Category Archives: Inbound call centre

Does Your Small Business Have Proactive Customer Service?

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Customer service is the new marketing. Technology-savvy marketers have been repeating this line several times as mantra applied to different industries.

Today, customers have become instant journalists. Their personal experiences – good or bad – with businesses can shape perceptions. With the attractiveness of social media, customers already have the power to voice out their thoughts and share their experiences to millions of people across the digital space. More often they hold the ability to spread the word (a.k.a. word-of-mouth advertising) and thus minimize spending on promotions.

As comments buzz around social networks, it is clear that consumers no longer accept services that still leave them frustrated after a call; they feel they do not deserve it. While it is impossible still not to get negative feedback from dissatisfaction, SMBs can improve their customer handling skills with a more proactive (not reactive) customer service.

Be responsive

Here is one of the many strategic ways of becoming proactive: Deal with customer complaints today and tomorrow. The complaints referred here are not the concerns your phone representatives in the call center hear but what can happen in the future. Proactive service provides customers with meaningful support by identifying their specific needs and anticipating any issues. They can be determined through the use of customer analytics, or tools like CRM and customer databases.

But what sets companies apart is through a more personalized approach with customers. When it is personalized, it is whittled down to the basics of one’s interests as simple as having a Facebook community page. In a recent survey made with internet retailers and small businesses on the subject of e-commerce opportunities this year, fifty-five percent of respondents said they plan to improve their cross-channel capabilities – mobile, live chat or social media. Proactive customer service is when we foresee any possible problems and curb them before they become worse.

Interaction with the customer call center enables organizations to step in and deal with an issue or complaint and move forward quickly. At the end of the day, a proactive customer service from a call center makes the small business a real hero.

Even in the digital age, the role of contact centers has never been more defined. It remains the ultimate point of contact for handling complex issues or problems like shipping delays, billing discrepancies, faulty gadget etc. This is where proactive support comes into play.  The call center creates positive impression – showing they are responsive, aware, and accommodating. Any company who understands its critical importance wins, earning trust from followers, drawing out a long-term relationship, and improving a better bottom-line.

Quality Service: The Trademark of the Hospitality Industry

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by Christian Morales, Online Marketing

How do hotel operators define ‘quality service’? They say it is more than just beautiful words and images that customers see in a trade magazine.

The hospitality industry has been thriving through the years because of its true commitment to outstanding customer experience. It has been known for its personal touch, warmth and friendliness. Here, the Customer is really King and Queen. Customer service is a remarkable feat for an industry that has been enjoying steady growth globally since 2007.

But the biggest challenge for hotels, motels and inns is to offer the same level of service to different types of customers. People will always look for genuine hospitality, which begins as soon as they step into the foyer to bask in its ambiance. Every detail – guest rooms, food, gym facilities, and spa – is carefully planned to ensure they make a lasting good impression. Customers will always take note of the hotel’s environs and how they are treated by its staff. Hotels know that delight happens already at the beginning – from checking in to going up to the assigned room. And it does not end there. Minor requests like bed sheet colors and food in the restaurant, quality is at the very hallmark of them all.

Consistency in quality service is what customers look for in hotel establishments, whether it is rated five or four stars. Hotels excel in a field where they know they must keep up to retain their loyal patrons. They pay close attention to detail even from the way they handle customer service. Outsourcing a reservations call center is becoming a necessity even for small and midsize hotel operators. It can help them manage calls anytime of the day. It pays to have professionally trained customer call center agents engaging customers and attending to their requests. Companies should consider this as an investment that impacts their revenue. Customer service after all is the new marketing which empowers customers to give their two thumbs up to companies that do a remarkable job.

Call center order taking and live chat services increase retailer sales during holidays

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Online-based retailers might again witness an influx of orders this holiday season if they bring to fore an important feature that made last year’s shopping successful: free shipping. According to market research company Forrester Research, free shipping catapulted sales in 2010, making it one of the most critical factors for business growth.

