How to easily manage customer service without a big call center

Managing a call center is by no means an easy task. It requires hard work, management flow, and hard-working staff. Your customer service call center wouldn’t be a success unless you have all the pre-requisites in place. If you want to deliver satisfactory customer service then you ought to have a call center, big or small.

Why? 60% of customers still prefer to get in touch with businesses through phone calls. Phone calls are the easiest way to reach out to brands/businesses in their time of need. Customers can get instant solutions to their problems through phone calls. Not only that, through phone calls it is easy to assess the tone of the customer and respond accordingly with the help of an appropriate exchange of emotions. 

Call centers are working at their full capacity across the globe 24*7 as calls are the easiest and the fastest medium of interaction between customers and businesses. Thus no doubt they are still preferred by customers. However, it might become difficult to manage customer service without a big call canter, but you have nothing to worry about as we got you covered. Here is a list of quick ways through which you can easily manage customer service without a big call center.   

Focus on hiring and onboarding 

Hiring and the onboarding processes might seem like small or insignificant tasks but that’s exactly where the first episode of a series of mistakes starts. Hiring the right talent for your call center is even more important if you want to easily manage customer service with a small call center. As you won’t be hiring hundreds of agents to take care of the customer service, you cannot overlook even if a single required skill is missing in an applicant. You have to be very selective about who you want to hire. 

Ideally while hiring for your customer service call center you should look for the following skills: 

Effective communication skills 

A call center agent has to interact with hundreds of customers in a single day. To do that they need to have excellent customer skills to convey their message as they intend to. Also, to interpret what the customer is saying the right way. 

Ability to handle their emotions

Most of the time call center agents have to deal with angry and frustrated customers that might lash out at the agent. According to reports around 35% of people have lost their temper while talking to customer service. In such situations, the agent needs to understand what the customer is going through and handle the situation cautiously. Being able to control one’s emotions can be a task especially when one has to deal with so many agitated or disappointed people on an everyday basis. Thus, while hiring make sure that the applicant knows how to separate their work and personal feelings for both the benefit of the call center and their mental health. 

These two skills are pre-requites for anyone who wants to work at a call center. These are the skills that cannot be taught thus, hire wisely. 

The onboarding process is as crucial as the hiring process. Why? Statistics tell that a good onboarding process experience ensures that 69% of the employees stick with the company for 3 or more years. But a poor onboarding process doubles the chance of an employee looking for another job. Not only that, even a skilled employee will be flustered and would not be able to give his best to the job profile if the onboarding experience was poor for them. 

A great onboarding process is even more important for small call centers as the employees need to know that expectations are higher. Furthermore, it helps them in settling in, understanding the work environment, and then becoming productive instead of investing time in figuring out the organizational structure and processes. 

In a customer service call, the center onboarding process is essential as it will increase productivity and retention rates by incorporating new employees into the company culture. The onboarding process also gives an insight to the new employees about how to succeed in their jobs and helps them in getting a productive and happy start! 

Leverage cloud telephony and its features 

What is a call center without an integrated telephone system? But gone are those days you needed a telephone system with a physical setup and thousands of wires around. Times are changing and technology is now so advanced that one can even set up a cloud call center and work from the comfort of their homes.

Yet many call centers have not started utilizing the benefits of cloud telephony and call center software. They are not clear about the long-term benefits of using cloud telephony and call center software for their business. But if you want to manage customer service without a big call center, then cloud telephony and call center software is your one-in-all solution. It helps you in saving costs in the long run, helps in providing top-notch customer service, and also takes your customer service cloud call center ahead of the market. Here are a few ways in which you can leverage cloud telephony and call center software for exceptional customer service: 

Self-service options 

67% of customers prefer self-service instead of talking to an agent. These days, especially millennials, according to a survey by Bankmycell 75% of the millennials find customer service calls time-consuming and try to avoid them. As you can see, providing self-service to customers is now not an option but a necessity. So how can you do that? Interactive Voice Response is one solution. You give an opportunity to the customer to find out the solution to their problem with the help of interactive voice and dial pad inputs. In case they need to connect with a customer service agent then also it can be done by their dial pad inputs to the interactive voice. Self-service saved both the agents as well as the customer a lot of time and trouble. Furthermore, it will help in reducing the call volume of your customer service call center.

Avoid long call queues 

According to Hubspot research, 33% of the customer feel frustrated when their calls are on hold. No one liked to wait in long call queues or on hold especially when they are looking forward to getting their issue resolved from customer service. That is why you have to use the call queue feature for your customer service call center. The call queue feature will ensure that your customers do not have to wait in long queues to have their call received. The call will be transferred from one queue to another as soon as the agent will get free. This way the customers would not have to wait for too long, you can also add customized music to keep the caller engaged and entertained. 

Improve first call resolution   

There are several benefits of having a small call center but there is one drawback too, i.e. limited call center staff. Due to this sometimes it can be hard to keep a track of all the calls that you are getting and then follow up on them if needed. This can affect your customer service quality to a great extent. You need to find a way through which the follow-up calls can be minimized. For that, your agents need to try to give first-call resolutions to as many customers as possible. They might have to spend a little extra time on one call but it will ensure that the customer is satisfied and they wouldn’t call along. In the long run, this system will not only make customers happy but also reduce redundancy and escalations in your call center. 

Offer incentives 

Call center agents have to work under a lot of mental strain. They have to handle angry customers, find instant solutions to customer problems, and also take care of the other tasks in the background. It can sometimes become difficult for them to keep going or find the motivation to move forward. To keep your customer service call center agents motivated then offer them incentives. When reinforcements would be available then the agents will be constantly motivated which will eventually make your customer service better. 

There are several perks of not having a big call center, like easy management, a better bond among the employees, and less confusion about the tasks. However, it has a few drawbacks too, for instance, an agent has to take care of several tasks other than just calling. It might become difficult to hold campaigns, or customers might have to wait for a little too long to get their queries resolved. The above-given ways will help you solve all your problems. Deliver the best service to your customers without fail!