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Fusion BPO Services - ContactCenterWorld.com Blog

Page: 1 | 2

How The Airlines Industry Can Benefit From BPO Industry

In recent years, the airlines industry has faced major challenges like rising fuel cost, changes in environmental regulations, and an ever-rising customer expectation. To cope with them, most airlines are looking for ways to reduce cost while meeting the environmental regulations and customer expectations.

In such a situation, business process outsourcing (BPO) can offer the airlines industry fast and simple solutions that help small and medium airlines survive the tumulus time and prepare them for future growth and expansion. The BPO solutions include a number of benefits including cost reduction, the biggest challenge for airlines these days. These are:

  • Reduction of the cost structures and making it transparent
  • Focus on the customers’ needs despite cost-cutting
  • Customer retention
  • Better planning capacity and inventory management based on hard data
  • Consolidation of delivery operations to standardize business processes

Thanks to the latest technological breakthroughs, BPOs today can provide a wide number of custom solutions to the airlines industry. From AI-assisted customer service to rescheduling, delays, and cancellation assistance, a modern BPO can handle it all.  Some of the most popular processes that airlines are outsourcing to BPOs are:

Ticketing – BPOs are equipped to handle ticketing and reservation processes for airlines of any size. 

Customer Service – Customer service has been a forte of BPOs from the very beginning. With AI-assistance, customer service agents are now better equipped to help the customers faster and with increased efficiency.

Online Payments Processing (Payment IVR) with Fraud Detection – Any PCI-DSS certified BPO can process online payment securely on behalf of an airline. From secure payment processing to fraud detection, everything is done with astute precision.

Flight Information Services and Inquiries – BPOs can easily handle flight information services and inquiries in real time.

Rescheduling, Cancelling, and Delay Handling – From Rescheduling, cancellation, to delay handling, a BPO can manage everything expertly without causing the slightest problem to the customers.

Lost Baggage Tracing and Customer Support – Lost baggage tracing can be quite frustrating to a customer. But the customer support experts in a BPO can handle the situation quite well, turning a negative experience into a positive one. With AI-enabled solutions, a BPO can provide effective customer support that improves customer experience.

Class Upgrades and Other Services – Upselling and cross-selling are something BPOs are doing since the very beginning. Therefore, airlines can always hire BPOs for class upgrades and other related services.

Loyalty Program Management – BPOs can handle frequent flier loyalty programs for the airlines and help them retain more customers.

Campaign Management – A well-executed sales campaign can help airlines attract new business or enter a new market. And no one can manage a sales campaign better than a BPO.

By outsourcing these processes, airlines can bring efficiency to its customer service and business processes and reduce the operation cost simultaneously.

As a major player in the global BPO industry, Fusion BPO has already helped a number of clients with custom, scalable customer service and business process solutions that build strong customer relationships, improve operational efficiencies, and help the airlines enter new markets.

Our multilingual agents are trained to handle a comprehensive range of services such as- customer care (from inquiries to emergencies), fares, reservation, and ticketing via a number of communication channels. Many of our agents are trained in GDS and different partner solutions. We also have IATA certified personnel in our team. We are fully equipped to deliver AI-based low-cost, high-impact digital, business process, and customer engagement solutions to the airlines industry.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/how-the-airlines-industry-can-benefit-from-bpo-industry.html

Publish Date: February 14, 2019


6 Ways To Engage Your Agents – The X Factor In Quality Customer Experience

You have all heard about Powerpuff Girls and how they are made of sugar & spice and all things nice and an accidental dose of chemical X. Without that chemical X or X factor, they would become powerless.  The same thing applies for excellent customer service.  No matter how you incorporate the latest technology, metrics, and communication channels to provide the best customer service through your contact center, it will be quite useless without the factor X – your agents.

The agents are often the unsung heroes of customer service. They work as the first point of contact for your customers and therefore has the power to build or ruin a customer experience. According to a study, companies with engaged employees outperform those without by up to 202%. Want to deliver excellent customer experience every single time?  Turn your attention to engaging your agents.

