Admit it – Overall consumer behavior remains shrouded in mystery but you can, with pure diligence, unlock the secrets that can launch success stories. Call centers will stand witness to a myriad of situations that make their agents work harder to deliver the right kind of customer support. Some guidelines in the rule book cannot be missed. They have to be on – all the time.

Here are a few “always” that we can apply in our workplace.

ALWAYS

1.    Motivate your entire organization to think “Customer first”. It should be a lifestyle for your growing small business.

2.    Make and meet commitments. You cannot say, “Please expect our call in the coming days.” That is not commitment. This is commitment: “Please expect a call from us by 10:00am Tuesday.”

3.    Keep your cool when dealing with difficult customers. Sure, you wanted to banish them from the face of the earth but hard clients will tame with right and efficient handling.

4.    Delight customers every time they share their interests and issues. Customer satisfaction surveys and occasional promotions are good avenues for understanding their likes and dislikes.

5.    Integrate customer service focus within the organization. Departments across the enterprise can also have customer service mindsets. It is no longer the domain of your sales, marketing and customer service teams. Who says your accounting department cannot be customer focused?

An inbound call center represents any business. With the right attitude and training, it can effectively implement the abovementioned rules. After all, it receives different types of calls day in and day out – in some circumstances very exhilarating, and in some days disheartening. Yet this group has a critical role. Think of the many useful insights it can provide your business to accomplish more.

Here are a few strategies we can apply in our current environment:

Be consistent. Every time we perform well, customers will obviously come back again and again. Businesses should set a high standard from the beginning and consistently strive to attain it. Same goes with customer service. If the agents are from an outsourced inbound call center, they have to adhere to the same standards set for your internal employees.

Listen and don’t pass around. Customers reach out to us because they have complaints. These may either be valid or trivial. Make your customers feel they are vital to your growth by listening to their issues and solving them as quickly as possible. Do not pass their call from one agent to another. This only aggravates their irritation. If this happens, give the customer an assurance that you are top of the situation and will be looking for the solution immediately.

Avoid making promises. There is nothing more annoying than a promise not fulfilled. Remember this cardinal rule: Do only what you can deliver. You keep the customers happy by providing them what is achievable from your end.

Keep an open communication. Technology should be to your advantage, not a logistical nightmare.

If your business has a web site, make sure you have a Contact Us form that is frequently monitored by one of your staff. As much as possible, you stay away from voicemail. Studies show that 79% of customers will not leave their message on voicemail especially if they are placing an order for a product or service. This is the reason why we have 24/7 call center support.

Our customers are our reason why we are in business. Our policies should encompass every customer touch point. Both our internal staff and the outsourced team should have a clear understanding of our customer service guidelines. We  have to be on the same page in making our customers happy.

Fact Number 1:

A recent survey on telecommunication revealed that 80% of potential customers refuse to leave their message on the business’ voicemail. These people have a good reason why they took the time to place a call. They need immediate response to their need, and by directly talking to a representative, they get this task done.

If customers decline to leave a message to an automated voice machine, they will take that request elsewhere – to another business that is readily available for them.

That is the reason telephone answering services should be a major component in the business. Whether it is set up in-house or outsourced, a representative can put the most important calls through immediately.

Fact Number 2: Small business owners use their personal mobile phone to answer business calls, according to the same telecommunication survey.

A live answering service should be part of your company, regardless how small or how huge it can be. You continue bringing in more businesses even when you are not available to answer the phone. Inbound call centers today can customize their services according to business requirements. Small-sized entrepreneurs are often intimidated with the minimum number of agents these providers require to set up the service for them. Not true. There are call center companies that offer flexibility by assigning one or two highly trained representatives to look after your incoming calls.

The success of any business begins when it strives for increased productivity and enhanced image. Companies these days cannot afford to lose customers. Every call placed by a potential client opens up a new opportunity that can make the cash register ring.

Tough times have driven more small businesses to find ways how to delight their clientele. Remember that one client has friends and their friends have friends. Your last nightmare is to discover one day your company has been talked about in social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Before you unearth these indiscreet secrets, it is best to address this head on by un-cracking the codes that can help build a great customer service.

Code no. 3: Please the customer. No amount of press release would ever work if businesses fall short of customer’s expectations.

If the customer is angry, how do you handle it? Do you use words that convey a message of resolution for the problem? Even if the customer is wrong, sometimes it is good for repeat business to get the loss and compensate.

Code no. 2: Be truthful. If a customer calls in and asks which product is better, do not recommend what makes more money for the company. Sell a product that is best for his or her present needs. You will be surprised to hear the same customer coming back to buy another product because you gave a good recommendation.

