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Ultimate Checklist for Great Customer Interaction

Customer interaction is just like a game of tennis. You have to give your best shot every time while staying calm to win it.

The customer interaction turns from ‘good’ to ‘great’ when your customers become fan of your brand and start telling others about your company. The mind of customer service agents is always brimming with this question: How to have great customer interaction in a call center?

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Here is the checklist of methods which must be adopted by customer care executives for finest interaction with consumers.

Create Persona of customers

Personas are basically fictional characters which are created for representing different types of users. This interesting strategy is often employed by species of marketing world and web designers.

The personas can give awesome results in customer support process too if implemented efficiently. Here is an example of persona with name ‘Malice.’

‘Malice is an optimistic and calm person. She works as a banker.  She is in her early thirties. She prefers online shopping over traditional shopping methods. She considers social services are integral part of her life.’

Now, you have an image of a customer in mind which can be used for communicating with several others. You can create multiple personas where each one possesses different personality traits and lifestyle. So, whenever you interact with your customers, bring one of these personas in mind. You will feel as if you know them personally which will make the interaction process as talking to a friend.

Keep the customers updated

Customers are not merely entities that buy your products and services. They are the reason behind your survival in the market. So, make them feel special by informing about changes in your company’s policies. Also, brief them about launch of a new product or service.

They will appreciate these bits of information which make them feel more connected to the company. During interaction with customers, you can also tell them about certifications possessed by the company as it can aid in consolidating their trust.

This method is applicable for all channels of communication from your contact center like online chat, E-mail, social media and phone call.

Keep the goodbye messages variable

“Thank you and have a nice day,” is the most commonly used expression by the call center executives. It sounds most boring too because the agents sound like robots due to repetition of phrases at the end of the call.

So, purge off those dull lines and keep modifying the parting messages to sound more interesting and lively.  You can give a shot on these phrases while saying goodbye –

  • Have a Joyful Easter
  • Have a rocking weekend
  • Looking forward to help you again
  • Have a splendid Christmas
  • Hope this day becomes the best one for you

These messages will leave a mild smile on the face of the customers and they will remember it for a longer duration.

Stay Calm with angry customers

You must have heard this many times as this is one of the first lessons taught to the agents in call centers. But implementing it practically in the professional life may not be an easy task.

You can apply these tips in your conversation to handle the angry customers in a calm manner.

  • Apologize immediately
  • Use kind words
  • Make their problem yours by using appropriate phrases (like “let’s work together to solve this”)
  • Ask questions and use the information to solve issue on the spot
  • Do not take it personally as you are not the reason for their anger

Applying these methods in your regular conversations will definitely ease your job.

Learn more about service / product

You may have already gained the basic knowledge related to a service or product while working as a customer support executive. But it may not be enough to handle various complex queries which may arise from customer’s end. So, there is always scope of learning more aspects related to service or a product.

You can ask multiple questions from your team leaders or managers to extract more information on the product.  Another method of learning about product is by having a detailed discussion with original equipment manufacturers (OEM). The engineers, managers, factory workers and quality testers associated with the product too have a rich repository of product knowledge which can be precious for your process.

You can also explore multiple online forums which have loads of knowledge related to specific product or service category. Getting exposure of the product or service by using it personally is another effective way to learn more about it.

Confidence developed by learning lock, stock and barrel of the product makes your conversation with customers quite influential. Various minor issues of the customers can also be solved instantly if you have vast product knowledge.

Conclusion

A proper blend of all methods will definitely help you become the finest executive of your call center. Also, it will help your company in becoming the most sought after brand among the consumers.

Written By

Alicia Gray is an BPO and outsourcing industry analyst, and writes about technology. Currently working with one of the business process outsourcing (BPO) services provider. My role has been instrumental in assisting businesses to choose the right BPO Services. Since she has dealt with a plethora of customers during her professional life, she best understands customer relationship management, billing and oss software etc. She writes regularly on a variety of topics associated with customer service.

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