Complaining customers must feel their feedback is welcome and valued and will be used to eliminate the problem at the root. In a recent study, the amount of time representatives spent on the phone and their encouragement of customers to call again if there were more questions was rated very high. These findings suggest there is value in making customer feel their feedback and business is appreciated. Showing appreciation for feedback can be as simple as saying, "Thank you. We appreciate customers who take the time to let us know when things aren't right." It is important that a call center have a specific feedback mechanism. You are a direct link to the customer. You interface more with the customer than any other part of the organization. Do you have the ability to capture a customer's immediate impression? Many centers rely on a corporate survey that only has a few generic call center questions on it.
Response Design has developed complaint management products to assist you. In addition, we offer extensive surveys with agent questions that have replaced the agent quality behavioral skills monitoring (courtesy, listening, etc.). It has liberated extensive time calibrating, monitoring for the management team and is much more believable for the agents - feedback is straight from the customers they dealt with.
