Part Two
In "Are Your Customers Getting What They Need - Part One" of our last Newsletter, we explored the importance of accurately determining where you stand with the quality of service your customers are receiving. Utilizing an unrelated third party to help with an assessment can provide unbiased results. Once this had been completed, you can pinpoint the areas that need attention.
One of the first areas that should be addressed is your customer's phone access to your offices. If you are using an interactive voice response system, did your analysis indicate that it is easy to use? Perhaps there are changes that you can make yourself to optimize call processing. You also may need to determine if there were capacity issues at certain times of the day or week due to call volumes. Small staffing changes, such as changing when breaks are taken can make a big difference.
Another area to carefully investigate is training. Did the research indicate that the call center representatives have the skills and training they need to adequately answer all the types of calls that they handle? Sometimes even a brief refresher course on tone and manner, or a class to focus on a particularly confusing area can refocus call center employees on the needs of the customer and can help differentiate your company in a competitive market place.
These are just a sampling of the areas that should be addressed as you are evaluating the customer service that you provide. HPA's staff has expertise in the area of customer service and call center optimization and we would be happy to have a brief consultation to determine if we can help your organization.