As small- and midsize online retailers throw in free shipping service on top of enhancing their online storefront to make shopping more conducive, they cannot miss out this most important feature– live chat and order taking services.

Live chat is fast becoming an important feature for improving a company’s customer service. This is usually a program designed to assist online shoppers with their concerns. This makes their shopping experience more fulfilling because it is fast, easy, and convenient.

Forrester said that live chat services can yield an estimated 105% return on investment for businesses of any size. It has the capability of increasing sales by allowing call center agents to cross- and up-sell products while customers are in the process of selecting items or checking out. Live chat keeps the sales cycle moving by providing a platform for handling questions and queries.

Order taking service is a call center service similar to live chat but the transaction is made through telephone. Agents are on hand to serve customers and take orders, closing and processing these orders as soon as possible. This offers peace of mind to customers because they know that a live person is taking care of their transaction from start to finish.

Small and medium business owners may want to consider getting a live chat and order taking services through a call center, with its core competencies going far beyond mere customer service. Real providers can assign agents who are properly trained to make proactive conversations with customers, and are readily available 24/7 to help, even on holidays.

Exploring Options Other than the Options of Fear

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by Margaux Panlilio, Quality Supervisor

It’s September, so that means a new batch of graduates will join the working community. After years of hard work – congratulations guys, you deserve it!

I am sure that we’ve heard this most of the time – they will all exhaust their power and might to look for a career field parallel to their course and consider the call center as their last resort, or even on their ‘no resort’.

If this is the industry where jobs are in demand, why don’t most college-educated individuals try and consider contact center a major career target? Are they scared by the reality of failing, fearing that people will look down on them?

Think about it: Why do you want to answer customer calls when you majored in engineering back in college? What’s stopping them? Is it the job or is it fear or is it YOU?

Fear is the biggest killer of initiative in the world. There have been countless of people throughout history and even today, who set out to do something, and are paralyzed by fear. Like most graduates, they fear of failure to start a career based on their course, fear of appearing different from their friends in college, and even fear of being ridiculed for taking a stand for an outbound or inbound call center career.  These are not just for graduates but also for unemployed Filipinos out there. ‘Fear’ has prevented millions of people from achieving their goal … yes, just ONE – ‘Success’.

Courage isn’t an attribute of not having fear, as many believe. Only a fool has no fear. Courage is the ability of overcoming fear of doing it, even though you are afraid; that quality is one of the greatest differentiators between the successful and the fearful. No wonder these two words, Fearful and Failure almost sounded and spelled alike. I am not saying that you don’t fear anything or anyone (this helps balance things out), but when having fear is already getting on your way to success, then ‘Fear’ is not the problem here, it’s YOU… you are putting an “i” to fearful… jumble the letters and you’ll get “FAILURE”.

Every inventor in history has had a vision of doing something that others said was impossible. While those others sat along the sidelines, verbally throwing stones at the inventors; they went on to complete their vision. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t afraid.

History recounted that Orville Wright had fear in his heart when he took that first powered airplane flight in 1903; So did Chester Carlson, when IBM turned him down, not wanting to invest in his new ‘Xerox machine’; and Steve Jobs feared his future when he was kicked out from Macintosh when he was 30.

But, what made these men and others successful was their ability to overcome fear by not letting it represent themselves, not putting the letter ‘i’ in fearful.
For fresh graduates who are looking for their first job, fear is almost impossible to dismiss. But, to overcome it, one needs something greater. That something greater is a vision for your successful future. Where will you be in 20 years? This call center industry is already 10 years old, and everyone working here still feels the industry itself is ‘very young’. Have you imagined that this may be the right one for you?

The quality of courage to explore another industry belongs exclusively to those who have that sort of vision and that kind of heart for success. Remember, you may not be a success the first time, but you’re not a failure until you’re giving up without trying.
Are you ready for us? Stand up and create your resume, then listen to your favorite billboard toppers, and get ready for ‘One Day Application’.

