Improving Customer Satisfaction in Your Call Center: 5 Tips for the Busy Season

The customer experience (CX) is arguably the most important aspect of any call center. any people calling with problems to solve and questions to ask, so every phone call is crucial. Don’t get overwhelmed! Here are five tips so you can maintain customer satisfaction, even during the busy season. 

#1. Understand Customer Expectations 

If you take the time to understand customer expectations, you’ll be prepared to meet and exceed needs. Depending on the products and services your company offers, your call center can probably anticipate some of the main reasons why customers are calling. It will be helpful to develop resolutions to potential issues and answers to common questions ahead of time so that every agent is as prepared as possible. 

It's important to note that not every customer interacting with your call center has the same experience, problems, and questions. In order to have a solid understanding of customer expectations, your call center should keep track of all past interactions with every customer. That way, each agent can see why a customer values your call center and what has happened so far in your working relationship. Customers will be impressed with agents’ ability to anticipate and address problems, as well as their knowledge regarding past communication. 

#2. Train Agents Properly

The busy season puts added pressure on call center agents, but proper training can help them navigate this influx of customer calls. Training is relevant for both new and seasoned call center agents, as there are always new things to learn and ways to improve. You can offer training regarding: 

- Call etiquette 
- Call center technology 
- Relevant products or services 
- Call center objectives 
- Best practices training
- Internal task management 
- Anything else you feel is relevant to your call center 

Not every call center provides continuous training for agents, but those who do truly stand out from the rest. When agents have the knowledge and skills to handle customer calls, everything runs smoothly — the more training they have, the more efficiently your call center will operate. 

#3. Review Customer Calls 

One of the best ways to recognize problems is by reviewing customer calls. If there are any issues that continuously occur, you can pinpoint the problem and plausible solutions by reviewing the relevant calls. This problem-solving method gets straight to the point and can help both managers and agents address blind spots. 

By taking the time to review customer calls and discover problems, you are one step closer to eliminating these issues in the future. Maybe there is a rough patch with agent communication or your technology — either way, reviewing customer calls will find the obstacle and help your call center hurdle through it.

#4. Ask For Customer Feedback

Asking for customer feedback is a simple, direct way to make improvements at your call center. If customer satisfaction is your goal, you should always ask for feedback and suggestions. Some ways you can do this include:

- Sending customers an email with a survey
- Verbally asking customers to answer a survey after a call is complete 
- Featuring a survey on your website
- Posting a survey on your social media platforms 

Additionally, if customers see an incentive to take a survey, they are more likely to take it. This could be a coupon code, a small freebie, a free product trial, or something else you see fit for the situation. Doing this will not only promote the survey — it will foster your call center’s relationship with its customers.

#5. Utilize Technology 

The right technology will streamline all call center operations and give agents the tools they need to ensure customer satisfaction on all calls. The right call center technology will include tools like:

- Screen-pop: This tool automatically displays caller information on an agent’s screen when a call comes in. This alert includes any relevant caller information in the customer relationship management (CRM) database, ensuring that agents are ready to help customers. 
- Custom reporting: This reporting includes crucial metrics like call, queue, talk and hold time. 
- Click2Call: This is a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) feature, making it easier for agents to contact customers. By removing the need for agents to copy and paste your customer’s phone number, they can simply click and get through to a customer instantly. 
- Job Engine: This tool synchronizes products, systems, databases, web services, and more. It also eliminates manual work and redundancy for agents, allowing them to focus more on CX. 
- Recording and voicemail integrations: Having call recordings, voicemails, and call metrics automatically archived into your system means that you can access them at any time. This allows both managers and agents to track calls for improvement. 

NOTE: Not all call center technology is equally ranked. If you are going to invest in call center technology, do your research and make sure that it has the capacity to support your goals. 

The busy season at your call center doesn’t have to be intimidating. Remember to understand customer expectations, train agents properly, review customer calls, request customer feedback, and leverage technology. With these five tips, your team of agents will be able to solve problems and boost customer satisfaction in no time at all! 

Ready to get started? Available on AppExchange, CDC Software provides integrated solutions for transforming your call center technology.

About the author: Mark Jaworski is the Business Development Director at CDC Software. With over a decade of successful experience in the telecom industry, Jaworski specializes in sales management, new business development, sales proposals and contracts, client relations, and evolving global partner programs. He also collaborates with clients to develop contact center and customer relationship technology solutions that improve overall customer experience and agent productivity.