Explore fresh, expert perspectives on customer engagement and innovation

Labour is the single biggest cost for most contact centres, and with agent turnover hovering at around 30%, recruitment and training also eat into already tight margins.

So yes, cutting costs is a logical goal. But it’s not as simple as slashing spend. Every change you make has to be balanced against customer impact.

Why? Because customer expectations have never been greater.

Our Voice of the Consumer 2025 report found that:

• 42% of customers have switched providers after a poor service experience.
• 55% abandon calls because of excessive wait times.

That leaves contact centre leaders with a tough question: how do you reduce costs without damaging the customer experience?  The good news is these two things aren’t always in conflict.

In fact, the very strategies that cut wasted cost, like smarter workforce planning, integrated omnichannel software, and automation, are the same ones that improve customer experience.

1. Turn to omnichannel contact centre software

Running separate systems for phone, email, SMS, and webchat is inefficient and expensive. Multiple vendors mean extra licences, admin headaches, and longer training times. Worse, agents are forced to jump between disconnected systems, which slows them down and leaves customers repeating themselves.

An integrated omnichannel platform removes these barriers. One system, one supplier, one invoice. Agents get the full picture of the customer journey in one place, and customers get a smoother, faster resolution.

This matters because customers don’t stick to one channel. According to our Voice of the Consumer 2025 report, 67% prefer the phone for urgent issues, while 45% prefer email for routine updates. What they really want is the freedom to switch between channels without friction.

Omnichannel makes that possible, and it’s a win-win: lower overheads for you, less frustration for them.

2. Focus on agent training

Well-trained agents are one of the most effective cost-saving assets you can have. They resolve issues faster, make fewer mistakes, and keep customers satisfied. That translates into higher first-call resolution rates and shorter average handling times.

The cost of not training is clear. Our research shows 35% of customers have abandoned a call because the agent didn’t understand their situation. And that’s a failure of training, not technology.

Good training goes beyond scripts. It should focus on listening, empathy, compliance, and giving agents the confidence to handle difficult conversations. A confident agent doesn’t drag out a call unnecessarily, and they build trust, which leads to higher retention and lower repeat contacts.

And don’t underestimate the link between training and retention. Ongoing coaching and feedback improve job satisfaction, reducing the turnover that drives recruitment and training costs sky-high.

The end result is fewer expensive recruitment drives and a more capable, stable workforce that can build trust with customers.

3. Better workforce management

Even if you retain your agents, the next challenge to overcome if you’re looking to reduce costs is utilisation. Overstaff your contact centre, and you’re paying for idle time. Understaff your contact centre, and customers are left waiting, and abandonment rates rise.

That’s where platform features such as Workforce Management (WFM) will help you strike the right balance. WFM allows managers to forecast busy periods, optimise schedules, and monitor performance in real time. That way, you keep service levels high without wasting resources.

AI-driven workforce management tools take this further by learning from historical data. For example, they can predict Monday morning surges or seasonal peaks, so you always have the right number of agents in place.

The result is lower labour costs, smoother service, and happier customers.

4. Reduce call waiting times

Nobody likes to be kept waiting. So it’s no surprise that long waiting times are one of the biggest deal-breakers for customers. 55% abandon calls due to excessive waits, and a further 34% hang up after being transferred multiple times.

However, it’s worth rising to the challenge, as reducing average handling time (AHT) lowers costs by making your call centre more efficient, enabling more interactions to be resolved with the same-sized team of agents.

But the goal here shouldn’t be pressurising agents to rush their connected calls. A rushed interaction will result in missed details, poor compliance, and frustrated customers.

Instead, the goal is to remove wasted time, not valuable conversation. Intelligent call routing, integrated CRM, and access to full customer histories shorten handling times, while still ensuring issues are resolved thoroughly the first time.

It’s also worth noting that not every query needs to be a call. With omnichannel options like webchat, self-service, or automated payment lines, customers can often get what they need instantly, freeing up agents to focus on complex issues where human interaction matters more.

5. Route calls accurately

Call routing is another silent cost driver. Poor routing means customers are bounced between agents, leading to delays, repeat transfers, and frustration. In fact, 34% of customers abandon calls after being transferred multiple times.