How to bounce back from a call center performance crisis

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by Margaux Panlilio, Quality Supervisor

Many call center agents feel that it’s the end of their world if they fail, perhaps let’s say their monthly quality score, or their schedule adherence score.

Dealing with situations like this becomes an issue in all inbound call centers. So why do you think this is a problem? It is because agents quit and go on attrition.

Maybe you have heard this old adage before, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” I have as a tenured employee in a customer service call center, however, heard another version which goes like this, “When the going gets tough and the tough fall, they bounce back.”

Being able to bounce back from a performance crisis really matters a lot if you want to be successful in the customer service industry, and ultimately in life. All the successful people in the world have gone through a stage of crisis not just in work but in everything else, and have successfully bounced back from it. When you are working in the competitive contact center industry, maybe as an order taker or a help desk solutions rep, remember that ‘Failure is inevitable!’ if you want to succeed;  but without taking the risk for failure, you will also not be able to take the risk of experiencing great success; don’t just quit… take it as a challenge!

As an employee of this industry, agents, managers, team leads, directors, COO’s, and sometimes CEO’s fail at some point or another. However, what makes a winner is someone who can turn failure into a success. Donald Trump, the real-estate tycoon, was one tough guy who was really able to bounce back successfully from a crisis. During the 1990’s recession, property prices crashed down and he ended up with millions in debt. However, in just ten years, he was able to earn billions. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc., was a college dropout and was even kicked out of the very company he founded earlier in his life. However, because he persisted and never gave up, he was able to turn his failure into a success. Now, he is one of the richest men in the world.

So, WIFM? (What’s in it for me, as an agent?)

The values you will learn from the call center industry are the foundations of “Service to Humanity”. As an agent, failure doesn’t mean it’s the end of your career, it means the start of it.

As a Quality Supervisor, I always believe that areas of opportunities are not focused on what you did wrong on the call, but it is focused on the opportunity to make you the best you can be, and the more opportunities we find the better person you can be and the faster you’ll be there.

Those people in front of you, your team lead your OM, the GM, and the company CEO; they all did not allow the crushing performance failure “crush” them completely. Their mindset, problem-solving skills, resilience, and champion way of thinking and doing things made them who they are today – the BOSS! The right kind of mindset leads to having the right thoughts and right actions, which produce great results.

So when experiencing crisis or failure, take it as an opportunity in disguise and continue to take consistent action towards your goal. Who knows, in 3 months you are already one of your company’s bosses. Believe me, I’ve seen this, and it really happens.

The battlefield of the mind and heart

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By Margaux Panlilio, Quality Supervisor

No one is stopping you.

Cry if you want to, or laugh if you feel like it. There is nothing wrong in baring your emotions as you go through the challenges of a call center agent.

In this job, you experience everything – customers hurling invectives at you during a call; some rare occasions when they share their most hilarious stories; getting harassed by difficult managers; and happy situations as you remember that life as an inbound or outbound call center agent opens up limitless opportunities. Keep in mind that these situations, whether good or bad, separate losers from winners.

If you want to take this long and steady climb to “customer service” success, you have to understand that some situations can lure you to decide the other way around, like dealing with attrition, not performing optimally, and more. Because of this, one must make an effort to control his emotions (physical manifestations of uncontrolled emotions) that usually hinder us from doing the right thing.

As a human being, you are created to be “equipped” with sophisticated and diverse mind mechanisms. With such capabilities, you are obliged to make the right decisions and can control the dynamics of your mood or emotions. If not, these same emotions will literally destroy you. So relax and take a breath because that’s just how the call center industry operates, or every industry for that matter.

So how will this make you stay and grow in the competitive call center industry?

The road towards reaching your call center longevity is not easy. It requires you to sacrifice, to be selfless, to have discipline, and to show persistence. And these demands can sometimes be emotionally draining especially if there are unexpected turns along the way (unprofessional colleagues, intrigues, politics, and tough bosses).

