How to Quickly and Professionally Resolve Customer Issues
If you’ve ever worked in customer service, you know complaints and issues are inevitable. It doesn’t matter how good of a day you’re having, you will eventually pick up the phone with a disgruntled customer on the other end. It’s not so much an occupational hazard, but just part of the job; and for call centers, it’s best to know how to handle them quickly and professionally so you can move onto the next call.
Omnichannel Customer Service
For starters, it’s best if your call center has omnichannel customer service at its disposal. Customers love to have options when calling in. One could prefer to reach a live person to discuss a resolution to their issue while another is low on time at work and would prefer to reach out via online chat. Then there are customers who have almost no time and would prefer to fire off an email. Having a call center equipped to handle complaints and issues on multiple platforms is best if you want to satisfy everyone involved.
Utilize Listening Skills
This may sound kindergarten-esque, but it’s still important to note. If a customer chooses the route of speaking directly to a representative, being able to listen and understand what they are saying is crucial. A nightmare scenario would be for the customer to angrily rant about their problems only for the rep to request for them to repeat information because they weren’t paying attention or taking notes. Always listen and pay close attention to customers because they are complaining for a reason. Understand their frustration and do your best to empathize.
Give Representatives the Power
You can imagine how infuriating it must be for a customer to voice their complaint only for them to be told the person they’re talking to has no power to resolve it. If a call center representative doesn’t have the authority to offer the customer a satisfactory solution, that leads to delays and wait times for them and low satisfaction rates for the call center. A good way to solve this is to empower representatives so they can resolve issues without having to go to a supervisor.
Make Call-Back Technology Your Friend
Sometimes a call center has a bad day. The phones are constantly busy and the hold/wait times are rising every second. There most likely isn’t a single person out there that enjoys waiting on the phone for someone to answer, so provide them an easy out by offering a callback. Call-back technology uses a voice recording to tell customers the average wait time before providing them the opportunity to schedule a callback. If the customer doesn’t feel like waiting on hold for however long, they can press a number and be called back when a representative becomes available. This technology won’t get rid of angry customers, but it’ll ensure they won’t be even more upset because of how long they waited to speak to someone.
Like we mentioned before, issues and complaints are part of being in customer service. There’s no way to avoid them, so it’s best to have ways to efficiently handle them in a professional manner. Utilizing these suggestions should assist greatly the next time issues arise for your customers.
