Setting goals with your contact center agents will support your most important profit driver: your customer base.
Finance-focused CFO might see customer service as separate from the company’s financial goals. But that’s not true: they’re connected.
This article will cover the importance of customer service goals and how it’s vital to include agents in the strategy and some examples.
Why Team Customer Service Goals Important are — and Why Call Center Agents Need to Be Involved
Here’s the thing: you can’t improve customer satisfaction without customer service goals.
And you can’t meet call center goals without your customer service team (call center agents). Here are a few reasons why customer service goals are vital for your contact center.
Agent Engagement and Motivation
You don’t need us to tell you that call centers have the highest turnover rates. But what if we told you that customer service goals engage agents more than lunchtime pizza or the odd work event?
Employees need to feel like they’re making a difference and working towards something tangible to feel accomplished. Job satisfaction plummets without that sense of accomplishment, and you’re left scrambling for new hires.
Your agents should have clear, measurable customer service goals to work towards something grander than the daily calls.
Contact Center Performance:
Do you regularly measure KPIs? Keep track of customer satisfaction and measure revenue over time? These are a couple of tools that call center leaders use to measure performance. But contact center performance is directly linked to customer satisfaction — and you can’t sustain that without customer service goals.
Customer Loyalty and Retention
Customer service goals include expanding your reach. However, they should also focus on customer retention. Why? Because retaining customers by an extra 5% improves profits by 25%-95%. It’s easier to sell a new product to someone who has already purchased from you and trusts your brand – customer service goals help you maximize that.
PS: If you want to retain more customers, give them autonomy in their customer experience with Fonolo’s Voice Call-Backs!
FACT:
Companies that heighten customer retention by 5% can improve profits by 25%-95%.
Example of a Successful Company with Customer Service Goals
Don’t just take our word for it. Thousands of companies worldwide experience excellent publicity, improved profits, and loyal customers through customer service goals.
Let’s look at one noteworthy example: the Ritz-Carlton.
Can you think of a better customer experience than the Ritz? That’s because they aim for a 5-star customer service experience every time. The Ritz propels their customer service goals by giving employees autonomy to personalize and enlighten every customer experience with the $2,000 rule.
This means every staff member has the clearance to spend $2,000 on a guest to encourage them to come back to the Ritz every time.
But the $2,000 isn’t the important part. The idea is to give your agents enough autonomy to find ways to meet customer service goals.
How to Include Contact Center Agents in Customer Service Goals
You can have as many customer service goals as you’d like for your call center. But if you don’t include your agents in the plan, you’ll never reach them. Here are a few ways to involve your agents when setting a goal for your call center.
1. Garner employee feedback on:
- Biggest barriers to customer service
- Common customer complaints
- Things that impress customers
2. Discuss customer service goals at:
- Team meetings
- Individual agent meetings
- Performance reviews
- Public displays in the call center
3. Review customer service goals as a team
Have your contact center agents review and provide feedback on the goals.
4. Makes sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T.
Ensure proposed customer service goals are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) and check with your agents.
TIP:
The best technology adapts to your goals. Fonolo’s Web Call-Backs (formerly Visual IVR) is 100% customizable — you can tailor call-back times to your business hours and switch languages based on your customer base.
Examples of Strong Customer Service Goals for Call Center Agents
Ready to put your customer service strategy into actionable goals? Check out these excellent goal examples to get you started with some proposed strategies.
Improve FCR for all messaging inquiries by 50% by the end of December 2022
- Regularly measure KPIs
- Assess workforce management to ensure experienced team members are available during peak times
Reduce abandonment rate by 30% for all agents by January 2023
- Hire more staff to meet peak volumes
- Update technology and provide more communication channels with Fonolo’s Web Call-Backs
- Retain more agents to meet call volumes through flex work and benefits
Improve net promoter score (NPS) by 20% by June 2023
- Give experienced agents the authority to grant solutions that may require extra time for approval.
- Remind agents of the importance of tone of voice and host more training sessions
