Ready for Spring? Get Prepared with Our Quick Contact Center Assessment

Spring is almost here, and summer’s following fast on its heels. For some businesses, that means the most hectic times of the year are upon us. And even for those whose busy season doesn’t kick off until autumn, it’s never a bad time to gauge customer service performance—and this quick contact center assessment can help you do just that.

Are you on pace to make your numbers for 2019? Are your response times as fast, and your first-call resolutions as good as they should be? Are your operational strategies optimized to deliver the best possible customer experience? Are your first-quarter key performance indicators (KPIs) on pace to meet your year-end goals? If you’re falling short in any of these areas, the time is now to turn things around.

Prepare Yourself for the Future with Our Quick Contact Center Assessment Guide

As specialists with more than 20 years of direct experience helping companies deliver the best possible customer experience, we know what it takes to achieve success. Though your specific measurable outcomes will depend somewhat on context—the nature of your business, the industry you operate in, the geographical area you serve—there are some universal aspects that apply to virtually every company. Here are the top ones to consider.

Are Your Contact Center Agents the Best You Can Hire?

If you run your own contact center, staffing is not to be taken lightly. With the emphasis on technology present in today’s contact center, the agents who represent your brand need to be savvy with the latest communications channels. They also need to be adaptable enough to jump into new formats when they come around (as they inevitably do, with a new platform emerging seemingly each year).

That means that your process for hiring agents must be equally forward-looking, with an emphasis on versatility and technological know-how. But that’s not all: The agents you hire must also know how to be engaging with the people they interact with to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty, and they must be skilled at upselling, so your business can grow.

“Your process for hiring agents must be equally forward-looking, with an emphasis on versatility and technological know-how. ” Share on X

 
Honest assessment time: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rank your agent hiring process? Do you emphasize the points listed above?
 

How Would You Rank the Quality of the Technology You Use?

Though nothing is as important as the quality of the agents who work in your contact center, the technology that powers it is a close second. After all, agents can hardly be expected to deliver premium-quality customer care if they’re forced to do so using outdated or, even worse, defective technology.

By technology, we mean the actual physical hardware that your contact center is based upon—the computers, the network servers and so forth. And we’re also referring to the software and apps that serve as the interface between you and your customers. And don’t forget that security adds an additional layer to all of this—and is an absolutely essential concern for every modern contact center.

There’s more: Today’s consumers have repeatedly demonstrated a strong preference for self-service options. To meet this demand, contact centers must offer the means for customers to answer questions and address inquiries almost immediately, without the hassle of a person-to-person conversation, however brief that may be. This means enabling some level of automation, as well as the power to transfer that automation to an actual live agent on a moment’s notice. And all this requires not just sophisticated technology, but the expertise to employ it in the most effective possible manner.

Honest assessment time: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rank your technological footprint—and the expertise of your communications managers in its deployment?

Are You Meeting Your Operational Goals?

This final point is the one that receives the most attention from typical contact center assessments, and with good reason. Nine times out of 10, the success of your communications strategy will depend on how you specifically perform on the most common key metrics.

“Nine times out of 10, the success of your communications strategy will depend on how you specifically perform on the most common key metrics.” Share on X

Unlike more intangible (but also important) aspects, such as branding and company image, operational metrics can be measured in actual data points. The most common include:

• Average “speed to answer” regarding incoming calls
• Percentage of first-contact resolutions
• Call-abandonment rate
• Success of call forecasting to anticipate volumes
• Close rates for sales calls
• Success of add-on sales and upselling
• Occupancy rate and time spent on after-call tasks
• Rate of resolution for online info requests
• Rate of completion for online chat interactions
• Speed of inquiry resolution for alternate platforms like social media
• Customer satisfaction survey scores
• Net promoter scores

 
Honest assessment: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rank each of these factors, against your own expectations, and against the industry standards?
 

If you’re falling behind on any of these metrics—or, worse, aren’t even actively measuring them—then it may be time to call in the experts. Remember, contact centers generate an immense amount of data that can be, and should be, actively tracked. If you’re not doing so, you’re missing a big opportunity to ensure that your customer service investment is delivering the best possible ROI.

If it seems like an overwhelming challenge to meet these goals (or even to track them), well, that’s another good reason why specialists like Working Solutions are increasingly in demand to help businesses do so. In 2018 alone, we helped companies of all types increase their close rates by 30% and grow add-on sales by as much as 20% by optimizing contact center performance.

In other words, we work hard to make sure not only your contact center assessment but its actual performance is as good as it can be. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your business achieve a superior customer experience, then don’t delay.