Call Centre Mistakes that Drive Customers Crazy

With the increasing level of call centre technology available for businesses, caller’s customer service expectations are at an all-time high. Customers today feel that they should not have to tolerate sub-par services, and many are prepared to take their commerce elsewhere. If you want to ensure that your business avoids falling victim to this then check out three things below you should steer clear of doing.

1) Lengthy call queues

If a client is choosing to call a customer service line in the first place, the odds are that they are experiencing some sort of issue which needs resolving. If upon dialling they are immediately informed that they are going to be waiting a long time before speaking to anyone this will add to their initial annoyance.

According to a survey carried out by American Express, two of the most irritating phrases to customers include “We’re sorry, but we are experiencing unusually heavy call volumes. You can continue to hold or try back at another time” and “Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold.”

If you want to avoid your agents having to deal with very irritated clients, then make sure you aren’t one of the call centres which keeps their customers waiting for obscene amounts of time in queues. This may mean hiring more agents or altering work schedules in order to ensure busier times have more people available to take calls.

2) Excessive time on hold

As a customer, there is nothing you dread more after finally getting through to an agent than hearing the words “Would you mind if I place you on hold while I…”. Phrases like this set off alarm bells for clients, making them wary that the call is going to last much longer than expected. Studies have found that a third of customers feel there is no justification for being placed on hold, meaning a huge proportion of your callers could be growing very frustrated.

Admittedly, sometimes it may be inevitable for agents to have to make use of the ‘hold’ button. However, every call centre should strive to keep these instances to a minimum. It is key for call agents to be trained to do everything they can to resolve caller issues whilst keeping them on the line. Customers are much more likely to respond positively if communication is maintained whilst the call agent searches for the relevant information.

3) Passing a customer around

Another very common issue which callers find extremely irritating is being unable to reach the relevant person to resolve their issue, being passed from one agent to the next in the mean time. Bouncing customers from one agent to another is arguably one of the most frustrating things clients can experience from call centres.

This problem is further exacerbated when these agents don’t communicate amongst one another, forcing the customer to explain their issue from the start to each they get transferred to. This is a waste of callers time and will put them off calling in the future, and could result in a loss of business from them altogether.

This issue can be overcome by cross-training agents. If callers are getting passed on from one agent to the next, it is most likely a result of your agents lacking the knowledge to resolve their problem themselves. By training agents to handle a wider variety of issues that customers may experience, the chances of them having to transfer callers is significantly reduced.