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You might find it surprising, but the global call center market is growing steadily – along with the need for businesses to deliver customer-focused services. In such circumstances, you should definitely be wondering how to offer stellar customer support, especially if you already own a contact center yourself. Without further ado: here’s how to create a five-star call center in 7 easy steps.
It might not seem like it at first, but call centers are still invaluable when it comes to solving customer service problems almost immediately. According to HubSpot Research, 62% of consumers still want to use email to reach out to companies, 48% prefer talking on the phone, 42% via live chat, and 36% through dedicated contact forms – even despite more recent forms of communication.
It’s not only the customer service teams that make good use of calls, though. Sales agents are still using them too, mostly in the form of cold calling to acquire new customers. The effectiveness of this approach might vary across industries, but one thing is certain: phones are still widely used by sales & customer support professionals.
In fact, the unchanged popularity of phone-based support over the years might be one of the reasons why the global call center market is booming, predicted to reach $481 billion by 2024. In such circumstances, running a call center is not unusual anymore. Achieving a five-star one, on the other hand, is a completely different story.
Why is providing stellar customer support relevant in the first place? Rumour has it that even $75 billion are lost by businesses annually due to poor customer service. It’s hardly surprising, given that many consumers are likely to switch companies after just one instance of poor customer service.
It’s high time to create a five-star call center once and for all – and here’s how to do it.
How to create a five-star call center?
1. Have the right people on board.
Having productive and motivated professionals on board is often what makes it or breaks it when it comes to the success of any team, including the one working in a call center. Basically, your people are your biggest asset – especially if they are provided with proper training, resources and tools (which we will cover a bit later).
The only issue with this is that many of the call center agents out there are only working temporarily (and half-heartedly), which is why hiring the top talents might be difficult – but still necessary. You should hire only those individuals who are passionate about your products or services at least to some extent and thus, can easily become familiar with your offer and answer all questions, no matter if related to sales or customer service. At the same time, you also can’t forget about taking care of your employees, encouraging and motivating them whenever needed.
2. Ensure language proficiency.
There’s nothing more frustrating than getting in touch with a representative who is lacking the necessary language skills. This really makes it difficult to help customers with their questions and problems, not to mention that it can be frustrating for the caller. Luckily, there’s an easy solution for that: make sure your agents are fluent in English and any other language that’s relevant to your business.
It’s not only the ability to communicate with callers that’s important – your agents should also be fluent enough to be able to go the extra mile when resolving the doubts of your customers. This is what makes them want to stay with your business for longer.
3. Focus on your customers.
More than 95% of call center professionals view customer satisfaction as the most important call center metric. At the same time, many companies tend to train their agents to follow scripts and respond to any concerns in a generic manner. These two approaches don’t really go in line. “Copy-pasting” your answers constantly might get the job done, but it won’t necessarily provide your customers with the experience they deserve.
The truth is: a five-star call center has to care about its customers. It might seem minor at first, but trying to build relationships with your callers can truly pay off in the long run.
4. Set clear team goals.
The key to proper management and getting everyone to work together is always to define specific goals for your whole team. Otherwise, you might find it difficult to track the performance of your call center in the first place.
Most likely, your sales & customer support agents will be motivated by different things, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Setting specific goals for everyone, however, can help you boost team spirit, and also make all team members hold each other accountable for their results.
5. Take a closer look at your scripts.
Most of the call center managers know that a cold calling script can truly help the sales & support agents, especially during their onboarding process. What’s often overlooked, though, is the fact that these scripts should be updated every once in a while. If your scripts have been serving you for way too long, it’s probably high time to change them. Here’s how to create the best scripts for your team, in case you need some advice.
6. Leverage & integrate call center software
In 2018, the software market for call center was already worth $16.28 billion. That’s hardly surprising, given that powerful software can make it much easier to operate a call center. As a matter of fact, nowadays great call centers use cloud-based, integrated tools to manage customer relationships, and sync important data easily. Not to mention that relying on integrated systems also eliminates the chance of losing data entirely, or making a mistake when entering it manually to various systems. Speaking of, here’s our list of the best tools for sales & customer support teams, including our very own CloudTalk.
7. Keep up with the global call center market.
This might seem quite obvious, but it’s still a relevant step to take in order to ensure a stellar call center. Given the predictions about the steady growth of the global center market, keeping an eye on the latest updates may become necessary to stay competitive. In order to do so, you should be researching and trying out the latest tools and technologies, collect data from your own call center and draw conclusions from it, as well as read relevant blogs (exactly like this one!). It’s not a lot of effort, yet, it can bring your call center some unexpected results.
Start running a five-star call center now
Operating a stellar call center doesn’t have to be difficult, especially with the right software and talented people on board. If you truly want to take your operations to the next level – take into account our 7 tips, and give CloudTalk and its integrations a try. You’ll be surprised how much easier the life of your sales & customer support agents will get, which will affect the overall customer experience as well. Good luck!
