Category Archives: Communication
Workforce management and its best practices
Workforce Management
There is a continuous and rising pressure on all businesses to turn out work and deliver the customers with the best offerings. In order to carry out the activities smoothly, an efficient workforce management is paramount. It also plays an important role in assisting business expansion thereby bringing in more profits to the business. Also, if you want to optimize your business and boost its potential performances, you need a well organised workforce management.
Let us see how we can make the best of a workforce management:
a. Pay attention to your process: Workforce management is not a solution or a software that you can buy and apply. In order to have a strong and able workforce management, you need to focus on your internal processes and find out the loopholes that you think should be addressed. Once you have a firm grip on your process and the activities occurring, you will be able to create a good workforce management where all of your deliverables will be executed efficiently.
b. Make forecasts: Making work forecasts often becomes a difficult task. In order to maintain things in order and synchronised, organisations strive to achieve so many business goals, accomplish assignments and handle different calls that planning a proper forecast becomes challenging. Hence, to achieve these, it is important to become rigorous and chase them with the help of a proper workforce management.
c. Pay attention to your agents: Your agents make your workforce stronger. Hence, it becomes imperative to keep them satisfied. Make sure you appreciate them for their diligence and hard work. Doing so will keep them gratified and happy and you will have better Return on Investment (ROI). This practice will also retain your customers and avert agent attrition.
d. Keep a track of daily updates: An agile reporting process paired with proper roles and responsibilities are imperative for quality service delivery. You need to make sure that your reports are appropriate and up to date so that there is no discrepancy. Any amendment should be communicated to all of your agents which will allow your workforce management to be up any running all the time.
e. Figure out your requirment from the workforce management: It is very important to have appropriate skills in order to propel your business. There should be proper planning amongst the team members and the ability to understand how it works. Once you get a hold of the planning cycle, the workforce management will be enhanced which will incessantly drive performance.
These are some of the best practices of workforce management, do you know some more?
Ways to reduce repeat calls in contact centres
Reducing Repeated calls in contact centres
We are aware that customers are impatient and tend to get annoyed when they fail to receive what they seek for. Contact centres at times are not able to offer desired assistance or services to the customers, which make them repeatedly call contact centers. It is a tedious job to regurgitate the same issue over and over again and at the end, the customer realizes that he needs to call back again because his complaints are not resolved. There are many technologies deployed by contact centers to fight this challenge, but the problem still seems to be prevailing.
Here are some of the ways that will ensure customer satisfaction and diminish repeated calls:
i. Connect customers to the right agents: Customers should be connected to the right agents so that they receive instant response to their queries. Skill based routing could be helpful in this case wherein specific workgroups can be created as per different criteria, and customers can be mapped to the right resource. High priority customers that require highly personalized services, can be redirected to Subject Matter Experts or specific workgroups within the organization or at a remote location. Such intelligent routing mechanism reduces the number of escalations and increases First Contact Resolutions.
ii. Identify the reasons of repeat calling: It is important your agents identify reasons that drive customers to make repeated calls. It could be possible that your agents are not being able to understand the issues to which the customers are seeking assistance. This could be addressed by conducting appropriate trainings for your agents. Once your agents are able to understand customer needs, they will be able to offer instant help which will lower down the hassle of customers calling in again.
iii. Try to understand the hidden concerns of your customers: There may be times when a customer would call not for one issue but multiple issues. Besides, the problems expressed by the customers, try to understand the untold problem too. Agents get used to listening to complaints and with the passage of time find it easy to figure out the other problems a customer could possibly have. This will not only prevent customers from repeating calls but also improve customer satisfaction.
iv. Improve agent’s skills: Agents play a vital role in delivering quality service to customers. As long as your agents do not perform well, your customers cannot receive what they want. Therefore, ensure that your agent’s skills and knowledge are improved so that they are able to perform their best. You may also provide an accessible help desk for agents so that they are able to seek help when facing trouble in solving problem.
What in your opinion could be the other reasons for customers to repeat calls?
