Improve Customer Satisfaction Through Interactive Voice Response

By Jesse Ballard

Call centers have evolved into sophisticated operations where the call center agent can play a crucial role. People who are selected to become call center agents normally have excellent organizational skills, high self-motivation, and strive to empathize with others and provide customer care. Once selected, call center agents are highly trained in the art of customer service.

Call center agents should be trained effectively to deal with customers that are calling in with their concerns and complaints. Training for call agents has become critical to linking call center performance to corporate objectives. Unfortunately call agent training is low on priority lists and a new report found that many companies are cutting call center budgets and call agent training.

As one of the more effective tools to reduce costs, Interactive Voice Response will improve customer satisfaction and gather customer feedback. By using a voice recognition software program to handle certain types of calls, companies are able to use Interactive Voice Response, or IVR, to reduce their number of employees. The caller can still decide to use live assistance by having their call transferred to a call center agent.

A well-designed IVR enables your callers to quickly get the results they need, whether it be through self-service or live-agent assistance. A call center agent might handle account inquiries, customer complaints or support issues. In addition to a better customer experience and increased sales, strategic call centers emphasize call agent training and satisfaction.

If you are interested in becoming a call center agent, you need specific knowledge and you need to know how to apply it. Call center agents learn about queues, customer expectations, the importance of quality call handling and the steps of the call center management planning process. When properly trained, agents can provide a competitive advantage for a call center organization looking to differentiate itself.

Most call centers wish to improve customer satisfaction and minimize the cost per call, but training is often delayed, cancelled, or never scheduled due to budget costs. Call agents can further their initial skills and training by using off-peak hours to work through online courses and e-books. This ensures that call agents will remain on the floor during training thus improving call center productivity.

Thanks to the creation of interactive voice response services, call centers and large companies around the world are able to handle numerous incoming phone calls. The top reason call centers and large companies choose interactive voice response services is because the call volume capabilities are increased. It is not necessary to invest in special equipment since IVR systems only require a computer or server and at least one phone line.

Capable of bringing remarkable benefits to your company, Interactive Voice Response is one of the most common telephone functions in use across the business community. By letting the phone system gather caller information and verify a caller's identity, call centers can become instantly more productive. All companies should learn IVR basics if they are planning to venture into the world of interactive voice response.

About the Author:

0 comments:

Guides Complete