With your service number, you have taken a big step towards better customer contact. You receive more telephone leads and have expanded your sales area. But how do your (potential) customers experience the contact with your employees? What do they find important in a business phone call? You can measure the customer experience, but before you do so, it is good to review your service on the following points.

1. Show empathy

One of the reasons why customers pick up the phone is because a phone call is more personal than correspondence by email or chat. There is nothing more disappointing for a customer than speaking to a bored, robot-like employee. So friendliness plays a big role, but also the solution-orientedness of your employees. Genuine interest in the customer and the motivation to help him or her cannot be trained.

2. Be effective

Another factor in the assessment of customer contact by phone is the effectiveness of the employee. Managing expectations, asking the right questions and quickly offering a solution are part of this. With the right training, your employees will go a long way.

3. Know the customer

How much do you know about your caller? With the right tools, your telephone employee will have the customer data in front of them in no time. The customer feels welcome and understood because you also have the contact history. Having this data is one thing, but don’t forget to communicate to the customer that you know you had contact four days ago.

4. Easy to find and accessible

This factor is relatively easy to influence. This is about your service number being easy to find: on your website, in the phone book, in your folders and in the advertisements you place. In addition, the opening hours should be user-friendly. You can discuss this with your customers. Don’t worry; customers really don’t need your service number to be available 24 hours a day.

5. Focus on the customer

Is the customer central to you and does the customer notice this? Therefore, keep agreements, be proactive and give clear advice. Does the customer notice that you are actually doing something with the signals you are sending? Are you stuck with strict rules and rigid structures or are you willing to make an exception for your customer?

6. Choice menu

The general perception is that choice menus lead to a lot of irritation among callers, but nothing could be further from the truth. A choice menu is fine, as long as it connects the customer to the right employee quickly. Too many and/or unclear options only lead to frustration.

7. Waiting time

When assessing the quality of customer contact by phone, the waiting time is one of the most important measurement points. The call time also counts, especially when you have a 0900 service number where the customer pays per minute. Belfabriek gives you a clear overview of the waiting and call times through your real-time call statistics.