There are few industries that the internet has not impacted. Which means times are changing when it comes to how businesses offer customer support. No longer just a telephone answering service, a modern contact centre covers the full range of customer service and outreach.
Social media gives customers the opportunity to make a comment at any time of day or night. This can be difficult for small businesses and operations to respond to, requiring a significant upscale in resources. However, whatever the medium, it remains true that a quick response can turn around an unhappy customer or turn a prospective client into a valued customer.
The changing skill sets of employees
Since customer service centres now need to provide a wide range of services, this can place exceptional demands on your team. It means the skills of your contact centre employees need to be developed to meet this changing environment, and could even mean your team is stretched fielding queries across a range of platforms. One day an employee may be using their traditional telephone skills and talking to clients, the next day they could be monitoring a Facebook page and responding to comments and questions.
Social is fuelling demand for better customer service
The on-demand nature of the internet and social media isn’t just creating more work for customer support staff. It also means customer expectations are higher than ever. Online, customers anticipate their queries will be responded to quickly. This, in turn, filters down to customer expectations whenever they interact with your business – whether they are calling up your support line or firing off a tweet.
Protecting your reputation
With so many new ways for your business to be judged, from social media to review sites, it’s more important than ever to ensure you offer a better quality of customer service. If you’re finding it difficult to respond to customer queries in ample time or answer their calls without subjecting them to a wait, you will find your reputation is at risk. Even if they got in touch via the telephone, customers are quick to make their feelings known about a poor level of service across the online domain, where complaints can quickly go viral.
If you are struggling to adequately keep up with your customer service 24/7 across all platforms, it might be time to hand over your call centre duties to a company that is proven to offer an exceptional service. By choosing to outsource to a call handling centre, you can have peace of mind that those vital one-to-one contact points with customers are being handled by professionals who can give adequate time to finding a resolution for your customer. Find out more by speaking to us at Frontline today.