Call centers were designed to aid in solving customers related problems, however, uncontrollably if not well managed; call center problems often lead to unmanageable and worse squabbles, which in most cases ends in you losing prospective customers. Usually, nearly all call center disagreements begins with misunderstanding between the customer and the operating personnel. Customers as you may have heard on countless basis need to be treated with respect, diligently and delicately to avoid unnecessary friction with them.

Your ultimate goal when handling customers should always be prioritized by their satisfaction. All conversations exchanged between the operator and the customer should always leave the customer not only satisfied, but also with the feel that they are appreciated. So, what call center problems need to be avoided.

4 Call Center Problems You Must Avoid

1. Making your customers feel as though their requests be it for help or inquiries are a burden

Many customers terminating their relationship with a company always blame it on the company’s employees’ indifference towards their needs. On a lighter note, indifference in this context means anything that would show lack of interest and often manifests itself in a number of ways. For instance poor diction, like use of the term “inconvenience” to mean something tragic, using an aggressive tone of voice, talking too fast (leaving a customer feeling that you were trying to get rid of them ), annoyingly interrupting a customer before they are done explaining their problem among many other things. Just to emphasize, your customers’ needs should be your priority and anything you say or do to them really counts and can determine whether they will stay with you or leave you.

How do you avoid this mistake/problem? The solution is really simple. When hiring your employees, especially those bound to come in contact with your customers, be it physical or verbal, be keen to hire people who really care about their job and other people as well. Go for people who are great listeners, who are friendly and have no issue with smiling, and finally, people with a can-do attitude. It will interest you to know that customers have the ability to tell when employees are doing their best to solve their problems or not. By default, many people tend to be patient if they feel that their apprehensions are being heard and probably given the consideration they deserve. 

2. Allowing the norm of helplessness to take over your call center

Second rather disheartening Call Center Problem in our list is the culture of allowing helplessness to dominate your call center’s operation. It is more irritating to a customer to keep receiving direction directing them from one department to another, or even more worse from one agent to another agent, none of whom are capable or willing to help. This habit usually props up when you employ lazy staffs who are not willing to own customers problem until they are solved. In addition, it sometimes props up when your company lacks established structure with clear guidelines of everyone’s responsibilities.

How to avoid this problem; first be sure to let all your employees know their full responsibilities and what is expected of them immediately you hire them. Let them abide by a certain way of doing business which when otherwise done attracts a punishment, this way, whenever an agent receives a question or a complaint from a customer, they will be courageous enough to Own it without lazily toasting it to another agent. Secondly, if it is a must for a call to be directed to a different concerned department or agent, make it helpful and limit it to only one transfer. In addition, it will always leave a good gesture to politely apologize to the customer; briefly explain to them why you are transferring them before doing so.

3. Getting Overstressed with Violent Customers

This is not just a problem; it is more of a situation and a very frequent one so to say. If recklessly handled, it can tarnish your reputation and even psychologically affect your composure making your work literally wanting in attentiveness. More than once, as a Call center operative, you will find this egoistic and really impatient customers or desperate and impatient customers who uncontrollably think of nothing but their problem solved. Sometimes, customers’ problem may really be difficult to solve or even their demands hard to meet. It is prudent for you to know that in the course of your conversation things can really get messy making them violent uttering words like, “your services sucks” and “I want to see your boss”.

As an employer, it is important that your employees’ dignity remains unhurt for the sake of productivity and generally good relations. When customers get violent, they not only scare your employees, they also instill a sense of self doubt in your employees’ conscience making them doubt whether they are really capable.

To avoid this, the first and most crucial thing to do is to give your customer care operators clear protocols. Let them know how they should to deal with unpleasant cases. For instance, you can permit them to hang up without saying anything unsettling to the customer or direct the call to you if you are free. Alternatively, you can train them to ask the caller to call later when you are around. Finally, train your operators on how to manage stress and how to cunningly give correct answers.

4. Poorly training your Call center operators

Error is to man; consequently, agent mistakes are inevitable. However careful you agent is, at one point or the other; they are bound to make mistakes. Fortunately, with the right training, these mistakes can significantly be reduced and even more important, well managed if they occur. Your employees also at their personal level should admit that they are human and can also mistakes and also need to be tolerated when the make them.

To solve this problem, equip your employees with damage control techniques that will not hurt your business. These techniques include:

•  Showing care
•  Be strong enough to apologize when they are wrong
•  Admit to mistakes
•  Give the customer a chance to talk
•  Be careful when reacting to negative comments
•  Always be careful when trying to fix a problem so as not to create another problem.

Conclusion

In summary, these problems will occur whether we are fully prepared or not. However, it is our responsibility to come up with methods that will work for both us and our customers instilling a working relationship between us. Call center problems as stated earlier can be eliminated if we concentrate in promptly and diligently solving our customer’s problem.