Inbound call centers are the most popular and most efficient organizations to handle incoming customer requests, provide fast and effective support, and keep customer satisfaction and loyalty on the highest possible level by using the benefits of inbound call center software. But, as always, there are numerous mistakes to make while owning and developing an inbound call center. If you think that just hiring a few agents, purchasing headphones, and starting to process calls is enough, it is the first mistake. Now let’s get close to the point.
As a result of the high competition, every enterprise is striving to distinguish itself by offering superior customer services, so they place a big emphasis on how their incoming phone call centers perform. An inbound call center software system can help you monitor call center operations and automate many routine tasks, which will improve customer satisfaction.
It’s important for companies to deliver high-value services to their customers because they expect to receive them. Customers usually repeat their concerns to multiple employees and are told to contact the help desk at the company again later.
Executives must know about these issues and be able to understand them well enough to:
- Do customers feel well taken care of by the customer service staff?
- How many calls are missed per day?
- How long did customers have to stay in the call queue waiting for their call to be answered?
- What is the repeat phone call frequency for solving one problem?
- What is the abandonment rate?
- What about main inbound call center metrics, like AHT or FCR?
You need to answer these questions when deciding how to best organize your company’s operations and how to monitor agent performance.
Here are the main tips you can implement to improve your inbound call strategy
Use an inbound call center solution
Call centers strive to improve the efficiency and speed of handling customer inquiries by using advanced call center technology and a personal approach to every customer. These require up-to-date software and hardware and integration with the main company business solutions.
Let’s examine some of the main things to consider when choosing an outbound contact center solution:
- Measuring your customer’s needs.
Knowing your customers’ needs well helps you to understand their expectations and improve your service. It also provides you with valuable insights into your business.
- The requirement for the call center software functionality.
After identifying the customer’s needs, identify the main features that need to be included in your contact center software. Some of these may include call routing, queue management, IVR system, dynamic call script, outbound dialer, real-time monitoring, reporting, etc.
- Perfect integration with your business systems.
You need call center software that integrates seamlessly (or via REST API) with your CRM system or eCommerce platform and existing IT support systems.
- Scalability.
You should be able to expand your contact center users without incurring high costs. Cloud-based contact centers allow you to easily add or remove agents and remotely hire employees without having to buy new servers and telecom equipment.
- Ease of implementation of a call center platform.
You shouldn’t need to spend months implementing your call center solution. It should be easy for you to implement quickly without much hassle.
- Price.
Make sure you’re aware of the prices of the products available and their respective differences.
- Reporting and monitoring.
By monitoring the provisioning of phone services by operators, as well as by controlling key KPI metrics (such as the number of calls per day/week/month), you will be able to determine whether an operator has been performing adequately or not, thus allowing you to make data-informed decisions.
Create regular customer service training
Experienced leaders help people grow into better learners and workers. They provide opportunities for training and practice:
- They listen to call records and sort out which calls were good and which weren’t.
- They monitor the ongoing calls and prompt operators when needed.
- During the coaching sessions, the operators’ mistakes made during the week get discussed and analyzed, an actual case study is done, and each one gets personal recommendations for improvement.
- Training is done in specialized knowledge, for example, financial services, if an operator is working there.
Provide self-service options
Self-service for your customer is particularly important when the size of the business is small. To solve this problem, use automation: voice menus, chatbots with prescribed scripts, callbacks, etc.
The main self-service feature is the IVR menu, which is used by almost every contact center. Nonetheless, never set limits for yourself: use live chats, FAQs, knowledge bases, and so on.
Track your call center operations
A good way to measure your agents’ performance is by measuring their key customer service metrics. These include things like agent retention rates, agent productivity levels, and inbound calls per agent.
Other vital customer service key performance indicators include Average Handle Time, First-Call Resolution rate, Average Response Time, Average Time in a Queue, and so on. These metrics directly influence customer experience and satisfaction and are necessary to measure. Thus, the more metrics you control, the higher your outcomes will be.
After performing an initial assessment, weak or poor areas and shortcomings are identified. These weaknesses must then be corrected by attending additional training sessions. Eventually, these corrections will result in fewer mistakes and flawless services for incoming calls.
Summary
As we have already explained, there are many vital aspects of setting up and maintaining an inbound call center. First of all, you have to focus on purchasing the right software solution that would cover your needs and contain all the needed features. Use cloud-based solutions, as they are cheaper and easier to scale up. Additionally, they offer better flexibility and more opportunities for omnichannel customer service.
Invest more in staff coaching. Your agents are those who create the quality of your service, and their skills and knowledge are the keys to customer loyalty and satisfaction. Use modern training models, such as gamification or informal training sessions.
Offer additional self-servicing functions, like the IVR system or chatbots. These options would let people solve their elementary problems and free agents from spending their time solving routine tasks.
Use more data and analyze it. Such options of call center solutions like live reporting or up-to-minute dashboards, as well as call recording, allow you to get full info about every call center operation without delay. Use this data to find improvement areas, mistakes, agent training needs, and other factors which need to be improved or eliminated.