Top 5 reasons for using web chats in contact centers
Web Chats in Contact Centers
With contact centers finding out more ways to deliver customers with the best services and offerings, web chats are yet another channel being chosen by them. In today’s world, where being fast and easy is paramount, the ability to chat on web with a live person is a standout feature.
So, lets see how to get the best out of webchats:
i Reduce phone calls: Contact center agents are best known for sticking with their headphones and attending calls. There comes a time when agents are tired of attending calls and crib about it. Similarly, customers complaining about long wait time has been perennial. There have been many ways and technologies found out to deal with the same. Despite of all these processes, it is the web chat that seems to have taken a significant place at contact centers due to its ability to offer instant responses to their queries. Customers type their queries over a chat to which they get a prompt reply. This has significantly brought down the call rates and liberated contact centre agents from the hassle of sticking to headphones for hours.
ii Reduces cost: Web chat has become mandatory as the customers find it trustworthy and reliable due to human involvement. It also saves time as there is no waiting for the customers and is cost efficient for the contact centers. Web chat implementation reduces expenditure involving total cost of ownership. A web chat is preferred owing to various advantages for both the agents and the customers. No matter how developed a technology is, man being a social animal, is inclined towards direct communication like web chat.
iii. Enhance customer support: Another advantage of deploying web chat is that it has excellent features of real time communication and Real time chats. With real time chat, agents are empowered to interact directly with the customers thereby provide them with high level of support. Likewise, multiple chats and messages keep the agents alert. The entire chat is further kept for future references.
iv. Traceability: Contact centres tend to spend a significant amount of time in tracing back the recorded telephone calls and conversations. This is time consuming as one has to also listen to them. However, with the live chat texts, the capability to gather conversations becomes easy and does not consume much time.
v. Receive customer feedbacks: There is no more waiting for your emails to be answered by your customers asking them if they have been satisfied with the assistance offered. With web chats, your agents get an instant feedback from the customers. These feedbacks empower your contact centers to strive to improve the services incase of complaints and grievances.
Learning about the advantages of Web Chats, what is your take on it?
Design your own solution
DYOS
“Omnipotence and omniscience are the end of power and knowledge.”
― Dejan Stojanovic
Yesterday I was looking for a laptop online and I was bombarded with choices: screen size, processor, ultra books, tablets, convertibles and enough confusion for a lifetime.
Let’s face it, we are surrounded by magic, not necessarily Harry Potter magic but magic nonetheless. We see this everywhere from our phones to our computers. Our lives have become simpler; just take a regular activity like shopping for example. We have many portals where we can make our purchases and we can customize everything.
Life as it is has become simpler yet more complicated, the age of customization is definitely upon us, Dell got this right long ago with the mass customization of laptops which we see prevalent today. This is not only true for end-consumer based products but for enterprises as well.
The whole world is moving towards DYOS (Design Your Own Solution), where we see more power at the fingertips of every customer, especially enterprises. Hardware-based systems while they have served their purpose many eons ago are rapidly being replaced by flexible solutions that can be easily configured. The key here is speed and functionality.
We see more and more configurable software that are based on open-architecture, the rise of API’s where multiple applications come together into a single unified system, and of course there is the advent of cloud where anyone can access their critical application or information from anywhere, including their phones or tablets.
The power is indeed on our fingertips, we can mold any solution to how we want to work. My Gmail for example is loaded with so many app extensions that I actually don’t have to go anywhere else to get the information I am looking for, whether it is getting the LinkedIn information of my contact, understanding if they opened my mail, labeling leads and developing a sales funnel, it is all there and configurable. I can turn them on and off at any point in time.
Interestingly enough, Diyos in Tagalog (Deus in Latin) means god and DYOS has come around to bring about a new era of power and knowledge that is readily available, and molded specifically to every user out there, whether it is the end customer or the enterprise.
