The call center experience is the customer’s perception of all their interactions with a company’s call center. Call center experience is impacted by how well customers are treated and how easily their needs are met as they seek technical support, ask questions, place orders, return purchases, or file complaints. The call center experience may also refer to the experience of call center agents, which is affected by the amount of training and coaching they receive, the tools that help them do their job, and the quality of their interactions with customers, colleagues, and supervisors.
What is a call center experience vs. a contact center experience?
In a call center, customers interact with agents primarily by telephone, while a contact center enables customers to also communication via email, SMS text, social media, mobile apps, chat, and other channels.
What are the benefits of good call center experiences for customers?
When customers have a good experience with the call center, it increases their satisfaction with the products or services they’ve purchased, improves their perception of the brand, enhances customer loyalty, and contributes to greater lifetime value. Good experiences can also result in higher net promoter scores, which measure how likely a customer is to recommend a product, service, or company to others. Excellent call center experiences also minimize costs by reducing the time it takes to resolve issues and enabling agents to handle more customer interactions each day.
What are the benefits of a good call center experience important for employees?
Good call center experiences increase agent retention, which is critical in a field where turnover can be high. Positive call center experiences also increase agent engagement, enabling them to resolve customer issues and needs with greater speed and empathy. Ultimately, agents who have excellent experiences in the call center will provide better service for customers, which has a direct impact on a company’s bottom line.
How can I improve my contact center experience for customers?
To provide a better experience for customers, call centers and contact centers can focus on several areas.
- Short wait times and fast resolution. Ultimately, customers want to have their needs met as quickly as possible. The shorter the hold time and the faster that an agent can resolve a customer’s issue or concern, the better the customer’s experience will be.
- Empathy. Customers want to feel heard and understood. Even when their needs can’t be immediately met, a conversation with an empathetic agent can improve the customer’s overall experience.
- Knowledgeable, effective agents. Agents who are empowered with the right tools and knowledge can serve customers more effectively and efficiently, resulting in better call center experiences. Visibility into all previous customer interactions with the company and call center is essential, providing agents with context that prevents customers from becoming frustrated by needing to provide the same answers or explanations over and over.
What KPIs are most important in a call center experience?
Several key performance indicators (KPIs) can help call center managers to track the quality of the experience for customers and agents.
- First call resolution (FCR) measures the percentage of conversations that are resolved on first contact, which is closely tied to the quality of experience for customers.
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT) measures how satisfied customers are with their contact center experience, usually based on surveys.
- Average handling time (AHT) is the time it takes to complete an interaction with the customer. Shorter AHT metrics inevitably result in more positive experiences.
- Transfer rates are the number of calls that must be transferred to another person for resolution, which can aggravate customers. Low transfer rates equate to better experiences.
- Net promoter score (NPS) measures how likely a customer is to recommend call center services to others.
- Wait time measures how long customers must spend in a queue before speaking with an agent.
- Agent attrition measures the rate of turnover in a call center. Lower attrition rates are a sign of better call center experiences for employees.
How do I improve the contact center experience for agents?
Providing the right training, coaching, support, and tools is the best way to improve the contact center experience for agents. Solutions like conversation intelligence software that provides next-best-action guidance in real-time can help agents to better understand and resolve the needs of customers, creating a more positive work experience. Supportive coaching and real-time feedback create a culture of self-improvement that helps agents enhance their performance and increase satisfaction with their work.
What is conversation intelligence?
Conversation intelligence uses AI and machine learning to analyze the conversations that contact center agents have with customers across various channels. By determining the meaning and intent of a customer’s words as well as the sentiment and emotion that is driving their behavior, conversation intelligence technology helps agents understand how best to meet customers’ needs and resolve their issues more quickly.
How does CallMiner improve the call center experience?
As the most comprehensive conversation intelligence platform, CallMiner Eureka provides tools for analyzing omnichannel interactions at scale. Eureka captures and analyzes 100% of customer interactions via phone, chat, email, SMS text, social media, websites, and other channels. The unique insights gleaned from CallMiner’s conversation intelligence empowers agents to make in-the-moment decisions to improve the outcomes of calls and the speed of resolution.
