TMCnews Featured Article

Chances are, your inbound call center is one of the primary points of contact between your customer (or potential customers) and representatives of your business. For this reason, it is essential that companies focus on customer service issues in the call center. As we wind down 2012, it’s a good idea to look forward to 2013, and as people are making New Year’s resolutions to improve their bodies and minds, companies can resolve to improve their call centers with new customer service strategies.

Going into next year, it is important to keep in mind some interesting statistics from this year. Recently, American Express (News - Alert) released the “2012 Global Customer Service Barometer,” which outlined some interesting facts and figures. According to the study, a mere seven percent of consumers found that companies usually exceeded their expectations, while 31 percent stated that companies usually missed their expectations for customer service.

 Even in the age of Twitter (News - Alert) and live chat, a full 90 percent of Americans prefer to talk to customer services reps over the phone. Finally, it is important to note that 66 percent of consumers are willing to spend more money with a company that has excellent customer service.

So it is clear that customer service strategies should be paramount entering 2013. There are a number of ways that companies can work to improve customer service in the inbound call center. First, of course, is taking care of agents. Letting agents know that they are doing a good job can help them continue to do so. Focusing on agent training is another good idea.

Additionally, even though phone is still the channel of choice for most customers, it is important to monitor and respond to social media questions and comments. It is also important to have the most up to date call center software, which can help route calls to the most appropriate agents and help track ongoing customer concerns.

With small changes like these, it is easy to bring customer service in 2013 to the next level.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.