The Most Useful Questions to Ask For the Call Center | Helpware

The Most Useful Questions to Ask For the Call Center

Evaluating call centers is vital to enhance customer experience and overall satisfaction. Evaluating the performance also compels and motivates each customer service representative agent to work on their individual weaknesses.

Below we will discuss a few useful questions you can ask your call center in order to evaluate their performance.

1.      What are your average first response time (FRT) and first contact resolution (FCR)?

First response time is the time it takes for a customer service representative first to address a customer’s query or complaint. And first contact resolution is the frequency with which customers have their queries answered or problems resolved in a single interaction. This can be via any platform, be it email support, real-time chat-box messaging, or verbal communication over the phone. These are two critical variables that determine overall customer satisfaction as well as reducing agent burn-out rate.

2.      What is your average monthly abandonment rate?

Abandonment in the customer service department context refers to the number of customers that hang up and leave while awaiting a resolution and being put on hold. The abandonment rate determines how likely customers are to return to your business or brand to purchase a service/product. Reducing the abandonment rate will reduce customer dissatisfaction and subsequently reduce the customer churn rate.

3.      What is the average caller load during peak hours in your call center?

Every call center in the world has a pre-determined time during the day known as “peak hours,” during which the number of incoming calls is the most as compared to other times during the day. If the current caller load is larger than the load you have aimed for, it points towards an understaffed center. Caller load also directly determines average hold time, first response time, and customer satisfaction.

4.      Do you have an advising team or regular seminars for service representatives to improve individual customer experience?

With customer representatives taking tens or hundreds of calls daily, each call can become an automated and monotonous process with the risk of undermining the customer’s problem. It is therefore recommended to hold weekly or fortnightly classes and seminars by an advising team to engage call center agents and remind them of the importance of valuing each incoming call and giving it its due value and effort.

5.      Do you make use of a scoring system to determine caller satisfaction?

Call centers often have the facility of call recording to determine customer satisfaction and evaluate how well their problem or query was handled. Another method that the center can use is either a call evaluation form/survey sent to the caller’s email or an option for the caller to record their feedback after they’ve spoken to their respective customer representative agent. This gives a detailed insight into the areas that need improvement and how the customer experience can be enhanced.

These were some vital questions that can be asked when evaluating call centers for performance. These will then help businesses improve their outsourcing customer service department, leading to a reduced customer attrition rate.