How would you organize good customer service?
I need to improve my customer service. The main reason is because of the growth of the number of my company's clients; there is a necessity to receive hundreds of calls every day. I've been advised to try this call center http://dialogmarket.com/ for calls, but still want to hear others ideas on how to organize good customer service. Thanks in advance, I will be grateful of your suggestions.
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Apr 23, 2015
First you should integrate customer calls with a CRM system. You can find lots of different kind of CRM vTiger, sugarCRM or cloud based (salesforce) etc..
then categorize your calls in time by checking every call. It is a process so you should improve categorizing calls in every specific period of time.
Apr 18, 2015
Customer Service on a large scale is about balancing the key fundamentals;
Customer Experience, Satisfaction & Effort (including tracking and feedback measures)
FCR (First Contact Resolution)
Workforce (Capability, Training, Empowerment, Enabled & Optimisation)
Engagement
Quality Assurance/Operational Excellence
Performance & Balanced Scorecard
DO NOT buy in to old school call center management practices that drive and/or manage AHT (Avg Handling Time), CPH/CPD (Calls Per Hour/Day) or Stats Only.
I managed call centers across 3 countries for major telecommunications company for 11 years - 1200 staff, 5 departments (primarily customer service), 50,000 calls per day, FCR of 98.6%, CE Score of 43+ NPS (Net Promoter Score) and staff attrition below 2%per annum.
Please feel free to contact me directly if you would like to have a casual chat and I am happy to offer some advice - understand your/clients needs, current performance, intended growth strategy and best practice solutions available.
Apr 18, 2015
I can answer from an IT customer care point.
Set up a multi layer customer service team. The first set of customer service agents will handle basic queries which are more generic and repetitive issues. The second layer of customer service agents will handle little trivial queries which are specific to customer's current environoment and integration level issues.
The third layer of agents will handle core product realted queries which are very unique and requires indepth product knowledge.
Based on severity the agents should handle issues as per their expertise areas. This will improve customer experience.
Apr 17, 2015
Have you been able to do any analysis of the nature of all the calls? That is break the calls down by the reason for the call? This might be the first step in determining the best way to deal with all the calls that you get. Often some of these calls can be redirected to your website as opposed to having to try to deal with them all in real time on the phone. The internet has become the more favored tool than the phone for many companies, and also with their customers who do not want to go through the hassle of telephone tag and/or hanging on for an extended period due to the high volume of calls. I can tell you for myself, I would prefer to leave an online message and check back periodically for a response rather than experience the pain of a call center or holding indefinitely.
Apr 17, 2015
OY, good customer service is a philosophy that permeates a business and not something that you "set-up". We need to talk. I teach my theory of the hierarchy of customer loyalty needs. The heart of the pyramid is internal customer loyalty and that is what you are seeking.
I will gladly share my philosophy with you over a phone conversation if you are interested. I can be reached at 602-686-0641. My website is theexcelconsultinggroup and it is a dot com. Thank you and best of luck.
Apr 17, 2015
"You really have to be more specific about what your business does, otherwise the likelihood of you getting any meaningful answer will be very low."
Haim is absolutely correct. This is really a difficult forum to get actionable advice based on the unique needs of your business (perfect though for getting feedback on call centers!).
The rapid growth of a company is great, but can also lead to some challenges if you're not prepared. Customer service and the customer Experience are critical to maintaining that momentum.
I would suggest you hire an outside consultant to help guide you in the process. You'll want someone to consider your company as a whole, your branding, messaging, interactions with service reps, current customer opinions, etc. and then once you have all of that data make a plan for improving the customer experience.
Apr 17, 2015
Anytime you can a human voice respond in some form it helps create a positive and more trusting atmosphere for customer service. The ability to qualify and quantify over the phone or communication center is a big help to both parties. It will help separate out the tire kickers from those who might become real and repeat customers...Answering machines are OK if a human voice is able to follow them up...Think high tech, high touch...And the sooner a knowledgeable person attends to those potential customers, then the better...The call center should know the basics of your company so qualifying and quantifying can go on at the start of the call
Apr 17, 2015
Hello John, good question! My answer is through a branding filter, of course, as that is where my expertise lies. So 'good' customer service can be looked at from your brand's lens, meaning however you've decided your brand perception/positioning/distinction to be, should be reflected, supported, and behaviorally followed through via your customer service experience. Customer service is a great place to create distinction that re-affirms what the business brand is trying to convey. Have you developed core values? Or identified your brand 'style' attributes? (These elements are just a part of a bigger process I use called Brand DNA). All these elements create the construct for you and your employees to 'out-behave' your competition through the lens/filter of what you want your brand to be known for. Your Brand DNA creates the construct for guiding decisions, behavior, leadership, and processes to affirm and re-affirm (enable) your brand to 'show up' consistently, distinctively, and with lots of engagement. Otherwise, customer service 101 gets applied and ends up being considered a 'commodity', non-distinctive, run-of-the-mill boring. ;0) Am happy to chat with you more on this.
Apr 17, 2015
John:
Customer Service starts with detail to training. You want those who will be representing your organization via the phone to be as knowledgeable as possible. No one should be answering your phones with the response "I don't know!" That reflects poorly on the organization. And with the growth your experiencing, poor reviews are not what you need.
Spend quality time to ensure that each person who will be affective in their responses. Even you as the leader should be the prime example of how to represent your organization. I challenge you as the leader to sit and answer calls so you are very aware of the questions that are being asked and with that knowledge you can design your training to look at your challenges.
Best of luck but remember poor customer service will destroy a business!!
Apr 17, 2015
Organizing good customer services is a multipronged approach. It has to involve the technology, knowledge management, processes, customers and the customer service representatives. There are both immediate changes that can be made, as well as longer term fixes. Which comes first depends on your current operations and immediate needs. In general, reviewing and making the appropriate changes to the policies and procedures are quickest to make if they are under your direct control.
Here are just a few areas to review:
• Get feedback from your representatives about what policies or procedures customers are calling about the most and why.
o Can they be changed to eliminate the call?
• Are there answers to customer inquiries that can be handled via an IVR?
• Why are your customers calling – is the product/service too complicated or not as promised?
• Do you have systems agents can quickly go to get the appropriate and consistent answers to customer’s inquiries?
• What problems can be fixed now?
• If you add technology, make sure the processes are the right ones otherwise ineffective processes will become even more troublesome.
Of course, there are many other things to consider. They will also continue to change as the company grows and the customer demand changes, so continuous improvement will go a long way.