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The only reason a business opens its doors every day is because of customers. It expects to attract new ones and retain old ones. Customers are what make or break a business, and this is where contact centres become vital to the life of a business. Why? Because they are the first point of contact between the business and customers. They hold power to turn an irate client into a satisfied returning client.
Interestingly, many businesses still view contact centres as investments with little relevance that need to be trimmed and kept to a bare minimum. Well, you could choose to see it as a corporate pain or as the direct voice which your customers relate to and a medium to improve your brand’s image, customer experience, and customer retainment.
Happy customers are indirect promotional tools, and businesses that understand this kind of value are striving to turn their contact centres into the hubs of their activity. Here are things successful contact centres do every day that help grow their businesses.
Flexibility in handling cases
Have you tried reaching out to a customer service agent before only to notice that the communication seems rushed? That’s because many contact centres have set targets for every form of communication. Some of these targets can be very limiting to an agent, giving them little room to really listen, understand, and respond effectively to customer queries.
Businesses need to understand that their customer service agents deal with different types of people every day. All these customers don’t possess similar strengths when it comes to articulation. By reducing micro-management and giving agents a sense of free rein, customer satisfaction rates may increase considerably.
Quickly picking up on customer capabilities
Not all customers are on the same wavelength in a conversation. One may be an IT professional, another a barista. This is actually one of the reasons bots are not suitable for individualised support as they are not capable of dealing with a customer at their level.
Successful contact centres ensure that their agents can deal with each client at his or her level as this limits unnecessary explanations and improves clarity.
Acknowledging customers’ displeasure
When a customer is displeased and reaches out to your contact centre, there are usually two outcomes to that. Either they receive the assistance they need, or they go elsewhere. One of the things that customers seem to appreciate is that their grievances are acknowledged and not shrugged off as if they didn’t exist. When complaints are acknowledged, your customers feel like you understand and are ready to respond accordingly.
Real human interaction
There is a reason why customers prefer human interaction in contact centres rather than AI. Customers want the person they are talking to, to understand what they are going through and show interest. If your agents have come up with a way of responding fast and mechanically just so they could move on to the next person, then they are no different from AI’s, and customers will quickly pick up on it.
Conclusion
Customers look at genuine interest and in-depth support as a sign of respect, and it makes them feel valued. In turn, it keeps them coming back and may make them go out of their way to recommend your business to others. This is the reason why contact centres are invaluable to any business.
However, for various reasons, not every business may want or afford an in-house contact centre. The cloud contact centre in the UK provides an innovative and leading trend in customer support. Now any business can improve its customer satisfaction rate by tapping into cloud-based customer support.
You may also like: In the Age of AI and Bots – Why Call Centres Still Matters?
