customer and cleint satisfaction

[yooo]

What steps can we take in the improvement of Customer and Cleint satisfaction in an inbound call center environment? Any suggestions would be most welcome. Thanks.

[JIM WYATT]

Yooo,

In my experience customer satisfaction is as fluid as the ocean. It is very difficult to set standards based on others experiences (such as best in class or best practice).

The most effective way to manage customer satisfaction is to implement a regular program of customer feed back. You will need to conduct surveys or create a feedback loop for your customers at least monthly.

Initially you will be able to draw a picture of what your unique market segment (customers) want in service delivery and standards from your operation. The questions you ask will depend very much on what type of business you conduct and what "gut felling" you currently have regarding issues impacting on your customers. Ask these questions to test the validity of your fellings and respond based on the results.

If you would like an example of a Customer satisfaction survey drop me a line at WYATTJM@bigpond.com

You must also remeber that the satisfaction shown by your customers will in many ways reflect the satisfaction shown by your staff and yourself. If you are happy in how the operation is run and performs then the "spitit" this generates is transmitted to the customers.

Often the customer is not always looking for the quickest result when dealing with your centre but the highest quality outcome. This means speaking with staff who know what they are talking abaout, who hear what the customer wants and provides this and who record all details accurately.

When looking to improve on your customer's satisfaction levels the best place to start is by measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of your Centre. This process is often referred to as performance improvement or in some cases benchmarking.

The 1st and most important step in improving is to ID the issues impacting on current performances. Look at joining a benchmarking network as a source of inspiration for ideas on how to run your operation better.

This forum also contains a lot of great ideas. Remember though to put in place a monitoring and measurement process to check how you are progressing and to allow your customers to express to you what they consider "makes them satisfied.

[PLeppik]

Yooo,

If you will excuse the blatant plug, my company may be able to help you.

We're a new company specializing in measuring customer satisfaction over the phone. We can take a large pool of people, have them call your call center (or IVR), and complete a survey afterwards. We can provide you with survey results, and correlate individual answers with call recordings an demographics, so you can track down any trouble spots which show up in the survey.

This can be done either one-time, or on an ongoing basis.

If you're interested, send me an Email at pleppik@vocalabs.com, or else check out our website at http://www.vocalabs.com/

-Peter