Demystifying Contact Centers- How to Provide a Good Customer Experience

It can often feel like contact centers are a mystery, and it’s hard to know what goes into providing a great customer experience (CX). But by understanding the top three hurdles to great CX, delivering an exceptional experience for customers will be simplified. Let’s explore the most common hurdles to providing good customer service and tips on how to overcome them.

One of the most critical aspects of providing excellent customer service is responding quickly. In a recent study, companies who responded to customer inquiries within 5 minutes could resolve them in 62% of cases, while those who took longer than 5 minutes were only able to fix them in 24% of cases. To provide excellent customer service, make sure to respond to inquiries quickly. There are a few ways to do this:

• Incorporate chatbot technology – Chatbots provide 24 x 7 x 365 help to customers which means they can get assistance outside of operating hours
• Provide CRM or other customer information database integration – Agents who know the history of the customer can jump to the more pressing questions and get to the root cause of their concern
• Offer call deflection or callback – Redirecting to more efficient digital channels or offering to call the customer back and keep their place in line empowers the customer to take control of their time but not feel ignored.

Ineffective conversations can often be the root cause of poor customer experiences. This is usually due to a lack of communication between the company and its customers. Customers want to feel like they are being heard, but when they have to repeat information previously given to a chatbot or another agent, it creates a feeling of frustration. In fact, in a recent survey by YouGov PLC, this is the most significant pain point for 44% of US consumers. For companies to provide a good customer experience, they need to ensure that their conversations with customers are effective. Here are a few tips to reduce frustration levels:

• Look for chatbot platforms that provide Human-in-the-loop (HITL) capabilities – When customers first try the self-service route and run into issues, handing over the conversation to live person should include context and the entire history
• Rely on warm transfers – when conversations start with one live agent and a transfer of the call is needed, warm transfers ensure clarity and context of the conversation by allowing the agents to converse prior to moving the customer to the new agent
• Consider the demographics of customers – in the same YouGov PLC survey, 86% found messaging to be very effective for customer service; however, for those over 55 years young only 18% prefer messaging over traditional voice channels. A doctor’s office with mostly older patients may want to think twice about how and when to use chatbots and digital channels

Non-relevant responses are another common hurdle to providing excellent customer experiences. Contact centers often send automated messages that are not relevant to the customer’s inquiry. This can be frustrating for customers and lead to a bad experience. Providing a good customer experience requires responses that are relevant to the customer. Here are a few tips to ensure relevancy:

• Use chatbot responses which are personalized – the more relevant a reply is to the customer, the less likely they are to feel like they’re just talking to a machine
• Train the BOTs to use natural language processing (NLP) – this will help them better understand customer inquiries and provide more relevant responses
• Incorporate quick responses and rich experiences to transfer information and lead the conversation flow to an effective conclusion

It’s clear that there are a few hurdles to providing a great customer experience. Still, understanding and addressing them takes the first steps to create an exceptional experience for customers. Responding quickly, having effective conversations, and providing relevant responses are vital to good customer service. By keeping these things in mind, businesses can deliver the level of service that customers deserve.

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