Contact centres are at the front line of every business. They may not have a physical presence in your customers’ eyes, but they’re the first point of call whenever they have a query, problem or complaint, and the biggest source of customer insight when it comes to areas for improvement.
For call centre agents, real-time feedback has the benefit of delivering the voice of the customer straight into the contact centre. This real-time feedback helps agents and team leaders to understand how they’re performing, what their core strengths are and areas they can improve on – all based on the voice of their customers. We know that agents can also check how they’re performing against other colleagues, bringing an element of gamification which drives engagement, builds morale and customer empathy. At a higher level, team leaders can see how all of their agents are performing, and this insight can then be used to refine training practices, champion success and recruit people who match the core attributes of their most successful agents.
Capturing feedback in real time brings the customer to the fore, enabling them to tell the business how they are feeling and what is important to them, rather than what the business wants to ask. It also enables the business to take rapid action to recover poor situations or champion and amplify positive experiences - a crucial element in today’s fast-paced competitive environment.
Rant & Rave clients, News UK, route calls into their contact centre based on agent performance and skill sets - if customer feedback shows a particular agent is doing well or they're receiving glowing references then they'll be tasked with handling more complex queries. In the same vein if an agent appears in need of coaching in a particular area they'll be charged with handling more routine calls until they've received the training they need. This call routing can change at multiple points throughout the same day so customers always get put through to the best agent to deal with their query - whilst News UK employees receive the support they need from the business.
Essentially, fast feedback is aligned with the methodology that many businesses adopt in maintaining effortless experience for the customer – a simple, relevant feedback loop providing an on-going dialogue with their customers. The contact centre is the emotional hub of the business, and profiling customers’ emotions is becoming one of the most important measurements of customer experience, bringing a whole new level of insight and helping inform both tactical and strategic decisions by effectively taking the customers feelings into account. By focusing on these softer measures and asking for feedback in real-time, contact centres can gain valuable insight into what they’re doing right and wrong , and become a more nimble and agile organisations by taking action on this insight.
We believe that many businesses are yet to realise the full potential of real-time customer feedback. Customer Insight is vital to business transformation by correlating the feedback by customer groups, trends and key data. Consider if you are a mobile network provider and your customers have three months left on their contract - finding out what this group of customers is feeling at a particular point in their journey is invaluable to your business at a time sensitive point in retention. Using their feedback and sentiment can enable the contact centre to collaborate with other departments (like marketing and e-commerce for example) to change what the customers don’t like, potentially helping to retain them and build your business.
Whether it is retaining customers or winning new ones – great contact centres can be the lifeblood of an organisation.
If you're looking for more ways to improve your contact centre customer experience, take a look at our On Demand webinar on this very subject:
