Customer service optimization

Customer satisfaction is the greatest asset

Jeff Bezos once said: “We see our customers as invited guests. And we are the hosts.” And as a good host, it's important to make sure that all guests are happy.

What sounds like a given at events is also of immense importance for brands and companies. The so-called customer experience ensures that customers have a positive attitude towards the brand or product. Touchpoints, such as the website and social media presence and friendly staff when contacting customers, are part of the experience.

But even after the purchase, there are still opportunities to positively influence the customer experience. And that through an outstanding service experience. Customers are happy to contact the appropriate company if they have any questions or problems regarding products and services. Quick and competent help from their service staff agents can also have a targeted impact on customer satisfaction. But it's not always that easy.

Quality improvement in the service center

Service centers sometimes receive many millions of inquiries every day. With so many contacts, it is not always easy to work quickly and at the same time in a quality-oriented manner and to satisfy all customers equally. In order to ensure effective and high-quality processing of all contacts and to minimize sources of error, the use of contact center software in conjunction with a solution to improve quality is an important tool. But what options are there specifically and what needs to be considered?

In order to support agents in their daily work, there are various software solutions that can be used. But before you decide on one or more options, it is important to analyze where there is actually a need for optimization. Are customer concerns handled correctly? How long does the processing time take? Do service employees speak confidently to customers? Through internal analyses and customer reviews, the current situation can be determined first. If the actual and target conditions differ significantly, suitable optimization measures can be taken.

Find the right approach

There are many approaches to increasing quality in service centers. Software solutions can be very effective in identifying potential agent weaknesses and providing starting points for improvements. Training and continuing education can also help employees improve and expand their skills. We present a few options here:

Divide concerns by skill

Not all employees have the same skills and can handle all customer concerns equally well. This quickly results in longer processing times, which can lead to a negative perception by the customer. With workload management from IP Dynamics, tasks are automatically distributed to those employees who, thanks to their skills, are best suited to processing them. The tasks are distributed across channels and in real time. It therefore doesn't matter which contact the inquiries are received through. If, for example, a claim settlement request is received, it is forwarded directly to an employee from the relevant department. If, for example, a foreign language is required to process this request, the software solution searches for an agent who speaks this language. The information about the skills and competencies of employees is entered into the system beforehand and can be easily adapted and updated as required.

It happens that some employees have to work on far more tasks than others. This may mean that inquiries are only processed later than would theoretically be possible. Workload management can also help here. As a result of the solution, all employees are assigned a specific task, which they work on. Once this has been completed, the system assigns the next task from the central worklist and presents it to the agents for processing. This results in uniform workload and employees do not have to choose their tasks independently.

Speech analysis

If there is a lack of conversation or the type of articulation, real-time speech analysis software can help. During a conversation, the software can provide the employee with various information. If it is too loud, for example, the software makes a corresponding recommendation to reduce the volume. If the agent speaks too fast or too slowly, it is advised to adjust the tempo. The emotionality and speech parts of the interlocutors are also evaluated and displayed in real time. In addition, the software can check whether certain sentences have been said or points have been addressed that are important for the conversation. This is particularly important when it comes to contract details so that important content is not accidentally forgotten.

Recording communication

Regardless of whether communication takes place via telephone, chat or video call — recording conversations via the various communication platforms gives supervisors the opportunity to analyse them and then make suggestions for improvement.

An additional bonus: The recordings can be used to provide appropriate evidence in the event of disputes regarding the conclusion of contracts, terminations or possible threats. This is important, as companies are required to provide evidence in such cases.

Silent Monitoring/Whispering

In order to experience service employees “live” during a telephone call, supervisors can use so-called “silent monitoring” to listen to customer calls without disturbing the employee or customer. In this way, supervisors can analyze whether and where there are deficiencies among individual employees and derive optimization options from this.

“Whispering” allows the supervisor to verbally give the employee tips and other information directly during the customer conversation. The customer still only hears the employee and does not hear anything from the supervisor.

With both options, it is important that the conversation participants agree to a possible recording in advance.

Keyword spotting

Sometimes it's helpful to filter customer conversations by specific topics. Keyword spotting uses speech recognition to analyze the conversation for previously defined words and phrases and prepares it accordingly. Among other things, this solution can be used to analyze customer satisfaction and interest in specific products.

Test inquiries

Test requests are another option for quality control. The advantage of this is that no customer request is required. The supervisor contacts the employee directly via the respective communication platform and pretends to have a concern. The freely selectable scenario allows employees to be specifically tested for specific situations.

important: Test requests must not be used on a daily basis to comply with the proportionality law.

Training and continuing education

In training courses, important topics can be developed and deepened where there is a need for optimization. A regular exchange of knowledge about the products and services for which inquiries are processed helps to provide employees with the best possible support and at the same time give them greater self-confidence in carrying out their tasks. Tips and tricks for conducting conversations and behavior also contribute to this. Training materials also help to strengthen the competencies of employees.

Legal aspects

Since all solutions process personal data to improve quality, there are legal aspects to consider.

For example, listening in and recording communication in any form is not simply allowed. The GDPR states that the data subject has given their express consent as a prerequisite for storing and processing personal data. This consent is therefore a necessary requirement for most of the quality measures described here. For this purpose, it must be presented transparently in which form and for what purpose the review is taking place. Consent must be given actively via opt-in. The easiest way to query is via an automatic announcement at the beginning of the call, at which point the caller can agree or decline verbally or by pressing a button. Simply saying that the call can be monitored is not enough.

In any case, the prerequisite for approval is the proportionality and transparent presentation of the measures. If possible, the collected data should also only be used in anonymized form.

Psychological consequences

There are many ways of verifying employees in service centers. However, this also entails risks for employees.

The feeling of constant monitoring by supervisors can lead to high stress levels for employees. Mental illnesses, such as burnout, are a high risk. According to the “BARMER Health Report 2021”, employees in the dialogue marketing sector, which includes service centers, are unable to work 30.6% longer at 25.82 days than according to cross-professional evaluations (19.77 days). [1]

It is therefore important to keep an eye on employees and pay attention to the following signs of increased stress:

· Pessimistic attitude

· Compartmentalization

· Increased irritability

· Decreasing productivity

· Careless errors

Guarantee the greatest possible transparency about the measures. Communicatively accompany the measures during and after the introduction and alleviate their fears by making your employees understand that this is intended to improve the quality of work. Last but not least, this also contributes to an increase in quality.

Many opportunities, but also risks

There are many ways to ensure quality in a service center. Various software solutions offer numerous options for testing and optimization, both on an individual basis and in a conglomerate. However, the additional psychological stress factor for agents must be kept in mind so that the measures do not result in a negative development in the form of employee absences and waves of dismissals.

If you keep an eye on these factors, you have the opportunity to improve the quality of your service and achieve higher customer satisfaction. At the same time, agents are relieved and work is made more efficient. The result is a reduction in costs due to fewer new hires.

If you are unsure how to approach the topic in practice, various software manufacturers and service providers will help you develop and implement the right strategies together with you.

This specialist article does not constitute legal advice. We are not responsible for any damage.

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Source reference:

[1] https://www.barmer.de/resource/blob/­1032110/aaafa3405427f0b05d34a7f20fd904d1/­barmer-gesundheitsreport-2021-data.pdf

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