Skill-based routing fixes this by matching customers with the right agent the first time. Simple issues can be handled by newer staff or self-service, while complex cases go straight to your experienced team.

The impact is twofold: customers get a faster resolution, and you reduce wasted handling time. Regularly testing and refining your call flows ensures your routing stays aligned with both customer needs and agent skills.

6. Make automation work

AI and automation shouldn’t be used to replace agents. But it can be used to free them up from repetitive, low-value tasks so they can focus on complex conversations where human empathy matters most.

Removing repetitive and low-value work that drives costs up and satisfaction down, is a win-win for customers and agents alike.

AI-powered tools make it possible in a more practical way than traditional automation ever could.

AI Agents can handle routine interactions end-to-end. This includes queries such as:

• Customer authentication requests
• Simple account queries
• Making payments
• Getting status updates.

When fewer calls reach human agents in the first place, less time is spent on tasks that don’t need human judgement or empathy.

AI Chatbots support the same goal but across digital channels. They give customers the instant answers they need to common questions, and a simple way to complete everyday tasks without waiting in a call queue. From a cost perspective, this reduces inbound call volume. And from a customer perspective, it removes friction and frustration.

However, if an interaction does need to move to a human agent, it escalates quickly. The context that’s already been captured is passed through to a live agent. This means that human agents can focus on resolving the issue without having to repeat checks or re-gather information.

This means lower call handling time and better agent utilisation without compromising service quality. AI solutions support an always-on customer support model, allowing contact centres to extend availability without increasing headcount.

With recruitment and training costs already high, not automating these predictable interactions is a direct and avoidable cost.

7. Re-evaluate your technology

Technology is one of the biggest hidden cost centres in a contact operation. Outdated systems, overlapping vendors, and complex licensing drain budgets without delivering value.

That’s why regular reviews of your tech stack are essential. Are you paying for tools that duplicate each other? Are agents wasting time switching systems? Do your licences scale with demand?

Modern platforms should consolidate multiple channels, integrate core features like secure payments and WFM, and scale with your operation.

MaxContact’s omnichannel platform is built to do exactly that: consolidate, streamline, and grow with you, so you can reduce overheads while improving service.

Contact centres can’t afford to ignore rising costs, but neither can they afford to let service slip. The good news is, cost reduction and customer experience don’t have to be at odds.

By optimising your workforce, investing in training, using automation wisely, and rethinking your tech stack, you can cut wasted spend and deliver smoother, more satisfying customer journeys.

That’s how you build a contact centre that’s efficient, resilient, and ready for the future.

Learn how MaxContact’s AI-powered contact centre platform helps reduce costs without compromising CX.

Book a Demo.

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How does your contact centre support potentially vulnerable customers?  

As agents speak with countless people daily, while trying to meet targets and other responsibilities, sometimes it can be tough to give each customer the time and sensitivity they deserve.  

However, there has been an increasing number of vulnerable adults, in part due to the cost-of-living crisis and the pandemic. MaxContact commissioned research on 1,000 customers who identified as vulnerable across the country to find out more about their needs and how contact centre staff could better support them.  

In this webinar session, MaxContact’s Sean McIver speaks with Sandra Thompson, Goleman Emotional Intelligence coach in the UK and Founder of Ei Evolution, and Helen Lord, CEO and Founder of the Vulnerability Registration Service (VRS), to explore how contact centres can support vulnerable customers.  

Keep reading for the top takeaways from our discussion or tune in to the full video.

Identifying vulnerable customers

How do we define a vulnerable person?  

Unfortunately, there is no one single answer to this. Vulnerability comes in all different shapes and sizes. It could relate to financial vulnerability, recent job loss, age or disability-related issues, mental illness, or bereavement. Any of these things can affect how people make decisions and how much support they need.

When handling sensitive topics in calls, it’s so important that first line staff have some training in how to best respond to and support customers going through tough times.  

As Helen explains, there’s greater recognition of the different aspects of vulnerability these days – especially following the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis we currently face. People are generally more open about things like financial hardship and mental health, which is a positive step.  

