SMS for your contact center: use cases

The call center as we once knew it was designed to service outgoing and/or incoming calls. Back then, phone conversations were the only way to interact with customers. Today, when more and more people prefer texting over talking, businesses are starting to explore alternative channels to reach clients in a way that is convenient to them. Transitioning to a contact center that supports messengers, email, and website chats can’t be accomplished overnight, but there is a simple step you can take to start significantly expanding your call center capabilities—and that step is supporting follow-up SMS.

Follow-up SMS are messages manually sent by an agent during or after a call. SMS has been around for several decades now, and in that time it has built up a lot of resilience and gained trust across generations. It is a relatively inexpensive way to reach your customers, allowing agents to deliver all kinds of information to customers by adding text to the voice exchange. Below, we explore a few of the typical scenarios in which follow-up SMS aid your agents in their routine, increase retention, and improve customer satisfaction.

Reducing call center turnover: improve your agent experience

Every business deals with turnover: workers leave, and their positions have to be staffed again. Call centers are no exception, and in fact have shown a significantly higher turnover rate: 30-45%, compared to an average of 22% for other industries. The money and resources this process requires can overextend a business, and negatively impact customer satisfaction along the way. The more employees are lost, the harder it becomes to replace them, and to keep the current staff from fueling even more turnover. Once started, this vicious cycle is difficult to break.

There is a way out - but it requires taking a look at things from a call center agent’s perspective. The job itself is quite fast-paced and stressful as it involves being on the frontlines of communication; interacting with all kinds of customers, some more emotional than others; and working with high call volumes and long shifts. Call centers that want to build long-term relationships with their agents need to make their workspace as comfortable and modern as possible - with the help of call center software.

Call center quality monitoring tips

For inbound call centers, monitoring the quality of customer service is an essential aspect of day-to-day operations. With thousands of interactions between agents and clients, supervisors responsible for quality control face a rather difficult task of finding ways to identify calls that failed to meet the predefined standards of customer care and assess the underlying reason for the lapse in quality.

Increase in call volume: adaptation strategies for call centers

2020 has changed all of our digital and live interactions, and voice services have been affected as well. As our opportunities for face-to-face communication are limited, phone conversations are becoming more important for customers and companies alike. The growing demand leads to an increase in call volume, and call centers need to be prepared to take on new clients and projects to stay relevant as a business.

Inbound call center: better customer experience

While most client-oriented businesses have call centers, there is no universal formula that could be applied to each inbound use case. A winning approach starts with getting your performance metrics under control, but it does not end there. In the constant race to answer calls faster and resolve most of them successfully, you may be lacking resources for regularly coaching agents and correctly interpreting call content.

Introducing the right workflow automation tools can help by providing the time and resources for deeper insights into the context of your calls. In this post, we will break down the different components of an incoming call and explore how you can utilize call center software to improve them.

Post-COVID call center outlook for BPOs

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected all of our live and digital interactions, and call center operations are no exception. While most of the market trends were starting to form long before and only escalated with the pandemic, other demands on performance and expectations of BPOs may come as a surprise for those not properly prepared. Read on to explore what the future holds for BPO call centers with customers in the US.

Call center life: dealing with angry callers

Many business professionals will agree that customer needs and satisfaction are top priorities. Apart from the fundamental need to address client concerns, disgruntled client reactions can negatively impact your business’s reputation. So it’s no surprise that you’re in trouble when customers get angry.

No one wants to upset their customer in the first place. But it can, and most likely will happen, so how should you deal with this sticky situation?