Research has revealed by offering mints to the customers along with the bill, waiters can augment tips by more than 24%. Do you know why? Of course, it is not the mint that is motivating the customer to give better tips; rather it is the power of personalization.
Unfortunately, in today’s age of technology, many companies, especially those associated with the call center industry, are failing to understand the true power of personalization and are moving towards automation. This is in spite of the fact that 73% of customers are more willing to do business with a company that offers more personalized experience. As a result of which they are alienating customers and losing millions of future revenues. You can personalize your customer support by using these simple tips-
- Make communication more sincere
Most customers like to interact with a human voice rather than an automated machine. Hence give greater emphasis to agent based interactions and make it a point that you let the customers know who they are interacting with to earn their trust. Also, since your representative’s voice is the voice of your company, make sure that you hire people who are both tech and people savvy so that there is no compromise on quality.
- Proactively address customer concerns
Your agents need to be proactive and ready to go out of their way to resolve customer issues. This can be particularly helpful for customers who frequently contact you or simply have recurring problems. For instance, when an individual has called you three times regarding a recurring issue, you need to do everything possible at your end to obviate the need for a fourth call. To ensure this, you must take matters into your hand and analyze and learn from your past conversations. This will help you to get to the root cause of their concerns and resolve it. If the resolution us beyond your scope, you need to raise a red flag with the concerned department and do a regular follow-up to resolve the issue.
- Avoid over-serving
Do you like the annoying shopping assistant who keeps hovering around you until you buy something in-store? No isn’t it. The same is true with unwanted promotional calls. Hence instead of bombarding customers with calls, give them the choice to opt-in or opt-out of your assistance, whenever required. Finally, when they opt for your assistance, make sure you proactively cater to their needs.
- Provide convenient communication channels
Don’t put any unnecessary hurdles in the communication process with customers. Keep it smooth and provide them with different options to seek your service. But make sure you don’t take them for a ride. For instance, if the interaction is made through a social media avenue and you want to move this conversation to the phone, give them a specific phone number or chat option that will help you pick up the conversation from where you left off. Never annoy the customer by forcing them to call a central help line and explain it out from square one.
- Be patient and ready to explain things in multiple ways
Same things may resonate differently to different people. Hence be prepared to explain the same concerns in a number of different ways. You can use flowcharts, illustrations, reference to a copy of the documentation, or even a chat via Skype or the phone to give a thorough explanation of the solution. Be patient and don’t stop until you’ve solved the customer’s issue.
- Be realistic and don’t overpromise
When you are interacting with the customer, be honest and never overpromise yourself about things which you cannot do. This is because overpromising usually leads to under-delivering, which in turn tarnishes your reputation.
A contact center business is a peoples’ business. To be successful in it, you have to make each and every customer feel special and cared for, which can only be offered through personalization. Hence make it a point to mold your call center business around this critical attribute.
