On the first episode of Talk Time with MaxContact, Sean McIver speaks with Garry Gormley, Founder & CEO of FAB Outsourced Solutions. They discuss technological and process opportunities contact centres could seize to enhance customer experience and the work lives of agents.
This blog features a recap from the MaxContact podcast Talk Time which hosts key thought leaders to discuss emerging trends, industry insights, and innovative technologies that help contact centres optimise their customer experience.
Gary has been the CEO of FAB Solutions since 2019. The company specialises in auditing and understanding operational effectiveness and identifying areas of opportunity within the businesses they work with. He is also the Founder of The Contact Centre Network and Associate Director of Training Next Level Consultancy Limited. More recently, Garry started FAB Outsourced Solutions.
In a world where customers are becoming more demanding and competition is fiercer than ever, providing an exceptional customer experience has become the holy grail for businesses. And at the heart of this service are contact centres, the frontline warriors responsible for delivering outstanding customer experiences that create lasting impressions and build positive brand images.
But let’s be honest. Asking customers for feedback once in a blue moon or bombarding them with spam emails and calls won’t cut it anymore. In today’s world, delivering exceptional customer service means providing a seamless, supportive, and valuable experience that customers will remember for a long time.
What Makes a Great Customer Experience
Contact centres face a significant challenge in changing the way customers perceive them by delivering exceptional customer experiences. To achieve this goal, it is crucial to focus on improving the customer process. Three ways to improve this process are:
- Simplify the process as much as possible to minimise confusion and frustration;
- Offer customers a range of interaction options to cater to their diverse needs and preferences;
- Increase the speed of resolution to reduce wait times and improve overall customer satisfaction.
In addition, it is essential to follow up with customers to identify areas for improvement. This feedback can help contact centres understand their customer’s pain points and tailor their services accordingly, leading to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. Industry expert Natalie Calvert joined us in a recent blog to discuss further ways to develop a winning CX in your contact centre.
Closed-Loop Feedback
However, a significant challenge contact centres face is the lack of timely customer feedback. That’s why establishing a closed-loop feedback system is crucial to engaging with customers and understanding how to improve their experience. With such a system in place, contact centres can collect customer feedback, analyse it, and implement changes to improve the customer experience continually.
Levelling Up the Contact Centre Landscape
Another opportunity that contact centres can seize to improve service delivery is leveraging existing technology. By improving communication channels, automating repetitive tasks, and enhancing customer interactions, technology can transform contact centre operations. However, it is vital to fix the fundamentals of a contact centre before deploying technology. As Garry puts it,
“We need to fix the fundamentals and then start to work out how technology can support them so that we can make the best of both.”
Retaining Talent
Retention of talent is another major challenge facing contact centres in the face of the “great resignation.” Employee turnover is costly and can significantly impact the customer experience. Contact centres must, therefore, upscale their team leaders to recruit the right talent.
“The frontline agents are your key lens to all of your brand and customer experience. So if we can make their lives easier by making the customers’ lives easier, then it has a knock-on impact in terms of customer experience.”
Another point to consider is training team leaders to conduct high-level interviews and identify the best talent through the right type of questioning, role plays, and onboarding experience. Additionally, contact centres should support, develop, coach, and manage people internally, giving them access to knowledge and tools to perform their job effectively, which can significantly improve employee retention.
To deliver exceptional customer experiences and change the perception of contact centres, organisations must improve the customer experience by simplifying processes, enhancing customer interactions, and speeding up resolution times. As Garry points out, “If we can help change customer perceptions and provide a better experience, that has a knock-on impact on how the agents engage with customers and the experience that they give customers at that point.” Therefore, it is crucial for contact centres to DO & BE better to achieve exceptional customer experience.
Listen to this episode of Talk Time with MaxContact to learn more from Garry about how contact centres can improve customer and employee experiences.
