Companies always need to strike a balance between the two big Q’s in relation to customer support: Quality and Quantity. Both are really important from an operations perspective and from a customer satisfaction approach.
Quality Customer Service
Customers are looking for a quality service during the entire sales cycle from pre purchase validation, the purchase process and the after sales support.
Quality is a key metric for every business especially for the call centre sector. There are various methods available to allow you to measure the satisfaction level of customers after interacting with a customer service representative.
Techniques to measure the quality of a call centre include:
- % of fist call resolutions: The quality and accuracy of the information provided is measured by the number of queries that are solved in the first contact. A well trained team supported by an up-to-date knowledge base system will enable the frontline team to deal with most technical and general queries during the first call.
- C-Sat metrics: Customers are requested to complete a survey after the interaction with the customer agent. They can rate the interaction and their satisfaction level from 1 to 5. All responses are compiled and the average is given for each agent.
- Quality Control Forms: The call centre operations manager and the quality assurance manager will listen to random selected call recordings for quality and monitoring purposes. Each call will be objectively measured using a set of parameters that include: information gathering, accuracy of data collected, adherence to procedure, and tone/professionalism of the interaction.
- Mystery Shopping Exercises: To measure adherence to process and procedure, mystery shopping exercises are performed.
Quantity of Customer Interactions
Metrics that measure the quantity of the customer care service include:
- Average waiting time: It takes into account how long the customer has been waiting until a customer representative answers the phone. This metric is improved by forecasting, increasing staffing levels or having an overflow call centre service.
- % call answered: Number of calls answered vs. number of calls received. The industry standard is 80/20. 80% of call answered within 20 seconds. Obviously we aim to answer all calls received as fast as possible.
- Average talking time: This metric has to be monitored properly: a quick conversation should still provide the right responses for the customer; therefore, it needs to be analysed with quality metrics such as C-Sat and % of first call resolution.
All businesses looking to outsource their customer service support function, should consider this metric when setting up a service. It is important for the team to monitor their performance and provide feedback on service levels.
To ensure that quality and quantity controls are in place it is imperative to have activity reports and proof of international quality standards such as the ISO 9001.
Contact us for more information about how Arema Connect can support your business with a quality call centre team.