However, there’s still a long way to go in Helen’s opinion. There is currently a lot of talk and not enough action.

How businesses have responded to an increase in vulnerable customers

Sandra says that when leaders and staff have a better understanding of compassion and empathy, they can help to keep customers calm and resolve their problems more effectively. Part of that includes being proactive in giving out information so that customers feel like they have more control over their own situation.  

Many organisations are realising this and are doing what they can to train their staff in this way. However, there are still plenty of organisations that don’t do this. As a result, contact centre staff often suffer from burnout, and customers are left feeling like the agents don’t understand them.  

This leads to greater tension between the organisation and the customer, which means that issues take longer to resolve.  

There are two stages of handling customer vulnerability. The first is to identify it, and the second is to think about how we can accommodate it in customer interactions.  

As Helen says, dealing with vulnerability comes down to good customer service first and foremost.  

Beyond that, organisations need to rethink how they map customer journeys because not all customers will experience things the same way.  

For example, those experiencing mental health issues or people who are victims of economic abuse will have an entirely different experience. That’s why it’s important to consider all the different types of customer journeys.  

While you may not be able to map out each individual one, understanding that everyone experiences things differently and taking things on a case-by-case basis will help agents support each customer individually.  

The key to this is emotional intelligence. When agents have greater emotional intelligence, it makes them more empathetic and understanding of each customer’s journey. It also helps to keep agents themselves calm when dealing with emotionally difficult calls with customers.

Three things organisations can do to provide a better service

1 . Create content to support customers

Sandra says that if you have a good understanding of your customers and their needs, you should create content such as videos that help to build that emotional connection.  

Videos with useful advice can help customers feel empowered to tackle their own challenges. This can also reduce the number of customer calls.  

2 . Ensure you have the right statistics  

This means, for example, having a way to see if a customer has called multiple times and keeps getting cut off. If people are discussing emotional issues on a call and they get cut off, it can increase mental stress.  

Having that data keeps agents informed and ready to help customers right away.  

3 . Try something counterintuitive

While many call centres have targets on call handling times, Sandra has a method that might seem a little counterintuitive.  

Instead of trying to speed up the call, simply say “take your time.” When customers are stressed and are scrambling to remember a password, for example, saying “take your time” helps to keep them calm.  

Once they’re calm, they’re more likely to remember a password, and you can resolve the issues much faster. While it might seem like this phrase would increase call time, you might find it does the opposite.  

Protect contact centre staff

Dealing with difficult situations and emotions can take its toll on your agents as well. That’s why it’s so important to think about their wellbeing and mental health as well.

Helen suggests doing what you can to avoid a blame culture. By focusing so much on call times and targets, you just add more stress to the situation. Agents might feel rushed when dealing with sensitive issues, and this can affect customer service.  

Another way you can protect contact centre staff is to ensure they have adequate training to deal with difficult calls. If agents don’t feel prepared, this can increase stress, and that affects the customer’s experience as well. Good training is a win-win for all.  

Sandra shares some more ideas about how you can improve the training side of things.

1 . Don’t forget to check in on your remote staff

It’s important in today’s world to make sure you’re checking in on your remote staff. You can try out tools such as TeamMood, which staff can use to share feedback and let you know if they’re feeling low or stressed.  

Remember, people won’t usually come to tell you this themselves, but a tool can prompt them.

2 . Check-in on team meetings

Before diving into your meeting agenda, have a quick check-in with everyone. Ask how they are and if they give vague answers, dig in further and ask more specific questions.  

Sandra suggests, “what’s the top thing you feel amazing about?” Specific questions can help you understand your staff more easily and spot when something is wrong.  

3 . Invite people to develop their understanding of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is essential when handling difficult calls and emotional situations. Sandra suggests encouraging your agents to learn more about what it is and how you can improve it via online articles and videos.  

Improve outgoing communication

Incoming communication from customer calls is one thing to think about, but we can also improve any outbound communications as well.

Sandra has three ideas you can try out:

1 . Prepare your customer for calls they’re due to receive

A quick email to let them know to expect a call over the next few days or a check-in can help to prepare customers. That way, they’re not suddenly dealing with a call and trying to figure out their account details. This can just increase stress, so a simple heads-up can go a long way.