Three steps to better customer service and assessing CRM
Better customer service with CRM
The words Customer Service are self explanatory which clearly tells us that Customers are of paramount importance. Serving them has become an important strategy for all businesses and they are considered to be the KING . In order to serve and provide them with what they deserve, CRM is the appropriate tool that is being used today. The CRM plays an important role in ensuring customer satisfaction as well as retaining them.
It becomes easy to manage customers, their preferences and data by organisations with the use of an effective CRM. Apart from these, a CRM enables effective communication, analyse customer choice and opinions and also deliver them the right service.
Let’s have a look at the steps to customer service and assessing CRM
a. CRM builds unity: One of the best advantages of a CRM is its ability to unite team members together. This further allows them to work jointly and enables the appropriate use of customer data. The customer support structure becomes more complicated when an organisation is large. This complexity is very well sorted out by a CRM which makes operational executions easy and simplified.
b. Improved customer service association: A robust CRM has the ability to create better customer service teams. As you are aware, a good customer service is dependent on the team who work together for providing the service. It is the CRM that facilitates the creation of that team and helps businesses achieve more success. Customers often get infuriated with incomplete information, disconnected people and departments. Hence, you need to take care to keep them satisfied and this in turn will give you a lucrative business.
c. Helps customer service in taking good decision: In order to elevate the decision making ability of your customer service, a CRM is what you will need to rely upon. It becomes quite difficult to manage information about lots of customers. Therefore, there is a great need for a CRM which manages complete information about all the customers, analyse data and also offer appropriate suggestions to be executed. This decision making capacity of the customer service is very helpful in increasing customers as well as retaining the existing ones.
Apart from these three key steps, a CRM also helps in educating the customers in offering the right type of services, targeting customers with the most relevant products and most importantly understanding them. So, a CRM forms part and parcel in boosting customer service which forms one of the integral part in making business profitable.
So, are you using a CRM?
How to plan your contact centre
Contact Centre Planning
Contact centres are now considered as the most preferred way of communication between customers and clients of different organisations. The contact centre industry seems to be rapidly growing and spreading far and wide. Therefore, in order to plan your contact center and make it stand amidst the other established contact centres firmly, it is important you make wise plannings. Before you set your right foot, you need to analyse the objectives of your business and the type of customers you will be dealing with.
Mentioned below are some of the ways to assist you in planning your contact center:
i.Financial plans: Before you plan to establish your contact center, plan your budget. Your strategy will be dependent on the financial strength of your contact center. Since you will have to mainly deal with different customers day in and day out, you will be requiring technologies to cater to your business needs. This need can be effectively fulfilled when you have good financial plannings.
ii. Recognise your customers to be served: You will have to serve huge number of customers since you are planning for a contact center. What you need to do is to recognise your customers who you will deal with. This will help you to plan a long-term growth with them as well as understand how many staffs you need to employ. Once you have recognised your customers, it also becomes easy for you to retain them since by recognising them you also identify their needs and demands.
iii. Make yourself accessible: An important strategy before planning your contact center is to make sure you are available to your customers. Your accessibility will allow you and your customers communicate effectively. You can also think about communication channels that will help your customers reach you and you in turn address their queries instantly. Customers are the key drivers of all businesses and their service becomes imperative.
iv. Performance target: Apart from making yourself available to your customers, another factor that will help you in your planning is to keep a track of how well your business is performing. The performance of your business will actually depend on your agents. As long as you have your agents performing well, there is no doubt your business will succeed by leaps and bounds. Therefore, you need to set performance goals or targets that will give you a fair insight of how your agents are performing. This further allows you to identify the areas wherein your agents need to be trained so that each individual is able to contribute collectively to the betterment of your contact center.
v. Construct a healthy customer relationship: Be proactive in your approach to build a healthy customer relationship. Assure them that you are there to listen to their entreaties and fulfill requirements. Build a proper network, create e-mail marketing plans and reward your loyal customers. Remember that your business will be known by the hospitality you offer to your customers. Business expansion is dependent on your customers, so take care to appease them.
So, how are you planning your contact center this year?
