Getting Contact Center Disclosures Right the First Time

100% Correct Disclosures

You know the old phrase, “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades”? Well, you should also take that to heart when it comes to the customer experience. Close is not good enough in a contact center—your agents should seek to get it right the first time, every time they talk to a customer on the phone.
 
What do we mean by “get it right the first time”? We mean that your agents should be trained to provide 100% correct disclosures, legal information, order summaries and other necessary information each time they talk to a customer.
 
Sure, this information might be monotonous, and agents might be tempted to speed through it and assume the customer is not listening. However, agents need to understand that the information can be crucial and needs to be delivered every time with the utmost care and attention to detail.
 

What if We Don’t Get it Right the First Time?

The impact of not getting it right the first time can be costly to your company and its reputation. When your customer-facing employees provide misinformation or delayed information, it can hurt your company in three ways:
 

1. Damaged brand reputation.
Customers want to do business with companies that treat them well. When a customer has a negative experience, 95% of them share their bad experience with others, ultimately tarnishing your reputation.

2. Unhappy customers.
Nearly 30% of customers who reported a negative customer service experience are at risk of defecting to another brand. This loss of trust can be incredibly damaging to your market share.

3. Loss of revenue.
The 2011 Global Customer Service Barometer reported that U.S. companies lose over $84 billion annually from mismanaged customer interactions alone, again illustrating the importance of getting it right the first time.

The Impact on Customer Experience

It is easy to point out the negative impact of getting it wrong, but what opportunities are there through getting it right? In fact, customer service is the single leading factor in instilling trust in a company.
 
With 24% of customers reporting that they would continue to seek out a company even two years after a good experience, it is worth training your employees and putting tools in place that allow your contact center to deliver 100% correct information every time.
 

4 Ways to Help Your Agents Get it Right the First Time

Consider these strategies to assist agents in providing correct and clear information on every call, using both training and technology:

1. Train your agents.
This cannot be emphasized enough. Agents who are trained appropriately will be the most effective in providing excellent, error-free customer service. Provide new hires the opportunity to practice dealing with the types of calls they will answer, including how to resolve each issue.

2. Demonstrate the damage that is caused.
Agents need to understand what can happen when they do not provide the right information, including the negative consequences mentioned earlier. Motivate them to make the necessary effort to avoid these.

3. Treat mistakes as learning opportunities.
Inevitably, mistakes will still happen. Mistakes are learning opportunities and may lead to conversations about potential improvements moving forward, including process changes and additional training.

4. Put tools in place.
To further raise the bar, consider technologies that are designed to ensure agents can deliver all the required information so that they can focus more on building solid customer relations. These technologies include a myriad of scripting tools or, even better, a soundboard tool such as ExactCall from KomBea, which enable an agent to play the required information to the customer.

Get it Right – Every Time

When dealing with customers, whether providing simple order summaries or complex legal disclosures, do not leave any room for error. Get the right people, procedures, and technology in place that enable your agents to get it right on every call. KomBea provides the right tools for process improvement for your call center agents and can even provide the right agents with K-BPO services. Let us know how disclosures impact your business and we can custom tailor a solution for your contact center.
 
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