2 . Make sure you’re tuned in to responses

Hearing and listening are two different things. When you make those outbound calls, are you really hearing the response the customer is giving? What words are they using? What behaviours are they showing when they receive calls?  

3 . Empower agents

What degree of risk is there for agents who go above and beyond to help individual customers? Are agents empowered to resolve customer issues without passing them on to another member of staff?  

By empowering agents to really help customers, they can feel good about their work and your customers will also get the care they need quickly.  

By increasing openness and understanding – while improving staff training, contact centres can better support their customers.  

To learn more about customer vulnerability and what call centres can do to improve their approach to it, tune in to the full webinar.  

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We’re delighted to announce that we have been awarded the IT Vendor of the Year Award by the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT and Computing.

The awards ceremony took place in Central London in November 2022, with the industry out in force to support the awards and celebrate success after another challenging year. The UK IT Industry Awards represent the best and brightest of the IT sector – of all sizes.

Richard Coward, Sales Director at MaxContact said the win “really recognises all the hard work our company’s put in for the last 12 months, how much we’ve grown and the dedication of the team.”

“It’s nice to be celebrated against talented, large organisations. We’re a small organisation compared to others in this category, and it’s really important for smaller organisations to be recognised.”

A special thank you to all of our hard-working employees for your contributions – awards like this highlight the synergy, care and perseverance across internal teams. This award is truly a cumulation of lots of individual efforts – so thank you!

Find out more about MaxContact, here.

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As a business process outsourcing (BPO) leader, you know that more and more businesses are turning to outsourcing as part of their growth strategy.

In fact, the global business process outsourcing market, valued at $232.32 billion in 2020, is expected to grow by 8.5% until at least 2028.

BPOs provide client companies with valuable services at reasonable cost, because they use specialisation to create economies of scale. Nowhere is that more true than in the contact centre space.

Unlike client businesses, BPOs can focus entirely on providing great contact centre services, because that is their core business. But to do so, they have to employ systems and processes that allow them to scale, flex and support clients effectively without increasing costs too much.

Here are some of the challenges your BPO contact centre may be facing and how to solve them.

You want to offer your clients the best possible service, but your contact centre software doesn’t flex as you need it to.

As a BPO contact centre, you need to flex with your clients’ needs. Maybe you’re onboarding new clients quickly. Maybe some of your clients have seasonal peaks and troughs in their trade.

A BPO contact centre has to be able to flex up and down easily to meet these changing requirements, or risk providing a substandard service or piling on costs.

With a solution like MaxContact, you can add or remove licences instantly. What’s more, as a secure cloud-based service you can hire the best talent wherever they are in the UK or around the world. By contrast, on-premise solutions tie you to a location. At a time when talent is hard to find, that can be a considerable drawback for an outsourced contact centre.

You want to win new business but your contact centre provider doesn’t support you on tenders or react quickly enough to new instructions.

Winning new clients depends on being fast and nimble. You want to be ahead of the competition. You also want to provide a comprehensive review of the benefits of your service and solution.

Not every contact centre solution provider supports clients on tenders, but MaxContact does. We’ll advise on RFPs and help you hit tight deadlines. We react quickly so you can seize every opportunity. If you need a new campaign setting up in a week, we’re happy to oblige.

Your team is growing and you’re struggling to train staff quickly enough.

BPOs often have to hire large numbers of staff quickly to fulfil contracts. Those staff then need to be trained to a high standard. That’s a continual challenge for outsourced contact centres.

MaxContact is designed for ease of use. It’s an intuitive system that allows agents to seamlessly move through the steps needed to fulfil customer requests logically and simply. It also provides team leaders with the option to provide regular and detailed feedback for continuous improvement purposes. MaxContact also provides free training that quickly gets your teams up to speed.

5 tips for finding the best contact centre solution for your outsourced contact centre

If you’re looking for a contact centre solution for your BPO, always take the following into account:

• Security and compliance

All contact centres have to be secure and compliant. BPO contact centres, often dealing with several clients or campaigns at once, even more so. At the very least, you need tools to ensure that you’re GDPR and Ofcom compliant, the latest security certifications and – if you take payments – a secure payments manager. Make sure cloud based systems are housed in secure, compliant data centres.

