The phone rings and one of our agents quickly answers… what happens next? What type of interaction will take place?
Providing customer support is not an exact science. Each phone can ring 10, 20, 30 times per hour. All depending on the type of interaction, the agent performance and the service provided. Type of interactions can impact highly in a call centre key performance indicators and overall in the service level. In this blog, we discuss three types of inbound call centre interactions: FAQ’s, escalation and case management. The difference between them can be summarised in two key elements: information available and difficulty to respond caller’s expectations.
FAQ’s: From message taking to basic call answering service
This call centre interaction type is the most basic. Agents have access to typical Frequent Asked Questions within a database management system. They are also trained to answer quickly to typical questions. Callers information is requested and sent to our clients for follow up when answers are not readily available or they are complicated enquiries. IT plays a vital role in this setting where call centre agents access to a database and log each call for accountability purposes. In turn, calls are quick with a call duration of less than 1 min 30 secs. An experienced call centre agent can answer and log over 20 calls per hour.
Escalation: Working together with your in-house team
Some clients have designated in-house employees to collaborate with the call centre team. A call centre agent escalates complicated calls (or outside the contract scope) to the in-house team which take care of supporting the caller. Example of current clients with escalation processes in place includes property management and health-related businesses where specific expertise is required.
Case Management: Full access to customers’ information
Thirdly, the last Call Centre Types of Interaction reviewed is the case management. In this type of scenario, the call centre agent is responsible for the full management of the interaction. Access to customer information is fully provided using our clients integrated Customer Relationship Management. Agents’ responsibilities are bigger and call duration can last up to 30 min depending on the complexity of the enquiry. We provide this service mostly for the retail sector where our call centre agents support sales, order tracking, refunds, and much more.
In this blog, we have discussed three types of call centre interactions. While this list is not exhaustive, it accentuates the three main operational processes provided by our team. If you would like more information about any of this, please get in touch!
