Author: iccs-bpo

There is no doubt in saying that the call centers in India are growing by leaps and bounds and are booming the industry thereby attracting thousands of young women and men within the country. The call center workforce offers various advantages just in terms of the cost savings (cheap labour) and the manpower availability.

Established companies in almost all industries have a customer service department. There exist certain companies those do not have any the capability of having an own in-house customer service department. All these companies just look for outsourcing the customer services to the other vendor companies.

In today’s competitive business world, businesses are looking gain a competitive edge over their competitors while cutting down their cost of operations. All these needs has just given rise to many trending companies those outsource their call center services to India.  In the past decade, there were every few sectors those felt the need of outsourcing the customer service operations or just found the need of hiring the call center support services or the call center service provider for carrying out various businesses.

Some of these sectors were telecom, broadband, cable networks and computer hardware & software manufacturers.

However, the scenario has now changed and there are many other industries or sectors that have realized the benefits of outbound call center outsourcing.

Many healthcare organizations irrespective of any insurance companies or the hospitals outsource the call center services in order to get their important processes done like reminder calls to their patients, processing the insurance claim, scheduling the appointments and other billings.  All these organizations do hire call centers which have knowledgeable staff for handling the medical processes or have previously proven track record of the same.  Another that has been famous is the virtual assistant services for the doctors those can help their private practices run smoothly by handling all the administrative tasks in a remote way.

Right from the financial institutions like the tax services, stock brokerages to the banks, all are in need of the call center services for their processes. Whenever we talk about the stock brokerages, they do have the call centers those call the potential clients in order to convince them for opening the accounts with them. Various banks make use of these services for selling their products like insurance plans to the customers, mutual funds, various loans to the customers or the credit cards.

With more and more banks offering their self-service smart phone applications, they also hire call centers in India to call customers to get these apps downloaded and installed.

Following are a few factors which prove that  outbound call center outsourcing can contribute towards resolving market challenges:

•The Cost Advantage – Economical operations is surely a big advantage of this business collaboration.  Business tends to earn more profit and also try to acquire a big market share whenever the investment is small.

•Tech Innovation – One amongst the biggest challenge in today’s market is rapidly changing technology for frontend and backend operations. By outsourcing, many enterprises can save the efforts and investment required for the same, while staying attuned to the latest technological advancements.

•Improved Focus – Impressing today’s consumers is a hard nut to crack and to do so; enterprises need to focus on core business. This is the something that can certainly be achieved with the aid of outsourcing.

These are just a few of the reasons that establish how outsourcing is favorable for dealing with market challenges. However, there are many other advantages that make this collaboration lucrative for commercial organizations.

QUALIFICATION:

All BPOs require you to be fluent in English, although most do expect you to have at least a bachelor’s degree like BSC or BA. For certain types of jobs like Medical or Tech.  Outsourcing or pursuing en educational background in that same field is an added advantage. People speaking multiple languages or individuals having fluent communication skills in French, German and Spanish always have a great advantage over the others.

CLEAN WORK:

There never exists running around in order to get the work done. Bigger BPOs always provide you with the convenient bus services from various locations within the city.

FLEXIBILITY AND GROWTH FOR EASE IN JOB CHANGE

People having less years of experience are in great demand and are usually be able to change their jobs to the competing BPO Company for better career prospects.

ON JOB TRAINNING:

BPOs provide training and how to deal with customers and the best part is that they even pay you when they train you.  The training consists of few weeks which is then followed by the practical experience.

MEDICAL INSURANCE:

Many call centers provide good health insurance for your family at a low cost.  They also provide counseling in order to deal with the stress which one happens to deal with an abusive or the tough customer.  Right from the brilliant start to the stagnant business and the looming threat of the job loss because of the automation, fresher’s must think few times and the ones having experience must also try to enhance their skills unless it’s late.

Customer service is important in any industry. There exist various different levels and the approaches to be used in each which are based on the needs and nature of any business.

Customer service plays a vital role in the insurance industry. Like others the insurance companies don’t tend to meet their clients in a frequent manner. Although the companies send some notices or letters or emails the most proper interaction takes place whenever the person talks to the customer. These things usually occur before, during and at the times of purchase whenever the insurance is being used.  This makes the conversations more important, thereby adding the pressure of making sure that each and every instance of the customer service is proper.

Customers often get this impression that insurance companies are only after their money and that’s a dangerous thing to have between you and a customer. A meaningful, productive conversation can do something to soften a customer’s feelings towards your company.

Back office operations vary from one industry to another. A finance company will have different set of back office operations than a recruitment firm.  The back-office operations are the most crucial part of any company that comprises of all the support personals those do not interact with the clients each day.  The various back office operations include various procedures like the accounting tasks, the regulatory compliances, record maintenance, clearances and the settlements. The back-office tasks usually include the operations those do not play any active role in the delivery of the core products or the services. The tasks like inventory management, data entry, order processing are some of the operations those are associated with the back office support.

More often than not, the teams performing these tasks work in the background and are unappreciated for their efforts. Hence, it becomes difficult for the companies in keeping such kind of employees happy. If you are finding handling such back-office tasks burdensome and keeping your employees motivated tough, then it makes good business sense to offload these tasks to an outsourcing company.

