An agent in the call center is there to guide any caller to a rapid resolution of the reason they called—whether it be tech support or seeking knowledge about a product or service. In other words, they are there to “coach” that caller to a win.
A glaring example of the opposite of this concept would be “the pandemic excuse.” That is, delivering sub-par service using the current pandemic as a reason.
We’ve seen far too much use of this excuse generally in customer service. Calls are not being answered because of the pandemic, so you must navigate a maze of an aggravating automated system. Your shipment was delayed or late because of the pandemic. Customer service agents were not polite because of the pandemic. Your emails were not answered in a timely fashion because of the pandemic. No one was available to help you because of the pandemic. And so on, and so on, and so on.
Despite the obstacles to service or delivery that the pandemic might present, this would not create a scenario where bad service would be acceptable. In fact, there IS NO valid reason for bad service.
Just ask your customers if they care whether or not the pandemic, in some form, caused them to receive low-quality service. They will be disappointed in receiving inferior service no matter what the cause, and if it is bad enough, they will simply take their business elsewhere.
We wrote a few months ago there are really only two ways to address the issue of the pandemic as regards business:
- use the covid-19 crisis as an excuse for providing substandard customer service, or
- use the covid-19 crisis to show how amazing your customer service is in spite of it.
This all applies to a call center for the simple reason that a call center’s very reason for existence is customer service. This is especially true if you are shifting your call center’s purpose to that of a coaching center, which you absolutely should.
A call center turned into a coaching center is there to guide callers with amazing customer service. If your call center does that, you are going to stand far above other businesses—especially those that are justifying bad service with pandemic reasons. You will have taken the second of the above options while many others (and there are far too many still) are sticking by the first.
For many companies, the call center is a primary customer-facing part of their business. Do you really want that part of your business with which your customers or prospects interact, the very representation of your company to prospects and customers, to represent your company in an inferior way—no matter the reason?
We did not think so.
