The holy grail of customer support services is – to reach out to a maximum number of customers in need of help, to satisfy them with the solutions or services and to generate sales in the process. It is believed that earning a new customer is 5-10% more costly than getting repeat sales or referral sales from a loyal customer base. This is why large brands are spending significant worth behind satisfying their customers. Call center outsourcing is not bound to only post-sales support, it can help brands earn leads and leverage the benefits of a promotional campaign. The basics of achieving the benchmark in customer support services are nothing different for this year, but certain things have evolved. So, the post will inform you of the ways to achieve the Holy Grail in customer service.
Making the Most of Marketing Potential
Ask a business owner how many leads are enough? They will blow it away as a dubious question. There is no extent to enough when it comes to lead generation. So, the sales teams are always craving for more and more leads. Not only this, companies are willing to invest in technology that will provide insights into these leads. This is where the evolution of marketing automation technology can help brands. Now the sales teams can earn leads and immediately note them down on the CRM tool. Once the leads are embedded in the CRM tool, the marketers will have better visibility into the history and behavior of leads. The integration can be beneficial when the leads are first contacted by the marketing professionals. It will also help in shortlisting leads based on certain pre-set criterions.
Streamlining all the Communications for Support and Sales
The use of modern CRM has aided call center outsourcing services enormously. The modern-day agents can take a quick look through the CRM software to learn about customer information, purchase history, and other key facets. But call centers should look to integrate their phone system with the CRM. If these two are not integrated then the agents will have to spend more time behind each call. They have to follow a step by step process to search for ID of the caller, keep the caller engaged while they search through the information and start communicating effectively only after the customer data is fetched. This is why the CRM chose should be easy to integrate with telephony and have features such as:
- Click to Dial
- Automatic Call Logging
- Inbound Call Notification
- Transfer Support
All these features make it very simple to connect all the outbound or inbound calls into the CRM system. It makes the work of frontline agents very simple. The telephony integration tells the agents about the name of the caller as soon as a call enters the network. They can quickly start searching for data related to the customer. If the problem cannot be solved by the agent, then there is a way of mentioning it before sending the issue to the technical team. This will be featured as a follow-on task against the caller’s name. The agents can set follow up reminders in the CRM which would help them get back to the customers on time.
Create a Community Feeling
Every business owner wants to cut down on their operational costs. There is a way to cut the cost of customer support services. This can be achieved by promoting a self-service culture among the customer base. How to achieve this? Simply build a community of customers that is focused upon your services or products. Customer communities should consist of loyal and new customers as well as the company representatives and agents with extensive knowledge about the products and services. In the early stages someone on the company’s behalf would have to mediate, but once the community gets into full swing ideas will flow from the customers themselves. The problems raised by a new customer could be easily answered by loyal customers and likewise. The customer communities also help brands conceptualize new product ideas or their features. The community can be integrated into your CRM system. By this integration, someone can watch over the common issues raised in the community. Companies should create a list of common problems and address them by creating FAQs or knowledge articles. The solutions and suggestions can be provided to the community members on time using the CRM system. It would be just like the conventional customer support with a bit of difference to it. Such a step would significantly reduce the call center outsourcing costs. But make sure that the knowledge base is updated from time to time, based on the common queries posted in the community.
2015 would be a year when technology is the differentiating factor between brands. Whether marketing or customer service, the use of modern-day CRM systems will turbocharge the performance of your company. So, if you are looking for the most effective tip to boost performance, sales and customer satisfaction then it would be wise to adopt the new technology before it is too late.