At Fusion, we take agent engagement very seriously and perform various activities to keep our agents engaged, encouraged and empowered. Here are a few agent engagement tips that Fusion regularly uses to keep the agents engaged:

1. A Sincere thanks

A little thank you can go a long way. After a successful campaign or an exhaustive week, a thank you can pick the agents up like nothing else. We recommend that every manager must have it in their arsenal and use it regularly.

2. Training

The training and orientation program at the beginning of an agent’s tenure in your organization is often exhaustive.  There’s a lot to take in within a short period. Therefore, some agents tend not to remember each and everything taught at the initial training.  To fix this, Fusion arranges custom training for them that help them catch up and improve their performance.

Fusion also arranges cross-trainings with a goal of increasing employee knowledge. We have them trained in other departments or positions, help them learn new skills and languages.  It provides a sense of value to an employee and puts them on a fast track for improvement.

3. Offsite events

Everyone needs to break their mundane cycle and let their hair down every once in a while. And that is exactly what your agents need. Take the team out of the office and have some fun. Take them on a picnic, a happy hour, an after-office badminton session, or a football tournament. Allow them to have fun and enjoy each other’s company. Your team deserves this.

4. Communicate expectations and reward the efforts

As the old saying goes – “Tell me and I forget; show me and I remember; involve me and I understand” you need to involve your agents and show them the big picture.  This way, the agents will know what is expected from them and how they can drive the company towards success. And when they meet that expectation, do not forget to recognize their efforts, encourage them, and reward them. This means the world to them.

5. Reward and recognitions

Provide incentives and praise. It really shows agents how much the organization respects and values them and their critical role. This way you will inspire agents to keep doing the kinds of things that increase customer satisfaction and boost customer experience.

Also, your reward should not come in the form of a cupcake, pizza, and balloons.  They do not quite convey the message that you value your agents. Fusion has a few suggestions:

  • A Wall of Fame featuring agents who have achieved excellence in key areas last month
  • A points-for-performance program, where agents who excel receive points that can be redeemed for merchandise
  • Peer recognition such as “You rock!” stickers or a pack of chocolates to peers who show outstanding effort in making a customer happy.
  • Honoring agents during Customer Service Week, and other such recognition.
  • Rewarding the best performers quarterly in a small ceremony where the CEO congratulates them can be great.

6. Ask for agent feedback

You must make your agents feel valued and heard.  Therefore, you need to ask for their opinion, suggestions, and feedbacks. This also has other advantages. Often agents can notice common issues and come up with easy solutions. Their feedback can help your business resolve underlying issues.  All employees need to feel valued and believe they have a say in the future of the business. These are a few tried and true agent engagement tips that Fusion has put to work with brilliant results.  Do you have such tips? Share with us in the comment section.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/engage-your-agents-xfactor-quality-customer-experience.html

Publish Date: February 8, 2019


7 Ways Retail Businesses Can Benefit From Hiring a Call Center for Customer Service

Gone are the days when retail businesses were purely brick-and-mortar. Thanks to new technology, the rise of internet and the changes in the spending habits of its consumers, retail industry went through some drastic changes in recent years.

And as the boundaries between retail and ecommerce are blurring, consumers’ expectations from a retail business is growing dramatically. Consumers today expect service from a wide variety of channels from a retail business including in-store, online, and over the phone. This has increased the challenges for retail businesses all around.

To meet these ever-growing challenges and succeed, retail businesses can get help from call center outsourcing. In fact, hiring a call center can have multiple benefits for a retail business.  Here are they:

1. Provide Better Customer Support

Retail businesses can provide better service for their customers by taking a proactive approach and using multiple channels.  With an outsourced call center that is designed and equipped to handle a variety of customer issues, the process of customer service becomes much more efficient. Also, the likelihood of customer problems or complaints being resolved quickly is much greater with a professional call center. When customers feel satisfied with the support, it creates greater loyalty which can translate into future sales.

