What determines a great call center? Some centers will provide reports for quality assurance, abandoned call percentages, average handling times or attrition measurements.  I believe dependability and flexibility are measured solely by Customer Experience.

How can you insure the customer experience? It is simple, with what I will refer to as the “Three Rule Principal”

1. Trained Personnel
2. Telephone Etiquette
3. Agent Support

Trained Personnel 

First, agents identify themselves by using their name; thus personalization. An agent must have the skill to listen and restate the customer request. Agents educate the customers, explaining the application or results. Then the agents apply the information presented and send a summary for recapping what was communicated on the call. Finally, the agents will express that it was a pleasure being of service to the customer:

Please-verb; to make (someone) happy or satisfied

P – Personalize-use real names
L – Listen- restate, clarify
E – Educate the customer -inform
A – Apply by explanation- use examples, simplify
S – Send follow up message for closure or future action items
E – Expression- enjoy what you do (it rubs off on others)

Telephone Etiquette 

Components for telephone etiquette s include; listening well, voice tone, articulation, patience, responsibility and focus. Teaching the skill of how to listen and not interrupt must be practiced. Same is true with their voice; no loud aggressive voice will soothe any irate customer. Articulation certainly means to pronounce your words correctly and to remove slang; to remain professional and that they do not confuse the message. Patience goes hand in hand with listening, as an agent you may need to patiently wait for the customer to rapidly express their frustrations, interrupting may only exacerbate the situation.  An agent MUST be willing to take responsibility for whatever the matter was that is being reported. Most importantly is to stay on task, focus on the root cause and effect so as to resolve expeditiously.

Agent Support

Agent support mean insuring an appropriate Supervisor to agent ratio. An effective Supervisor should be responsible for no more than 15 agents. Having immediate agent access to a supervisor and or manager is commonly referred to as an open door policy. This allows for quality coaching, training and adherence to a schedule. So many centers put their emphasis on morale boosters that they overlook the basic needs of their employees.

First insure your employees are paid fairly and equitably for a job well done. Next make sure the environment where they spend their work hours is clean and non-threatening.  Provide access to break areas both indoors and outdoors, lockers and resources for refreshments either employer sponsored and or access to commercial supplies.

Communication between management and the employee is the key to success. Provide for anonymous suggestions or comments (suggestion box) which may be used as the source to make suggestions for each employee who may not want to speak out publicly.

These three basic rules will make raving fans of your brand or product through Customer Experience (example: Zappos). Analyze your call center; if you are not using similar basic principles, then the customer experience is much less than satisfactory.

If you are looking for an inbound or outbound contact center; lead generation, customer service center, back office or account management that can save you time, money, and effort please feel free to contact me. To learn more about what we can do for you, visit ILDCorp.com.

It is no secret that current times are tough!  Generating revenue these days is hard enough and it’s important that businesses spend their sales resources on selling their product and services to consumers who actually pay their bill.

At ILD Teleservices, we develop secure alternative payment tools to help our Merchants identify billable clients before making a SALE.  ILD merchants can now prequalify their leads and save up to 75% of their sales costs.

#1 – Don’t purchase a lead list until you validate billable accounts

Why pay for a lead that is not a billable account?  Using ILD Teleservices’ bill to phone payment option, merchants can pre-validate accounts to ensure they are billable.  Lead generators can pull data by specific geographic region.  At ILD, we take those lists and create a custom file for merchants based on billable accounts.  The file contains all of the telephone exchanges that are approved for billing in the designated area.  This list can be provided to the lead generator, so the merchant pays only for qualified leads in the areas where they are approved for billing.

#2 – Validate telephone numbers to ensure they are active

A lot of money can be wasted in the telemarketing sales process by calling phone numbers which have recently been disconnected by the phone company, transferred to a VoIP or cable provider.  Merchants that use iValidate get the most current data to ensure the telephone numbers are currently active and billable.  ILD’s iValidate system pulls the real time telephone number account status from the telephone companies and provides an indicator if the number is billable.

