As a virtual call center manager, it is your job to ensure that your center’s CSAT scores are high and continue to remain in good standards. Here we will detail 5 useful ways you and your agents can improve call center customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores.
What are CSAT Scores?
CSAT scores are the measure of customer satisfaction your call center generates. That is, after interacting with your service, how happy are your customers and how likely are they to recommend your service to others. CSAT scores are essential for collecting customer feedback and making much-needed improvements to your product or service. Common questions you’ll see on a customer satisfaction survey include “How would you rate your experience/stay with us?” or “How likely are you to recommend our service to others?” And customers can rate the service on a scale of 1-10 or Good-Bad or Very Likely-Not Likely At All.
How to Calculate CSAT Scores?
To calculate Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), divide positive responses by the total number of responses. Then multiply that number by 100. This gives you a CSAT percent.
CSAT score formula: (#) positive responses / (#) total responses X 100 = CSAT (%)
Why are Call Center CSAT Scores Important?
Satisfied customers can easily convert into returning customers and will be the ones that bring new customers to your business. For this reason, improving and maintaining high CSAT scores becomes essential. To succeed, your cloud call center should implement the following methods.
1. Increase Personal Interaction
More recently, a lot of technology has been developed to automate cloud call center processes in an attempt to increase productivity and efficiency. While these are positive influences, it may lead to a decrease in personal interaction between your call center and its customers. Personal interaction is important in order to thoroughly resolve issues.
Many times, customers call a business or call center to get an immediate response. Being bounced around a complicated IVR system or interacting only with the automated system can increase frustration, especially if their issue is rare and complex.
Try to ensure that there is some personal interaction that takes place during a call, as often as possible. Your IVR system is built to make your virtual call center run smoothly, but it does not need to overtake all calls and interactions. Even if it is at the end of the call, have an agent connect to ask: “Is there anything else we can help you with?” Keep in mind that more positive personal interaction equates to more resolutions which, in turn, leads to higher CSAT scores.
2. Increase Quality Assurance
Maintaining quality assurance (QA) is another important factor in improving virtual call center CSAT scores. Call center QA focuses on providing high-quality customer service that matches the business’ standards. And so, QA pays attention to the customer, their issues and needs, and how to improve caller experience. All of these lead to better customer interaction and higher CSAT scores.
Some essential call center QA strategies include training your agents to understand and maintain business standards and goals. For example:
- Are agents following the necessary scripts?
- Do they ask questions about the customer’s needs, history, and experience to better understand the issue?
- Are they following protocol?
- Is there any misunderstanding or miscommunication?
Virtual call center managers can listen in on calls or review recordings of calls to study and analyze different factors or aspects of agent/customer interactions. They can then provide more training, highlight strengths and weaknesses, strategies that work or that need improvement, and so on. All with the same goal: improving caller experience and increasing customer satisfaction.
3. Pay Attention to Customer Issues
This goes in line with quality assurance. It is important to understand what issues the customer is facing in order to better help and serve them. Here, as a virtual call center manager, you may consider market research to provide data about certain products and services and their most common issues and concerns. This way, your agents are better equipped to help or resolve upcoming issues.
The aim should be to provide solutions and resolve the issue on the first call itself. This is called first call resolution. Call centers or businesses with a higher first call resolution rate have more satisfied customers and higher CSAT scores.
4. Purchase the Necessary Virtual Call Center Technology
It is imperative to invest in the right tools. As with any project, to do a good job, you need the right tools and support. The same goes for a virtual call center. Consider investing in call center software from a provider like Global Call Forwarding where you can customize your options, features, and services to create an ideal phone system.
Most virtual phone service providers offer tools that can support remote and virtual call centers. These include:
- Call forwarding and routing options
- Call recording to record incoming and outgoing calls
- IVR system to manage and distribute incoming calls
- Outbound calling to make local and international calls with customizable caller ID
- Local, toll free, international, and vanity numbers that route calls via the internet, and more
5. Track Call Center KPIs
Another way to improve your CSAT scores is by tracking and monitoring important metrics such as:
- Call answered
- Calls abandoned
- Average hold time
- First call resolution rate
- Number of calls answered by each agent
- Time taken to answer a call, etc
These key performance indicators (KPIs) can give you insights into areas of strength and improvement. And they can help you understand your center’s customer service levels and even its current quality. This information will lead you to your next step in improving the service you provide.
Improve Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) at your Call Center
Increase your CSAT scores by improving the way your call center interacts with its callers. Provide better customer service, pay attention to your callers, and watch your customer satisfaction and retention scores increase. For more information about virtual call center software from Global Call Forwarding, call us at 1 (888) 908 6171.
