9 ways your website can improve your customer service call centre
9 ways your website can improve your customer service call centre
Customer service is increasingly multi-channel. Websites, chat, social media and call centres all have their part to play. They all nurture your customers in different ways, helping them along their journey and supporting them in troubled times.
But they don’t work in isolation, in fact they work best as a team. In this case we look at how websites and customer service call centres go together like salt and pepper, ham and cheese, beaches and Instagram.
In the world of customer service they’re an unbeatable team that get stuff done. Here are nine ways your website improves your customer service call centre.
- Improves abandonment rates
There are two types of abandoned calls, and they’re not all bad news. The first is the caller who leaves in the first 20 seconds – they’ve heard your IVR menu or a hold message that directs them to the website if they need to self-service or have a frequently asked question.
This type of abandoned call is good. It means your customers are satisfied they can self-service, their issues will be resolved, just not on the call.
While this type of call may cause your abandon metrics to spike, a corresponding spike in your web traffic to specific pages negates that.
The second type are calls that are abandoned after listening to the menu or hold message twice or more. These calls drop off because they can’t or won’t self-serve, they’re tired of waiting for their call to be picked up and/or the options you’ve offered them on the menu aren’t what they need.
- Reduces call centre volume
Abandon rates may also drop as total volume of calls declines to your customer service call centre. Self-service centres, forums and resource pages on your website all put the power into your customers’ hands to research and solve issues under their own steam. This means only the customers who really really need to talk to a human will call your centre.
90% of customers will go to your website before calling you.
Source: Salesforce
- Provides richer customer data
One of the most important features of an online member centre, aside from allowing customers to self-service, is the amount of fantastic data that is collected. If your call centre is connected to your CRM via an API, your agents should always be armed with up-to-date information on customer activity. This single customer view makes it easy for agents to provide a personalised and personal service to your customers.
- Provides faster support
Again, if your online membership centre is linked to your call centre software, your customers can simply enter their unique ID on the phone and fastrack their way to customer support. Your agents will be ready and waiting with the customers’ key information at their fingertips, including sales history and any previous concerns.
84% of customers reported being either likely or very likely to do business with a company if it responded on the phone in less than a minute.
Source: Salesforce
- Let’s customers choose their own way
Your customers are different. Every single one of them. And each will have their preferences to how they manage their relationship with you. Some will loathe the phone. They’ll hate calling you, they’ll resent being on hold and will start their conversations with you aggressively, ready for confrontation. Let’s face it, they don’t want the drama and neither do you.
Providing your customers with other channels to resolve their issues, such as apps, website resources, forums, FAQs and online chat means they can source the service they need whichever way they prefer.
The ones that do call you will do so because they prefer talking to a human, or they have a complicated concern that requires service that’s a bit more in-depth.
- Gives your agents an insight into your customers brain
Your customers are going to talk about you online. The good, the bad and the weird experiences they have with your customer service team and with your product. Many companies have harnessed this chatter and added a level of control over it by creating forums, either on their websites or on micro-sites.
You may like your agents to get involved in the forums, replying to queries. You can also use it as an education tool, getting your agents to regularly read the threads for a peek into your customers brains, the common issues they are having or different ways they are using your products.
- Makes blended better
Managing inbound and outbound teams? Blended call centres work better with the support of solid online customer service. The more your customers can self-service by finding the answers on your website, the more time your agents are free to make those outbound calls to prospective customers.
- It sends a big virtual hug to your agents
When your agents are dealing with inbound customer service calls, 9 times out of 10 it’s because something has gone wrong and the customer is calling them angry. Or at best, miffed. But providing agents with rich customer data, educating them through your forums and letting them mix things up with an outbound and inbound mix (now that call rates have gone down), your agents are, quite simply, going to have a better work-life. Your website may be there to help customers, but at the end of the day it’s supporting your agents too.
- It reduces your call centre costs
Website content is inherently cheaper to maintain than a call centre. A strong online effort can mean your customer service call centre can focus on quality (knowledgeable, skilled, empathetic) agents rather than quantity.
Just like your customers, your call centre does not standalone. It’s supported by all your real and virtual customer channels. Improving one does not mean forgetting the rest. Together they’re stronger.