2. Meet Customers on Their Terms

When a customer has a problem, issue, or question, they want to be able to receive service immediately. To meet that expectation, retail businesses need to provide 24/7 service through a variety of communication channels, which is something that call centers can make possible.

3. Increase Brand Presence

In today’s business world, reaching customers and increasing your brand presence needs to include a multi-channel approach. Call center services use a variety of channels (as voice, e-mail, live-chat and a variety of social media platforms) to increase awareness about your business and raise your retail presence. Equipped to handle so many channels, the contact center can handle multiple customer queries across every available channel your customer uses.

4. Boost Customer Experience

By using call center services, a retail business can reach the right customer, through the right channel, with the right message at the right time and offer greater customer experience. Also, timely customer service round the clock means better customer satisfaction and loyalty.

5. Provide Big Data Collection and Analysis

Call center technology provides clear metrics and data analysis in real time. Call centers can quickly provide feedback on data that would need to be measured. This type of data collection and analysis enables the retailer to make required adjustments to make the business successful.

6. Allow Businesses to Focus on Core

Setting up and operating in-house customer service can be tough and time-consuming for retail businesses. By using a call center, businesses can focus more on their products, daily operations, and business plans, without the worry about customer service.

7. Cost-Effective

Call center services are often more cost-effective than providing in-house services for retail businesses. Many call centers offer affordable rates, customized solutions, and scalable service, and therefore can provide cost-effective service for growing or expanding businesses.

These are a few benefits a retail business can reap by hiring an outsourcing call center.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/7-ways-retail-businesses-can-benefit-from-call-center.html

Publish Date: February 1, 2019


5 OmniChannel Customer Service Best Practices To Boost Customer Experience

 In today’s highly competitive customer service industry, customers are more demanding and powerful than before. They are also more knowledgeable and tech-savvy than ever. Therefore, to impress them and keep their business, you need to have impeccable customer service with omnichannel and consistent support.

Today the best-in-class companies deliver consistent messages to customers across all channels and a majority of customers dislike repeating their queries. So, at present, omnichannel customer service is the key to meeting customer expectation and even surpassing it. Here are 5 omnichannel customer service tips that can help you get started:

1. Focus on mobile-based service

 In 2019, not being able to offer uncompromised support via mobile is not only unacceptable but also self-sabotaging for a business.  In a time when 87% of customers actually use mobile devices to make purchases, businesses must insist on having a quality mobile-based customer service in place. Or else they must face the wrath of their frustrated customers.  

Here’s how you can improve your customer service via mobile:

  • Provide your customers with mobile-friendly FAQs, documentation and self-support videos.
  • Your mobile website/app landing page must display your customer service button prominently.
  • Give your customer an easy way to contact customer support from the mobile. It can be prominent, but non-intrusive dial-for-support or live-chat-for-support button that lets them communicate with you without leaving the page.
  • Single-tap sensitive customer service links are preferable.
  • A real-time tracking system for mobile-based customer service queries is also important.

2. Reduce your social media response time

Customers today are fond of instant resolutions.  That is why they prefer social media platforms (especially Twitter) to catch the attention of companies and have them resolve customer service issues promptly.

In a recent study, 42% of the participants said they expected companies to respond to social media mentions within 60 minutes. 

Here’s how to do it:

  • Understand your customers’ expectations when they post their queries on social media, anticipate their needs and then address their concerns.
  • Aim to respond to all queries within the first 60 minutes.  Even if you cannot offer a solution in that time frame, acknowledging the issue and assuring the customer of a response can go a long way. 
  • Set up keyword tracking for your social media pages and never miss any customer’s comments.
  • Provide seamless customer support by integrating social media with live chat.

3. Offer live chat assistance for priority customers

Every business needs to prioritize their enterprise and high-level customers and therefore must offer the quick-resolve routes that present the least hassles. In these cases, a face-to-face call or live chat can be their best aid to boost customer experience.

According to a Forrester study, interactive chat can result in as much as a 120% ROI in a 6-month payback period.

