10 Ways to Ensure Quality Customer Contacts
Whether customers reach out to you via phone, fax, mail or email, how you
handle the contact can make or break a loyal customer. Here are 10 ways to
ensure quality contact handling:
- Make sure all products carry a phone number, email address or mailing
address for customers to use.
- Ensure the contact information is for a specific individual or
department, so customers do not have to be "transferred" several times
before they reach the right person.
- Install an interactive voice response until (or at least voicemail), so
customers don't hear a busy signal.
- Ensure the IVR and voicemail are user-friendly, so callers can default to
a live operator at any time.
- Train customer service representatives (CSRs) to probe effectively to
determine the purpose of the call.
- CSRs should project a sense of knowledge and competence in dealing with
the customers' issues.
- Make sure CSRs can compose effective email responses that answer the
customer's question and are grammatically correct.
- Set and comply with standards for how quickly to respond to email and
standard mail.
- Add an FAQ section to your website to reduce the number of customers who
contact you with "routine" questions.
- Periodically survey customers to determine areas for improvement.
-- From "Corporate Guide to Effective Complaint Management," which can be
found through the SOCAP Resource Center Bookstore.
