Inbound Customer Care
The Way The Top 10 Call Center Companies Do It And Why You Need to Outsource to One
Considering outsourcing your call center operations? Even if your internal operations aren’t providing the outcomes you want, outsourcing call center services is the right decision when you know how to evaluate vendors. It’s important to understand the metrics that distinguish call centers:
- Call centers that will fail to meet your goals
- Call centers that will struggle to meet your minimum standards
- Call centers that will consistently exceed your expectations
Outsourcing to a call center services provider isn’t a decision made lightly. It can take time and cost money. But when you work with one of the top call centers in the world, you’ll improve your operational efficiency, save time and money, dazzle customers and get the results you want.
What distinguishes a top 10 call center from all the rest? Here’s how they beat call centers in the world to set themselves apart.
Providing Omnichannel Support
Today’s consumer isn’t just looking to connect by phone. In fact, today’s call centers handle inbound customer care through a variety of channels, including:
- Social media
- Text (SMS)
- Webchat
- Video
However, not all call centers have the platforms and personnel to handle inbound customer inquiries from each channel efficiently. And some aren’t able to handle traffic from the specific channels your customers use the most. However, the top call center operations can, whether your customers are connecting to you via all the channels, just Twitter, WeChat, and text.
Always Striving for Positive Customer Outcomes
It should go without saying that inbound customer care centers should ensure that customer problems are resolved. But top call centers know that the best interactions leave a customer feeling heard and having their problem resolved quickly and correctly.
Not every call center is optimally configured to do that. Despite their best efforts, some call centers:
- Assume a customer has a common problem and attempt to address that problem, rather than listening effectively and learning the customer’s problems merit a unique response
- Transfer customers to multiple representatives to handle what appears to the customer to be a simple problem
- Leave customers on hold for excessive periods
- Fail to empathize or otherwise create an emotional connection with the customer
The best call centers ensure their employees are trained to listen, provide a thoughtful and caring response, and go the extra mile to resolve a customer complaint. Doing so starts with a deep understanding of the customer experience, derived from mapping it from start to finish, and consistent and thorough scenario-based training. It also involves making sure they have the right employees on their team.
Hiring, Training, and Retaining Top Talent
It’s common for call center managers to prioritize hitting weekly goals over employee recruitment and development. But the top call center managers balance both, putting just as much energy and attention into finding experienced candidates with great listening and speaking skills, excellent memory, and enthusiasm. They realize the competition will quickly snatch up call center talent if appropriate time, energy, and resources are not spent on recruitment.
And it’s not just a matter of bringing them on board. Top call center managers set employees up for success by ensuring they have the proper training to do the job well. In addition to product and company knowledge training, managers emphasize handling difficult customer inquiries, as these can be the most difficult part of the job. Helping them master the most difficult calls early can give them the confidence they need to handle any time of call, keep their morale (and by extension, their productivity) up, and help keep them engaged in their position for the long haul.
Training is just one (albeit an important) distinguishing characteristic of a top-ranked call center. It’s also critical that managers prioritize employee engagement. Engagement does not need to take an extensive amount of time or cost tens of thousands of dollars. Simply speaking with employees each day or hosting a team happy hour can go a long way towards making talent feel good about their work. Other key areas top call center managers prioritize include:
- Effective scheduling to ensure employees receive the downtime they need
- Regularly asking for employee input about customer issues and incorporating their feedback into the solutions that are implemented
- Providing employees individualized feedback designed to help them perform more effectively
- Delegating some tasks to employees to empower them and increase their investment in the team
- Recognizing and establishing incentives for excellent work
Using these tactics, managers of some of the best call centers in the world are able to motivate and inspire their employees to give 110%. They know that inbound customer care work can be challenging, so they ensure they provide the care their employees need to thrive. And top managers don’t just prioritize employee engagement in a vacuum. They do so strategically, with the help of data.
Making Data-Driven Decisions
Top call center managers know that data drives effective decision-making. They evaluate their goals and determine the metrics and benchmarks they must monitor to ensure those goals are exceeded each week and quarter. And they immerse themselves in the data their call center software provides to ensure they stay on track.
But they don’t just use the data to determine whether first call resolution numbers are up or abandonment rate numbers are down. Top managers use the data to balance workloads to schedule staff appropriately during peak demand and ensure employees have appropriate time to recharge and refresh during slow periods. Doing so can help avoid employee burnout and turnover, and help call centers achieve superior outcomes.
Top call center managers also look beyond inbound customer care data and keep abreast of business and corporate data. They understand how their operation adds to client businesses’ overall success and ensure that their call center’s goals are aligned accordingly. That broad understanding allows them to make effective decisions about inbound customer care strategy, hiring, technology investments, and more.
Outsourcing Inbound Call Center Services
These are just a few ways the top 10 call center companies have mastered inbound customer care. And it’s hard for businesses to match their performance while also operating other business functions effectively. Outsourcing call center services is often the best step for a business looking to improve customer satisfaction, increase customer retention, and develop more upselling opportunities.
And if you’re ready to take this next step, Millennial Services is here for you. We meet your customers everywhere they connect with you with a listening and empathetic ear. And we strive to ensure that every customer enjoys a positive one that leaves them feeling more satisfied and engaged with your business.
At Millennial Services, we know our ability to provide the best quality service starts with our employees and dedicate considerable time and effort to hiring and training the best talent in the industry. And we’re ready to put our team to work for you and help you achieve the success you need. Contact us today, and let’s discuss how Millennial Services can help you provide the top-quality inbound customer care that will help you retain your customers for years to come.