Code no. 1: Build trust. Trust is one of the hardest things to build even for small business owners. Get to know your customers and recognize their needs if you have that chance. When you can show your concerns to the things that matter to them, you win them. You can wake up one morning feeling good there are people out there who will stay with you for a longer period of time.

If your in-staff can take the following codes to heart, then it is well and good. Losing clients and not serving them the way they wanted it to be can be costly for the business. Being there at any given time is very important these days.

If you desire to raise customer service to a higher level, consider an expert in handling customers, calls and complaints to back you up in this worthy undertaking.

Businesses that have decided to outsource would seek out the best fit according to  overall competencies, flexibility, and budget. However, there are thousands profiled every year. It is either you choose the right vendor or you pick the wrong one.

The very good call centers can give the best value for money. There is no doubt about their strong adherence to quality and processes. Toss in those that truly value long-term partnerships and you get a total package.

If you have tried outsourcing or are a first-time client, it helps to remember a few guidelines to aid you in the search:

Do research. Ask friends and colleagues if they have outsourced and are presently outsourcing. Know about their experience. The most popular sourcing strategy these days is the Internet search engine. In a study released by Georgia Institute of Technology, 8 out of 10 Internet users would look up to a search engine to find the right supplier, product or service.

Find the most focused. Once you have short-listed vendors, find out who among them is more focused to your needs. Every business has a unique set of requirements. The good one will spend more time understanding what you do, what are your needs, and what your expectations are.

Check their report card. Call centers often promote themselves to be the best in the industry to attract prospective customers, yet everything boils down to their depth of expertise. Review their metrics – call duration, number of calls handled – to gauge their performance.

Visit the site. This is highly recommended. A scheduled office visit helps you learn about the work environment and the culture every call center employee thrives in. Here you can observe and listen to the way agents interact with callers. You can take note of their product knowledge, tone, speech, expression and accent. If you are hiring offshore, request for the latest photos and possibly a conference call with the president or business development.

Take the time to meet with a few suppliers and know what they can do for your business. You are the client and you are investing in a provider that will represent your company in many ways. Consider all aspects of hiring to get the most of you deserve at the end of the day.

Have you ever wondered how long a call center agent talks? How long does his saliva last? Does he injure his tonsils? Hmmm….

As soon as the agents arrive in the office, the first thing they do is to chat with their colleagues, with the employees in the company or with any people assigned in that site. However some sleep first as they arrive in early but as soon as they’re awake, expect to hear their non-stop talks wafted everywhere. It’s like they never ran out of gossips or stories to tell. Endless, indefinite, limitless that’s how I can describe it.

As their shift starts, you can see everyone turning on their pc’s, getting their headsets in their respective lockers, preparing their coffee, filling up water in their tumbler, putting on their headsets and still chit chatting with their seatmates.

In my experience, the length of the operation in this contact center is 9 hours inclusive of an hour break and two 15 minute breaks. Agents should be seen on the floor 7 hours and 30 minutes comprising the entire shift. But how do they talk to their customers? Is there any pattern or any time limit that should be followed? Well actually there, is especially in the inbound call center department. In Inbound, most of the scripts are verbatim while in Outbound it depends. Inbound and Outbound have lots of accounts and in every account there’s a respective script. A script that should be followed most of the time due to its sensitivity and a script that is being used as a guide to close the call properly and to not mislead the customer. Also, the length of the scripts vary. Some are short, some are long and some are average in length.

During the operation, contact center agents converse with the customers using their respective scripts. Some encounter short conversations, few have long interaction with the customers and others converse with the customers for a middle length of time. So when you enter a call center operation site, expect to hear the non stop talks of the agents.

But do you have any idea if what an agent does during his break or lunch? To tell you the truth most of the agents used their 15 minute break for smoking with their colleagues and chit chatting with their coworkers. Thus, some used their 15 minute break for napping, eating and discussing stuff with each other. It’s the same way during the 1 hour break. Also at the end of the shift you can still see them talking with each other. Talking about their experiences with their worst customer for the day and a lot more things that will pop up in their mind. That’s how they maximize their voice in a single day.

We better be careful in using our voice because it is our primary means of communication. Once it’s been abused, we might get difficulty in winning it back.

You probably spend more time using your listening skills than any other kind of skill. Like other skills, listening takes practice.

What does it mean to really listen?

Real listening is an active process that has three basic steps.
1. Hearing. Hearing just means listening enough to catch what the speaker is saying. For example, say you were listening to a report on zebras, and the speaker mentioned that no two are alike. If you can repeat the fact, then you have heard what has been said.
2. Understanding. The next part of listening happens when you take what you have heard and understand it in your own way. Let’s go back to that report on zebras. When you hear that no two are alike, think about what that might mean. You might think, “Maybe this means that the pattern of stripes is different for each zebra.”
3. Judging. After you are sure you understand what the speaker has said, think about whether it makes sense. Do you believe what you have heard? You might think, “How could the stripes to be different for every zebra? But then again, the fingerprints are different for every person. I think this seems believable.”

