Contact centers are strategic hubs to build customer loyalty and drive business growth. When you offer value, you streamline the customer journey, elevating their experience. Consequently, this boosts brand reputation and revenue, allowing you to achieve sustainable success.
But how do you create value in the contact center?
It’s simple!
You use contact center best practices. Cloud call center software like Call Center Studio can assist.
If you are still wondering what this means, we will highlight it here. We’ll start with contact center KPIs (key performance indicators). We’ll also discuss contact center automation and self-service customer support. Finally, customer journey mapping.
Let’s begin.
Contact Center Best Practices: Building a Foundation
Contact center best practices are guidelines that ensure efficient business operations. They mandate that you offer high-quality services to boost the customer experience. Implementing these best practices creates a robust business foundation for a valuable contact center.
Here are examples of contact center best practices to put it all into perspective:
Contact Center KPIs: Measuring Progress and Driving Value
Contact Center KPIs (key performance indicators) are measurables monitoring the contact center’s effectiveness. Checking your KPIs allows for the consistent evaluation and improvement of operations.
Below are some examples of the most valuable common KPIs. This section also highlights how you can tweak them to create value:
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Scores
CSATs highlight just how pleased clients are with interacting with your contact center. You use CSAT surveys to gather this information. High CSAT scores between 75 and 85% indicate that clients find value. Low scores display that something is missing.
To fix the low scores, start by listening to your customers. Gather and analyze information from them.
Next, act on the feedback. Address complaints quickly, and proactively solve potential problems before they arise.
Follow through with improving the customer experience through personalization. Walk through the customer journey from their perspective. While you do this, identify areas for improvement.
Finally, thank clients for their loyalty.
First Call Resolution (FCR)
The FCR metric is a percentage of the issues solved at the first constant. An FCR percentage between 70 and 75% shows your company has high customer satisfaction. However, if it’s low, here are a few suggestions to raise it:
Empower your agents with resources to solve issues on the first call. Train them to analyze the situation and offer the best solutions. This may include referrals to more qualified personnel. Automating and having self-service customer support options also help. This way, agents can focus on more complex queries that need human intervention.
Average Handle Time (AHT)
AHT tracks the average time agents spend resolving customer issues. Ideally, constant centers should aim for a shorter AHT, as it displays efficiency. Still, it should not come at the expense of offering quality service.
Suppose you find your AHT numbers low; empower agents. Provide them with comprehensive knowledge bases they can access faster during calls. Have them use scripts, templates, or step-by-step guides for troubleshooting.
Streamline operations with automation, technology, or skill-based routing where specific agents sort specific issues. Have a well-organized FAQ section and offer customers access to searchable articles. Additional resources, like tutorials and troubleshooting guides, also go a long way.
The Role of Automation in Contact Centers: Enhancing Efficiency and Satisfaction
Contact center automation uses technology to streamline tasks. Automation doesn’t replace human agents; it complements their operations. Some of the common contact center automation practices that add value are as follows:
Chatbots and virtual assistants
First, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants assist in responding to basic consumer inquiries. They also offer guidelines on troubleshooting common issues like password changes and order checks. These contact center automation tools ensure clients have 24/7 support. They help free up agents for other queries.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
An IVR is an automated calling system that routes callers to the best agent. The routing is based on their query. IVRs reduce holding times and boost all contact center KPIs.
Ticketing Routing
Clients can use automated ticket routing when chatbots aren’t helpful. This software routes customer tickets using keywords or pre-defined criteria to offer faster resolution. The agents that get the ticket contact the client and resolve the issue.
Self-Service Customer Support: Empowering Customers and Creating Value
Self-service customer support allows clients to find answers independently. FAQs and knowledge base portals are some of the best self-service customer support. Online communities are also helpful.
Here’s how self-service adds value to the customer experience:
Speedy Answers
FAQs, knowledge bases, and online communities offer clients answers immediately. They don’t have to wait for an agent because these resources are valuable. This saves time for both parties and boosts customer satisfaction.
24/7 Availability
Self-service customer support systems are available 24/7, unlike operators who have set hours. This provides the client with significant convenience.
Customer Journey Mapping in Contact Centers: How to Bring It All in One Place
Customer journey mapping is walking through the customer journey path. It’s walking from the point of contact to service rendering. Taking a client’s perspective offers a new look at things. It helps you identify the potential pain points that may arise. Taking this journey creates an opportunity to improve service delivery.
Here is how you use customer journey mapping to create value:
Optimize Contact Center Touchpoints
Go beyond the traditional settings of awareness and purchase and dig a little deeper. Detail each step, starting with pre-call research and hold-time analysis. Next, look into agent integrations and post-call customer satisfaction surveys. Also, identify any pain points linked to each touch point. Solve all bottlenecks and agent performance issues. Use empathy mapping for this.
Develop and Implement Actionable Strategies
Offer targeted agent training to address any knowledge gaps the mapping exposes. Adding an omnichannel experience allows customers to switch between channels. This reduces information repetition, boosting customer satisfaction.
Building a Contact Center Focused on Value Creation
Creating value in the contact center mandates a strategy. Monitoring the KPIs, automating and offering self-service options, and utilizing customer journey mapping help.
And the best part?
You do not have to do it all on your own! Cloud call center software like Call Center Studio can help. This software helps you create a contact center that offers nothing but value. Such software helps enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue.
