Historically, call centers born from the opportunity to provide immediate customer service by phone. At first it was mainly informative and it had a service ancillary to the core product offering. However, its use expanded considerably, mainly due to two factors:
- Strong competition, which became a luxury service in a normal channel and necessary contact with the customer. Strong
- particular customer demand, which increasingly has less leisure time and thus gives more value to your leisure.
This, combined with strong technological innovation, the sector presaged a bright future, which in reality still has not met the expectations that had been put into it. However, it should highlight the efforts being made by companies in the industry to correct and improve the shortcomings in the day to day are happening.
We are aware that the market for contact centers is one of the most dynamic and technologically advanced, but motivated by their unique characteristics must know how face many challenges facing its business, we are talking about the lack of training of crews, the high staff turnover, the complex relationship with the client and offshoring or outsourcing.
But the evolution continues, and the competitive market in which they move has taught users to demand value-added services and demand the way they want to engage with the company. This has forced traditional call centers into contact centers , integrating multiple channels of interaction with the company as telephone, e-mail , sms ... with the same simple and effective solution that provides call center and offering customers a single point of contact to meet your needs.
This fact has joined the consolidation of the Internet, and therefore of electronic commerce, has led to the emergence of virtual call centers, which allow Internet users, via a click, start a conversation face to face with the person who is in the call center. With this call center are overcome two obstacles: the fear of internet users who still exudes a purchase over the Internet and dehumanization, ie lack face, gestures and gaze.
For now, the virtual call center is being established slowly, but there is another formula that is rooted Voice over Internet Protocol (IP) which offers Internet, through a click, phone contact with the operator who will answer all your questions, thus saving phone.
With all these technological advances, the call center is no longer just a call manager in order to become a strategic element of CRM (Customer Relationship Management ) of companies, which, however, consider not knowing he is out all the benefits the system can provide.
If technology is important, it should be even more people, turned into the key and central to our efforts.
Therefore, priority should be given the satisfaction of customers from reducing costs and in this respect, the teams have a great responsibility to cover. Do not forget that the image of our company is at stake. A good example of what we know to American Express and Coca-Cola.
These companies have a customer-oriented culture throughout the organization, regardless of the task to perform, and that is transmitted to the user. His method follows exactly the RMG technical selling as the traditional contact-report, there has been a contact-report-report-meets-loyalty and prescribe.
Without proper application of this technique, contact companies and business customers will be given a tarnished image of the service and, therefore, instead of retaining customers, with the resulting prisoners have "no return" investment. Therefore encourage companies to not only focus its strategy on reducing costs to compete, but to invest in human teams to professionalise their management and be able to make cultural change who is suing the market, thus achieving the competitiveness that the client requests.
Technology and people are the two pillars that must support the present and future of the contact center into a strategic opportunity to demonstrate to the market content and differential efficiency over the competition.
measures and action plan to improve customer service
- Working to become a service center.
- Establish a customer service plan that has its origin in the direction of the company and involve all workers. Learn
- measure the quality of service of the company. Submit
- audits regularly.
- Perform a market survey on customer service in our industry. In this study must answer three questions:
- What services we are providing our customers?
- What service our customers want to have? (Both current and potential).
- What service gives our competition?
- staff dealing with customers should be aware of all products and services offered company. Moving from concept
- "call" to "contact."
- Examine the operation of the company bottlenecks and, where appropriate, take action to eliminate them.
- update and innovate in all manuals and processes for the customer. Organize
- open day for customers.
- Provide a contingency plan for emergency situations.
- know the particulars of the customers. Make a
- feedback regularly with verbatims contributed by users. Perform regular
- specific courses training of its personnel from customer service.
- Organize a system that can understand and use feedback provided by the client.
- Create an information channel between customers and various company departments.
- Ensure flexibility in the implementation of customer care system.
- qualitatively measure the economic result of the actions of the customer service department.
- And finally, we must not forget that systems of control and goal setting will help ensure the ongoing effectiveness of the customer service department.
The customer service in the XXI century
Designed to be one of the main pillars in the competitiveness of companies in the new millennium, we have considered operating below reflect a decalogue of what all contact center must be able to communicate internally:
- Phone, e-mail and sms are the most used by customers in its communications with companies.
- services customer demand exceeding a schedule of the company.
- is very important to handle calls from customers in the shortest possible time. Customers value
- first immediate response from the company, regardless of future actions.
- The client has a growing tendency to assert their rights as consumers.
- Companies that increase their profitability are listening to complaints and feedback from their customers and try to resolve them.
- Customer satisfaction is in the hands of a single department but of the entire organization.
- Sensations perceived by customers to file a complaint are the most durable and which gives the image of the company.
- What really differentiates a company from its direct competitors is the quality of customer.
- Complaints are a source of information and customer loyalty, seize the opportunity.