• Ease of implementation

You can’t be left without a contact centre solution while you implement a new system. Make sure your chosen software is easy to install, maintain and upgrade, and that your provider will support you at every step. Cloud-based solutions mean the hardware and infrastructure is housed elsewhere, so they’re the quickest and easiest to install and update.

• Ease of use

The easier the software is to operate, the more likely it is that your teams will make full use of all its tools and features and the quicker they’re productive. It also makes it straightforward for agents to swap between clients and campaigns. Ask for a free trial – MaxContact offers one – and ask your team how they get on.

• Scalable and flexible

A BPO’s needs can change quickly, and then change again soon afterwards. Your solution must be able to scale up and down easily, to meet the demands of your clients. BPOs with inflexible solutions risk losing clients if they can’t scale quickly enough.

• Service and communication

A BPO contact centre depends heavily on a nimble software solution and the service that supports it. Ask potential providers how easy it is to raise support tickets, and how long do they typically take to be resolved. Get to know your providers before you make a decision. Are they contact centre experts or just resellers? Do they answer queries quickly and comprehensively?

Expert solution for outsourced contact centres

As a BPO, you rely on your contact centre solution to help you provide a professional and cost-effective service to multiple clients. At MaxContact, we get it. We’re contact centre experts with wide experience of helping BPOs meet challenges and seize opportunities. We offer a powerful, customer engagement platform that adapts to your clients’ needs, and a partnership model of service that makes our team an extension of your own.

For more information about how MaxContact could help your BPO, click here or get in touch.

Industry expert Natalie Calvert helps ambitious leaders powerfully engage customers and employees in a way that impacts the bottom line. Her clients have included organisations of all sizes, including some of the world’s largest brands: O2, Royal Mail, Audi, LEGO, M&S and BT. She is also a board advisor and judge for the Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards.

In this guest post, she plots a smarter route to better customer experiences and explains how contact centres can develop a winning CX…

The contact centre is at the heart of the digital revolution because it is responsible for managing customer interactions through various channels. That means your contact centre has to be at the forefront of a modern human, streamlined and technology-driven customer experience.

In fact, a new role is rapidly developing for contact centre advisors, which involves managing more complex customer needs, dealing with more emotive conversations, and doing so in faster and smarter ways than ever before.

In the omnichannel contact centre – one that combines human and digital contact channels – bringing together customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) is crucial to business success.

What makes a successful contact centre experience?

Most leaders concur with the adage that “happy staff and happy customers go hand in hand”. Yet, in reality, many companies run two tracks and don’t reap the rewards of a holistic strategy. CX and EX are, increasingly, highly dependent on one another and have become totally interconnected.

Despite substantial investments in customer experience initiatives and employee engagement programmes, contact centres still face significant issues related to customer satisfaction, retention, recruitment, absenteeism, and employee turnover. Something must be wrong.

Turning this around and creating sustainable success is contingent on aligning customer and employee experiences.

To do this you need to focus on the three key areas to win with CX:

1. (Re)Define your customer contact centre strategy

The best contact centres are those that have a truly holistic approach to customer service. The first step in developing your customer contact centre strategy is (re)-defining it.

Contact centres were transformed overnight by the pandemic, and many employees now work from home in a variety of hybrid models. It’s time to redefine strategy considering new working methods, using redesigned processes, technologies, team dynamics and advanced skilling requirements.

A customer contact centre strategy which includes a customer contact business plan, target operating model (TOM), and customer experience model (CEM) alongside your CX employee experience (CXEE) plan will guarantee your success, streamline your strategy and produce better results.

Ensuring that each component cleverly integrates customer experience and employee experience alongside the company’s strategy will drive the best possible outcomes for customers and employees.

2. Be your customers’ hero

Customers want to experience the ‘hero effect’ when buying your products or services. Be their hero by delivering an outstanding experience!

Employees that do the right thing, genuinely care, go the extra mile and champion the customer are Customer Heroes. They also have the mindset and skills to turn detractors into promoters, and complainers into advocates. As a result, they build loyalty, increase customer satisfaction and grow business value.

