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Call Center Customer Experience Management

 

Businesses must create a consistent, positive experience for their customers to inspire loyalty in the form of repeat business and positive referrals. For the most part, customers wield a substantial amount of power in their relationships. After all, through the internet, shoppers have access to a seemingly limitless number of companies and brands. Additionally, forums such as social media where customers can share their experiences with the world are only a click away. In light of the power that customers have, businesses must always provide for simple, easy and pleasant encounters.

 

Defining Customer Experience (CX)

For customers, their perception is their reality. With this in mind, businesses must accept the customer perspective as the benchmark for their experience. Customer Experience (CX), therefore, assesses how shoppers and customers feel about their dealings with a brand. As a result, the science of Customer Experience Optimization (CXO) has evolved to help businesses improve their performance. Customers want to have a good experience as they shop for and buy the products that they need and want. In fact, consumer studies show that nearly two-thirds of customers would gladly pay more for a product if doing so would result in an improved experience.

Most businesses seem to have a basic understanding both of CX and the need for CXO. However, not all companies describe the goal of providing an optimized experience as vital to their operation. Such a statistic strongly suggests that many firms can use CXO to establish a competitive edge over their competitors. Also, as shown above, businesses have room to increase their selling prices as long as they deliver an exceptional customer experience. Furthermore, by managing the customer experience can improve profitability and support long-term growth.

 

About Customer Experience Management (CEM)

Companies engage in Customer Experience Management to manage customer interactions with the goal of exceeding the expectations. By learning about customer habits and expectations, brands can create experiences that make customer interactions feel natural and satisfying.

For this reason, firms consider their relationships with customers as assets that can support profitability and growth. Although CEM aims to induce recurring sales, it also hopes to convert customers into brand advocates who willingly and freely share their outstanding experiences with relatives, friends, coworkers and associates.

 

Customer Experience Evaluation Metrics

Although CX involves every point of contact in the organization, firms must give the call center user experience top priority. After all, customers often only interact with a company through their call center. In the hope that call centers can benefit from an accurate customer experience evaluation, managers measure performance in several ways.

First, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) attempts to produce whether a customer would recommend a product or service based on their experience with a brand. Call centers that produce high NPS values can expect customers to add considerable value to their marketing effort. To collect NPS data, the firm asks customers to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely they are to recommitted a product or service to friends and colleagues.

Second, the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) contributes to the customer experience assessment by judging the level of satisfaction a customer has received from the purchase of a particular product or service. In other words, CSAT considers customer satisfaction without attempting to predict future behavior.

Every point of contact between the customer and the firm affects CSAT values, including the quality of agent and call center performance as well as that of purchased products and services. Call centers gather this information through an automated process that asks customers to answer a series of questions regarding their experience using a scale that ranges from “very satisfied” to “very dissatisfied.”

Finally, the Customer Effort Score (CES) quantifies the degree of ease with which customers can interact with a brand. When customers have an easy time buying from a company, including getting needed service and support, they are more likely to have a greater lifetime value than customers who have experienced frustration.

To collect data to measure CES, Call centers ask customers questions via IVR, email or other channels, “How much effort did you personally put forth to handle your request?” Another CES question asks customers to rate the accuracy of the following statement on a numeric scale, “The organization made it easy for me to handle my issue.”

 

Advantages of Using CEM in Call Centers

CEM supplies fantastic opportunities to companies that respond to the “engage your customers” mantra of modern marketers. By actively collecting feedback from customers and then acting on that information to optimize the customer experience, companies can have the opportunity to improve their organization and internal processes to meet and exceed expectations. With that being said, implementing CEM in the call center offers firms numerous valuable advantages:

Spontaneous grassroots marketing via word-of-mouth by satisfied customers.

Customers share their experiences with other people and, therefore, can spread brand awareness and influence others to trust a particular product or service. Such marketing often carries more weight than marketing messages that come directly from a business and can drive both new and repeat business.

The identification and resolution of operational problems by analyzing CX data using artificial intelligence and machine learning systems.

When customers have a chance to leave feedback about their experience they supply the firm with information that can identify problems with internal systems and processes. In fact, the AI and machine learning capabilities of some CEM systems can uncover trends that ordinary analyses might overlook.

Increased customer loyalty by applying the lessons learned from customer feedback.

CX data inspires continual improvement in the call center by supplying the call center with actionable information that can simplify every point customer interaction. Additionally, the feelings of “Wow!” that customer receive when they realize that a brand has responded to their feedback also inspires loyalty.

A consistent and satisfactory experience for customers across multiple communications channels.

Through CEM, the firm has a real-time, omnichannel view of their customer experience and can quickly respond to issues as they arise. As a result, customers can trust that, regardless of how they interact with a brand, that they will easily receive a satisfactory outcome.

Quick adaptation as customer expectations change.

Technology, economic conditions and other market conditions change as time passes. As a result, customer needs and expectations can also change. CEM provides the firm with the feedback needed to keep pace with customers by adapting to changes as they occur.

Leveraging CX data to identify opportunities for cross and up-selling based on individual and collective customer habits and preferences.

CEM-equipped companies can glean important intelligence regarding customers and their buying habits from their CX data that can suggest a need for additional products and services. Agents can act on this information by providing customers with precisely targeted offers.

Creating personalized cross-channel experiences for each customer using an omnichannel contact center solution.

Companies can use their knowledge of customer preferences to personalize every step of the customer journey, regardless of the channels they use. Such customized experiences can dramatically increase customer satisfaction rates and repeat business.

 

The internet and mobile devices have given customers enormous amounts of power. As a result, they expect to have an easy, pleasant experience every time they shop or contact a brand for support. If dissatisfied, research shows they will go elsewhere.

Call Center Customer Experience Management gives companies and their call centers the ability to optimize and personalize the customer experience across every channel and department. Moreover, by implementing customer experience management solutions, they can leverage numerous advantages to gain an edge over competitors while boosting profitability.

 

Let us help you make your call center a success!

For further information about our services, give us a call at 888-571-9492 or 917-837-5225, or send us a message via the convenient website form.