3 Steps to Improving Your Call Center Process: The Forgotten Piece of Your Marketing Strategy
3 Steps to Improving Your Call Center Process: The Forgotten Piece of Your Marketing Strategy
When it comes to your marketing strategy, there is one major piece that often gets left behind: your call center process. The call center is the first point of contact someone has with your business, so it should always be a main focus. Here are 3 steps to improving your call center process so you can start seeing greater lead flow.
-
Revisit Marketing Strategy
The first step to improving your call center process is to revisit your marketing strategy and look at the connection between your marketing cost and call center conversions. If you’re finding that you don’t have enough leads on your call board from how much you’re spending on your marketing, make sure it’s not a result of low conversion rates in your call center. If your leads aren’t converting in your call center as they should, your job is to answer this one question: why? And after you’ve answered the why, ask yourself this question: how can I improve my call center strategy?
Most home service companies don’t have a process in place to ensure their call center is continuously improving. One way to make sure your call center is working and continuously improving, is to train or coach them. We don’t mean give them a script and wish them luck. We mean equip them with the right tools to succeed.
Think about this: if you’re able to increase your call center’s booking percentage, you can spend the same amount of money you are currently on marketing but still increase your overall profits. Your booking percentage matters. In fact, it might just be the most important metric in your business. Training your call center agents is a small investment with big rewards in the end: increased sales generated from higher booking percentages.
-
Make Sure You’re Tracking Leads
After you’ve revisited your marketing strategy and concluded that your call center may be the culprit for low conversions, it’s time to adjust your strategy – and start tracking! Most companies end their marketing efforts once they get the lead. While tracking the performance of marketing campaigns is important, it’s only half the job. You still need to determine how your call center performs when the qualified leads are delivered. In order to measure success, you must be tracking. Some simple ways to do this include:
-
Record Call Audio
Do you know what’s going on inside your call center? It’s important you know how well your agents are delivering the customer service and increasing the booking percentage. Start recording every call that goes through the call center. This is the best way you can know first-hand what’s working well and what needs improving.
-
Review Call Audio
Recording call audio is just one piece of the puzzle. The next step would be to review the calls. Reviewing the calls help you determine customer satisfaction, the overall efficiency and productivity of your call center, and more. There are some important call center performance metrics to track, including:
- Average Wait Time
- Average Call Abandonment Rate
- Percentage of Calls Blocked
- Average Handle Time
- First Call Resolutions
- Average Speed of Answer
- Level of Service Provided
- And More!
Not only is it important to track the above metrics but recording and reviewing call center audio also can help aid in training and reduce costly errors and mistakes.
-
Create a World-Class Customer Experience
Creating a world-class customer experience should be the number one goal of your call center agents. After you’ve tracked and measured leads, recorded and reviewed call audio, you can begin focusing on how to improve performance in the call center based on the tracked metrics. Contrary to popular belief, the call center isn’t just a means to an end. In order to really dive in and focus on creating the best customer experience, you must continue to focus on your consumer. The best way to do this is to know what it is they want and need, and how you can help them get it. Your call center agents should be trained to:
- Listen to the Customer
- Empathize with the Customer
- Be Proactive and Quick
- Be Honest and Understanding
- Communicate Effectively
As a business owner, you may think you know what’s going on inside the call center – but do you really? You probably assume your agents are communicating the basic components such as warmly greeting the callers and gathering all the necessary information, but how do you actually know? Through call center training, you can teach your agents how to improve their performance to create a better customer experience, while also increasing your booking percentage.