You cannot dismiss the fact that there will be negative energies emanating from the operations floor, causing you and the people around to be irrational, close-minded, and completely in distress. These are the times when you are required to stay composed, and be in control even if you feel you cannot. There is always a way to turn this setback into a good opportunity.

Let me give you an example. Most call center employees, including myself, know that we are required to work during the holiday season. Honestly, it can be quite a drag sometimes. We begin vacillating between staying home to celebrate the holiday with our family, children and closest friends and getting ready for work.

You begin asking yourself, “Why do I have to work when everyone at home is celebrating?” Or to more vehement reactions like “This is unfair!” for moments when you harbor this negative emotion, which influences your rational thoughts. You can address this by acting on what needs to be done (go to work early, make yourself busy to stop tracking time, or do something worthwhile) to bring you closer to your goal and ultimately, stay longer with your company.

For starters, develop the right behavior to finish one difficult task a day. As you stay focused to do and maintain it, you will discover that you have withstood the ordeal by controlling your bad moods – and realize you are deserving of a great call center career future. Never let negative thoughts control your thinking. Pursue happiness because this will always give you reasons to work. It also goes to show that you are your own enemy and you’re the only one who can stop it.

Why do you have to read this? Why do you even need to plan on staying in the call center industry when you are not happy?

Remember, the issue here is not where you work; it’s about how you do your job. If your attitude keeps you from succeeding now, then even if you’re no longer a call center agent, even if you already have your own business to run… this will always be a problem, it will always be there. It’s not the industry who’s making you unhappy, but IT’S YOURSELF! Think about it. Your attitude may be the only thing that is keeping you from achieving success, and finding the job where you want to stay longer.

So, are you going to let go?

Resources:

http://www.lifetoolsforwomen.com/p/managing-emotions.htm

http://www.uncommonhelp.me/articles/how-to-control-your-emotions/

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_41.htm

US-based online retailers enjoy double sales growth

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The latest comScore report confirms that more American customers are purchasing products online. comScore, known as the global leader in measuring the effectiveness of digital platforms, released this new study in public in conjunction with the US Retail Spending Report for 2Q 2011.

The report reveals small and mid-size organizations in the Unites States enjoying a lion’s share of market profits. The top 25 online retailers have taken a smaller percentage of the total sales compared to last year.

The double-digit growth in retail spending is largely due to the increase in buyers, with 70 percent making at least one purchase from an e-commerce web site. Products considered bestsellers of the season were consumer electronics (except peripherals), computer hardware and software, and event tickets.

The use of social media has driven more users to purchase products and services online. Facebook, which currently has 150 million users in the United States, is key to the trend’s massive explosion. The web site allows businesses to create fan pages where they can feature their offerings, and invites members to “like” these offers from their profile page. Other social media tools have also played a big role. These are Google+ (the search engine’s own version of social networking), which can be connected with Google-related products like Places, Checkout, Offers and Adwords; and micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.

Amid the rise of social networking in internet retail business, customer service continues to provide unparalleled support to tens of thousands of online-based consumers. Even after a purchase, customers usually seek the assistance of a live call center agent for any issues and questions on a product. Inbound call centers are also helpful in providing clarifications before web site visitors make final purchases. Customer service call centers after all offers real-time 24/7 after-office support, even to the point of processing a sales order while on the call. Online buyers feel more secure every time a live order taker assures their orders being processed.

Failure to reach a person by phone angers American customers

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The failure to speak with a person on the telephone is considered the most annoying customer-service issue in the United States today. This is based on this year’s nationwide survey made by Consumer Reports to find out which customer-service problems irk American consumers the most.

Women 50 years and older were most irritated by the inability to talk with real telephone representatives, Consumer Reports said. In addition, female customers did not like unapologetic phone representatives especially when problems were not solved, and the need to go through many steps of voice-messaging systems only to speak with a real person.

Most male customers who participated in the survey said that they were disappointed with sales pitches of irrelevant good and services.

The younger group, from ages 18 to 34, however, showed the lowest tolerance for technicians who did not show up on time for repair. Thirty-five percent from this demographic were more likely to be infuriated by this situation, at least 10% more than for any other age group.