Emergence of India as an Accomplished Back Office Outsourcing Service

Back office support services India has been emerged to be the top one around the globe. Especially the companies located in Delhi or the NCR region of the country always have some good reputation within the world and are been operating in this particular field since years. One can try searching for the back-office support solutions Noida market research and you will get list of companies in this field. Various companies like Vcare and Convergys have built a strong reputation by delivering quality services year after year, which makes them a worthy candidate for your outsourcing venture.

Things to consider before getting into the contract with any back-office vendor

Getting into the contract with the companies is an easy task. The companies have easily accessible websites those comes with a ‘contact us’ page that can be used for making a contact. Back office call center services are a good option if you are looking for data-related services like data mining, data entry, database management etc.

Word of Advice

It is always better to select company depending upon its previous experiences along with that, one must also check them before outsourcing your business. It is recommended that you must visit to their premises before handing over your business. You should also check if their business vision and the goals meet your perspective and if they are capable of scaling their operation up and down according to your requirements. One never wants to get into any situation wherein you are not able to increase any resources along with the increasing needs of your business.

Some of the bank back office support services related tasks are mentioned below.

• Management of resources,

• Licensing, creating quotes,

• Exchange data, generating proposals,

• Verifying insurance policies,

• Endorsing, renewing, canceling, reinstating and rewriting an insurance policy & more.

So in the whole back office operations comprises of every minute tasks whether it is updating an image, converting the files from one format to another, updating data into various files, sending an email, or sending any response to the raised query.

BFSI is a disparate sector which ranges right from the small contacting units, the full fledged banks to the massive institutions. Withal, each and every unit in the BFSI sector is under the immense competitive pressure and since it is cost conscious it keeps tacking onto the whole pressure scenario. All of these issues revolve around the concerns to the customer engagements, its privacy and security. Therefore, it is of no surprise that the BFSI companies search out for the external support i.e. outbound call center outsourcing in order to cope up with all the problematic areas.

Call centers tend to be a great helping hand in the BFSI sector because of the tremendous benefits it offers. Let’s have a look at them:

Round-the-clock staffing

Enhanced Customer Experience

Reduction of overhead and infrastructural cost

Concentration on Core activities

With ample industry experience and potential skills to handle volumes of work call center outbound will help BFSI sector with latest technology, experienced executives, multi-channel presence and cost effectiveness resulting in better customer services and operational quality enhancement.

WHO ARE LOOKING FOR CALL CENTERS?

Nowadays, call center services or call center support services, are need of an hour. All the businessmen and others are well aware of the various advantages those are offered by the call center services and hence they try to exploit them to its maximum.  Various companies which are well established in all the industries do have their own customer service department. For example, if you happen to check for back office support solutions Delhi, there is a chance that you will get the list of all the companies having their offshore Back Office Services in Delhi or in other areas like back office support services Noida.

Startups –

Initially, startups find it hard to sustain their businesses due to lack of capital. Whenever it comes to the creation of any customer service or the call center support services department, there is lack of all the necessary focus, time and finances required for imparting all these services. Therefore, most of the startups start looking for the call center services rather than running an additional department.

Companies located in countries where property is expensive –

To impart customer services, one has to create an additional department, which requires procurement of new infrastructure. Place wherein the property prices are very high, buying a new space for your office is not at a right option. Hence, such kind of companies are often on the lookout for call center services.

Global giants –

Companies that are global giants like Amazon, Apple and Walmart are always expanding. Their call center services requirement is dynamic and simply cannot be met by creating additional departments. Hence, these companies often employ call center services in India.

Nowadays, every Industry Uses the Call Center services like Banking & Financials services, Insurance Companies, Real Estate, Retail Sector, E-Commerce Industry and Government Agencies Etc.

Call centers or BPO outsourcing has come up in big way in India .Ranging from IT & Banking related services to travel and hospitality BPO’s have made their presence felt in big way .They are not concentrated just in metros like Delhi ,Mumbai etc. but in two and three tier cities as well .Now call center services can be outbound as well as in bound but the basic fundamentals to running them are quite similar .To run a successful call center service in India  we need to follow certain tried and tested formulas .Or Do’s and Dot’s as one may call them .

A lot is changing every day and it’s a given that we need to adapt fast and quick to enhance the productivity and run the call center successfully.

Here are some general Do’s and Don’ts for running a successful call centers especially in Indian scenarios:

A call center is essentially all about human interactions .Which makes it a mandate to follow certain Etiquettes to have that extra edge in your interactions .We all know that polite conversations, smiling on the call and not losing patience on call are the basic parameters for any call center interaction.

Keep things transparent 

When we say that things should be transparent it implies that customers should be updated on the exact status of their queries as nothing can be more frustrating than keeping things under wraps and having ambiguities in the resolution .Everyone appreciates honesty and exact status quo .Hiding facts and figures and here more relevantly TAT of resolutions can do more harm than good. Customers will always appreciate honesty .Case in point hospitality and travel BPO’s are running on the total transparency and

Faith .Here the interactions can be numerous and involving trust and transparency in dealings at each step of the way.