Customer heroes are highly engaged and happy, and so are their customers.

Having employees who are engaged provides companies with 89% greater customer satisfaction and 50% higher customer loyalty than companies with disengaged employees (source: Korn Ferry/Hay Group).

Ask yourself how you and your fellow leaders can develop your employees into Customer Heroes.

• • Do you have a customer-focused mission and vision that guides your entire organisation?
• • Is your customer-focused mission being fulfilled by giving employees a voice and allowing them to make decisions?
• • Do you have customer service champions and brand ambassadors in each department who drive the customer mission?
• • Do you understand what your customers want from you to be their hero, and how you can deliver it?
• • Do you understand the mindset and skills that are required from your CX frontline and their leaders?
• • Always remember that customer centric organisations are 20%+ more profitable (source Forbes).
• • Overall, know that developing your employees into Customer Heroes will result in more satisfied customers and employees.

3. CX employee community

Build a strong CX employee community by fostering collaboration, communication, and customer centricity among employees. This will drive customer-focused outcomes and make your organisation more effective – and your staff happier.

Nearly three quarters of employees say that better communication would increase their productivity at work. Team huddles are one of the most effective ways to build winning CX teams by allowing groups to collaborate on ideas, disseminate information, and focus on customer centricity. The key here is ensuring leaders have the skills and tools in place for inspiring and effective hybrid team huddles.

Creating a CX employee community with the customer at its heart will not only improve customer experience but also transform employee experience.

In summary, the experience economy and the digital era are changing our lives in ways never seen. Contact centres are facing significant challenges to deliver exceptional experiences, tailored to meet the expectations of the digital age. It is time to meet those expectations head on. Become your customers’ hero, redefine your customer contact centre strategy and grow your CX employee community. CX+EX connects everything. Don’t forget that when you align the stars, the magic begins…

Transform your CX and EX with MaxContact’s customer engagement software, giving customers and employees an unrivalled digital, in-person and omnichannel contact experience. Contact us to find out more.

Customer complaints are an expected part of the job when it comes to contact centres. But if you want to reduce complaints and improve the customer experience, you have to be proactive in your approach.

We sat down with CX+EX Coach & Expert, Natalie Calvert, and MaxContact

Product Owner, Sean McIver, to get their takes on how to reduce complaints and set up winning systems to improve the customer experience.

To hear Sean and Natalie’s top strategies, tune in to the full webinar or keep reading.

Why you need to know your customer journey

The very first thing businesses should do when handling complaints is to prioritise the customer experience. By putting the customer front and centre of everything, you’re naturally going to understand their frustrations and where the bottlenecks in your business are.

The common challenge Sean highlights is that while many businesses talk about the importance of customer experience, many don’t know what that journey looks like. That’s why companies should proactively test out their customer journeys, whether that’s signing up for a new service or making a complaint.

When was the last time you tried to call in or communicate via email as a customer would? By taking some time out to do this, you can understand what the customer experiences and find the snags in the process.

What businesses can do to reduce complaints

Rising customer complaints are becoming much more commonplace. Customers are more vocal and have higher expectations today.

So what can we do about rising complaints?

Natalie says first, you need to create a strategic review of your company. Strategic reviews can help you gain a good picture of what’s going on in your business. You can see what’s causing the issues by looking at your processes, volumes, customer types, and key triggers. This will help you understand what’s really going on so you can get the whole thing moving towards a resolution.

You can also look at the training quality of your staff. Most staff are trained not in how to deal with complaints, but how to follow the standards that the company wants to deliver – which are two very different things.

Another thing you can do is calculate the cost versus the value of a complaint. What does it cost you to deal with complaints, and what is the value you get back when you do or don’t deal with a complaint?

It’s also important to look at this from both a customer experience (CX) and an employee experience (EX) angle as well. Dealing with angry customers all day can take a toll, so it’s important that frontline staff get the support they need. By ignoring the EX side of things, you could have issues with high staff turnover and absences.

Modelling your complaints procedures on other companies

Customer service and handling complaints can vastly differ from company to company. But spend some time thinking of the companies that give great customer experiences and resolve complaints quickly and efficiently. Does your complaints procedure follow suit? Or does it look more like a company that doesn’t return phone calls or has an inconsistent service?

