Hiring a contact center to be your first line of communication with your customers can seem daunting, especially if you’ve owned this task yourself. As your business has grown, you recognize that you must build your team or hand this off to a trusted partner. Front-line communication is critical in building a brand. When done properly will lower your company’s return rate, improve repeat business, and manage comments posted on social media better than you could have.
Below are some key questions to assist you in finding the right partner. Not all questions apply but pick and choose the most applicable ones to make your selection process more successful.
- What are your hours of operation?
- How do customers typically contact your center (e.g. phone, email, chat, social media)?
- Do you offer multilingual support? U.S.-based agents? International agents? Where are they located?
- How do you handle after-hours or emergency calls?
- What is your process for handling customer complaints or feedback?
- Do you have a customer loyalty program?
- How do you measure customer satisfaction?
- What is your average hold time for calls?
- How do you handle call overflow or high-volume periods?
- Do you offer self-service options for customers (e.g. a FAQ page or IVR system)?
- How do you handle escalated calls or complex customer issues?
- Do you have a knowledge management system to help agents assist customers?
- How do you handle abandoned calls?
- How do you train your agents?
- How do you motivate your agents to provide excellent customer service?
- What are your policies for transferring calls?
- How do you handle customer data and privacy?
- Do you have a disaster recovery plan in place?
- How do you handle difficult or angry customers?
- Do you offer personalized or customized service to customers?
- How do you measure the efficiency of your contact center?
- What technology do you use to manage and track customer interactions?
- How do you handle customer requests for callback or follow-up?
- Do you have a system in place for tracking and resolving customer issues?
- Do you offer any additional services to customers (e.g. account management, billing support)?
- Do you offer mail-order support to customers?
- What is your demographic? Who is your customer?
- Do you have an upsell program?
- Do you offer gift cards/coupons/discount programs?
- Do you have a wholesale department?
- How often do you send reports?
- Do you record your calls? How long are they stored?
- Are you working in a PCI-compliant environment?
- Are you HIPPA compliant?
- Do you allow the client to be part of product training?
Speed Commerce is a leader in ecommerce contact center operations. We help leading ecommerce retailers increase their speed of delivery, improve order accuracy, decrease shipping costs, and increase customer satisfaction. Call us to discuss your customer service operations and how we can help.