Always smile on the call 

Smiling on the call is one trait which will always get us ahead in the business .While we don’t actually have face to face interactions on the phone .The tone and the way things are being voiced over makes a world of difference .While an agent can have as many as two hundred interactions in a day .For the customer it’s the unique interaction .The way an agent conducts the same can make or mar a successful relationship .The mantra is to smile your way through the call .Call centers in India need to focus their training programmed around this to get more out of each call made .This will do wonders for the overall holistic betterment for all parties involved .

Patience is the buzz word

Patience is something which is probably one of the most important ingredient for a successful call center agent .It’s a given that the call has to be handled with the show of extreme patience on the agents behalf.

It could be listening patiently when customer is venting out his frustration or being kept on hold for long to some extreme demands of the customers .Everything when tackled with patience becomes easy to conquer .With right amount of patience we can always steer the call in right direction .It’s a very important ingredient for a successful interaction be it outbound call or an inbound call .Patience is required in high doses in dealing with customers and we really should be up for doling it out in large quantities .All in all its one virtue which is the essential ingredient for running  a successful call center .

Honor Commitments 

Here action counts more than the words .We should be really judicious with the commitments and timelines.

Not honoring commitments can be hazardous in the long run with extreme results .It’s not okay to just make commitments with no intention of honoring them on time .Show with the timely execution of the task that the customer counts .Outbound sales can be increased manifold once we are on the spree to honor our commitments .Word of mouth can go a long way in establishing and running a successful call centre in India. Take for instance an example of hospitality and travel industry .Here a mistake can cost us more than a fortune .In industries like travel and tourism, hospitality word of mouth can do wonders for the business. It can either cost us the trust of the customer and subsequent loss of business or can do wonders for the service in the long term.

Be innovative and intuitive 

In customer service especially in outbound sales one needs to be innovative and intuitive on the call .We need to figure out new ways of selling or marketing our products .Old routine calls are not going to help here. Customers are flooded with options and we need to be the one to lead them on to some clear choices .Think of ways to grab the customers attention which can be the key to customers retention in the long run Be intuitive when a customer can spare some extra time on the call and go for the kill .Introduce and market the product well.

Don’t be indifferent to customer needs

Never make the mistake of ignoring a customer’s honest request .They can come in all shape and sizes but don’t be indifferent to them .Acknowledge the customers’ requirements, grievances and valid requests.

Indifference can kill the customer base as it invariably gives out the message that you don’t care at all for the customer. Imagine someone in BPO hospitality doing that wherein the entire industry is

based on customer connect .Any small mistakes are akin to hara -kiri .Where the customers are God and every whim and fancy has to be catered to .The mantra is to treat customers problem as your own problem and strive to solve it to the best of your ability .And this what makes up a good customer service in BPO’s .

Don’t just ignore customer’s feedback 

Customer service is all about consistent improvements .And the best way to do it is to work on the feedbacks shared by our customer’s .Good, bad or ugly whatever kinds they are we need to take them seriously and work on them. Engage customers to come up with feedback as a means to improve on our services .Regular feedbacks are the power source of material to work on and improve .It definitely pays off

In spades in the long run .BPO’s in travel & tourism, hospitality need to be consistently updated on

feedbacks coming from left , right and center .Outbound sales executives can just enquire about the merits of the products on offer .While in inbound BPO’s it’s a mandate to close a call with feedback .These are the data’s on which future business strategies can depend on .

Don’t be afraid of customer’s complaints 

Never be afraid of customer complaints after all this shows that customer has some issue with the product offered .And was willing enough to share them with us .We need to grab this opportunity to work well on that and rectify the situation .BPO’s in travel and hospitality need to deal with them day in day out and with a winning attitude .A win – win is always round the corner we just need to be smart enough to recognize the potential of a raised complaint .This is an opportunity in disguise so don’t just let it go by acting all defensive and treating them as something to be scared of.

We saw a lot of changes to the call center and customer experience landscape in 2018. Cloud communications and virtual agents were on the forefront of everyone’s minds, and social media was more important than ever. 2019 shaped up to be the year of strategic thinking: better analytics, more intentional social media conversations and innovative ways to involve artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, ICCS identified nine technology trends that are helping companies deliver this kind of customer experience. Let’s take a look and see how far your business has come in building customer relationships that last – or which of these trends may need to be on the 2020 to-do list.

1. Artificial intelligence integrated into customer interactions

Businesses are getting deeper into predictive analytics, using artificial intelligence (AI) applications to help streamline call center experiences for customers and agents.

We are seeing that, as early adopters continue honing AI applications for call routing, AI will become more widely applied. We also expect to see more connections forged between various media channels and streamlined call center response. Given this, it’s worth investigating what contact center AI options might benefit your business.

2. Digital transformation

Businesses have always tried to differentiate themselves on price or product quality. Today, however, we’re seeing that customers are more frequently looking for something more: a rewarding experience that leads to a long-lasting relationship with a business. Customer interactions are no longer stand-alone activities, and customers are demanding a more comprehensive and consistent experience.

