Even with the best technology, any inbound contact centre solution is only as effective as your implementation. The way you design, implement, and regularly improve your contact centre flow will have a direct impact on the level of service you can deliver.
However, while every inbound contact centre shares the goal of incredible customer service, that means significantly different things to different people. As you design and optimise your contact centre flow, it’s not enough to make general assumptions about service – it’s essential that you tailor your contact centre to the people you interact with.
Read on to learn how to centre your design around your customers – and how the features of your inbound contact centre solution can help.
Understanding what your customers really need
As you evaluate how your inbound contact centre solution is being used, it’s a good idea to start with a broad overview of your customers.
Through a simple survey, team brainstorming or discussion with your agents, you can build a picture of things like:
Preferred contact channels (voice, email, web chat, and so on)
Biggest frustrations about your contact centre and contact centres in general
The most common reasons for calling
If you use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, you can also use data to track the flow of customers across a wider customer journey. This enables you to consider how your contact centre needs to support that journey at multiple stages.
In addition, some inbound contact centres may be dealing with specific customer groups that need additional help. For example, one Hostcomm customer involved in debt collection deals with potentially vulnerable people and needs to comply with strict legislation to safeguard its customers.
By capturing information on what your customers need and want from your contact centre, you can make informed decisions about the way you configure your contact centre and the technologies you use.
Tools for more effective contact centre design
Once you understand your customers, you can make sure your inbound contact centre solution addresses their needs. Of course, call routing will be a major part of this process.
Your service provider should be able to help you route calls based on a wide range of criteria, including priorities, geography, inbound telephone numbers, agent skills and more. With a multi-layered approach and alternate routing if agents aren’t available, this can be a powerful way to tailor the flow of calls to your customers.
You may also want to take advantage of advanced features, including:
Queue callbacks
Instead of waiting in a queue, customers hit a key to request a call when an agent becomes available. This is ideal for reducing queue lengths and is particularly valuable for customer groups that may already be frustrated (for example, a complaints line).
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems
While IVR systems occasionally get a bad reputation, they can be very effective when they’re designed around your customers and their needs. For example, if you understand the most common reasons that customers are calling, you can put those options at the top of your list to eliminate unnecessary waiting for the right option to appear.
Multichannel support
Even with the best design in the world, your customers may just not be interested in using the phone. From millennials to the hard of hearing, web chat, email and text message could be a better fit for certain customer groups. If that’s the case, be sure your inbound contact centre solution supports multichannel communications with centralised reporting and management.
Finally, remember that designing your contact centre around your customers isn’t just your responsibility. The right service provider will be enthusiastic about helping you get the most from your technology – and giving your customers the experience they deserve.
We’ll help you tailor your contact centre for your customers.
Find out more at https://www.hostcomm.co.uk/solutions/inbound-contact-centre
