Rewrite The Story: How To Turn The Call Center Connotation Into A Thing Of The Past

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Call Center

Reaching out to call centers isn’t on anyone’s list of fun activities. Call centers hold the age-old connotation of being a time and energy sucker. For years there’s been validity to this, with unhelpful or unfriendly representatives, obscene wait times, and spending hours on the line only to receive no solutions. Some companies still operate this way, but many have accepted the reality that this old-school approach simply doesn’t work anymore.

Not with today’s customers, anyway.

It doesn’t have customer experience in mind and is in no way customer centric. There are too many problems to count, and it ruins customer loyalty and retention.

That’s why many businesses have decided to rewrite the story and turn the call center connotation into a thing of the past. Have you?

Start by identifying the issues unique to your business

Customer service is at the core of fundamental business values. If it’s not a thing of perfection, then you’re doing something wrong. What parts of your call center need improvement? Is it your representatives? Your inability to give customers convenient contact through multiple customer service channels? Your automation process? Or maybe insufficient ongoing training and education for your reps?

Maybe it’s one of these, multiple of these, or something entirely different. Either way, it’s time to address it.

Holding yourself to high standards is the only way you’ll achieve consistent customer satisfaction – and customer satisfaction is the only way you’ll achieve flawless order fulfillment.

You heard it here first: invest deeply in the quality of your call center.

Assess Current Fulfillment Efforts. Take Quiz Now!

Outsourcing will change your game

There’s a likely chance that your call center is suffering because you’re running an in-house operation – you don’t have the funds, the resources, the experience, or the wherewithal to level up on your own.

Now’s your time to outsource to 3PL. Think of this as your first step toward rewriting the story.

Choosing a qualified and experienced group of professionals might just be what makes or breaks your success, so here’s some insight:

• Customer service that covers all the bases, from beginning to end – not just the call center. It’s important to choose a partner that has a holistic outlook on customer service – if they only specialize in one part of the fulfillment process, you’re not doing your customers any favors. It’ll only result in unanswered questions, unresolved issues, and frustrated customers. Make sure your reps are experts in the entire field.
• A plethora of ways to connect. It’s no longer practical to only provide customers with a phone line – you need a partner that’s savvy in modern times. That means incorporating online chat boxes, quick-response email, social media instant messaging, etc. Customers find convenience in having choices – you’re more likely to satisfy their wants, needs, and concerns quicker if you let them choose the mode of communication. Just sayin’.
• While high-quality customer service is vital to your operation, so is customer experience. Your reps have got to be friendly and accommodating, helpful and proficient. The experience should be smooth and easy for your customers – from an easy ordering experience, to the ability to connect quickly to a rep (we’re talking mere seconds), all the way to accommodation when issues arise (providing an instant fix or a refund). Customer service and user experience go hand in hand – when you perfect the former, the latter skyrockets.

Interested in learning more?

Give us a call, we’d love to chat.