For people working in an inbound call center, the customer always comes first. But no matter how much this adage is drilled into reps, there are still traps they can fall into that lead to frustrated and unhappy customers. Here, four of the most common mistakes customer support agents make that may require additional training or monitoring to improve the quality of support your call center is delivering.

 

  1. Not Actively Listening

At the start of a customer service call, customers typically give a broad overview of their problem or the reason they are calling. While there’s a good chance they are going to give agents more information than they can process at this point in the call, it’s crucial that the agent actively listens to everything the customer is saying so that they don’t end up asking them to repeat everything again later in the call. It’s also key to give a customer time to fully explain their reason for calling before agents jump in with solutions. Even if a problem sounds like one thing at first and it may be tempting to offer a solution right away, one that isn’t actually helpful can stoke frustration before the problem-solving has even begun.

  1. Relying Too Much on the Script

Going hand in hand with not actively listening to what the customer is saying is relying too heavily on the script. Indeed, the script is meant to be a jumping off point for agents to help them obtain the basic information they need to diagnose and propose a solution, not to be followed exactly if it doesn’t provide the best course of action for solving a problem. The impersonal nature of a script can also make customers feel like they aren’t being heard, especially if agents are asking questions that seem irrelevant to the customer’s issue deep into a conversation. After the initial information-collecting phase of a call, agents should proceed with the course of action most likely to result in a happy customer—even if it means going off-script.

  1. Not Making or Reviewing Notes

Apart from spending a long time on hold at the beginning of a call, the other thing that decreases customer satisfaction is having to repeat things to agents, especially if they are calling about an issue they’ve spoken to others about in the past. This happens when agents don’t record notes about the specifics of a case during a call or don’t review existing notes at the beginning of or during a call once the customer explains that they are a repeat caller. Customers don’t want to feel like they are starting from scratch every time they call a company, especially one to which they’ve given a lot of money. Keeping and referencing notes will help prevent this issue.

  1. Transferring Customers Incorrectly

The goal of any customer service call is to resolve the reason for the call as efficiently as possible and one huge part of that is making sure the customer speaks to as few people as necessary. Not listening closely to exactly what the customer needs and transferring them to the wrong person or department does not help agents achieve this goal, especially if the customer doesn’t discover that they are speaking with the wrong person until they have spent time and effort explaining their issue for a second time. The best way to avoid this is to make sure agents are aware of the proper workflows that will allow customers to solve their problems quickly and efficiently.

The first step to helping your agents avoid these common mistakes is being aware of them, followed by taking simple actions to prevent them—actions with which CallShaper can help! To learn more about how, contact us today.