subject: Improving Answering Service in Call Centers [print this page] The customer care departments of the call centers across the globe have decided to sit up and change things. This was coming at some point or the other. The business firms who hire BPO units for the answering service have regularly complained about the kind of work that they are receiving. The impact of these complaints hang heavy on the phone answering units. It's been a while since they have come across complaints about bad user experiences. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems maybe working fine for them, but when it comes to the ground reality about customer care, the results have fluctuated between poor and satisfactory. The industry is yet to see a consistent grading that says is better than what it is now.
To improve the answering service, there are some innovations that have come into place. For example, the use of technology has made it possible for a passive BPO agent to follow the footsteps of a user on IVR. There are many callers who opt for IVR without knowing that they have to be specific about their requirements here. As a result, they are often lost in the maze of options. When they run out of options or seem unable to find what they are looking for, the passive agent helps them out. The agents arranges for the right option to appear to the caller by the help of advanced computing system. When the option appears for the callers, they can either use that to get the work done. Or they can opt to talk to a live phone answering agent. In either ways, they are getting to their objective faster than usual.
There are other answering service innovations happening as well. Call centers are training their agents to quit playing the caller around. No one likes to be on an indefinite hold. When the BPO agents put them on hold, they should inform the customer how long it will take. It's best to be accurate in terms of time. The caller maybe in the middle of something and if you keep the person waiting, it might do harm to his work. Be honest about the time frame and ask if the caller has the time to hold on. When you are passing the call to another agent, make sure that the next agent knows how to solve the problem. There is no point passing it to a peer who may have the same ideas about the work.
Finally, taking responsibility is the key to getting things done fast. Agents at call centers are just too busy playing safe. BPO managers can train and designate some authority with them so that they are not calling upon the senior resources for every small thing. Customers feel the ease too, when their work is directly addressed instead of going through intermediaries. Agents can also use the option of conference calls to solve problems that involves technicians or other specialized help. Instead of allowing the user to go over the problem again, agents can quickly brief the tech person and get it fixed.