ILD’s iValidate platform is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so you can validate your lead in real-time prior to making the sales call.

For more ideas from ILD Teleservices to get the most of your billing, contact Laurice Neely at 210-592-0881 to set up a personal one-on-one evaluation and solution session.

Laurice Neely is Executive Director, Alternative Payments for ILD Teleservices.  She is a guest blogger and can be found on Twitter @lauricen. 

I’m Vice President of Billing Operations for ILD Teleservices, by day, and I am an Internet junkie by night (weekend, really).  My usual mission is to find the latest electronic gadget but I always seem to get distracted, and soon find that I’ve been scouring the tangled web for the last 3 hours, reading about and viewing products I had no intention of looking for earlier.

As the VP of Billing Operations for alternative payment provider, ILD Teleservices, I am a little biased when it comes to online payments and the whole check out experience.  I can’t help but look at these merchant websites and wonder why they don’t even make an attempt to offer a simpler payment option for buyers.  Of course, the consumer in me just wants to buy, buy, buy… whether it’s a book download, music, an online game or a subscription, but most e-Commerce sites limit themselves by only offering a single payment option – CREDIT CARD.

Last weekend I was at a point where I wanted to make a purchase, but of course I didn’t have my purse next to me.  So, I had to find my purse, pull out my credit card, grab my glasses to see the tiny 3 digit validation code, and I’ve just lost 10 minutes of my very precious weekend.  Even worse is when I’ve stepped away from the computer to get my credit card and because I’ve been gone too long, I’m then required to re-start the whole online shopping process.  Where’s the convenience in that checkout?  I know I’m not the only person who has gone through this.

Like many other buyers, I also think twice about sharing my credit card digits with an online web store where I have not done business before.  Usually, those are places where I simply landed on their site from…God only knows where.  But then I think about using my credit card on sites with which I haven’t done business before, and I get cold feet.  Both the VP of Billing Operations and the consumer in me wishes more merchants would offer simpler and more convenient payment options – like ILD Teleservices alternative – Bill to Phone.  It is so convenient and so much safer to charge a purchase to my phone bill than go through the credit card process mentioned above.

Have you ever been frustrated with making an online purchase?  Let’s commiserate.

Kathy McQuade is Vice President of ILD’s Payment Services Division, ILD Teleservices, and has worked with ILD since 1997. She always loves to continue the conversation on Twitter, @kmcq45.

In today’s economy, every business is searching for a way to cut costs and monetize opportunities. Companies have looked to outsource services to offshore contact centers in the effort to reduce costs. While outsource labor may look to be a less expensive option on paper, what is the hidden cost of dissatisfied customers being sent to a non-US based, “offshore” agent to represent your business, brand and reputation?

An offshore agent’s speech may be impeccable, but cultural differences will prevail.  Brand image and passion about products are an absolute necessity in order for the agent to up sell, service and represent. USA products and services are best represented by USA agents who can identify with the service. Take for an example Apples.  A USA agent can relate to the numerous types of Apples; apple pie, applesauce, apple turnover, caramel apples and candied apples. Apples are not only part of our diet but we relate in our culture to apples. Would an offshore agent understand “Johnny Appleseed” and “American as Apple Pie” or of course “an Apple a Day keeps the Doctor Away”? The same concept applies to products marketed, used and made in the USA!

Communication is the key to success. American slang and colloquialism is commonly used in our country “y’all”, “you bet”, or “back in the day”. How can an offshore agent represent your brand if they do not have a relationship or understand the cultural differences of your clients? When building the business case, I strongly recommend utilizing a US-based and employed call center.  You will be able to increase your savings by Outsourcing “Onshore” with a Made in the USA Agent! This experience will be one that you will be proud to share with your customers.

Contact ILD’s  best in Service USA Outsource Center to meet your needs, inbound, outbound, back office support and lead generations. As Senior Vice President of ILD’s Outsourced Division, I promise you a quality conversation with a company willing to strategize and customize to your objective to meet the need of your business. Or check us out www.ildcorp.com.

Image Courtesy of CallCenterComics.com