The call center industry is a very hard industry to be a part of. Aside from the actual responsibilities, irate customers can make people working in this field feel inept and stressed. However, there are ways like quality assurance call center to deal with irate customers and help you and your team excel in call centers, even in the heavily stressful financial services industry.
- Equip Anyone Who Interacts with Customers with The Necessary Skills
There are tons of training done for call center representatives in financial companies that help them better handle customers, especially the irate ones. However, it’s important to remember that there are other employees, such as mortgage officers and loan officers, that face customers as well, and they, too, need to be equipped in handling these customers. Make sure to include them in these trainings.
- Understand that Monetary Issues Can Hurt Some Customers’ Ego
Money has always been a sensitive issue, and unfortunately in the financial services industry, tons of questions about a customer’s finances will have to be asked. For some customers, this is okay, but irate ones tend to be offended. Pacify potentially offensive questions by first giving them the reason why you need to ask them these. Start by saying, “We are required to ask this…” and then add “If you don’t mind me asking….” before giving the actual question.
- Know Customers Who Do Phone Roulette
Customer phone roulette pertains to customers who keep calling in the hopes of getting a different answer to their request. Try to track these customers, and if possible, give a heads up to all employees who may receive the same call and tell them to be consistent with their answers.
- Help Your Team to Have High Customers-Knowledge Levels
One of the things that make a customer incredibly irritated is when the agent they are talking to doesn’t seem to know a lot about what they’re dealing with. To avoid this, help your team members as much as you can with the terms, problems, policies, and troubleshooting methods they need to be familiar with. No matter how uncommon an issue is, make sure that your team is knowledgeable in it.
- Train Your Staff to Deal with Aggressive Independent Brokers
Some independent brokers are also hard to deal with. Therefore, you need to train your team members to deal with them the same way you deal with irate customers. Just because they have a different title does not mean methods of dealing with them need to differ.
- Have A Voice of Customer Program
The Voice of Customer (VoC) program is there to help gather customers’ feedback. Listen to these feedback, and take down notes. Keep doing the things customers compliment and improve the ones they more often complain about.
- Give Praise and Rewards
In the financial services industry, agents will more likely to experience bad calls than good ones. So, when they do handle calls efficiently, regardless of it being a good or bad one, praise them. One simple praise or reward can help boost their confidence, which will result in better performance.
- Help Team Members Recover From Their Last Irate Customer
Do not let succeeding calls be affected by one very bad call. Make sure that your representative that just handled an incredibly irate customer can bounce back from it. Learn to recognize which employees are greatly affected by these calls, and then talk to them. Let them express how they feel, then give them helpful advice.
Conclusion
While it may be challenging to work in call centers and deal with irate customers, it is not impossible to survive and excel in it. You just need to be prepared enough by following the guidelines in the list above.