Do your contact center agents do whatever they can to make customers happy? According to a recent article by Jeremy Watkin, a customer service agent making a connection with a customer is awesome when it happens, but the reality is that customers don’t receive this type of service consistently. Customers are likely to get one of three scenarios when they call a company’s customer service phone number: An agent who is happy and willing to make the customer happy, an IVR system that might connect the customer to a live agent, or an agent who has been told to do whatever they can to solve customer issues but they haven’t been given any proper guidelines. Watkin’s main point is simple: you can’t give awesome customer service without consistency. His article gives the following five tips to deliver consistent customer service.
1) Define It: Watkin stresses the significance in creating a customer service vision statement that describes your customers and how you want to serve them. Once this vision statement is created, the management needs to bring it up in every meeting or gathering in addition to having is written in clear locations to ensure the importance of the customer service vision is embedded in the company culture.
2) Authorize It: It’s better to set up clear parameters for agents instead of telling them to do whatever it takes. Watkins gives a few examples including free product replacements, extending warranties, and offering service credits. Having set parameters with a clear escalation path will make it easier to handle most customer interactions efficiently.
3) Hire For It: Every department at a company is looking for people who fit their culture and ideas, and hiring contact center agents should be no different. It’s crucial to hire employees who accept the customer service vision and have the versatility to improvise while staying within set parameters.
4) Train And Practice It: The only way people get better at their position is through practice. Managers need to make sure agents go through intensive practice to be properly equipped to handle as many customer scenarios as possible. In addition, managers need to ensure agents understand the value their position brings to the company and in the customer journey.
5) Reinforce It: Watkins recommends that people in leadership positions at contact centers are always talking with agents to learn from them about the customers and how the processes are working. In addition, contact centers are a high-pressure environment by nature, so it’s best if leaders have a base assumption that the agents they’ve hired have positive intentions for their actions in order to alleviate some of this pressure. Assuming agents have good intentions will also make it easier to gain their trust and help them learn more when necessary. Finally, the more you celebrate the great customer service instances, the more encouraged agents will be to work hard to deliver that level of service consistently.
This blog post is based on an article from CustomerThink. To read the original article, please click the link below:
A Recipe for Consistent Customer Service: 5 Key Ingredients – Jeremy Watkin
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