How to use live chat assistance to keep priority customers happy

  • Install a reliable live chat on your website and app across devices.
  • Create a flexible script with room for improvisation as per the customer’s needs. A list of conversation points can be helpful too.
  • Use a CRM to store important information about customers that you can refer to for context before attending a customer’s call.
  • Keep product manuals and resources ready to send across to your customers when required during your call.
  • Allow customers to lead the call with their requirements but do not allow them to deviate from the topic.

4. Enable self-service via easy-to-use FAQs and documentation

According to a Zendesk study, 50% of customers want to resolve their issues by themselves, without having to involve a customer support team. They cost your customer service team the least and turn better cost-to-profit ratios. Such customers can be satiated with self-serve FAQs, documentation and video content.

How to create optimized FAQs and documentation

  • Make your FAQs comprehensive, organized, and easy to navigate.
  • A/B test for your FAQ and documentation landing pages and optimize for the best design and ease-of-use.
  • Create excellent copy that offers an excellent self-service experience.

5. Set up an email automation workflow

Email should be part of your customer service system. It’s easy to manage, still effective and can resolve a good number of your customers’ queries. And with CRMs that offer email automation workflows, email customer service has become an easy to manage customer service channel.

How to use email automation workflows to enable flawless customer service

  • Keep your automation workflows under frequent checks, and tweak email drafts and automation schedules as and when required.
  • Use an actual email for replies so your customers feel cared for and can interact with your automated messages.
  • If you resolve common issues in a completely automated fashion, you will only have to take care of any unusual activity as and when they occur.

These are a few ways you can improve customer experience through multichannel communication. The key to success of a customer service system, omnichannel, multichannel, or otherwise, lies in the proper understanding of what the customer wants and needs, empathizing with them, and delivering prompt resolution with a bit of personal touch.  Even with the right technology, a customer service system is sure to fail if it cannot feel the pain points of your customers and empathize with them.

A healthy dose of empathy, personalization, and prompt resolution at the right time through the right channel can give a good boost customer experience and earn your business some loyal customers.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/5-omnichannel-customer-service-best-practices-to-boost-customer-experience.html

Publish Date: January 29, 2019


5 Social Customer Service Trends That Will Rule 2019

Last year we have seen social media emerge as one of the most prominent customer service channels. Consumers today are more prone to use social media to communicate their questions, compliments, or complaints with businesses. According to Sprinklr, 80% of consumers engage with brands online, and 54% of customers prefer social messaging channels for care instead of phone or email. And that means customers today expect companies to have a strong social customer service channel round the clock.

Social customer service is rapidly maturing as a customer service channel.  Here are a few customer service trends that have dominated social media in 2018 and will continue to do so in 2019.

1. More people using direct messages

More consumers are connecting with companies through direct messaging (Twitter) and Facebook messenger rather than tagging them on social media posts. This way, consumers can upload photos, videos, and sensitive personal information while communicating with a business without broadcasting it to the world. It has also become easier to control the damage.

2. Customer care bots will continue to rise

Customer care bots, or chatbots, allow companies to offer round the clock, automated replies that can instantly help customers fix a technical issue or even order their lunch. While chatbots can be the quick-and-easy and cost-effective solutions to common queries, it can deliver e less-than-satisfactory experience when implemented without a strategy.

The truth is, chatbots are still evolving and has a long way to go before it can provide a communication similar to real- life interaction. Yet, experts have high hopes for this customer care According to a CNBC report, chatbots could cut business costs by $8 billion by 2022.

3. Social care strategies getting more personal

Stepping in 2019, we are seeing that more brands are adopting their social media customer care strategies, and are gravitating towards personalization. Companies today are focusing more and more towards personalization, active conversation through messaging in a casual tone using emojis. Once perfected, social care strategies will start providing personalized care for a fraction of the cost of traditional customer care channels.