Tips for being a good listener

1. Give your full attention on the person who is speaking. Don’t look out the window or at what else is going on in the room.
2. Make sure your mind is focused, too. It can be easy to let your mind wander if you think you know what the person is going to say next, but you might be wrong! If you feel your mind wandering, change the position of your body and try to concentrate on the speaker’s words.
3. Let the speaker finish before you begin to talk. Speakers appreciate having the chance to say everything they would like to say without being interrupted. When you interrupt, it looks like you aren’t listening, even if you really are.
4. Let yourself finish listening before you begin to speak! You can’t really listen if you are busy thinking about what you want say next.
5. Listen for main ideas. The main ideas are the most important points the speaker wants to get across. They may be mentioned at the start or end of a talk, and repeated a number of times. Pay special attention to statements that begin with phrases such as “My point is…” or “The thing to remember is…”
6. Ask questions. If you are not sure you understand what the speaker has said, just ask. It is a good idea to repeat in your own words what the speaker said so that you can be sure your understanding is correct. For example, you might say, “When you said that no two zebras are alike, did you mean that the stripes are different on each one?”
7. Give feedback. Sit up straight and look directly at the speaker. Now and then, nod to show that you understand. At appropriate points you may also smile, frown, laugh, or be silent. These are all ways to let the speaker know that you are really listening. Remember, you listen with your face as well as your ears!

Thinking fast

Remember: time is on your side! Thoughts move about four times as fast as speech. With practice, while you are listening you will also be able to think about what you are hearing, really understand it, and give feedback to the speaker.

Like most jobs, listening is an important skill to have when working at a call center.

Entry Level – Arrives and leaves on time. Feels important when boss asks him/her to work late and does so without hesitation. Brags to friends, “I picked the font for the new count’s website.” Considers a $50 bonus as indicator of undying company loyalty. Eats at desk on occasion. Life is pretty good.

Worker – Leaves late occasionally. Never calls in sick just to take the day off anymore. Is entirely responsible for meaningless projects, like changing “Systems Group” to “Technology Group” in all company documentation. Still comes into work with hangovers. Personal life is unknowingly vanishing. Is excited by a tiny raise and small promotion. Life is good.

Employee – Arrives early on occasion. Leaves late fairly often. Eats lunch at desk every day. Only has 1 or 2 remaining friends outside of work. Is actually responsible for real work that, if screwed up, will not damage the company significantly. Still has time to use company perks like hockey tickets. Life is OK.

Level 2 – Arrives at the call center early. Usually the last one to leave. Life is consumed by reports containing meaningless blocks of numbers. Derives all self-esteem from company and superiors’ approbation. Spends entire paycheck on objects that elevate status and image. Is totally immersed in work and loves it. Can do nothing but collapse in front of the TV to watch 90210 the few hours s/he is home. Life is stressful.

Level 3 – Same as Level 2 except their work actually affects the success of the firm. Doesn’t enjoy work anymore even though the salary is obscene and it keeps them away from their spouse all day. Considers quitting, but has large mortgage payment and doesn’t want to give up the wide screen TV. Doesn’t know what to do on a day off. Life is hell.

Manager – Tells other answering service employees what to do. Loves the power. Has to continually prove worthiness to managers up the food chain. Always works late in order to do the real work that can’t be done during the day. Has 5 times as many business outfits as friends. Home life starts to break down. Life is stressful.

Middle Manager – Spends all day describing things with buzzwords. Considers key employees, pens, and contents of recycling bin as resources. Still works late, but only for a conference or client. Sometimes in winter, sees the sun after it rises or before it sets, unlike Level 2s, 3s, and managers. Has no friends or home life. Life is OK.

Upper Manager – Likes looking at reports and talking at meetings. Usually leaves work on time, except when leaving early to play golf with other Upper Managers. Hardly ever needs to brown nose anyone anymore. No longer owns jeans. Cannot remember ever taking public transportation. Life is good.

Executive – Despite having vast riches and grown children, chooses to come to work because it’s fun. Says things like, “We need more market penetration in Liberia” and over the next few months, it happens. If it doesn’t, the executive must do even more work by saying, “Why don’t we have market penetration in Europe?” Magically, it happens and executive is called a visionary. Life is great!

Source:

http://www.successfuloffice.com/articles/call-center-blog_call-center-humor9.htm