Give the People What They Want
Author: Jim Mitchell
Continuing along the lines of my last blog posting, today I will be talking a bit more about agent Empathy and Advocacy. I think this is a particularly important topic, and one worth discussing at length, as research tells us that 50 percent of consumers who have good interactions will conduct more business with a company.
In true New England tradition, I’m going to jump right into the subject matter at hand – how can you give your customers better experiences by focusing on people-related attributes? We’ve already talked about conducting proactive outreach, and improving your coaching and training efforts. Here are a few more ideas:
Virtualize your contact center – use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to give you access to the best possible pool of qualified staff, regardless of where they are geographically located. This strategy can help you provide your customers with cost-effective, around-the-clock service – such as different languages or time zones – that accommodates their specific needs. It also gives your agents a better work/life balance, which leads to happier employees.
Align your organization – your agents want to be involved and empowered, so let them be! Use your performance management tools to create dashboards that help your agents keep track of their own performance, as well as the performance of the organization as a whole. But, don’t stop there. Tie compensation to the dashboard information to motivate your agents to exceed their stated goals.
Incorporating some or all of these recommendations may help you grow your business. After all, a consumer who is satisfied with a representative is two-and-a-half times more likely to conduct future business with a company – why shouldn’t that company be your company?