4. Customer care agents are using social data

Marketing and PR departments have long used social data to influence decisions, but now customer care teams are using it to shape interactions. Today it is easy to use technology to track both positive and negative mentions and reply quickly.  This way a company can show how much they care.

Social data is also helping social customer care agents to know more about the customer and shape their interactions according to it. For example - if your customers are talking about how you can use less plastic in packaging your product, you can use this opportunity to tell them about your eco-friendly efforts and what steps are being used to reduce plastic usage. You can also use the same data to change your social advertisement patterns.

5. Customer care is the new marketing

With consumer interactions more public, customer care is becoming the new marketing. While one cannot replace the other — they can work side by side to bring their customers the best of both worlds.  When a company does an excellent job in taking care of public and personal messages on social media, words spread faster, resulting in more business. These are some of the most popular social media customer service trends that are going to take the customer service space by storm in 2019.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/5-social-customer-service-trends-that-will-rule-2019.html

Publish Date: January 24, 2019


8 Ways To Improve First Contact Resolution In A Call Center

First contact resolution (FCR) is a critical key performance indicator (KPI) in measuring both the quality of the customer experience as well as the efficiency of a contact center. According to research, a 1% improvement in FCR can mean a 1% improvement in customer satisfaction, too. However, it can be a challenge both in terms of measurement and continuous improvement.

When a customer has to repeatedly contact a business to resolve an issue, they get frustrated and very disappointed with the service. On the contrary, when an agent resolves the issue in the very first contact, it creates a better customer experience and marks the operational efficiency of a call center.

Measurement of first contact resolution typically comes down to the customers’ feedback on whether the inquiry was resolved to their satisfaction. You may need to use a number of different tracking methods in order to capture this information.

With a little effort from your end, FCR can be boosted. Want to know about them? Here we have 8 ways to improve your call center FCR:

1. Train call center agents to handle most queries

A skills matrix helps you see the abilities of your agents at a glance. Training programs need to be tailored accordingly with the goal of nurturing and developing your team. A knowledge base for frequently asked questions can help less skilled agents can easily find out ways to resolve common issues.

2. Use call routing technology to find the right agent on the first call

Skill-based routing should be there to ensure customers are matched up with the best agent for the call. Calls should be based on language proficiency or product knowledge and aligned your agents’ skills in real-time. Intelligent call routing or data-directed routing lets you interrogate data within your CRM and factor it into the routing process.

This way, a customer with an ongoing, active complaint could be routed directly to a supervisor. Immediate callbacks to customers who abandon a queue or get disconnected can also help you turn bad customer experience into a service recovery opportunity.

3. Eliminate conflicting KPIs that could work against FCR

If your staff is being measured for Average Handle Time (AHT), it can have a negative impact on successful First Call Resolution. It happens quite often and therefore needs addressing. Eliminating these conflicting KPIs can help agents focus on FCR.

4. Use Incentive to boost FCR

Make your agents aware of the importance of first contact resolution and good customer service. If you want your agents to focus on FCR, it needs to be deeply ingrained within the company culture. You can use incentives to motivate agents to perform against your FCR goals.

5. Measure First Call Resolution consistently

A sophisticated call recording system is essential to quality monitoring and call ratings. However, post-call customer surveys too can be used for measuring first call resolution as only the customer can provide an honest perspective on whether they feel their issue has been resolved. Asking the customers about their experience on social media too can help you get an honest answer. You need to adopt a multi-touchpoint approach to measuring first contact resolution to get the correct picture of customer satisfaction.

6. Encourage feedback from staff

Encourage staff feedback and make it a part of your operation. It will help you understand whether an issue is recurring or not. Acting upon the inputs from the agents will help you nip a recurring problem at the bud.

7. Check your IVR system

You should review your IVR system from time to time to ensure that it is up-t-date and getting the right customer to the right place without delay.

8. Tweak the scripting process to boost FCR

Dynamic agent scripting that integrates with your CRM system can help agents to adequately handle customer issues during the first call resolution.

