must not be blamed.
Average Handle Time
Average handle time refers to the clock ticking from the moment a query is taken up to the time call is hung up. Higher average handle time means a longer engagement of customer’s time by the agent. While some customers can be difficult to handle, agents must be trained to use layman language and not jargon while conversing.
Call Abandon Rate
A customer won’t wait up until forever to reach the agent. As soon as they start hearing the tone, they are ready to hang up instead of waiting for the music to end. Agents too get pending tickets as issues exist without resolution. Opening up multiple channels in peak hours is the best solution.
Service Level Adherence
How well your team performs depends largely on how well they are trained for stress and how often do you consider upgrading their work software and equipment inventory. You must be ready to spare money to make money or else work hours is the biggest hit you will take.
CSAT
Customer satisfaction is the measure of your efforts. It needs to be smarter and not just harder. Use proper analysis including abstract factors as well to get results as close to reality as possible.
Churn rate
Churn rate represents both customer and agent churn. The more sophisticated customers feel, the higher is the value of purchase frequency in the short and long term. As for agent retention, an upgrade, vertical career progression, and regular incentives form the crust for agent organization relations.
Conclusion
The metrics for customer service satisfaction and enhanced agent output are interdependent and interrelated. A negative outcome from any one metric is bound to negatively impact others too. Using hacks mentioned above and others, the entire team gets into a habit of cultivating organizational drills in their day to day activities. Efficient application of such hacks like KM tools help bring out the best of results.
