“What gets measured, gets managed” may be a tired phrase, but it holds truth. However, it makes no reference to timescales. Do you want to be managing today’s issue in next month’s catch-up meeting? Or would you like to be able to see results this afternoon? Enter: agent surveys.
Customer satisfaction surveys are essential in measuring how well a business is performing, but in too many cases, that vital data is analysed on a weekly, monthly or even quarterly basis. This gives you a broadstrokes view of performance, but makes it impossible to quickly deal with any problems. You’re seeing a snapshot of what’s happening over time, but not what issues are being raised today.
VIRTUATell advocates sharing customer satisfaction surveys with agents in realtime, using triggered alerts. These agent surveys deliver the results and valuable verbatim comments from customers regarding calls or electronic communication that may have taken place just a minute ago. The benefits of this are enormous.
“That was great”
Imagine an agent gets off the phone with a particularly tricky customer. The agent is tired, unsure of whether they actually helped, and nervous about picking up the phone to the next person. But now imagine they receive an alert, straight after the call, saying that the customer rated them as ‘excellent’ and what’s more, there’s a recording of the customer saying “I’ve had a long day, but actually, things got sorted out properly”. That positive reinforcement is crucial to how well they perform during the rest of their shift and will inform future calls, and verbatim comments are particularly effective at this because nothing gets lost in translation.
Equally, feedback alerting the agent to a substandard performance can be just as, if not more, useful. It also means that shift managers can be alerted to the issue, and either follow up with the customer or monitor that agent’s performance during their shift (or both!).
Compare and contrast
One of the new methods of improving staff performance on the call centre is to use surveys from the customer and the agents, about the same call. Comparing the scores from the customer with the score from your agent gives powerful gap analysis data, which highlights any major differences in scores.
Nothing will tell you faster that you have a problem with an agent than if the agent thinks a call went well, and the customer thought it was a disaster!
Ready, set, GO!
Allowing agents access to the customer satisfaction reports in realtime adds a gamification element that the fitness industry has long been exploiting. Challenging agents or teams to compete for the best scores and instigating some simple rewards (pizza, an extra long break, a voucher) triggers that competitive switch we’ve all got lurking inside us. Many VIRTUATell clients use real-time League Tables, part of the powerful reporting suite, to help drive competitive performance.
The missing link
Agents aren’t just the people on the ground able to make changes the quickest – they’re also the direct link to your customers. If you’re not regularly asking your agents about your customers, you’re missing out on valuable intelligence.
Your copywriter should be talking to your agents to find out the language customers use when discussing your product. Your web designer should be making sure that there’s nothing on the website that customers mention as problematic. In fact, even your surveys should be designed in consultation with your agents – their frontline position makes them one of the greatest resources when it comes to understanding your customer.
At VIRTUATell we advocate regular reviews of all your surveys. Analysing large amounts of data allows you to view trends, and this will inform your customer experience strategy. But if you’re not also using the results in realtime, you’re missing an opportunity to make a difference today, which means you’re only getting half the benefits that a good survey strategy can offer.
We’d like to make sure you get 100% of the benefits, to get you to that hallowed 100% customer satisfaction level. Email us here to find out more.
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