Email response and live chat produced by call center services providers is a valuable capability because customers have a variety of customer service media preferences. "Go where the customer is" is an old marketing maxim. But email and chat is a different breed of customer service from conventional telephone based services. It’s important to understand that difference.
Sure, the information imparted is the same. But there are many significant differences between the effective delivery of written and verbal customer support.
Here’s the main difference: When call center services representatives talk with a customer they get multiple “do-overs.” They can amplify, reiterate, clarify and expand upon their answer. “I hope I’m making myself clear, please feel free to ask me any questions, let me go through this again step by step.”
When talking to a customer, a good call center services representative can sense customer confusion or lack of understanding and will review and repeat customer service input until the customer has grasped the feedback.
But with written communications – particularly email – you get one opportunity to make yourself clear and to comprehensively provide information the customer needs. It is common in the call center services business to answer customer email questions in batch mode, often during non-business hours, so there is no opportunity to ask the customer for clarification on their question or for the representatives to sense whether they are being understood.
Another challenge with written communications: grammatical and spelling errors permanently remain on the page or the computer screen for all the world to see, and they leave an indelible, bad impression.
Bottom line: You have to get it right the first time. This takes hard work, review and editing. As the saying goes, “writing is re-writing.”
Or, to quote Maya Angelou, “Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it's right, it's easy. It's the other way round, too. If it's slovenly written, then it's hard to read. It doesn't give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.”
So extra measures and training need to be put in place in order for the customer service call center to produce quality emails and chat sessions, and it starts with agent selection. Obviously, agents handling email response and live chat programs must have proven written communication skills. They should be tested on their writing – for both quality and for speed – and only those meeting the highest standards should be put in the role of call center email response and live chat.
In addition, call center services managers must take the time to review all written communications before it goes to the customer until the representative has proven him or herself a consistent producer of quality written communications.
Another important component, one that aids both quality and productivity, is the continual building of an email response template library. This should be organized by subject matter and written in such a way that call center services agents can re-use an existing answer with minimal changes. A comprehensive template library will ensure rapid and high quality response to customers’ needs.
Outsourced call center services providers should provide their clients, via blind copying, with the ability to see all email being sent on their behalf. In turn, agents and program supervisors should be aware that the client reviews their emails. This reassures clients that quality written communications is taking place and it motivates call center staff to write well.
Call center services program supervisors should collect both good and sub-par customer service emails and chat transcripts and hold regular training sessions with agents to review examples of good and bad quality work. Agents who produce lower-quality communications should be given remedial training.
Mark Fichera, CEO
OnBrand24
Call Center Services
Beverly, Massachusetts
Savannah, Georgia