It’s hard to know which contact center agent is making your customers happy by simply peeking through the door as they work. Heck, you might even mistake the guy that’s always holding the phone as the most productive of the bunch.
All is not lost though… there are measurable indicators that, when you optimize for ( and monitor), will tell you if your customers are satisfied.
A quick look at these contact center customer satisfaction metrics and you can deduce how productive that guy on the phone really was.
1. Customer effort score
This metric reflects how easy it is for customers to interact or do business with you. In the case of a contact center, you can gauge how easy it was for your customers to get their point across to your agents, and if or not they found difficulty in getting matters resolved.
You’ll have to get feedback from them after their initial contact with your attendants. The customer support software you use can help you reduce customer effort scores.
How to measure customer effort scores
Conjure up a scale from 0 to 10, (any range will do), with 0 being effortless and 10 being very difficult. A follow-up email with the scale graphically positioned for fast feedback will do the trick.
More important than just measuring the metric, is how you can use the feedback from customer effort insights. As a rule of thumb, for each period observed, you should strive to keep the average score as low as possible.
The lower the customer effort score, the better your chances of retaining customers. Consistently high scores are an indication of problematic areas worth corrective action on your part.
2. Abandon call rate
The abandoned call rate is basically an account of incomplete calls. To be fair, some calls can get disconnected due to connection issues on the customer’s side. As such, the calls you would be worried about when looking into this metric are those dropping due to reasons you can resolve.
Some of the reasons for abandoned calls include:
- Frustrated customers
- Bad infrastructure in your contact center
- Tired call agents
As would be expected from looking at the reasons, it takes knowing that they exist for them to be resolved.
Typical solutions to these three problems include automating the resolution process for common problems. This way, people don’t have to call in, (and if they do) or speak to an agent to resolve cases like resetting their password.
A pre-emptive service strategy can achieve this for you.
Using the latest technologies also enhances call quality. For example, implementing IVR and NLU will help resolve customer grievances quickly and reduce both call duration and the call abandon rate.
3. Customer churn rate
The customer churn rate is a more technical metric to monitor, yet equally important given the implications.
An easy way to explain what the customer churn rate measures is,” how customer relationships expire over a given period of time.”
Three variables are at the core of the customer churn rate;
- The number of customers at the start of a period of interest
- Total count of customers acquired during the same period
- The number of customers that unsubscribed during that period of time
The turn rate equation looks like this:
You want to keep the customer churn rate as low as possible. This can only happen if significantly more customers are signing up for your products and services than those bidding you goodbye.
Maintaining Customer Satisfaction
Knowing these customer satisfaction metrics is among the starting points on the quest. With the other being able to follow up and apply corrective measures to improve customer experience.
Maintaining customer satisfaction takes deliberate incremental steps.
At any given point in time, every contact center should be on the watch of these three and other metrics in real-time.
Recommended Reading: Tips for Call Center Workforce Management
Salman is a prolific environmental writer, and has authored more than 500 articles in reputed journals, magazines and websites. He is proactively engaged in creating mass awareness on renewable energy, waste management, sustainability and conservation all over the world.
Salman can be reached on salman@cleantechloops.com
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