Whether running an outbound call center or an inbound call center, you must do your best while talking to customers. If you fail to give a pleasant call experience, there is a high possibility that customers will leave your brand and join your competitor. Due to this reason, companies mostly outsource their call center operations to third-party companies that have years of experience in handling customers’ queries.
However, if you want to continue running an in-house inbound call center and seek some fabulous strategies that will help you win back lost customers, read the following details attentively:
- Avoid making your IVR menu irritating and confusing
Whenever customers call to connect with the brand to get help regarding products or services, they first must go through the IVR menu. They do not mind this because a well-created IVR menu helps them reach the correct department quickly and even allows them to resolve generic issues on their own.
However, to reduce customer calls, some brands make their IVR menu complex by adding too many options. As a negative consequence, customers get stuck in the never-ending loop of options, which causes frustration and results in a call abandonment. As we can understand, frustrated customers leave the brand and join others for a better service experience.
Therefore, if you want to win back lost customers, wipe out all unnecessary options from your IVR menu to make it easier for the callers to reach your support agents in their hour of need.
In case the reason for adding too many options in the IVR menu is the unavailability of the required number of customer support agents, you should get inbound call center services from a reputed vendor.
- Invest in employee training
Another most effective inbound call center strategy is to invest in employee training programs. Brands sometimes try to reduce the training period so that newly joined support agents can get on the work as soon as possible. However, this move usually backfires because inexperienced and ill-trained support agents fail to live up to customers’ expectations during the call and sometimes get involved in a heated conversation as well. As an outcome, the customer turnover rate increases along with negative reviews.
Therefore, you should invest in employee training programs properly so that new agents can understand how to match the performance level of their seniors. During the training period, you should conduct role-play activities, play call recordings, teach how to use call scripts, etc. It will help new hires deal with customers of contrasting nature and maintain the CSAT score.
If you feel investing in extensive employee training could be an expensive and time-consuming affair, you can go for a pocket-friendly option: Get phone answering services from a trustworthy provider like Outsource2india.
- Let your support agents show empathy instead of forcing them to stick with the call scripts.
One of the best strategies to win back lost customers is to show empathy whenever they come to you to get a resolution to product-or service-related issues. Generally, companies having an in-house call center force their agents to stick with call scripts while assisting customers. This is because they want to eliminate all possibilities of human errors and offer consistent support experience.
The intention is noble, but it sometimes frustrates the customers because support agents’ responses feel robotic whenever they stick with the call script. Due to the very same reason, customers feel that the support agent is not taking the situation seriously and just trying to waste their time.
This is the primary reason why you should let your agents show empathy whenever they feel that the customer’s issue is exasperating. It will calm down the whole situation and pave the way for a meaningful dialogue.
Customers place a call as they seek human touch while complaining about any issue. Otherwise, they can go for any other medium like email, live chat, etc. Hence, give your support agents some liberty to meet customers’ expectations while handling calls.
If, on the off chance, you may feel showing empathy will lead to a long call queue because your support team won’t be able to hang up quickly if they keep talking to each customer. In that case, it is highly suggested to outsource your inbound call center operations to a reputed vendor as they know how to blend empathy while using call scripts.
Final few words:
Customers have always been the heart of businesses because their presence decides how long you will sustain in the market. Therefore, you should strive to make their experience outstanding at every point of interaction.
We have uncovered a few amazing inbound call center strategies to win back lost customers. The strategies will help you offer a splendid call experience to trigger positive reviews on the internet, which will eventually grab the eyes of those customers that left your brand earlier due to a poor support experience.