Digital transformation, the application of advanced technologies that have completely restructured the modern business environment, is a big part of this. With advancements like unified omnichannel communications and machine-to-machine communications via the Internet of Things (IoT), a forward-looking digital transformation strategy is going to be key for businesses who want to stay competitive.

What should that strategy include? Businesses need to consider the whole of the customer experience: a truly digital contact center redefines the customer experience from start to finish. And it’s not just about using the right channels to interact with customers where they are; the smartest businesses (of all sizes) are integrating technologies to provide full customer context with each interaction and leveraging system data to provide proactive service. Further, unified communications and collaboration (UCC) tools, like team collaboration applications, will be strategically important for contact centers, because they enable employees to leverage the collective intelligence of the whole business. Vendors that offer applications with open APIs provide new levels of customization and integration to help deliver a truly seamless customer experience.

3. Better contact center analytics

Gone are the days of relying on supervisor skill and know-how to get the most out of a contact center agent. Now, even smaller businesses are taking advantage of sophisticated analytics to turn data – like call and screen recordings, chats, SMS messages and more – into truly useful feedback for their agents.

It’s not enough to rely on manual observation and monitoring, as there’s just too much information.

More omnichannel call centers are starting to rely heavily on analytics programs to build dashboards with the statistics that affect their businesses. We saw more and more businesses display this kind of statistical dashboards on user interfaces, so call agents and managers are getting real-time updates on customer experiences.

In general, we expect more advancements in analytics as companies continue to implement more unified communications platforms and strategies.

4. Omnichannel communications for all

A huge hot button in previous years, Omni channel communications has continued to separate proactive businesses from their more reactive counterparts in 2019. A holistic view of the customer experience, factoring in an omnichannel approach, has so far helped businesses give customers a more personal feel to resolutions.

More businesses are recognizing that while a customer journey may begin on one channel, valuable insight and feedback from the customer is taking place on a completely different channel.

Unifying customer communications across channels gives businesses better context for their customers, helps resolve issues more quickly and helps sales agents identify better opportunities for future sales.

5. Widespread adoption of cloud communications in call centers

Many businesses have already adopted cloud communications as part of their communications strategies, but cloud communications has become particularly important for contact centers. The steady increase in remote call agents has made cloud communications a necessity for businesses who want to take advantage of seamless team communications and collaboration. With cloud communications, traditional office-based contact centers can take on new locations, grow and contract workforces as market needs demand it.

Moving to the cloud also doesn’t have to happen all at once. Vendors that offer hybrid cloud options can help you phase your organization into the cloud at your own speed or create a tailored architecture that leverages the best of multiple deployment models based on your business needs. For example, a contact center with an on-premises solution could implement a cloud-based webchat system, without needing to completely reinvest in infrastructure up front.

6. More robust customer satisfaction measurements

Customer satisfaction sends huge signals to companies about where and how their businesses could improve. Businesses approach customer satisfaction measurement in different ways, but the slick all-in-one approach seems to be holding steady.

In 2019, Amazon’s cornerstone Negative Response Rate (NRR) strategy has continued to be a major part in calculating contact center customer satisfaction in 2019. No matter which measurements businesses are using, however, special care needs to be taken when addressing the customer experience across digital channels.

Using effective reporting and analytics tools that are integrated with your communications systems makes this process automatic and valuable.

7. More remote call center agents

Lower overhead, time zone flexibility, and flexible working hours have made remote contact center workers a stable trend in 2019. With constantly improving unified cloud communications, remote workers have become a permanent (and beneficial) part of the contact center environment. By using collaboration tools, contact center agents can be mobile, with access to real-time analytics and customer context.

8. Continued emphasis on self-serve documentation

So far, we’ve seen a greater emphasis on self-service problem-solving information on business websites. Giving customers information quickly helps reduce call volumes, and easy-to-navigate FAQs help narrow down calls to those with sufficiently complex issues. Quick access to self-serve solutions also provides an emotional benefit to customers (that DIY-fix high!), and reduces overall call times.

9. Two-way social media conversations

An effective social media presence is a necessity. Customers want a place they can go to give quick feedback and learn about their favourite businesses. But the way businesses approach their social media conversations is changing.

It’s not enough to make witty posts or share images. Customers are looking for a two-way social media conversation, and when they interact with businesses online, they expect a personalized (and immediate) response.

Responsive businesses are using this trend to create a superb customer experience by unifying communications across channels into one stream. This helps their customers by connecting them with an agent who knows their purchase and service history and provides valuable context. Most importantly, the two-way conversation is public on a social media platform, so other customers can see how the business solved the problem.

Negative feedback can be killer online, and unanswered negative comments make potential customers wary. If you positively resolve issues quickly and in a way that makes it clear the customer is central to the conversation, it leaves your business looking intelligent, caring and motivated by the customer experience.

Call center and customer experience trends to activate

These nine trends have already made an impact on the contact center landscape in 2019. Did your contact center implement any of these? Better yet, are they working for you? If you need more help figuring out how to apply them to your business, get on a more strategic footing with our contact center solutions.

