When you think of contact centers, perhaps your mind goes straight to those large and busy contact centers used by banks, insurance companies, and big chain supermarkets. Those gray cubicles might spring to mind along with early 2000s headsets and Amy Adams wishing she was hanging out with Julia Child.
The image of contact centers has changed considerably in the last two decades, with more and more businesses using call centers as the world shifts continuously online and ecommerce businesses keep sprouting. A lot of companies will choose to outsource their contact center needs or even invest in contact center software.
Both are solid choices and come with different price tags and pros and cons. There are some benefits that apply to any type of contact center, however, which we’ll get into here.
Nothing says, “We’re a professional, reliable company that you can trust.” quite like having a contact center your customers can use whenever they run into a problem. Contact centers offer the kind of peace of mind you would feel flying first class on SwissAir, chardonnay in hand, and Morgan Freeman’s dulcet tones explaining how to buckle and unbuckle your seatbelt.
Looking professional is a good way to build trust with potential customers. Being professional is one of the best ways to keep your existing customers coming back for more business with you (and leaving you rave reviews online).
Image source: Accelerate
Speaking of good reviews, having an ecommerce contact center is a fantastic way to improve your customer service. Having direct contact with someone who can help with your product is reassuring for your customers and not to mention much easier than having to struggle with FAQ pages on a website. Having the option to speak to a real person has become somewhat of a luxury for many customers.
A contact center can offer an omnichannel experience so your customers could potentially contact you in a number of different ways, depending on their preference and the urgency of the reason for contacting you.
Being able to choose between emailing, instant messaging, phoning, or using snail mail is a nice perk for every personality type, from the “get answers now” Neds to the “this can go in an email” Emilies.
Contact center software, as well as physical contact centers, can make it much easier to categorize the communication you and any ecommerce partner receive by urgency and complexity. If you just have one email address that gets checked on occasion or just one mobile number that people may or may not be able to get through to, depending on whether you’ve gone hiking in the woods alone again… You might miss a few urgent messages!
And even if you don’t ever go hiking, or leave your desk at all for that matter, relying solely on email can be a bad idea because emails get accidentally deleted, overlooked, and forgotten about all the time. A solid contact center system will help you avoid those kinds of problems and efficiently categorize the messages you receive.
All this increased organization can only lead to an increase in productivity. If your team isn’t juggling day-to-day tasks alongside answering endless streams of emails and phone calls from customers, they can focus instead on finding new and innovative solutions to old problems, casting a wider net, or figuring out ways to make your business more sustainable.
Customer service is a full-time job, and having a contact center for your ecommerce business can take the load off you and your colleagues time-wise so that you can focus more on the creative and more enjoyable parts of your work.
A small but powerful perk of using a contact center is the ability to use it for conducting surveys of any kind related to your business. Gathering data about your customers’ levels of satisfaction and getting feedback about how you’re doing first-hand is:
a. Useful information for your marketing, sales, and customer service people to have so that they can improve their performance and make any necessary alterations to their strategies
b. A good way to address any issues or complaints before they make their way onto the internet for all the world to see. If you ask for feedback, you give the customer a chance to vent any frustration more directly at the company instead of publicly, which could negatively impact your reputation. This also gives you the chance to provide some great customer service in order to improve their experience and hopefully retain them as a customer.
With all of the above – faster answering times, prioritizing urgent messages, improved feedback systems, improved customer service – you’re likely to experience improved customer loyalty as a result. Who wouldn’t want to stay with a company that answers their queries in an easy and timely manner and gives them the option to use whatever communication channel they prefer?
Improved communication = improved customer experience = improved customer loyalty.
Contact centers with things like voicemail drop capabilities can be a cost-effective way to free up your time so that you can enjoy the more creative parts of your work. They can help you improve your customer retention rates through improved customer service. They have some perks you wouldn’t necessarily think about immediately, such as extra opportunities for feedback and damage control.
Whether you outsource your contact center, keep it in-house and/or use contact center software. It’s a very helpful tool in managing your business.
If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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