Call center agents often have the first interaction with customers. They set the stage for the customer experience, and many customers form opinions about a company based on these interactions. Agents need the right skills to provide high-quality customer service. These include:
- Solid communication. Good communication skills may seem obvious. Agents spend the majority of their job interacting with customers over the phone, texts, messages, and many other channels. Empathy is essential for customer satisfaction. Agents that work with detached efficiency may resolve calls quickly, but they can come across as cold and unfeeling.
- Avoiding repetition. Customers hate repeating themselves. Take notes about their problem and read any documentation from previous calls. Customers feel like the agent is wasting their time, does not care about solving their problem, or lacks knowledge when they have to explain their issue more than once.
- Finding creative solutions. Not every problem is easy to solve or has a clear path to resolution. Call center agents that use their resources to find unexpected solutions for the customers’ issues provide a superior quality of service.
- Maintaining organization. Some calls require follow-up, such as an insurance claim. These cases can remain open for days or weeks. It’s easy to lose track of them without proper organization. For example, sticky notes or sporadic handwritten notes can go missing. Electronic records can become jumbled if they’re all stored in one place. Customer service software can often remove these administrative hurdles, but organization skills are still essential for call center agents fielding several dozen calls a day.
Customers are often upset or have a problem when they connect with a call center agent. Agents that provide empathetic service and remain flexible when finding solutions deliver a superior customer experience. Contact Actec to learn how our nearshore call center solutions can improve customer service and customer loyalty.