After going through an extensive 15-minute phone tree you find yourself on hold again as your call is transferred to another department. Finally, you give up and decide your time is better spent elsewhere. This scenario is all too common in the world of customer service, and if you are a business owner, put yourself on the other side of the equation. That unhappy customer may never buy from you again and will tell everyone they know about the poor customer service they received. If you haven’t evaluated your own customer service model recently, it’s time to revisit and potentially upgrade. Here are two ways you can refocus on customer service.
Phone Tree Overhaul
Evaluate your existing customer service phone line. If your company uses an IVR (phone tree), it is important to balance productivity with customer experience. The eternal customer cry of “I just want to talk to a person!” has to be balanced with the capacity of your team. Did you know over 70% of people simply press zero to try and reach a human, rather than deal with a phone tree? Reevaluating your phone system can both increase productivity and customer satisfaction.
Representative Training
The world is changing quickly. Make sure your customer service team is ready for it. Cross-training employees so they can deal with a variety of issues is one way to keep customers from being bounced around to different representatives. The more that can be handled with one representative, the happier your customer will be. If a representative does have to transfer a call, encourage her to stay with the customer to make sure that the next person is the right person. Schedule an annual training to keep everyone up-to-date and on the same page.
Even if your business is doing well, there’s always a chance to do better. Give your customers an upgraded service experience.