Customer pain points are obstacle to your company’s success. There will be times when your service will fail to meet consumer’s needs or expectations. The sooner same is discovered and addressed, the sooner a great customer experience is delivered, resulting in customer delight. Here are few ways to identify pain points, so same can be fixed for customer experience.

      1. Identifying customer needs/wants/requirements:

To uncover customer’s pain points, begin by asking what leads them to buy from you in the first place. Every purchase is driven by a need or want or requirement and your brand is expected to offer a solution. Identify the keywords that customers are searching online on your site so that you know exactly what they want. With this information, your company can identify typical consumer profile and tailor products and services as per their requirements.

      2. Feedback capturing:

Consumer feedback is essential not only for identifying pain points and their resolution but also to better your product or services. Surveys reveal great insights into the service and sales processes. Further random surveys can also be done on occasions to get a flavour of consumer mind-set. In a nutshell, consider sending periodic surveys on customer’s preferred channels and ask them specifically how your brand might make improvements.

     3. Keep an eye on social media channels:

Social media channels are a goldmine of information for companies. Customers love to talk about great brand experiences and are quick to mention when things go wrong. Concerns should be addressed as soon as possible to ensure that customer does not turn his/her loyalty towards other brand. Determine any recurring issues that need to be resolved immediately on a larger scale. For example, certain products or services may need to be shelved/improved/modified completely if they are causing frustration to consumer.

     4. Notice abandonment rates:

You know you have a problem when customers start giving up on your brand. Check your call and chat abandonment rates to see if customers are hanging up or signing off due to long hold times or any other reason. It may be necessary to use a prioritized call back system on the voice channel or better organize your contact center staff if they are taking too long to respond on live chat. Another important number to consider is your shopping cart abandonment rate on all channels. If this rate is high on your website, the checkout process might be too complicated. This may also be true on your mobile brand apps or messaging platforms—if customers are not receiving enough assistance or getting a seamless experience, they may simply find it too difficult to purchase from you.

       5. Probe internally from customer service and sales agents:

Lastly, ask your customer service and sales agents to share their experiences. Customer service staff may identify contact center issues that prevent them from doing their best work. They may also point out frequent customer concerns about specific products or services. Sales agents may also indicate customers’ buying preferences and relay any information regarding product weaknesses that need to be addressed.

Customers are a fundamental part of the business because company grows as long as you keep them happy and gratified with your brand. To make sure that customer needs are being catered perfectly, it is mandatory to keep frontline employees contented. You may already be acquainted with this old adage by Vaughn Aust, ‘Happy employees lead to happy customers, which leads to profits.’

Companies running an in-house call center face the hassle of high employee turnover, which has a trickle-down effect, resulting in dropped CSAT score. As a result of weak CSAT scores, problems related to business growth amplify. In simple words, both customer satisfaction and agent retention go hand-in-hand.

Here, it becomes imperative to understand, ‘How do specialized customer care service providers like call center in India retain support representatives?’ Below-mentioned ideas can be implemented to retain loyal and diligent call center agents with ease:

HIRING AS PER JOB DESCRIPTION:-

Agent attrition turns up if you don’t take hiring process seriously. Every interviewee has different skill set, thus, it’s your responsibility to assess and appoint those candidates who seem the right fit for the respective role and company.

During the interview process, you should evaluate candidate’s skillset, personality, temperament, and most importantly experience because handling frustrated customers day in and day out takes a heavy toll on agent’s peace of mind. The best move to get the right candidates on board is to conduct role-playing activities during the hiring process, to ensure that right person is hired for right role. This will keep hassle of employee churn at bay and save all the money that could be wasted in hiring & training resources continuously.

For example, if you come across a candidate possessing good interpersonal skills, let him/her handle customers on the voice channel. While interviewees with amazing typing skills should be handling live chat/Email support requests.

The prominence of hiring the right candidates shouldn’t be overlooked as every call center in India secures high agent retention rate by giving proper attention to the hiring process.

OFFLOAD MUNDANE TASKS:-

Businesses face the problem of high employee turnover rate while running customer service operations when they only care about customers. Of course, customers are integral for any growing business, but it is imperative to understand that high CSAT scores cannot be attained without agent satisfaction.

The job of customer service reps isn’t easy as they have to do certain tasks even after rendering satisfactory resolution. Post call work consists of common tasks, but they take time to be done. Here, if you manage to remove such mundane tasks from the to-do list of agents, it will slash the workload which, in turn, leading to a better retention rate.

Artificial intelligence can take care of mundane tasks with aplomb and pave the way for high efficiency and can reduce margin of errors.

Apart from artificial intelligence, an alternative of self-service can also be provided to customers, to reduce the number of service requests and attain high satisfaction levels. This will allow agents to do tasks with high priority, and this will definitely boost your business’s productivity levels. So, if you really want to operate as an established call center in India, take the load of common/repetitive tasks off agent’s shoulders.

TRAINING FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT:- 

The quality of training program always decides how well you are going to handle customer service operations. Generally, companies having an in-house call center aimed to shorten the training period so that their newly-joined agents starts getting involved in customer interactions as soon as possible.

