Customers are like life-support for your business’s prosperous health. How you treat your customers decides your company’s future. But are we doing it as it is supposed to be done? Let’s take a look. A research study from experts says a totally different perspective of call centers and customer service.
The dilemma of whether to outsource to a reputed call center company or to run your own in-house facility is surrounding your mind. Do not worry, this article is totally devoted to business owners who are skeptical about their decision to outsource. Instead of jotting down the benefits of outsourcing, we are going to see the common mistakes an in-house call center makes. The approach is different but the intent is still the same.
There have been incidents where the customers leave the company because of negligence, rudeness, and lack of empathy in the service experience. If you think that making your customer wait while he/she is trying to reach your business for a query, complaint or some other issue is not going to affect your brand, then you are absolutely wrong.
American Customer Service Index or ACSI has admitted that in recent times the companies with poor ratings have increased to a noticeable extent. Another surprising fact is that there is a specific array of companies which is more prone to get poor ratings than the other. An industry with low competition level tends to deliver a poor call center service experience.
We always think that customers are almost happy with the kind of services being offered in the market. A study exhibits that 1 out of 3 customers does not get the expected result out of the interaction with the agents. Now think that your in-house facility is weeding out 1 out of 3 customers due to failed service offerings. That’s a huge loss. And the fact that you have already invested so much in your in-house call center, it hurts more.
Customers possess patience like you and me. If tested, nobody is going to last longer with your brand. In fact, in a survey, 86 out of every 100 customers have admitted that they will leave a brand after one bad experience with their customer service. So, an in-house call center seems to be a risky business after all. But let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s move ahead.
So, why all that poor service? Well, there are quite a few reasons for the degraded service quality. They are:
- Lack of qualified and skilled professionals
- Shortage of budget
- Not understanding the significance of a call center company
- Lesser tracking and follow-ups
Common blunders an in-house call center makes
#1 Giving no importance to ‘first call resolution’
Most of the in-house call centers are not giving the deserved attention to the fact that majority of customers want their issue to be solved on the first call itself. Owing to poor training levels, and more focus on quantity than quality, first call resolution is not acquired by most of the in-house facilities. Result? Companies witness the exodus of the customers.
#2 Let the customers wait
In today’s digital era, where customers are not ready to wait for a website which is taking more than 3 seconds to load, holding them on a call center line for an extended time period is not a good idea. Long holding times matter and that’s why the outsourced call centers keep average hold time as their KPI to measure performance.
#3 Staying far away from the gist
Understand that if a customer has to call your more than one time in a month for the same issue, then it does not really matter that how diligently you are solving the issue each time. Outsourced call centers keep the records of customer interaction that help them to solve the issue on a go and avoid any repetition. CRM software and automated technology also help a lot in inbound call centers.
#4 Transfer the call
There is nothing more irritating than running around different agents in the search for a professional who can really help you. The in-house professionals generally lack training and so they are unable to respond to the customers few times. They keep on transferring the customer call from one agent to another. This makes your customer go haywire. An outsourced call center has experts who are experienced in handling such calls so the customer issue is solved by one agent mostly.
#5 First up-sell, then resolve the issue
A customer calling to you for some issue or complain is rarely looking for a sales pitch. An in-house professional who is looking to increase the revenue for business too does this kind of blunders. It is always recommended to first weed out the pain-point of the customer. An outsourced call center company always consider this aspect.