Tips for contact centers to navigate another pandemic year
Anita Raghav
Oct 18, 2023 | 6 mins read
Continue to make customer needs pivotal by severely managing ops, creating that important human connection, staying agile, and making overall CX more proactive and intuitive! While at the same time mindfully managing employee wellbeing and emotional connection.
In this article, we will explore:
Manage Operations
Reduce queue times.
Are you facing a sudden increase in call volumes? Reduce how long callers wait in a call queue by allowing them to opt for voicemail and callbacks. Deliver voice mails to a priority inbox and schedule a time to push all missed calls into a dialer so that they are distributed amongst agents and are attended to. So, whether it’s a holiday or after hours when a customer calls, agents stay on top of it and reach customers no matter what! The use of call backs + power dialers combo appears to be a tactical way forward.
Call back.
This is more important now than before. When a customer calls and doesn’t complete a call cycle, it is considered an abandoned or a missed call. And every missed call equals a missed opportunity or a disgruntled customer, which in turn could lead to lost business. Use automated power dialers to schedule callbacks to ensure you call back these unhappy customers.
Learn more about our Power Dialers here
Combat customer fatigue.
Ozonetel’s research reveals that the average customer answer rate for outbound calls pre and post-pandemic declined from 46% to 39%. This answer rate is indicative of the percentage of outbound calls made by businesses that were actually answered by customers or prospects. Some of these calls may have been proactive support calls while others were telemarketing calls. The decrease in the number of customers answering these calls indicates customer fatigue at being “over called”. This was particularly true in the most hard-hit industry trio- eCommerce, food delivery, healthcare/pharma. In such cases, utilizing alternate modes of communication like social media, WhatsApp and SMS can help optimally reach customers.
Unification & tech differentiation.
Omnichannel solutions and stringent quality control/ agent training are essential in providing customers a more proactive and intuitive journey. Contact centers will need to adapt, innovate, unify, and stay agile. According to Olga Potaptseva it is important to make customer centricity intentional and sustainable through rigorous planning and project management. As also expressed by consultant guru Remi Weber Dublaron, “CX does not exist on its own but is a part of a larger, intertwined Experience Management system.” This can be achieved through “tech differentiation” – leveraging the power of AI and omnichannel capabilities, among other tech innovations.
Retain agents and care for their wellbeing
With WFH now and in the future, keeping up employee morale is essential. Change is tiresome and attrition expensive. As expressed by customer service support Andrea Gilliam, leaders must pay attention to team morale and energy level.
Read what CX experts recommend for call centers in 2021 here
Make human interaction possible
According to industry leader Jeanne Bliss, “Humanity is at the core of what makes companies soar”. Especially at a time when 1:1 human interaction has been unusual, this is truer than before. Having customers speedily chat with a live human will likely become a benchmark for superior customer service, CX, and loyalty. Call centers should vie to make this connection more seamless and frequent.
Ozonetel is committed to creating efficient, agile call center solutions for call centers of all sizes. Learn more about our solutions here.