Due to improper/unstructured training, agents have to face customer’s wrath during support interactions. When they are done with being insulted, they simply leave the organization or get involved in a heated argument with customers and cause customer dissatisfaction & get terminated from their job, eventually.

On the other hand, call centers never compromise with the training of their agents and reap benefits in the form of continuous delivery of inimitable solutions. They also go the extra mile by providing requisite additional training and conducting skill development programs periodically for the sake of uplifting the job satisfaction level of their agents. So, providing training at times is the key to securing a high agent retention rate.

EXIT INTERVIEWS:-

In an ideal world, you would have hardworking and trustworthy employees who would work for you until your business runs. As we are familiar with the reality, this will never be the case as employees leave the organization when the right time comes, no matter how strong relationship you share with them.

Plus, there is no point in holding employees in the name of policies as they won’t do their work willingly, and that is not good for your business’s health for sure. Thinking about offering same salary package to retain top-performing employees? Of course, this seems like a good tactic but it is not fruitful, because when someone has made up his mind to leave, then it doesn’t matter whether you meet their monetary expectations or not.

Instead of getting upset with support agents, you should conduct an exit interview with the goal of discovering why he/she wants to leave. Once you know the factors triggering employee turnover, you are likely to rectify them and ensure a long-lasting relationship with your remaining agents.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Retention of good employees always helps businesses to gain more stability and profitability. Therefore, companies should not only put attention on finding out and appointing the right people but also endeavour to keep them for ages. In this scenario, multinationals usually succeed as they delight their employees with outstanding facilities. On the flip side, SMEs, in terms of employee retention, still have a long way to go.

We hope above-mentioned pointers help you in the pursuit of slashing employee turnover rate. Thanks for reading!

In today’s era, a business attains success when it pays attention on immediate response and timely results to customer queries/complaints. Customer satisfaction is very important to maintain your business & brand image and thus, any threat to customer experience can be challenging for the company.

Customers want 24 hour call center services so that resolving complaints is easy anytime. Moreover, customers also want a reduced hold time for calls, as nobody wishes to wait for hours to connect to call center agent to solve an issue.

Start-ups need to keep some small factors in mind to attain success in the future. Many times companies struggle solving customer queries on time, which may lead to the customer ending up having a negative impression of the business services.

To solve this, expert agents need to look after the customer support task, as they know how to handle customers to strengthen the brand image. This is why small businesses are advised to turn to new call center technologies to attain customer satisfaction and bring progress in business efficiency.

Handling all the calls in-house can be very hectic and even demands a huge team to take care of the consecutive calls coming in.

Outsourcing the call center services to an experienced BPO partner can help attain success as experts have the market experience to handle customers efficiently. They also know the major pain points and ways to tackle adverse situations.

Many companies feel there is no need to have a call center technology at work to improve business functions and here we have some answers that define the significance of call center services for a business’s success:

How will a call center help my start-up?

This is the most commonly asked question that every business initially enquires. Well, outsourcing to a 24 hour call center, start-ups help their business become available to the customers 24X7. This increases the possibility of reaching out to a large audience and even increases business productivity.

Moreover, when an experienced partner is available at service, the business has many added advantages. Like the in-house experts are free to focus on strategies for business development, outsourcing the start-up functions saves expenses on hiring and training, early time-to-market is assured, expert agents have the experience of dealing multiple clients with the same efficiency and thus your business gains customer satisfaction too.

Every business looks for the best for its customers and outsourcing to a call center, you assure on time and adequate service to them. Additionally, outsourcing allows newly emerging companies to work with experienced agents and bring positive changes in business strategies and functions as per the market requirement.

What services to outsource?

Start-ups are emerging businesses that do not have much in-depth knowledge about the services to offer and they are even not aware of the competition they may face in the market. New companies are also puzzled over which service to outsource!

Well, call centers deal with two major services- Customer service and Sales. Businesses that have to deal with huge customer queries and sales alignment can outsource this process to save the in-house experts for other core operations.

Small businesses know how important it is to maintain customer satisfaction and improve business sales and thus outsourcing to an experienced team is a safe option to enhance progress.

The best part is a team of experts performs your business function without exceeding the business expense on hiring and training, as in-house business development requires.

Is it possible to set up a call center infrastructure at home?

It is fair to save business expense by setting the call center infrastructure at the home itself, but it is not a simple task. If you think you will have your start-up business get its call center established from the home itself, there are many equipments and other essentials required for the same.

What is the biggest reason for a start-up to outsource to a call center?

Call centers function to be the main point of contact for business. Every business needs an agent who can receive customer calls regarding any query and solve the issue as soon as possible. It gives the customer a sense of reliability on the business functions.

The outsourced call center agents have full knowledge of your business offerings and they try to solve your customers’ distress as soon as possible helping them regain interest and trust in your business services.

Without a call center agent at work, customer’s may find your business fake when there is nobody to answer their queries. This is why finding the correct call center agent is essential to ensure customer satisfaction and ultimately attain business success.

Check out the factors to keep in mind:

• A space for the call center practices. You need a space that has to be away from the regular traffic so that agents dealing with customer queries do not face any hindrance. Moreover, make sure this space is away from the children’s room so that there is no possibility of noise.