Based on the latest Consumer Reports survey of about 1,000 respondents, here are the top 7 most annoying customer service situations from telephone customers:

1.    Cannot speak to a live agent on telephone
2.    Too many steps from automated phone system
3.    Long wait holds
4.    Unhelpful solution
5.    Extra sales offers
6.    Not saying ‘sorry’ for unresolved problems
7.    Boring music or messages

Consumer Reports revealed that the Better Business Bureau logged 1.1 million complaints against North American businesses in 2010, up 10% from 2009.

These situations that are happening in most American businesses these days suggest a strong need for partnering with an outsourced call center. With the Philippines now considered the World’s Top Offshoring Destination (Source: UK National Outsourcing Association), there is no reason why a small- or mid-sized business will not take advantage because the benefits are nothing short of impressive: Low-labor costs, highly educated workforce, strong oral and communication English communication skills, and a growing economy.

An inbound call center, whether it is onshore or off-shore, delivers an excellent job in building strong relationships especially when customers look for someone – a live person – to address their pressing concerns.

Data source: Consumer Reports

Customer service and sales lead growing industries in 2011

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Customer service and sales are among the fastest growing industries this year, according to the recent statistics from CareerBuilder’s 2011 Job Forecast.

Reports from the survey revealed that 25% of hiring managers plan to hire more customer service representatives or those who can work in a customer service call center. Twenty-seven percent of these surveyed respondents plan hiring more professionals with sales backgrounds.

In all, 24% of employers are planning to hire full-time employees this year, up 20% from 2010. More than half of employers surveyed said they were in a better financial standing in 2011 than they were at the beginning of 2010. Only 13% percent of surveyed employers plan to hire part-time employees this year, up 11% percent from 2010.

Improving levels of customer satisfaction

Customer service does not merely function as an after-sales department for the organization. It is designed to improve levels of customer satisfaction, making more customers feel that the product or service they have considered to buy exceeds their expectation.

Now more than ever, companies have been focusing on stronger customer relationships. This confirms the job market’s strong demand for highly skilled workers that can thrive and succeed in this dynamic industry. The effects of the global economic meltdown have made organizations more attuned to the needs of their customers, resulting in increased retention and healthy revenues.

Other growing occupations ready to be filled this year are for skilled trade (heating and air-conditioning, plumbers, pipe-fitters, and electricians); engineering; transportation, warehousing and utilities; education; health care; and automotive industries.

Reference: CareerBuilder 2011 Job Forecast

Customers are willing to pay more with companies that deliver great service, new survey finds

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SEVEN in ten (70%) customers say they are more than willing to spend 13% more with a company they believe provides excellent customer service, and has established that history. Over seven in ten customers (73%) in 2011 believe they have spent more with a business because of a track record in good customer service experiences.

These findings were gathered in the 2011 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer, a survey conducted in the United States and nine other countries to explore attitudes and preferences toward customer service. A total of 1,018 random online interviews were conducted among US-based consumers aged 18+ between February 2 and February 10, 2011.

Meeting, but not exceeding expectations
A majority of respondents (61%) say that the customer service experiences they receive from companies usually meet their expectations. Three in ten (29%) feel their expectations are not being met. Also same from last year, less than one-tenth (6%) of the consumers in 2011 think that the customer service experiences they received from companies ‘exceed their expectations.’

Speaking with a live person on the phone tops the method for resolving customer issues (90%), followed by face to face (75%). Fewer respondents say they are interested in resolving issues via the web site or e-mail (67%). Half of them are interested in online chat (47%), while one in five are interested in resolving issues via social networking (22%), SMS (22%) or automated voice response on the phone (20%).

Three in five (59%) respondents say they are willing to try a new brand or company to get better customer service. Other customers are willing to go out of their way to get better service by traveling a longer distance (22%), or sacrificing convenience (19%).

Reference: American Express Global Customer Service Barometer, May 2011