How to Increase Inbound Call Center Productivity?

A call center comprises the inbound and outbound activities. Inbound is all about receiving the call and outbound means dialling the call to outreach the customers.

To maintain the efficiency of inbound call centers is essential because the satisfaction level of the customers depends on the fact how effectively the agent directs the customer towards a reasonable solution.

There are several call center solutions and call center insights that make the agents highly efficient and bring high productivity to the call centers.

Let’s try and understand some of these solutions vital to increase the productivity of inbound call centers.

1. Intelligent IVRs

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) have become more intelligent with the passage of time, and the instructions given through IVRs are making the customers self-sufficient.

When a customer calls a business or customer care, he is looking for an immediate solution. Now, if the IVR is well-designed, the customers can find solutions on their own. A well-designed IVR has some essential features. The IVR should have simple and easy instructions in a comprehensible language.

Every level of IVR should have maximum three options to choose from. The navigation should be smooth and lead the customers to the right option. There shouldn’t be any marketing activities in the middle of instructions as it confuses the user.

The voice should be preferably feminine as it can hold caller’s attention for a longer time. The user should always have an option to speak with the live agent because if the caller is stuck somewhere in the middle of IVR options, human intelligence should intervene with an immediate solution.

2. Effective ACD

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) means routing the call to the available agent. No customer wants to wait over the phone. So, it is necessary to utilize the availability of the agent to the utmost possible level.

An effective call distribution gets more number of connections between customers and agents.

In addition to this, skill-based routing feature provides even more accurate results because the caller who is looking for a specific solution connect to an agent with the respective knowledge.

It helps the customers to find the solution without wasting any time because the solution coming from a skilful agent is highly likely to satisfy the particular customer query.

3. Agent Training

Once the call is connected, it is completely in the hands of agents to leverage the benefits out of it. It is equally necessary to train the agents with new skills and etiquettes to deal with the customers.

Individual customers may need different treatments from the agents. Making the agents aware of the best practices of customer service produces more results with lesser efforts. Agent training from time to time also ensures the exact response from the agent to the different queries.

A well-trained agent can help in turning a lead into a loyal customer.

4. Real-Time Information to the Agents

Agents conversing with the customers need to have some specific information to give the customers to provide them with the best possible solution without delay. So, it is necessary to make the agents highly aware of the customer related insights that could lead the customer to some apt and accurate solutions.

In the same context, CRM integration plays an important role and provides real-time information to the agents about the ongoing conversations with the customers. It also includes any past conversation happened with a particular customer. Such information helps the agents to understand customer’s intent.

5. Omni-Channel Platform

Most of the customers are available on all the available channels today so, it is necessary to be present on these widely used channels and give plausible responses to the customers.

Most customers today connect to a company on social media or even provide their feedback on the same. So, making an omni-channel platform fulfils several purposes as the customers can make contact through voice or text. An omni-channel platform supports all these media.

So, even if a customer approaches the company through voice or chat, the customers are highly likely to get an immediate response.

Other Call Center Insights

At last, everything just converges to the mindset of the agents. When the agents work in a healthy and productive mindset, the possibility of productive results become highly likely.

The well-being of agents includes a good plausible salary for them. Enough break time to relax and re-energize themselves for the customer support.  The agent should be able to get in touch with an expert immediately so, whenever he gets stuck in the middle of a conversation, he could contact the expert for a better solution.

The quality of voice over the phone should never be compromised. Call recording should be analyzed for more result-oriented insights.

Ergonomically designed tools for agents also help in achieving better productivity.

All in all, increasing the inbound call center productivity is an ongoing process, and it doesn’t stop at one point. If the ultimate focus is given to providing a seamless customer experience, with an enthusiastic and well-equipped agent force, it gets a lot easier to make and implement strategies for your inbound call center focused towards higher productivity.