The 5-Point Customer Experience Health Check for Contact Centers
Often when thinking about customer experience most of the thought is dedicated to the online experience, but what about the contact center? Here are five areas to quickly assess how your business is doing in a CX driven world of 2020.
1. Does Your CRM Need TLC?
CRM tools are the crown jewel of customer interaction. It is your source of knowledge on the customer, their previous interactions, and anything else we know about them. Without appropriate customer data, personalization becomes a bridge too far. Personalization is more than just knowing the customer’s name. Customers expect you to know their personal information and service history and service when they reach out to you for support.
2. Check for Agent Empowerment
Companies that set the bar for customers experience often are the ones that empower their agents to solve problems and go “above and beyond” for their customers. However, most agents know they are being timed during each call, and even if the phrase “is there anything else I can help you with” Isn’t truly an offer. Odds are, that the agent and their manager prefer call throughput vs fixing another non-critical issue for a customer.
3. Fight for Agent Embetterment
Investing in training your front line employees can avoid some of the biggest pains customers report, such not getting correct and consistent answers. If your contact center is unhappy, your customer base is likely to follow suit. Automating rote tasks, like asking security questions to start every call, can help remove frustration for agents and allow them to focus more on service and less and on security.
4. Is Your Customer Journey a Highway to Hell or a Stairway to Heaven?
The Customer’s Journey does not stop with the website. Complex call flows and unintuitive IVR menus can make a frustrated customer who is reaching out for support turn into a former customer quickly. Know what the customer has to deal with in order to deal with you, the perspective could reveal something unexpected.
5. Does Your Authentication Process Include Asking Callers About Their Mothers?
Most of us love and appreciate our mothers, but that doesn’t mean I want to discuss their maiden name with a service provider on the phone. Questions based on publicly available information or information that can be purchased on the dark web, make for poor security, and often customers fail to recall what their favorite drink, pet, or vacation spots were when they set up their account. Use strong multi-factor passive authentication for high identity assurance and low customer effort.
