Imagine if Jolly Old Saint Nick (Santa Claus) ran your customer service call center. What would customers experience?
Every Customer Service Rep is Happy
Santa is always happy for the kids. Likewise, everyone answering a phone would be genuinely happy and have a smile on their face.
Lesson Learned: When employees are happy, it helps put customers at ease and can help overcome any problems the customer is having. Happy employees give better service.
Call Center Reps Know You
Since Santa has been watching you all year, he knows what you need and why you are calling.
Santa’s call center staff can anticipate your needs, concerns, and questions because they know who you are, what you own, and why you are calling.
Lesson Learned: Your call center employees will be able to treat customers like friends and can skip the game of 20 questions when you have systems in place that paint a picture of the customer’s history whenever that phone rings.
Starting the phone call armed with accurate and timely information about the customer will help you solve their problem more quickly and to the customer’s satisfaction.
Everyone Leaves Happy
Santa leaves relevant and wanted gifts under every Christmas tree every year. His gifts leave the kiddos happy and in good spirits.
In his call center, every call will end with a happy and satisfied customer.
Lesson Learned: Your goal should be the same with your phone calls with customers. Resolve the issue, help the customer, and leave them happier than when they called.
Learn from Santa and your customer service efforts will be significantly more successful in the coming year.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Great – and timely – advice. In terms of keeping agents and customers happy, one thing to look at is why people are calling and treating the root cause. So e.g. if a large percentage of calls are due to incorrect bills, make both the customers and agents happy by fixing the billing issues. Adequate technology may also play a role. You need to have a system that is capable of routing callers to the right agents and that only asks for phone or account number once.
@K – great point about finding the root cause. There is definitely no need to just treat symptoms when you can fix the root cause and be done with that issue.
If only St. Nick would visit most call centers! You are dead on with your suggestions here. The fact is call centers are a major point of contact for most companies these days. If they function right, customer service benefits. As this piece (http://www.upyourservice.com/learning-library/customer-service-contact/make-it-person-to-person) points out, person-to-person contact is vital for success.