Customer service can often come across as a dreary, stuffy job that allows little room for flexibility. While that might have been true of the traditional phone banks back in the day, modern advancements have made it much easier for companies to structure more effective social contact centers that cater to their customers without sacrificing brand integrity. If you’re looking to breathe a bit of life into your customer service department, here are a few easy steps.
Consider going virtual
When you think of a social contact center, chances are, you think of a row of cubicles filled with tired, stressed employees. You might even be picturing high turnover rates and low customer satisfaction. If you’re not paying careful attention to how you’ve structured your contact center, what’s in your head might not be all that far off from the reality of your situation. That’s why you should consider a virtual contact center.
Customer service is often a taxing job. That’s why it’s your task as an employer to make sure that you’re crafting the ideal working conditions for your agents and representatives. With a virtual contact center, you can do just that. It affords employees the ability to work remotely, which helps boost morale and also reduces stress. As an added bonus, since most virtual contact centers operate with software platforms, your hardware costs are dramatically reduced.
Incorporate AI
No matter the size of your company, it’s hard to ensure that your customer service departments and social contact centers are running around the clock. However, depending on the size of your market, you may have thought about expanding your operating hours. Luckily, there’s a happy medium to providing your customers with always-on support and taking care of your representatives. That medium is in the form of artificial intelligence.
Even if there isn’t a service agent available at that precise moment, AI and auto responders allow your customer to accomplish basic tasks such as placing orders, checking balances, and reviewing their account status. So if you’re working out of Boston and can’t be around when a San Francisco-based customer calls in the middle of the night, you’re still ensuring that they’re being assisted in some form. It’s a great way to take care of your customers without pushing too far into overtime.
Use call routing
Much like artificial intelligence, call routing makes the customer service experience that much smoother on both ends of the equation. Say you have a handful of representatives that specialize in different aspects of your business. If a customer calls about billing and the only person available does tech support, it wouldn’t be a natural match. With call routing, customers are able to follow menu or button prompts to determine their specific needs, then route them to the appropriate representative.
This has some great time-saving benefits, too. Instead of your contact center representatives having to collect basic customer information, call routing software does this and passes it along. That way, your employees are able to more accurately focus on the customer’s specific needs. This shortens the average call length and can do wonders for boosting customer satisfaction.
By incorporating technology in a smart and effective way, you’re making it that much easier for your contact center to connect with your customers. Not only is it a smart choice for businesses of all sizes, but it also helps boost both customer and employee happiness.
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