Your contact center is central to your organization’s success. If the experience is lacking, you could see some serious repercussions for your bottom line, employee retention rates, and reputation. By first understanding the challenges and the effects they have on your work, you can then embrace the best solutions to help you overcome these hurdles. Below, we list some of the most common challenges and give you 5 ways to improve your contact center experience today.
Common Contact Center Challenges
While you may be suffering from some unique call center problems, many organizations deal with these 3:
Communication Technology Issues
One of the biggest challenges in contact centers is ongoing problems with technology. Employees may feel that they’re constantly going to battle with dropped calls, glitchy systems, and just too many tools. And if the tech isn’t keeping up with your company and industry demands, you could also see issues with workflows and scalability.
Poor Employee Experience
Ongoing technology issues can often lead to a poor employee experience and result in low retention rates. And if your agents aren’t properly trained on the system, you could find they are using the contact center tech incorrectly, leading to ongoing problems with data. Poor customer tracking and ticketing can also cause frustration for the employee and the customer if the customer makes repeated calls.
Poor Customer Experience and Service
And, of course, your customers could be on the receiving end of these technology issues and poorly trained employees. If you’re offering bad first call resolution rates and long wait times on top of these problems, you could see very low customer satisfaction and retention as a result.
5 Strategies To Improve Your Call Center Experience
Taking action to solve these problems can have immediate benefits for your organization. You could experience happier customers, improved employee retention numbers, more repeat clients, and overall better EX and CX.
Here are 5 steps and strategies you can start implementing today to see better results for your contact center:
1. Offer Employee Training
Employee training should cover a breadth of knowledge to help them improve their work and conversations with customers.
First, give thought to how you onboard your employees and train them on your call center systems. Do these training modules cover how to optimize use of the system, how to properly log tickets, and what to do if they run into a problem? Documentation of these training materials is also key so your employees can refer to it if they have a question.
Second, you’ll want to offer employee training on customer service. This should cover how to talk to customers, show empathy, address them, and apologize if the employee is currently unable to solve the customer’s issue.
By training your employees in all areas of their work, you can improve your company’s EX and have team members that are more equipped to handle their workload.
2. Focus More on Personalization and the Customer Experience
Employees and your organization as a whole should also focus more on personalization and the entire customer experience. This means:
- Actually listening to your clients and what they have to say
- Understanding who your customers are
- Personalizing the customer journey and using their name
- Creating a roadmap for the customer journey
- Keeping conversations as concise as possible
- Going the extra mile when possible
- Improving call routing and call flow management
- Adopting a customer-first culture
- Simplifying the customer experience
- Using several contact options, such as phone, live chat, and email
Personalizing the customer journey requires focus and attentiveness. CRI is the partner that cares. Reach out to us today.
3. Request feedback
Requesting feedback is an excellent way to improve your operations, call center included. You should ask both your employees and customers for feedback on their experiences, the technology, and workflow to keep moving your systems forward.
4. Improve the Employee Experience
There’s more organizations can do to improve the EX beyond training. Happier employees lead to happier customers. Here are some tactics you could use:
- Listen to their ideas
- Offer employee wellness and financial wellness programs
- Provide reliable technology, including hardware and software
- Offer benefits, increased wages, bonuses, and other compensation incentives
- Hold team-building activities
- Build an employee recognition program
5. Opt for a New Contact Center Solution
It may also be time to consider a new contact center solution if your current system isn’t meeting employees needs or your customers’ expectations. Outdated technology, dropped calls, and finicky systems can lead to serious frustration for employees and clients alike. But a new contact center solution can be ideal, as it will take advantage of the latest in technology, offer the services your customers are looking for, and deliver the features your employees need to optimize their workflow.
CRI is Your Trusted Partner in the Best Contact Center Solutions
If you think it’s time to implement a new contact center solution, work with CRI. We can help your organization identify the best system for your specific and unique needs to best serve your bottom line, customers, and employees.