When it comes to measuring the success of a call center, we tend to focus almost exclusively on customer satisfaction. After all, unsatisfied customers don’t become repeat customers, and without repeat customers it is nearly impossible for a business to thrive. But the key to maximizing customer satisfaction is not to always be focusing outward on the customer. Instead, your focus should be inward—on the agents and the tools and processes they are using. Taking a close look at the agents’ experience and the ways it can be improved can, in turn, vastly improve the customer experience as well. Here are three areas through which you can support your agents and consequently support the customer.

Agency and Empowerment

 

One of the biggest drivers of customer frustration is, after waiting on hold to speak to someone, reaching a person who it turns out is unable to help them solve their problem. This is an incredibly frustrating situation for the agent as well, as it can make them feel helpless and often requires them to open themselves up to ridicule or criticism from the customer. However, this is an issue that can be very easily solved internally by giving agents more agency and empowering them to solve problems creatively. Giving agents the tools to solve a wider range of problems means that they will be better equipped to handle and resolve whatever issue the customer is facing. Customers don’t want to be put on hold more than once or transferred multiple times from department to department. Likewise, agents don’t want to end a call with a customer without having brought it to a satisfactory conclusion. Giving agents thorough training and removing any bureaucratic handcuffs will give them a greater chance of satisfying the customer.

 

Up-to-Date Materials

 

A huge part of empowering your agents is ensuring that they have all the materials they need to do their jobs. Customers are not going to be pleased if agents are looking things up on the company’s website during calls and offering information that the customer already found by themselves. Even if customers have access to self-service materials or troubleshooting guides, agents should always have insider information that the customer doesn’t. These days, customers are savvier than ever—if they are reaching out to customer service, they have likely already tried multiple possible strategies themselves. It’s critical that agents have the most up-to-date and helpful information to offer to customers so that both the agents and the customers are optimizing the time they spend on the phone.

 

Ease of Communication and Access Among Departments

 

Even though agents may spend most of their time communicating with customers, it’s crucial that they can easily access and communicate with other members of their team and people in other departments. This is the case for a number of reasons. First, agents should never feel like they exist on an island, which is very common when people are working from home. They need to have easily accessible channels through which they can communicate with their colleagues so that they don’t feel alone, which can drive down morale and lead to poorer job performance. Next, giving agents the capability to communicate with members of other departments or agents with different specialties will contribute to their agency and ability to solve a wider variety of problems. If they can message someone in a different department while on a call with a customer, it may save the customer the time it would have taken to transfer to that department and potentially rehash their problem before resolving it. More access and more sharing of information and data makes everybody’s job easier and makes the customer’s experience better.

Another way to support your agents is by giving them an easy-to-use, efficient, all-in-one call center platform like CallShaper. To see how CallShaper can work for you, request a demo today