Revisiting the call center’s role in customer experience

The call center’s role in customer experience is pivotal when it comes to closing the gap between expectations and reality. Why is that?

For one thing, customer experience (CX) is a core business driver. In order to radiate a positive experience across an entire business, work and resources must be put into the call center. Making true progress on closing the gap between customer experience expectations and the actual experience delivered starts with your call center agents. But it certainly doesn't end there.

What is the call center's role in customer experience?

Customer experience can be summed up as how a person feels about the experience of interacting with your company. When someone has a great customer experience, you are delivering your promise, providing a valuable tool or service, and creating an enjoyable experience with your customer across every touchpoint, from the call center and beyond. Customers increasingly rely on other customers and total strangers to seek customer service. They form online communities and consult online resources. However, the contact center and/or customer service is still the predominant destination for customers to find support and information to solve issues. That’s why organizations must show they value their contacts centers and the people who support them.

Call centers deserve resources and attention

Contact centers and the people who run them often don’t receive the respect and attention they deserve. This is a slippery slope as the stigma of the treatment makes it difficult for centers to land better customer support reps and to improve on their customer-centricity. Many executives view call centers as an expense rather than a critical business driver and customer experience shaper.

Despite this, we know customer service is a deciding factor when customers select a product or service provider. We also know that the gap between customer service expectations and the service actually experienced is growing. So what can we do about it?

Enterprise listening platform to the rescue

The journey to understand what’s creating the gap between customer expectations of their experience with our brands and their actual experience doesn't have to remain an unsolved mystery. In fact, working to close this gap is precisely why Tethr exists. Rather than narrowly focusing on what call center agents doing, (how professionally they communicate, how friendly they are, whether or not they stay on script,) Tethr delivers insights across the entire enterprise. Businesses can learn what customers are saying about their products, their opinions on the quality of service, their experiences in the stores, about the rep who sold the product, and what customers are saying about competitors. When all of these insights are considered, the business improves along with the call center.

An upgrade from speech analytics software

Unlike traditional speech analytics tools, Tethr doesn't overwhelm you with data. Businesses receive actionable insights with the Tethr platform so they can focus on making impactful changes right away. Tethr comes with hundreds of pre-built insight categories that are available as soon as you turn it on. The insights that matter are served up in a way that everyone can understand. 

Rather than just some individuals being involved in data, Tethr equips the entire enterprise with powerful insights derived from customer phone calls and chats. Sales leaders can connect different sales pitches with sales results within customer conversations to pick the best strategy. Call center leaders can correlate agent behaviors to customer behaviors to understand how agents contribute to both positive and negative customer experiences. Product teams can learn which functions their customers are having trouble with. Marketing leaders can examine the competitive landscape to make better decisions with budget.

The call center’s role in customer experience is...

The call center’s role in customer experience is simple: That data makes solutions available for the enterprise so that the business can see measurable benefits.

Ready to see Tethr in action? Request a demo today.