When it comes to engaging with customers, few of your team members have more experience than the frontline agents fielding calls with questions, or complaints, from customers. You already know that they’re great for giving your users answers and walking them through processes, but frontline agents can be an untapped data resource with valuable insights into the minds of your life source: customers. By engaging customers in meaningful ways, frontline agents can do more than retain them—exceptional service can turn normal customers into enthusiastic brand advocates.

Decrease callback, decrease customer effort

According to a study by the Corporate Executive Board, 60% of customers who seek help are forced to call back to resolve their issue. This figure is further broken down; 54% of callbacks happen because the issue wasn’t resolved the first time and 46% is because a related issue arises. 

Your goal should be working towards cutting down on this callback statistic to decrease customer effort. One obvious asset in doing so is the frontline agent who worked with the customer. Capturing the agent’s feedback right after a call with a customer is a valuable tool in gauging recurring issues.

Frontline agent feedback allows managers and executives to understand which issues take multiple steps to resolve, or types of questions that often prompt further calls with related inquiries. For example, let’s say the data show customers who call with questions about installing a new product regularly call back with questions about pricing. This insight can enable you to start implementing a solution. One solution could be that you instruct your frontline agents to automatically offer pricing information after solving installation problems while the customer is still on the phone. This could be done by creating a knowledge article and automatically pushing it to your agents who are confronted with this issue. 

Additionally, if there is a pattern of customers calling back because their problem wasn’t adequately solved the first time, it’s imperative that management reviews which solutions customer service representatives are suggesting to ensure that the answers are accurate and complete. If not, it’s time for some changes.

 Give agents the tools for first-call success

It’s also critical that you empower your agents to be able to help, even if they don’t know the answer immediately. Rather than frontline agents needing to hang up with the customer, speak to someone with the correct answer, then call the customer back, agents should have real-time collaboration capabilities built into their console interface. Even better, include suggestions for which experts are good contacts for that specific issue.

This method allows frontline agents to stay on the phone with the customer and continue to listen to their questions while working to obtain answers simultaneously. Customers will witness firsthand your company’s commitment to providing them with comprehensive answers as quickly as possible—and that’s how you build brand advocates.

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