Trin! Trin! The phone rings and George has a mere 20 seconds to get ready with his headphones and answer the call.
“Thank you for choosing us. My name is George. How can I help you,” says the young agent who is in his mid-twenties.
Guess what he hears in response? “Oh my god! Finally someone picked the call. By the way, why the hell did you take such a long time to answer my call,” says the infuriated customer who had spent more than 15 minutes navigating through hurdles of a complicated IVR system and waiting in the queue.
To this the agent responds politely saying, “We regret for the inconvenience caused sir. We will look into this matter and make sure that this won’t repeat again.”
After hearing this, the customer mellows down a bit and says, “My internet is not working.”
“Ok, please give me a minute. I’ll look into this matter,” answers George and puts the customer on hold. But unfortunately, due to a system issue, the agent is unable to retrieve the correct data. Hence he seeks a few more minutes from the customer to resolve the issue. Though unhappy, the customer politely agrees to be on line for some more time. After a few minutes the agent asks the customer to call back after some time. The customer loses his cool and yells, “Do you expect me to waste another 20 to 30 minutes trying to reach you again.” Finally, the customer disconnects the call and vows to severe ties with the service provider permanently.
The above example is one of the many hardships faced by customers while interacting with contact center agents. If you are into call center business, you cannot afford to turn a blind eye to these impediments.
Some of the common customer service pitfalls include-
- The IVR abyss: Call centers usually do not give much importance to their IVR systems. As a result they put in place difficult to navigate systems which lead customers nowhere
- Long holding time: Just like a child wishes for the undivided attention of the parents, a customer wishes for the undivided attention of the agents. And whenever you deprive them of this by putting them on hold, they feel frustrated
- Agent has inadequate information to resolve queries: Customers generally contact call centers to get queries answered or issues resolved. But what happens if the person who is tasked to handle these doesn’t have adequate information to do the needful? Needless to say, it will leave customers infuriated
- Unlimited Call transfers: Bouncing from one rep to another without any definitive resolution in sight is the worst nightmare of every customer. This will unnecessarily heat up the environment and make customers question the credibility of your business
- Mechanized agents: Due to various call center compulsions, agents are not getting enough time to personalize interactions. They use the same script to serve every customer, and sound somewhat robotic. A soulless interaction is the last thing which customers would ever want
Now that you have an idea about the most common reasons for customer discontent, you need to take the right initiatives to ensure your customers don’t face any of these problems. Once you do this successfully, you will take your customer service to the next level.
