Read on to discover five ways in which you can use Proactive Communication and real-time Fast Feedback to cut resources, increase response rates and dramatically improve customer satisfaction, with success stories from the likes of:

“One thing Call Centres get wrong is that they keep targeting instead of measuring.

Measure instead and you’re gaining business intelligence to drive you forward.”

Alan Hughes, Former CEO, First Direct

Whilst metrics such as conversion, call handling time and completion rate can give you a general overview of how your Contact Centre is performing, they can’t tell you how satisfied your customers were with their experience.

By asking them for their feedback in real-time you can gain valuable insight into where you’re going right or wrong and make immediate improvements.

1. Combine your hard metrics with softer human insights

West Bromwich Building Society has a busy Contact Centre that answers up to 1,000 phone calls a day.

Customer service had always been at the heart of what they do but they felt their old method of gathering insight via a mystery shopper had grown staid and ineffective.

Rather than using a tick box model, West Brom enlisted the services of Rant & Rave to gather real-time feedback from their customers. After speaking to a Contact Centre agent, customers are now given the option to rate their experience and record their feedback verbally via an IVR.

All of the comments are then analysed in real-time and presented back to West Brom on their own personalised dashboard, allowing key personnel to deal with issues before they become official complaints and boost morale by sharing positive feedback throughout the company.

It’s a fact of life that no two customers are the same; some may prefer to browse yourwebsite for information, whilst others may prefer to speak to someone in your ContactCentre. That’s why it’s important to offer them a variety of channels to leave their feedback.

2. Give your customers a choice of channel

Atos provides technology and support services to a global client base, including the likes of the Ministry of Justice, NHS Scotland and The Home Office.

But collecting feedback from a high-end B2B audience is hard - these are busy people and getting their attention is costly. To combat this, Atos adopted a multi-channel approach to capturing customer insight, giving them the choice to leave feedback in their own words via email or immediately after speaking to a Contact Centre agent via voice recording. As a result of asking customers for their thoughts in their own words (as opposed to in a lengthy survey), Atos have cut their survey costs from £50 to 10p and dramatically improved their response rates. They achieve responses from 35% of requests via email and up to an incredible 90% from requests made via IVR!

Outbound calling can be a tricky job. Whether you’re chasing a late payment or upselling a product, it can take a lot of calls to get the conversation going, and the agent doesn't know whether that conversation will happen on call 5 or call 50. But what if you could corral customers into time slots that matched your Contact Centre resource availability?

Consider using text messages to proactively ask your customers to get in touch at a time that suits them. That way you’re not only encouraging inbound calls, but ensuring that your agents are working productively, rather than continuously chasing customers.

3. Keep control of the flow of your conversations

Sometimes inbound calls can be costly. Customers calling in for delivery information, to change an appointment or to get an update on progress can take up a lot of your agents’ resource, but these costs can go down if you deal with the customer's issue with a singletouch.

By proactively sending your customers the information they need via text, voice message or email, you can immediately reduce the number of inbound calls to your Contact Centre.

4. Give customers the information they need before they ask for it

Often hidden amongst customer feedback collected over time are trends and themes that can predict future customer behaviour.

Sometimes they are warning signs or common complaints that you can respond to quickly, before they escalate into larger problems, we call these ‘icebergs’. Other times they represent opportunities that you can capitalise on, we call these ‘diamonds’.

5. Start predicting the future with diamonds & icebergs

In response to Ofwat's introduction of the Service Incentive Mechanism, Affinity Water wanted to be able to demonstrate that they were actively listening and responding to their customers' feedback. Using Rant & Rave’s Fast Feedback solution, Affinity Water now text their customers after a Contact Centre interaction or visit from a community based technician, asking them how likely they are to recommend the water provider to their friends or colleagues and why.

Rant & Rave then analyses the feedback in real-time, providing Affinity Water with the ability to flag issues and rectify them immediately and predict their performance (including where they may come in the SIM survey run by OFWAT) to within a 0.5% accuracy.

Want to know how Rant & Rave can help?

We’re always on the lookout for brands with the same ethos as us - those who aren’t afraid to think outside the box and do things differently. So whether that’s already you or you’re looking for some inspiration, we’d love to be a part of your plans.

Call us on 02476 011 911 or email us at hello@rantandrave.com

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