October 2015
Don’t Hang Up Just Yet: Call Centres Are a Long Way from Dead
As many panicked TalkTalk customers will have discovered this week, there’s nothing more reassuring than picking up the phone and hearing an actual human voice tell you that everything is going to be OK. Yes, customers have been openly warned about scams on Twitter and have had the situation explained to them a dozen times by the evening news, but it doesn’t quite put your mind at ease in the same way – it’s simply a fact of being human. So why, then, do people believe call centres are ‘going out of fashion’?
Customer Relations in the Social Media Age
For many call centre critics, social media is the go-to citation for why telephoning companies is on the way out. When it’s just as easy – if not more so – to simply ‘tweet’ a company than find the number to ring, then why would consumers bother dialling? In fact, more and more companies are hiring whole teams of social media customer relations managers in order to embrace this new communications channel.
Although this is somewhat innovative, there are things that call centres can do which social media cannot. For example, without a comprehensive bit of kit, it’s worryingly easy for multiple social media managers to stumble over one another and answer the same customer twice; if they’re online one at a time, however, then there’s the chance that they’ll find themselves suddenly overwhelmed when something such as the TalkTalk hack happens.
When considering social media vs call centres, it’s also often brushed over that even if information is shared to a large audience, it doesn’t mean there aren’t further questions or misunderstandings. This is usually why older individuals and those who aren’t tech-savvy will still turn towards the old fashioned method of making contact and pick up the phone instead.
Looking for Something Closer to Home
Social media’s introduction to the customer relations game isn’t the only reason a suspected death sentence is being imposed on call centres – more and more consumers are making it known that they want a more ‘local’ service.
This often has more to do with the fact that although operators speak the same language, some quirks get lost in translation, such as nervous telephone humour or conversation, and that can make the customer’s experience an alienating one.
Arguably, however, businesses have listened to their customers and have started to open more call centres in the UK to service communities. This doesn’t prevent a need for outsourcing, however, as call centres would need to hire staff for longer, quieter hours in order to provide a round the clock telephone service for customers.
CRMs Are Changing the Game
The Lunar Team have had the opportunity to work with a variety of call centre clients – our dialler integration feature is a must-have for many of them – and we can safely say that it’s not time to hang up on the telephone just yet! By combining dialling capabilities, third party sales software and our own bespoke CRM tool, our call centre clients have been able to enjoy more control over their work than ever before, and their customers are reaping the benefits. So it’s safe to say that with greater customer satisfaction than ever before, call centres are definitely here to say – despite social media and customer demand for domestic centres. Speaking as individuals who like to engage with real human beings, we have to say that we’re rather glad!
Want to take your call centre to the next level of customer relations? Request a free demo of our bespoke CRM solution and see what it can do for you!