Changes you can make in your contact centre
It’s time to change
Contact Centres have become a controversial topic about which people have ambivalent convictions. You will often hear that they offer bad services and have poor working ambience. Again, there will be groups which will speak well about them. Now the question is why do some people have wrong notions about contact centres inspite of the agents putting in their efforts to be at the beck and contact of the customers and take care of their requirements being fulfilled? The reason may be many and difficult to identify since different contact centres have different offerings. However, there are certain ways through which you can bring changes in your contact centre.
Let’s have a look at the steps:
i. Your accessibility is paramount: Your agents are highly dependent on you when they have queries and doubts. They seek your assistance in order to perform well and comfortably. Therefore, it is very important you make yourself accessible and inculcate them with the moral support. You may have your own engagements but that should not make your subordinates and employees feel you are unavailable for them. Your presence will offer them additional assistance which will be a good sign of business improvement.
ii. Aspire to improve: The ultimate desire for all the businesses is to improve. You need to concentrate on areas wherein you need to improve and grow. You would definitely want your employees to learn new skills which could be applied in your business and take it forth to the path of success. Continuous improvements will bring in unexpected changes to your contact centres.
iii. Set goals: It is not feasible to achieve breakthroughs until you do not have set goals for your business. When you chalk out plans, you are able to identify the path you should choose in order to execute your operations. Also, your employees know what to be delivered and done accordingly.
iv. Assure your employees you believe in them: When you give feedback to your employees, assure them that you believe they have the capability to perform well. The feedback should rather be in a friendly manner and not in an admonishing tone.
v. Appreciate your employees: Your employees wish to be praised and appreciated apart from given feedback. Recognitions and praises will drive your employees to perform better and also make them feel at home in the working environment.
The mentioned steps will prove beneficial in bringing about changes to your contact center. So when are you following them?
Ways to improve customer satisfaction through CRM
Customer Relationship Management
The significance of customer satisfaction will be surely known by anyone who runs a business or is closely associated with it. Businesses are heavily dependent on customers for their success and smooth operations, which might get ruined incase customers are not appeased and made happy. You upset your customers and they shift their interest and money elsewhere. And then where does your business stand?
In simple words, customers satisfaction is the key to success for your business. Treat them special and they will make your business lucrative.
Apart from making yourself accessible, treating them with hospitality and offering prompt services, the other method to please them is through the use of a robust CRM.
Let’s first find out what a CRM means. A CRM may be defined as a business strategy specially designed to improve customer service and their satisfaction. It empowers you to acquire more customers and retain the existing ones thereby enhancing your business takings. Therefore, it is quite apparent that an able CRM plays part and parcel in boosting your customer satisfaction.
Now that we have known what a CRM is, lets find out some of the ways on how it helps maximising customer satisfaction.
Systematizing your business through a CRM, will allow you to maintain information pertaining to your customers and their requirements. It empowers you to collate different aspects of your business together that is essential for your customer satisfaction. A well designed CRM keeps you abreast of all the occurrences within your business as well as with the individual customers.
With a CRM, you are empowered to uplift your revenue and profitability. Businesses aim at increasing revenue by cutting down expenses. A CRM may be viewed as a revenue enhancer by utilizing the total customer experience which boosts loyalty and a prolonged customer profits. Through the CRM, you can focus on your company’s important customers thereby, instilling them to take interest in the revenue-driving activities.
A CRM is responsible in holding and analyzing customer feedbacks. For a business to learn about it’s performance as well as the performance of it’s agents, customer feedback is very important. However, collecting feedbacks is not going to offer any help, but acting and managing on them is essential to improve your services and products. Here, the CRM comes handy as it manages all the complaints and feedbacks. Herein, the businesses are able to identify the loopholes and the area of improvement, thereby, uplifting customer satisfaction and also paving path for the businesses to progress.
Argo, a CRM helps in improving customer satisfaction. Apart from this benefit, businesses also gain in revenues and profitability, highly targeted marketing and an advanced organisational culture.
