Gone are the days when having a good product was the only prerequisite to run a successful business; this is the era of consumers. Customer experience plays a vital role in determining whether a company can gain and retain its sales. Hence, it goes without saying that customer service has become an unavoidable priority in business.
A survey amidst 15,000 people by PowerwaterhouseCoopers revealed that speed, convenience, helpful employees, and friendly service matter most to the buyers, with each parameter exceeding 70% in importance. This calls for the utmost attention to customer service by any organisation.
Call monitoring is a technology that allows you to monitor the incoming and outgoing calls in your call centre. This functionality is used to improve customer experience and service representatives’ performances simultaneously.
What Exactly are these Call Monitoring Solutions?
Managers and supervisors can listen to agent calls and record the same for documentation and analysis. This can be done with or without the knowledge of the customer service employees. The information gained can be used for the purpose of training and improving communication processes overall.
Why does Your Organisation Require Call Monitoring Solutions?
This technology has several uses transcending the obvious few:
1. The statistics can be used later to create individual performance reports. You can use the information to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the agent in order to improve their performance. Moreover, this data can also bring to light any problems that might be recurrent.
2. Supervisors can monitor agent performance and motivate them to perform better. An improvement in agents’ techniques will lead to a higher success rate of problem-solving. This means customers will leave your communication channels being extremely satisfied. A happy customer leads not only to repeated sales but also referrals and overall positive brand image.
3. The idea of being monitored encourages your agents to put their best foot forward. Since they know they are being watched, or rather heard, they are likely to be more proactive and enthusiastic in their conversations.
4. Call monitoring brings forth any issues in compliance with your service standards. You can detect discrepancies in any customer service representative’s work and further improve it. Knowledge of being under surveillance will discourage anything against the mission of the company.
5. The point of call monitoring solutions is to ensure that the customer experience is constantly evolving for the better. The data gathered through the system can emphasise or pinpoint issues that cause customer frustration.
6. The information gathered can also be a baseline measure for any future strategies and objectives. Furthermore, since call recordings are available, you can save the conversation and use them for reference in case of conflicts.
There are clearly plenty of reasons to employ call monitoring solutions. However, you must attempt certain practices to make the most of the technology. These practices are easy to follow and will tap the potential of your customer service representatives:
Do Not be Rigid on Call Monitoring Metrics
Numbers don’t lie. However, they don’t always convey the full truth either. Call monitoring reveals several metrics to judge the performance of an agent. Following are some of the call centre metrics that can be measured:
- Average handling time: The average time in which the agent is able to resolve the customer’s queries.
- First-call resolution: This parameter measures if the agent is able to resolve the customer query in the first call itself. Higher FCR means more customer satisfaction.
- Customer satisfaction: The customer’s opinion of the service usually recorded through an end-of-call survey.
- Occupancy rate: This parameter measures the number of agents who are busy on calls at a particular time.
- Net promoter chances: The likeliness of the business’ services being recommended to a peer.
While it is vital to have some expectations of these metrics, they must not be your ultimate judgements. Statistics can be deceiving. For example, an organisation would ideally assume that a low average handling time is good since the issues are resolved quickly. However, the same could also mean that they aren’t being resolved well. Hence, you must study the metrics in relation to each other.
Allow for Self-assessment by Your Staff
Recordings are often heard and analysed by group leaders and analysts. And that is, without a doubt, important for the growth of the company. However, it is also vital for your agents to have and fulfil personal goals regarding their performance. The recordings and feedback must be available to them so that they can go back and evaluate their work by themselves. They can narrow down the mistakes and be motivated to deliver better service.
Recommended Read: Call recording solution for better customer experience
Focus on The Software You Employ
What good are your intentions if the software you get cannot support them? At the end of the day, call monitoring is a technology and can only be performed easily if the software enables it. Top cloud telephony service providers like Servetel offer a remote dashboard that can be used from any location most comfortable to you. It supports work from home as well. You can track your staff’s activities on the dashboard in real-time and act on it as you find suitable.
In conclusion, you must ensure providers you choose are giving you the best equipment to work with.
Set up a Call Monitoring Task Force
When it comes to dealing with the data collected, there will be several people in managerial and leadership positions who will be responsible. However, a handful of people handling all the nitty-gritty can be challenging.
Bring together the best minds on your team as a task force. This task force will be responsible for everything from scheduling training sessions and preparing performance scorecards to working on incentives for the employees. The task force can brainstorm together about the usage of the data collected and how to work with the agents on the whole.
Create an Effective Call Centre Script
As it is portrayed in several media, call centres often rely on scripts to communicate with the consumers. The reason being consistency and professionalism in the responses. However, it’s a product of trial and error. No script is created perfectly.
Using call monitoring solutions, you can analyse the effects of your script and how the buyers are reacting to it. A strong introduction, followed by a formed connection, resolution of their issue and finally a definitive conclusion would be the general format for a script.
Evaluate Not in Numbers but Through Questions
You must have witnessed it first-hand when organisations ask consumers for feedback after every interaction. However, a common mistake made by companies is that they ask buyers to rate the performance of the agent.
When you have a number system, representatives will lack motivation once they receive a few full marks. While monitoring such feedback as well, you will not be able to pinpoint qualitative aspects of the call. Instead, ask your consumers yes or no questions regarding the service. Were you satisfied? Was your problem solved? Would you recommend the service to your peers? In this method of evaluation, you can derive much more decisive conclusions while monitoring.
The Bottom Line
Customer service can make or break your brand. Consistently bad experiences can tarnish the image of your organisation and turn potential customers away. Call monitoring solutions can be employed to ensure regular improvement in the performances of your customer service representatives.
The technology allows you to listen to your agents and also record their calls for later evaluation. This information can be used to study individual strengths and weaknesses. By employing good practices in call monitoring, you can make the most of the technology and increase consumer satisfaction at the end of the day.
Servetel’s call monitoring solution and better consumer service is only a click away. Try it out now! Call us at 1800-120-4132
