Effortless Engagement
Your brand represents a promise you make to your customers. What area of your business is delivering on that promise through the customer experience?
For most organisations, it’s the people on the frontline—often the customer service representatives (CSRs).
Delivering a great customer experience is something every brand is striving for.
But what is the key to success?
In a single word, engagement.
How your CSRs engage with your customers will determine the customer experience and that, in turn, represents the brand experience.
So what makes it easier for CSRs to engage with your customers? At Plantronics, we believe it comes down to three simple factors:
- Being physically comfortable at work.
- Being able to rely on the tools to do their job.
- Being sure those tools have the intuitive functionality they need.
Why focus on comfort?
Simple customer queries are handled by your self-service tools. Complex queries, technical questions, and complaints are still handled by your CSRs.
Put yourself in their shoes (imagine they are tight-fitting shoes).
Your CSRs are being asked to sit at their desks all day, every day, while taking calls that are lasting longer than ever before.
If you had to deal with these kinds of calls, wouldn’t you prefer not to have aches and pains from an ill-fitting headset? Wouldn’t you prefer not to go home each day with a headache because of the loud noises that are interrupting your calls?
But the impact is even bigger for your organisation when you multiply these issues by the number of CSRs experiencing such discomfort. When people get sore throats from raising their voices all the time, staff absenteeism goes through the roof. Job satisfaction, morale, and productivity fall. Customers and the overall brand experience suffer.
“I have to deal with angry customers all the time.”
Being physically more comfortable at work means CSRs can concentrate on the customer.
Customers get the service they deserve when the CSR is able to pay attention to what they are saying. They are less likely to have to repeat themselves if the CSR isn’t distracted by a nagging headache.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
For the organisation, improving the comfort level of CSRs means:
- Reduced cost of covering staff absenteeism.
- Increased staff retention.
Improved employee and customer satisfaction scores
Why focus on reliability?
These are just some of the likely responses from frustrated CSRs or customers, when audio equipment doesn’t function properly.
If experienced only occasionally, poor audio may not be a big issue. But if it becomes the norm, and affects customer engagement adversely, your brand will suffer.
Ask your CSRs, and they are quick to tell you if they hear a lot of background noise because their audio equipment isn’t designed for a busy office. They will also explain how poor equipment makes them feel like their role is undervalued. They will tell you that when their headset breaks—and it takes a long time to fix—they are left without much to do. Of course, businesses can hold replacement stock, but then someone has to manage it.
“I don’t know how much my role is respected.”
This is how you can prevent some typical frustrations experienced by your CSRs and customers:
THE BOTTOM LINE:
For the organisation, being able to rely on the tools to do the job means:
- Better ROI from robust, dependable audio devices.
- Less staff time wasted for replacements.
- Fewer customers left frustrated by interrupted conversations.
Why focus on technology?
Some people have a mobile phone without any of the bells and whistles, like the apps, music and video accessible through smartphones. Most of us, however, enjoy the added benefits that new technologies bring. Especially the new generation of employees who are joining your organisation.
The same applies to your audio devices. As customers call with ever more complex queries, expecting fast, friendly, and noise-free conversations, your CSRs need the best audio devices to properly respond.
CSRs will also want those tools to remove some of the more mundane aspects of their job and perhaps even take away the sense that they are being constantly monitored.
“I just want to get on with my job without feeling like I’m constantly monitored”
Providing the right tools to do the job isn’t just about buying the latest devices. It is about selecting the right devices for the role and ensuring your investment pays off.
Choosing headsets with the functionality to match immediate needs and rising expectations will help you achieve this.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
For the organisation, ensuring that CSRs have tools to do their jobs means:
- Better value from investments that are ready to meet future demands.
- Increased productivity by freeing up staff time from mundane tasks.
- Data that gives greater visibility of calls and where more training is required.
What have we learnt?
Our long-standing experience of working with organisations around the world has shown us three things that make a real difference to customer service centres.
- Comfortable headsets can be the difference between good customer service and poor customer service.
- Reliable headsets can be the difference between good customer service and poor customer service.
- Access to new headset technologies can be the difference between meeting rising expectations and leaving people feeling short-changed.
Combining each of these measures adds up to better engagement between a CSR and your customer. The result is great customer service and ultimately a better experience of your brand.
Source: Plantronics