These are the eight ways you can work on to improve your call center FCR, efficiency, and customer experience.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/8-ways-to-improve-fcr-in-call-center.html

Publish Date: January 22, 2019


Fusion BPO Expands Client Portfolio and Capabilities with Acquisition of Ameridial Inc.

DRAPER, Utah - Jan. 16, 2019: Fusion BPO Services, a global business process and customer engagement service leader has completed the acquisition of Ameridial Inc. - a US-based a leading contact center outsourcer. Effective January 2019, the Ameridial team will join the Fusion BPO family and operate as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Founded in 1987 and serving clients in the Healthcare, Direct-to-Consumer, Non-Profit and Government sectors. Ameridial has over 800 employees who care deeply about making a difference in each client’s business. The company has worked with some to the biggest brands across a broad cross-section of industries, helping clients strengthen their brand and business model.

Pankaj Dhanuka, CEO and Founding director of Fusion BPO Services said, “The acquisition of Ameridial reinforces our commitment and strategy to deliver best- in-class, value creation, customer engagement services to US Clients. Both companies have a common mission centered on being relevant to our clients today and tomorrow with a portfolio of capabilities and capacities.”

Partho Choudhury, President of Ameridial said, “Being part of Fusion BPO group will help Ameridial deliver expanded capabilities and capacity at scale, combined with business excellence practices to create more value and help clients realize their goals and sustain market competitiveness.”

About Ameridial

Founded in 1987 by Jim McGeorge, Ameridial was a privately held contact center outsourcer headquartered in North Canton, Ohio. It also has contact centers in Ohio, North Carolina and Maine. It has received numerous industry honors including being ranked a “Top 50” Teleservices Agency every year since 1992 by Customer Inter@ctions Solutions Magazine. For further information or to start a conversation, visit www.ameridial.com

About Fusion BPO Services Group

Founded in 2003, Fusion BPO Services is a global outsourcing services provider with dual headquarters in Draper, Utah in the US and Kolkata, India. Its end to end outsourcing solutions include the complete portfolio of integrated contact center services, accounts receivable management, and custom IT solutions. To meet client’s evolving strategic sourcing needs, Fusion BPO Services offers capabilities across eight countries - USA, Canada, UK, India, Philippines, El Salvador, Jamaica, and Albania. For further information or to start a conversation, visit www.fusionbposervices.com

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/fusion-bpo-expands-client-portfolio-and-capabilities-with-acquisition-of-ameridial-inc.html

Publish Date: January 16, 2019


5 Ways To Boost Customer Experience Through Call Center

A well-managed and efficient call center can be a big help in making the business get more customers and retain the existing ones. They are directly responsible for maintaining the company’s image in the eyes of the target clientele.

A call center agent is often the first point of contact for the customers. therefore, they must shoulder the responsibility of customer satisfaction and deliver best in class service. While there is no absolute formula to deliver the best customer experience, a few tried and tested methods can ensure that every client interaction ends in a positive note for the customer as well as for the agent.

It goes without saying that customer experience is going to be the buzzword in 2019. Here is why:

  • 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience
  • 73% of buyers point to customer experience as an important factor in purchasing decisions
  • 65% of buyers find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising

So, can a call center deliver positive customer experience that matters? Yes, it can. Here are 5 easy steps for improving the experience of the customers interacting with a call center:

1. Minimum On-Hold Times during Calls

Putting a customer on-hold for a long period of time is a call center bane that drives customers crazy.  The customers do not like to stay on hold, period. They don’t care if their issues actually need time to be resolved and the agent can’t help but make them wait.  To most of them a call center should be a one-stop solution for all their problems. They want a quick solution and they want it right now.

While eliminating waiting time is impossible, a call center must try to keep the on-hold time to a bare minimum. Remember, the shorted the wait time, the happier a customer is.  It’s that simple.

2. Understand who the customers are

Knowing a customer demographic is not enough, you customer service teams must also know who are their customers. Try putting a face to your customer or creating customer personas – it will help your customer service team to understand your customers better.