Natalie gives two examples of companies that manage their complaints efficiently – Amazon and Apple. They deliver a consistent, organised experience on a mass scale. While you may not be able to replicate Amazon’s customer service resources, you can take ideas from them and adapt them for your own strategy.

Why staff are at the heart of the customer experience

At the heart of your complaints strategy is the staff who deliver the communication and resolutions to customers.

Natalie says that over 60% of complaints are around staff attitude and behaviour. So, it’s not just about building a clear customer journey and process. It’s also about how the staff themselves deliver that experience.

We need staff to be fully trained in not just the process, but also how to deliver what the customer wants and expects.

Natalie says that contact centre staff need to learn and understand three things:

1. When customers get the trust and transparency they need, the staff member becomes the customer’s hero. Think about how you can become a customer hero.

2. We should aim for a win-win scenario – so that the resolution is good for both the customer and the organisation.

3. We have to be trusted advisors. How can staff build their knowledge, resilience, and skills to become that trusted advisor?

How to get to the root cause of complaints

To understand the root cause, you need to look at those early feedback loops – something that Sean believes is often missed.

The frontline members of staff who talk to customers on a daily basis are a resource that can be utilised. They know which issues are cropping up the most and how they directly affect customers. By utilising this resource, you can find root causes for issues and resolve them before they turn into more complaints.

Another plus side for this is that it ensures frontline staff don’t have to deal with the same issues over and over again because this can make them become robotic. Once you become robotic in your customer interactions, it’s harder to display empathy and truly engage with customers, which affects their experience overall.

If you wait until the later stages when those issues have built up over time, it can be too late. You’re then fire-fighting problems instead of preventing them, which costs time, money and effort.

So it’s important to have a system that helps your team raise early red flags.

Natalie believes this all starts with having a complaints culture in the boardroom. By being proactive and positive about complaints, the entire team can work together to find solutions.

You can do this in three ways:

1. Design the conversation by deep diving into what practices work best and replicating them.

2. Empower your staff to make decisions and resolve complaints without passing them on to other departments.

3. Create good stakeholder management (both internal and external) to keep everyone informed and involved.

Six strategies for reducing complaints and improving the customer experience

1. Staff training

Once you have proper staff training, you can eradicate a lot of complaints that come through. There are lots of different types of complaints that require different competency levels to handle. Make sure your staff get the right training and are empowered to tackle those different types of complaints.

2. Active listening

Active listening is about using empathy to get to the root of the problem and show the customer that you truly understand. If you actively listen, you can engage with the reasons behind the complaint and be empathetic and transparent about any shortfalls or mistakes in the process.

3. Complaints culture in leadership

By building a complaints culture, you ensure that complaints aren’t just a number. You can be proactive and look at root causes, staff training, and active listening to boost your understanding of the problems and provide better resolutions for the customer.

4. Proactivity

Don’t assume customers know the next steps in the process. Tell them and clearly outline what will come next after they make a complaint. This can completely transform the customer’s experience, especially when you follow up later to check if the complaint has been resolved.

AI technology can support this process by handling your customer’s frequently asked questions without impacting your agent’s availability. Find out how our AI-powered chatbot for contact centres can support you.

5. Continuous improvement

Like most things in customer service, building a strategy for complaints is not a one-and-done thing. You should continually look to improve your methodology by looking at data, feedback, quality control, and strategic reviews to reduce complaints.

6. Accessibility

Avoiding complaints from customers just leaves issues unresolved. So ensure that it’s easy and quick for customers to make complaints because you’re much more likely to resolve that issue quickly and effectively.

Poor processes often mean that the method of making the complaint becomes another problem for the customer. And this just results in more wasted time and frustration for everyone. Check your own process for making complaints and tweak it to make it as simple as possible.

Complaints might not be anyone’s favourite thing to spend time on, but they are an ongoing part of contact centre work. By being proactive, strategizing, and really taking the time to understand customers and support staff, it’s a win-win for everyone involved. For more on this, be sure to watch the full webinar session.

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