• Thinking to establish your own call center company, you need to have electricity and internet connection to make your firm a 24 hour call center, so that your business service is available to the customers whenever searched.

• You need to ensure that phone systems and headsets are available for use too. These may be expensive but are essential. Since call centers have a lot to contribute to your business progress, you need to bear some expenses if you want 24 hour call center in-house.

• Make sure that all the computers at work have a separate account for agents and personal users so that there is no threat to business data.

• Invest in durable and comfortable furniture and lighting. Since call center task is monotonous, it demands safe and comfortable sitting and relaxing places for the agents.

Future and survival of marketing depends on emerging technologies and trends, so one needs to keep pace with the latest trends, in order to keep any business in the long run. We are at the end of 2019, let’s stop wallowing in the old methods of optimization, link buildings etc. in the coming year. It’s time to move to the digital marketing trends for 2020. More businesses are going to join the race and it will become tougher to stand firm in huge competition. So, let’s use the power of these new trends for staying on top of the game.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI):-

Artificial intelligence can identify the latest digital marketing trends based on its capability of analyzing the real-time data. Using AI in any business helps in understanding the customer needs better. AI’s data-driven analysis helps in targeting the right customers at the right time. Few of the examples are as follows:

AI provides real-time data analysis and updates

Automation of advertisements and e-mail generation

Reduction in time taken for lead generation

Rankbrain uses AI to understand the user queries and retrieve the information from the servers and displays the related content to the users

Several of the popular companies such as Forbes and Netflix have already adopted it and are reaping the benefits of artificial intelligence.

Another very useful example is AI-powered Chatbot – Chatbot is the new age messaging platform which saves time by interacting with users to help them on behalf of businesses. It will replace 80% of customer services by 2020.

Few of the major benefits of chatbots are mentioned below:

Chatbot collects data(basic contacts information) of the customers without human intervention. Analyzes in-depth about the customers behaviour by tracking their micro-movements.

Provides business insights through real-time data analysis.

Helps in scheduling client meetings on behalf of marketers.

Answering FAQs every time. Implementing the chatbots in this area helps in saving time and energy.

Sales conversations can be done hassle-free.

SEO A/B SPLIT TESTING:-

The intention behind this is finding out the promising area that increases the traffic. Unlike Conversion Rate Optimization in which marketers create duplicate pages with the same content, do experiments on SEO components such as meta titles, descriptions, URLs, images, etc. by splitting them into two categories (control version and variant version) so that you can identify the method which improves the ranking. Because it will be unknown until and unless you test them. The control version will have the original content and the variance version will have the altered content for the original. You should measure the performance of each version so that you could invest on the better practice. It saves both time and money.

UGC MARKETING:-

As 2020 is approaching, the User Generated Content (UGC) rocks even more (becomes more important, to put it simply) because it makes the business more authentic. Instagram is the perfect pitch for the UGC. The users can create their own content (video, image, photo) related to business and post it on the site, social media, or YouTube. It is the best tool to make millennials excited and take note of product. It increases the popularity. It results in high engagement rate and more conversions which are the ultimate aim of any digital marketer.

Including the user-generated content in ads adds fuel to the marketing strategy which appeals to the users because masses are bored of seeing intrusive adertisements.

SOCIAL MESSAGING APPS:-

Social messaging applications are one of the most preferred platforms in the latest digital marketing trends. It is the best way to provide transparent communication to customers. It will gain greater significance in 2020 with its ability in making instant and quick user registrations resulting in boosting sales. The two-way communication of this application gathers new customers and helps marketers in raising the margin. Along with incorporating social media messaging platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp, businesses can integrate chat platforms such as Troop Messenger, etc.

Do tie-up with digital marketing companies that are adept at the best utilization of the messaging platforms in driving more profits for a business.

SOCIAL COMMERCE:-

Social commerce is the method of selling products on third-party platforms through social media platforms. All online store activities and transactions can be done via social networks because these platforms influence the buying decisions of 75% of the people. Instagram is the best platform to showcase your products with CTAs which will lead to more sales.

AUGMENTED REALITY (AR) AND VIRTUAL REALITY (VR):-

Incorporating the AR & VR in digital marketing strategies for any e-commerce business enhances the UX and influences the buying decision of customers. Unlike static content promotion, marketers can use AR in the images so that it can give immersive 3D experience to the customers. The AR campaigns help in increasing brand awareness. Also, they yield more sales and high ROI, especially to online stores.

Catching people’s attention is the key driver that makes the marketer’s efforts useful. Customers should not be bored with business’s outdated and annoying marketing methods. Adopt these digital marketing trends for 2020 to transform your business and break the bonds in the digital industry to stand tall.

Primary goal for every company should be solving customer’s issues on the first attempt. First contact resolution or FCR requires more than just friendly agents, it requires a combination of agent training and an efficient contact center protocol. Here are five ways to achieve first contact resolution for maximum customer satisfaction.

