Showing posts with label brand consultants in india. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brand consultants in india. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

8 Ways to CHARGE up Call Centres to make it CUSTOMER centric

Cool Experience with Call Centre of Income Tax Dept, Bangalore CPC.

On calling: IVR took data like company PAN and purpose of call.  Thereafter receiver immediately starts with what I want to know without again asking about name, PAN or purpose. She was ready with when I did inquire last and what the status of my problem is. 

I have rarely found this efficiency or process even in most big private sector brands & most call centres are far from what it should be. They keep asking basic data N number of times, waiting time is high and line get transferred to new executives every time more queries are asked.  Even if we have punched the basic data, purpose of call,  still they ask us the same thing. Their scripted speeches are too monotonous.

What we callers/receivers expect them to do:

1) When call centre is busy - mention how long will it take for executive to attend. Better if every drop callers are called back by the call centre. 

2) Caller is calling mostly to solve the problem so in a hurry or in an anxiety. Quickly come to the solution part in the script. Rest can be taken care later or may not need many a times. Most of the time background is too noisy. Avoid. 

3) Train,  Train and retrain the executives - skill set - language, communication , product/service knowledge , how to solve the problems/help. 

4) Solve the problem there and then without waiting or having layers of executives’ therefore more waiting time and chances of disconnection.

5) Post request, immediate action by the company if something is to be done after the call. Usually I get a call after 2 days or week, once I place the request.

6) Outgoing Callers - First and foremost ask about convenience. Whether "Right time to talk?". They come to this after long opening statement. 

7) No hard sell. Once listeners says NO , politely thank and exit. Mostly executives inquire why , when and insist on listening to them. They should listen the prospect first.

8) Keep choice of words powerful and conversation attentive.  

Keep CUSTOMERS in focus and not your business processes or sell hard agenda. Solve their problem, offer them info and sell them only if they want it not because you want to sell.  

Finally (Male members may not like it) have female executives. They are not only found to be more polite but gets better attention.

It’s about BRAND company has created. It shall not be destroyed by untrained people with casual approach, long process driven (centric ) out-sourced activities. 


In today's market MOST call centres will not qualify test of Excellency. Nobody is listening either customers ( What callers have to say in an out bound call ) or executives ( In out bound/inbound calls ) or even  companies ( What is happening at call centres ) !!!!. 

Thursday, April 28, 2011

5 ways to Rejuvenate Your Brand ( U and Brand U represent )

Past Experience sometimes is the biggest hurdle. It CONDITIONS our mind. Previous patterns determine our future actions. Life is an explorations and conditioned mind cant explore but just follow the trend. This applies to individuals and enterprises equally.

Therefore to unCONDITION our mind we need to be alert of our thoughts & actions.  Out of the Box or Lateral Thinking is all about this. Everyone be it individual or company becomes prisoner of this "following the pattern" habit. This is how we become stale after sometime.

Challenge is to get out of this and rejuvenate our thoughts on an ongoing basis:

5) Do something non routine daily.(take new route to office or home, buy  non regular magazine, go to movie with not so good review, watch channel not viewed regularly, offer peak season discount on products and services, pay yr supplier early and thank them for the support, celebrate achievement of family members of employees,  ask back office team to front end the customers,  respond to call center queries in 48 minutes instead of 48 hours, offer no question asked goods return for a day, call customer after a day of his purchase to know whether he is happy with product or service

4) Challenge Obvious Idea / Action / Interpretation. (Get feedback from suppliers, service providers, go to different restaurant, take no reason leave from the job and be with the family, have without appointments day for all patients,  go and play cricket with children on Sunday,   )

3) Think , apply your mind and look at the things in different perspective.(Talk to grieving customers or employees by calling him and giving full attention to know his perspectives)

2) For the sake of change do something differently. (Offer Lassi or lemon juice in place of routine Tea/Coffee to your customers /employees)

1) Check Business Processes more often for better customer experiences. Its a dynamic world, processes must be reviewed to achieve speed & convenience to customers.(Remove or merge processes, add delight factor in the process)

Many more such actions can be taken up routinely to un( Condition + Routine ) our mind. Daily Targets ,Quarterly Results and Annual Bonus will make it difficult to think anything other than routine but believe me thinking unroutine will improve all the three targets.

This is BRANDing in ACTION. Atrophy (Regular CONDITIONed) or Rejuvenate (Regular UNCONDITIONing). Choice of actions r clear.