Call centers are a powerful instrument that can impact customer relationships and bottom lines dramatically. However, you need to understand what call centers can and cannot do to get the most out of it for your business and consumers. Call centers are often perceived in a wrong light because of the many myths dogging them. Some of these are discussed below:
1. Call centers are meant for customer service.
If selling means badgering customers with calls and pushing products that have little or no relevance, then yes, selling undermines customer service. If your call center agents are tutored to push customers towards costly upgraded applications rather than resolving open issues, you are doing your customers a great disservice. However, if call center agents hear out the customer’s problem, work on it and guide the customer’s attention towards products that will help improve their financial health, surely selling is the best customer service you can render to your customers.
2. Customers are wary of buying from call centers.
This myth is the result of conflicting interests. Businesses often find themselves in conflict with call center outsourcing - trying to hold on to customers. The business managers belittle call centers directly and indirectly by making statements such as “the products are too complex to be supported by call centers.” or “the customers feel underserved because of the remoteness of call centers.” or “The turnover rate is too high to assure committed services.”
The truth of the matter is that if businesses treat call center agents with the same professionalism as their employees, they would have everything to gain – lower turnover, commitment, loyalty, high service scores and improved customer relationships. Customers want information and services that will help them financially, professionally and personally. As long as they get it from a well-informed and credible source, they won’t differentiate between the various channels.
3. Call centers have automated performance metrics tracking.
Contrary to expectations, the performance metrics that can be measured through statistics and automated systems in outsourced call center services have nothing to do with the quality of service rendered to customers. Many “customer oriented” businesses measure metrics such as average response time, average handling time, wait times (minimum and maximum), and average calls per hour to assess employees performance. The limit for call times in call centers is 2 minutes. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this data is how much time the call center agent spends on calls and nothing else.
A business that aims to improve sales, customer satisfaction and referral rates needs to measure performance on different metrics – number of sales, callbacks, referrals, escalations, customer feedback. However, most call center companies don’t have the necessary framework to capture this data automatically. Very often, call center agents keep track of such information on paper. To measure the true effectiveness of call centers, these metrics should be captured as part of the main process rather than secondary.
Businesses that preach “customer delight” but measure call lengths are hardly sending their call center sice reps the right message. This counterproductive stand compels call centers to meet targets, often resulting in compromises on service quality. The quality of the customer call and not the duration is the important metric.
4. Call centers are call centers only.
Call centers are customer service centers of excellence that handle thousands of customer calls every day. Even in the internet age, customers look for contact with people to discuss urgent or critical issues. Call centers have hi-tech technology, processes and experienced personnel to resolve critical customer issues with professionalism and tact. The atmosphere is charged; the actions and conversations result oriented. New strategies are deployed and performances measured by recording employee competence and customer feedback. To think of call centers as simple phone answering services is undermining their potential and performance.
To maximize the potential of call centers, personnel should be trained not just in technical aspects but also communication skills and customer relationship building. Most businesses train personnel on using stock phrases, product jargon and glib talk to impress customers. Very few take the trouble to clarify goals, build capability and motivate personnel – three elements that can make ordinary call center employees perform extraordinarily.
Call centers are important links that strengthen customer relationship management. Businesses should understand that call centers are about customers, not metrics. Call centers are versatile in their approach as customer interactions must always align with prevailing economic situations. It is the business’ responsibility to train call center personnel accordingly. Every customer-employee interaction is an immediate or potential sales opportunity. With the expansion of businesses across geographies, call centers play an ever important role delivering consistent customer experiences remotely.
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