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The Customer Perspective in the Call Center
 TMCnet Assistant Editor
In the call center, which has become regarded as the key touch point between businesses and their customers, placing a focus on the customer helps to build better processes and offer products and services the customer demands.
Businesses have come to find that placing this focus on the customer is important because in the end, it is the customer who determines their success.
To begin, building training initiatives that focus on seeing through the customers eyes will allow agents to not only better see the reason for callers actions, but also helps to alleviate the stress of those situations while improving the call center environment. This also helps to lower agent attrition rates, and reaps benefits for the business by their improving products and services while strengthening the likelihood of customer satisfaction.
In an interview with TMCnet, Randy Saunders, Cincom Systems Marketing Director, Customer Experience Management products commented on the roll of customer experiences in relation to the call center.
"Your brand is on trial every time a customer contacts your contact center-- every contact with the center is a test of the organization as a whole. No matter how much money you put into marketing and developing great products, if the call center is the weak link in that total customer experience, then a negative encounter with your contact center, could in fact drive a customer away. Alternatively, a really great experience, where an agent really cared and helped, is also remembered. A contact center’s ability to respond to a customer's problem or request has a very high influence on the overall experience with that company, possibly much more than the product itself."
Considering the customers experience and how they view the services or products is also a very important element in the call center as it can determine whether a customer remains loyal.
Finding out what matters most to them and delivering on those needs such as offering multiple interaction channels and providing consistent customer care, is key.
A report by TMCnet's Susan Campbell noted Frost & Sullivan's Customer Experience Peer Research Panel study, conducted to gain an understanding of how US firms are performing when it comes to the total customer experience, which uncovered that while many claim to regard the customer experience as a high priority, it is not always the case and noted a need to gain insight into the customer and their perspectives as a first step.
Campbell wrote, "There is a significant difference in the company’s view of their customer service deliverables and the customer’s view of their own experience. When companies rely solely on their own view, their services can fail to meet customer expectations and the result will be lost customers."
To help call centers achieve this insight into their customer's experiences, scorecards, surveys and others tools that offer insight into interactions and customer demands, help make changes where needed for future success.
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