10 Most Common Customer
Frustrations that Every Cal
Center Should Avoid
Customers forgive, but never forget
Cal ing any cal center can be a nightmare for the customer. And telephone being the most popular and preferred mode of customer support, the stakes are high. With alternatives available at every corner, organizations should eliminate the trivial methods of customer support and come up with strategies and technologies that could transform their cal center to a customer experience management system. Optimizing on customer support can improve customer retention, customer acquisition, and sales.
One way to provide excel ent customer support and customer experience is to avoid frustrating the customers when they contact the support team.
Here are 10 most common customer frustrations that every cal center should avoid.
The IVR abyss: IVR system that is annoying and difficult to navigate can make the customer extremely hostile. Placing the customer to a no man’ land after lengthy prompts can irate the customer to the point of hanging up and bringing up the issue to social medias.
Long holding time: There is nothing more frustrating than putting cal ers on hold. Customers wish to have the cal center agents’ undivided attention, and when he/she is being put on hold, the agent is kil ing the most valuable commodity-time. Social media channels are swarming with distressed customers venting their frustration with holding time.
Agent has inadequate information to resolve queries: Why do customers normal y cal cal centers? To answer queries, resolve issues, ease a complex process, etc. But what if the cal center representative is not equipped with the necessary information to handle such a cal .
Unlimited Call transfers: Shuffling the customers from one rep to another can end up in a very heated situation. And the only thing worse than being bounced around from one agent to another, is asking the customer to do the bouncing themselves. “We are unable to resolve your query. Kindly cal xxx-xxx-xxxx to speak with a representative”
Mechanized agents: Cal centers have entered an uncanny val ey of robotized interactions and mechanized cal center services, where there is zero or minimum human interference. The agents fol ow scripts to handle every kind of customer cal , making the cal less personable and empathizing.
Asked to repeat information: Customers might contact cal centers for various purposes, and being asked to repeat personal information at every cal can get under their nerves. Blame departmental silos for this, but customers couldn't care less for the organizations paucity of integration and infrastructure.
Follow-up calls: Mistakes happen, and customers cal when they are unable to resolve the issue themselves. But if the problem persists, then there is something seriously wrong with the product or the company entirely. Having to cal the cal center again and again for the same reason can be a huge aggravation for the customers. 65% of customers agree that it is the largest flaw of the customer support system.
Being told to head to the website for efficient service: This is a common routine in most contact centers. While the customer is on hold or in IVR, an automated message is played that directs the cal er to visit the website for efficient service. Here, organizations fail to comprehend that the customers must have visited the website prior to cal . Or simply prefer cal ing or have a unique query that cannot be resolved via the FAQ section. Organizations do this to improve traffic in their websites, but ultimately kil s customer experience.
Agents promises they will get back to you, but never do: Not all problems can be resolved in the first cal . There wil be queries that requires additional information or authority to execute. Customers hang up the cal expecting the agents to cal back once they are equipped with the tools and information. But, they never do.
Rude Customer Support: Cal Center agents’ job is to serve customer concerns and complaints, and it might not be their fault if an issue arises or a mix-up happens. But the agents need to remember they are getting paid to manage concerns and complaints, while customers have already paid for the service.
By avoiding these common customer aggravations, contact centers have the opportunity to real y improve customer support by building their customer service skil s. Now that you have an idea about the most common frustrations, your task is to deal with them. Since contact centers are customer-centric departments, it is worthwhile to invest on resources and technologies that can help eliminate theses common customer pet peeves.