Call centre technology to make your team smarter

Call centre technology to make your team smarter

With the ever-increasing pressure to improve customer support and increase first call resolution rates you may find yourself wishing your staff… how should we put this… knew more.

There is an expectation from customers that when they call your call centre, the agent at the other end will know everything there is to know about your product/service/billing cycle/integrations or even everything about their own history with the company.

It’s probably unreasonable to expect anyone in your company to be an expert across all areas of the business. But it’s not unreasonable to expect your agents to be able to ‘fake it ‘til they make it. With the assistance of the right call centre technology, of course.

Making agents ‘smarter’ is just another way of saying making sure they have the right information to hand at the right time.

Integrations

Probably the most important step in providing first class customer service is making sure your agents have access to customer notes. Integrating, via API, your customer databases or CRM means your agents have to hand the caller’s key details, on a single screen.

Any notes purchase history, complaints, issues and who they’ve dealt with previously are at the agent’s finger tips helping the agent put the customer at ease and let them know they are recognised, understood and valued.

 

Screen pops

Screen pops are a smart addition to CRM integration displaying key details for the agents before they answer the call. Being prepared for whoever is on the end of the line is half the battle.

 

Skills based routing

By using IVR, tour call centre technology should have the ability to intelligently route calls through to the most appropriate agent every time. Customer got a technical issue, they’ll be put through to tech support. Billing question? They’ll be put through to the accounts team. Smart, huh? Skills based routing means the right agent will be waiting to answer the call every time.

 

Call recording and listening technology

Monitor how your agents are going and see if and where they’re struggling by listening in to live calls or recording calls to play back later. Find there’s an area a particular agent is struggling with, then give them extra training on that topic. Finding there’s an area they’re all struggling with, then maybe your scripting needs tweaking to make them feel smarter and more in control of the conversations.

 

Scripts

Speaking of scripting, it’s easy to update scripts on the fly. Call centre technology allows for immediate script updates to be rolled out to your team.

 

Wizards

Wizards are a way of faking it at the highest level. If a customer calls with a query your agents don’t know a solution to off-hand they can select from a series of wizards you have previously developed. The wizards will appear on screen and provide question prompts for the agent to ask the customer. Their answer will lead the agent on to the next screen and so on until they are produced with the final screen – the solution. Immediate smart points to your agents, through intelligent use of call centre technology.

 

Instant messaging 

Another option is to ask a friend. While still talking to the customer on the line an agent is able to live message a product specialist or even a supervisor to ask for help or information. They can then resolve the issue for the customer then and there without having to transfer the call.

 

Wikis and the Intranet

Online tools are another way for your agents to gain essential knowledge and help them service customers better.

Internal platforms such as Wikis and Intranets are a great way for your internal teams to share knowledge. Product, tech and call centre teams. As a central depository of documents and questions/answers, agents can simply search on a keyword and find an answer to a customer query; without the need to transfer the call or arrange a call back.

The key to these internal resources working is ensuring they are written in plain English (yes, we’re looking at you tech types) and regularly updated. It’s certainly not a smart idea to provide customers with an outdated solution.

 

Forums and social media

By the same token external resources such as forums and social media can be another way for agents to gain customer insights. Be warned however, as these are unowned channels there’s every chance the information on them is incorrect. It’s also likely that the customers calling for support have already checked these channels before calling you.

However, they can be a way for managers to gain insight into where the knowledge gaps are in the community and get a feel for how well the online community is responding to their call centre interactions.

Call centre technology is there to make your team smarter, faster, stronger and your customers happy. You’re welcome.