Have your EARS to the ground

February 11, 2021

Have your EARS to the ground

Did you know that 92% of customers judge an organization based on their interactions with the company’s call center?

This would explain the current hype surrounding customer experience and the need to create engaging interactions. Still, a recent Forrester report claimed that even though 90% of executives rated customer experience as critical, only 11% of these executives considered themselves disciplined enough to approach customer experience. As a matter of fact- the report further revealed- most companies consider customer support teams as marginally profitable organizations. Therefore, the entire goal of such companies, as you can imagine, involves reducing the cost of acceptable service, which translates to little or no thought of an up-sell. At the end of the day, there is no direct connection between support renewal and customer satisfaction leaving the organization’s bottom line to bear the brunt.
With incidents such as the infamous Comsat saga, where a recording of a call agent from Comsat is heard mistreating a customer who wants to cancel his service, it’s quite clear that some call centers are still in the dark ages. Needless to say, there is a need for such companies to improve and personalize their services, or else customers will go elsewhere- after all, it’s as easy as a click of a button. On the other hand, smart companies realize that call centers are actually pots of gold and not opportunities to cut costs. Just think about it, call centers allow companies to access and leverage customer data and engage with customers. Plus, with the right knowledge, this data can be used to provide details on how exactly customers want to engage, the improvements that can be made in customer interaction further upstream, and the metrics that need monitoring.
Geared towards measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes, Call Criteria ensures that customers receive a consistent standard of service when they contact a customer service representative. With Call Criteria, there are always human ears at the opposite end of every call that comes into the organization; this ensures accurate and precise analysis of your products’ quality and service. Simply put, we are the proverbial ears to the ground.

By listening to and monitoring your call center, Call Criteria can;

– Measure wrongs behaviors
– Foster human connection
– Automate calibrations
– Evaluate call agents using custom scorecards
– Ensure that business processes are being followed
– Ensure that any prospective partner meets or exceeds company requirements
– Analyze the performance of call agents (who is the bottom performer and why?)
– Improve customer service and satisfaction
Customer centers can be highly complex – squeeze something over here and see the impact over there. And as a manager, you need to squeeze the right things to get the right effect. All in all, I leave you with these 3 words of advice; take it slow. Enhancing customer service programs is challenging because the changes need to be integrated with so many other systems in your company’s infrastructure. Therefore, work must be done systematically, with goals, schedules, and budgets that don’t over-reach. Plus, you also don’t know how your customers will react; while they may rejoice, they may also crucify you.