FCR GOALS:-

To serve customers well agents need to be aware of the goals that are expected of them. An agent on the voice channel must constantly keep the conversation flowing to reassure the customer  that he is present, whereas an agent on social media or live chat may indicate his presence using a real-time feature that shows he is typing a response. Agents training should reflect best practices for every mode of channel that is being used in the business.

Always establish whether first contact resolution should take priority over other operational metrics such as average call handling time. Associates should know that they have the opportunity to spend more time on an interaction if it will help them share first contact resolution for caller.

Give every interaction a human touch:-

Emotional connect with customers is very critical in helping them find quick solutions. This can easily be achieved by keeping a friendly polite tone, showing empathy and listening attentively. Such mannerisms can calm down frustrated customers and install confidence in brand name. Through regular training, refreshers and mentoring, agents can sharpen their interpersonal skills and multiply their chances of achieving first contact resolution every time.

Identification of recurring issues:-

It is imperative to understand ongoing customer concerns. Different methods can be used to determine recurring reasons of customer contact: customer surveys, monitoring calls, analysing social media and chat transcripts and text and speech analytics etc, to gain a clear picture of the issues. Once they have been identified, your company will be better prepared to solve issues before they arise, resulting in higher first contact resolution rates.

Multi-channel approach:-

Traditionally some customers may prefer to interact on a single channel, however, at times, it is in their best interest to make a switch. For example, if a query is received on social media which requires divulging into customer’s personal data, then agent should move him to a more private channel. This way customer’s privacy is protected and his/her problem is also resolved in first contact itself.

Reassess customer satisfaction:-

A customer service associate may feel that an issue has been resolved but most important question is does the customer feel this way? Always cross check with customer to understand if he has any unresolved questions or concerns regarding proposed solution. If issues are still persisting then we need to keep going till a satisfactory and mutually agreeable solution is found.

Historically, efficiency of a call center depended on management’s ability to identify flaws and opportunity areas in their processes to improve the efficiency of call center.

In new year, it is expected that artificial intelligence will take on more of these responsibilities, for example, handling routine tasks, routing inquiries to the suitable place and suggesting areas for improvement. But we need to identify which metrics need to be measured by us. Regardless of a computer’s power, the numbers it crunches still has to be decided & controlled by a human somewhere.

Top 4 metrics that should be tracked in 2020 are mentioned as below:

METRIC #1: CUSTOMER SATISFACTION:- CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SCORES OR CSAT SCORES INDICATE HOW WELL AGENTS ARE PERFORMING THEIR CORE TASK, WHICH IS SOLVING CUSTOMER’S PROBLEMS.

CSAT can be gauged in several ways, but are typically the result of simple customer surveys aimed at measuring customer sentiment. These should be sent out at the end of every customer interaction and ask for a simple rating of that interaction. Regardless of how CSAT score is measured, it should always be at the top of list when looking at the effectiveness of call center.

“A customer talking about their experience with you is worth ten times that which you write or say about yourself…”

METRIC #2: AGENT SATISFACTION

It’s a human tendency that employees will feel influenced about how they treat the customers they interact with. Shep Hyken wrote, “A brand is defined by the customer’s experience. The experience is delivered by the employees.”

It’s apparent that the organizations which provide best customer experience are also leading the way in their employee engagement ratings. Measuring agent satisfaction and not just agent turnover is as important a metric as customer satisfaction.

It needs to be measured on real time basis and not when agent has left the organisation. Call centers should proactively work to stop employees moving out and ended up becoming another turnover statistic. In the last few years, we’ve seen more and more service delivery leaders pay attention to agent satisfaction levels as a tactic to improve customer satisfaction level.

Needless to say both customer and agent satisfaction are related with each other.

METRIC #3: FIRST CALL RESOLUTION RATE

First call resolution rate (FCR) is integral part of call center culture. The best way of winning consumer loyalty is by resolving their problem as quickly as possible.

“According to SQM Group, only 3% of customers who have a problem solved during the first service interaction are likely to churn. Compare that to the 38% of customers who are likely to churn if the issue isn’t resolved after the first call.” – Clint Fontanilla

First call resolution basically tracks the % of inquiries that are completely resolved without having to transfer, escalate, or return the call. It should be measured across all channels of service, to determine which is the most effective method of resolving issues in a single interaction.

It also helps in focusing on areas that require improvement, for example, if customers are frequently asking complex questions about a product or service, there are probable steps that can be taken to reduce the number of inquiries.

The industry standard for FCR is 70-75%. How does your measure up?

METRIC #4: SERVICE LEVEL

Service level or SL is another classic KPI that doesn’t get due credit. It will become increasingly important as call centers move from transition phase to experience hubs. It’s a very crucial metric, particularly for inbound processes. It’s typically measured as the % of inquiries answered within a pre-specified amount of time.

It tells how accessible you are to your customers, as well as how many employees are needed at any given time. It determines call center’s ability to handle call volume fluctuations and is directly tied to customer satisfaction level. After all, we know everyone hates being kept waiting on phone.

New KPIs and analytic tactics for the contact center will emerge with use of artificial intelligence. Success will always hinge on same thing “Customer Satisfaction”.

Together, these four metrics should give you, basic data that is needed to improve your call center’s performance & sustenance in 2020 and beyond.