​Adopt these Call Centre trends or risk falling behind.

As 2015 comes to a close, businesses are searching for innovative ways to attract new customers, but that doesn’t mean they can take their existing customers for granted. According to statistics from Gartner Group, 80 percent of a company’s future earnings will come from just 20 percent of its existing customers. Lose these loyal customers and that’s a huge loss in revenue for your company.
 
In today’s competitive marketplace, providing a great product or service may not be enough to hold onto your customer base. To keep them coming back, you must provide a stellar customer experience as well. Optimising your contact centre is the perfect place to start.

The following are contact centre trends that your competitors have set into motion. Catch up or risk falling behind:

​Real-Time Queue and Agent Statistics
Keeping your customers on hold too long is an easy way to lose their business. According to a Harris Poll report, 81 percent of consumers agree that it’s frustrating to be left waiting on the phone for customer service. Virtual queuing is a simple solution. The contact centre software allows supervisors to monitor the queue status to keep track of the number of answered and unanswered calls, including the average wait times. This will enable supervisors to monitor the call flow and anticipate peak call times so he or she can staff accordingly.
 
Call Back Technology
This feature allows callers to hang up but retain their position in the queue. When an agent becomes available, that agent will be put through to the caller automatically. Customers kept waiting on hold may hang up in frustration. In contrast, a customer waiting in a virtual queue for a return call can’t hang up, thus helping to reduce abandonment rates.

SLA Alerts
When a customer does choose to hold, the SLA alerts will allow the contact centre supervisors to know when callers have to wait beyond an acceptable amount of time. These calls can then be logged and appropriate action can be taken to help ensure customer satisfaction.
 
Listen in, Listen and Whisper and Barge In
Call centre agents are the heart of your company; your customers’ experience with them can ultimately make or break your business, it’s imperative to the success of your business that your agents are properly trained. With the listen-in feature, customer service supervisors can listen in to an agent’s call to make sure he or she is properly representing the company.
 
If an agent is unsure of how to handle a customer’s request, the listen and whisper function allows the supervisor to provide feedback to the agent only. The barge-in feature allows the supervisor to join the call directly.
 
Implementing these features will give your contact centre agents and supervisors the tools they need to address customer calls more smoothly and efficiently. This invariably will lead to enhanced customer experiences and retention, while ultimately improving your company’s bottom line.
 
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The post originally appeared on the 3CX website, which can be viewed here