To leave competitors behind, it is paramount to ensure a long-term relationship with existing customers. It is so because association with current customers can easily provide stability to the business. That’s why business owners are expected to offer unparalleled customer service.
With the time, retaining customers has become an arduous task. The primary reason for that is nowadays every company tries to draw the attention of its competitor’s customers. In order to maintain the customer base, organisations approach a reputed inbound call centre.
Australian inbound call centres have always been known for their incomparable customer service. But there are some hidden factors that must be brought to light for the sake of better customer retention. This aspect is so important because if a customer retention rate increases by only 5 %, profit levels can increase between 25% and 95%.
Have a dekko at the following points that will tell about some simple but effective tips that can help inbound call centres in improving customer retention:
Ameliorate FCR rate
In order to improve customer retention, it is paramount to solve the issues during the first interaction. This is so because customer attrition rate is indirectly proportional to the FCR.
Whenever customers make a call, they expect that support agents eradicate all the issues from the root so that there will be no need to make a contact again. Owing to daily targets, agents mostly put their focus on reducing the AHT (average handle time). Consequently, this leads to the hassle of reduced CSAT score.
Therefore, it is crucial for every inbound call centre of Australia, UK, etc. to provide training in such a way that helps agents to solve all the product or service related issues in the first attempt.
Here are a few benefits of focussing on high FCR rate:
- The number of average customer service queries will be reduced.
- High CSAT score which simply means better retention.
- Productivity levels will be high.
Control call volume fluctuations perfectly
Usually, companies (that prefer to run an in-house call centre) lose loyal customers to competitors because of incapability to cope with call volume fluctuations. To keep the success ball rolling, most of the business owners avail inbound call centre service from a reputed BPO firm.
The problem of high customer attrition rate occurs when inbound call centres don’t manage call volume fluctuations properly. This factor cannot be underestimated because average call queue length always gets increased during the peak hours. This means more wait time, which, in turn, leads to reduced CSAT score.
So, it is paramount for every inbound call centre of Australia, UK, etc. to manage the fluctuating call volume perfectly. Here are a few suggestions that could help regarding the same:
- Take staffing seriously.
- Monitor previous data so as to know about the time period in which call volume mostly increases.
- Make use of WFM software.
Provide reliable self-service facility
To improve customer retention, it is significant to live up to expectations. However, it isn’t an easy as it sounds because the expectations of customers have been increasing with every passing day. So, it would be very beneficial to let customers solve the issues on their own.
Don’t get us wrong as we know customers should be assisted by the proficient agents. But if customers solve the minor issues, they can easily get the desired resolutions within a short period of time. This not only keeps the CSAT score in check but also maintains the business’s reputation.
So, it is vital for the inbound call centres to offer the self-service facility. In addition, make sure that customers don’t face any issues while using the self-service facility because if they do, the chances of negative reviews will be increased.
Embrace customer feedback and complaints
From the business’s perception, every feedback or complaint from customers is a chance to save a relationship. Therefore, embracing customer feedback is significant to improve customer retention.
Inbound call centres always solicit feedback from the customers after the interaction. However, this will only help to win half battle. For the rest half, it is vital to take immediate actions. Around 79% of customers switch to other company when they feel that there is no improvement in support services.
Focussing on positive feedback will surely help to reinforce those things that customers liked during the interaction with agents. In order to reduce the customer attrition rate, it is vitally important to study negative feedback. This is so because negative feedback can tell about those factors that must be rectified so as to turn unhappy customers into happy ones.
In a nutshell, every inbound call centre should check survey results within 2 to 3 days so as to improve the quality of customer service.
