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Topic(s): Employee Engagement Customer Experience

Coaching your customer service teams remotely with customer feedback

Customer service teams carry great responsibility. They are at the frontline of customer issues and complaints. Working from home and COVID have increased the pressure on these teams even more. Customers can be more anxious when they call, and your agents are faced with even more and more challenging questions.

It's crucial that you keep supporting your agents. But doing so remotely isn't an easy feat. The lack of infrastructure in a home office and remote guidance can have a big impact on an agent's performance. So, how do you pull your customer service team through?

 

Bad customer service is a money pit

During the pandemic, hold times have increased by 34%, and escalations by about 60%. Without the right tools and support, your agents are set up to fail. And that hurts your bottom line:

  • It costs 33% of an employee's annual salary to replace them after they leave. Customer service isn't an easy job. It can be challenging to stay motivated if you're faced with frustrated customers, and if there’s high pressure to perform. And once motivation fails, people start to leave.
  • Customers call the service desk because they want to be helped. For 62% of consumers, service insight and knowledge are key to a good experience. And after a bad customer service experience, 39% of customers will avoid a company for two years.

Let the customer be the coach

In times like these, it’s wise to weave coaching into your daily workflow. But if it's impossible to coach your customer service teams in real-life, how can you make sure they still feel supported? How do your agents know what customers expect and how they can serve them best? Customer feedback helps you out in several areas.

1. Decrease your cost-per-call

Ask for feedback as close to the agent interaction as possible. It will make coaching easier, as the customer will give you insight into what was good, and what was bad. As a result, you can train your agents in real-time. And the quicker they can adjust, the higher the chance their next call will be better. In turn, knowing what customers expect, allows agents to close calls quicker. This decreases your cost-per-call per agent.

2. Increase employee engagement

Even though customers call customer service, it doesn't mean they don't have anything nice to say. Share positive feedback with your agents to show they have an impact on how the customer feels. On the other hand, negative feedback isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives your agents a chance to learn from past mistakes, and to make things right with an unhappy customer.

3. Offer relevant solutions to customer issues

Customer feedback will teach your agents what they do well, and what customers liked about the way an issue was handled. As a manager, encourage peer-to-peer coaching. Let your teams exchange best practices based on customer feedback. This will help your agents to solve issues in a more effective and relevant way. This also has a positive impact on your First Call Resolution (FCR) rate.

 

To wrap it all up

Whether it’s possible to support your teams in real-life, or not, customer feedback is a great addition to how you coach your customer service agents. After all, there’s no one better suited than your customer to give insight into what they need and expect.

Want more inspiration about empowering your employees? Catch the replay of our webinar with Caroline De Roose, Global Lead CX Delight at Randstad. 

 

Watch the webinar