Your customer personas can be as detailed as you want them to be. By creating personas, your agents can put a face to their customers and better understand how they can assist and improve customer experience.

3. Recognize the stage of customer journey for each customer

A call center agent must not interact with each customer the same way. Rather they should use the CRM to pinpoint the stage of every customers’ journey and personalize their interaction to improve the customer experience.

Define the customer actions that fall within each stage of the customer journey. This will help your call center customer service team to quickly recognize and know how to approach your leads and clients.

4. Forge an emotional bond

The biggest chunk of consumers today are millennials. And millennials don’t just look for a product, they want their values to be aligned with the brands they shop from. They want value for money, as well as great customer experience.

While pricing is not something your customer service team can control, they can deliver everything else.  They can forge an emotional connection with the customer by empathizing with them, telling them their side of story and even throwing in a much-appreciated surprise.  This connection will help your agents anticipate the customers’ needs better and deliver a much better experience.

5. Make it easy for customers

In this age of competition, customers are being spoiled with one-click checkout, instant customer service through chatbots, next-day shipping. These services simplify the purchase process for customers and reduce customer effort in an attempt to maximize sales. A customer service team too can reduce customer effort in so many ways. They can-

  • Offer to call back in case of disconnection
  • Clearly Understand customer queries
  • See to it that the customers do not have to repeat themselves
  • Provide helpful material after service
  • Solve customers’ issues the first time around
  • Offer to answer a customer query through the preferred communication channel of a customer

A customer service team can make the process of purchase or issue resolution a cakewalk for the customers, resulting in a high-quality customer experience. 

In todays competitive world customer experience is gold. Being the first point of contact for customers, it is up to the call center customer service team to deliver the customer experience each customer deserves. While their interactions can be short, it can be an excellent opportunity to boost customer experience.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/5-ways-to-boost-customer-experience-through-call-center.html

Publish Date: January 15, 2019


5 Trends Your Call Center Must Follow In 2019

 

While call center management is a mammoth task, following the latest and most innovative trends can help a call center keep delivering quality customer service to its customers. And while trends come and go with each passing year, only the most effective ones can help a call center improve.

As 2019 is approaching, one must look into the call center trends that will have a big impact on call centers the coming year.

Trend 1: Customer Experience is of Prime Importance

By now every call center should be aware of the power of a positive customer experience.

From the biggest corporations to the smallest businesses today know that a poor customer experience is all it takes to lose a customer forever while consistent bad service can ruin any business for good, especially with so many competitors around.

On the other hand, customers today are willing to pay more for better service. According to one survey 86% of buyers would part with 25% extra cash if another company treated them better.

For this reason, customer experience has become an important aspect that call centers can no longer ignore. On the contrary, they are placing more and more emphasis on treating each caller to the highest standard of service to ensure repeat business.

Trend 2: The Importance of First Call Resolution

First call resolution is great for both the call center and the customers alike.

For this, agents should be encouraged to get the first call right. While there will be calls that are more difficult to resolve than others, it’s important to provide customers with the very best quality of care possible every single time.

Monitoring call center agents’ interactions with customers will help a business identify mistakes that leaves the caller unsatisfied and/or frustrated.  With proper identification and training such problems can be avoided in future.

Trend 3: Social Network is an Important Customer Service Channel

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter continue to become a key channel in customer service.

As an alternative to calling or emailing, prospective and existing buyers can contact a business’s support team through their social accounts. Call centers should be incorporating this aspect of the customer experience into their operations to make sure that the consumers can reach them on as many channels as possible.

Handling queries through various social media channels can actually be the fastest method. However, as the conversation takes place in a public forum, one must bear the best practices in mind.  On social media quick and efficient responses are the key. Ignoring this channel, on the other hand, can ruin a company’s brand reputation.

Trend 4: Every Channel Matters

Customers today expect companies to respond through the same channel they use to interact with the company. So, if they interact with a call center via phone or chat, they would not appreciate the company replying through email.

Therefore, call centers should be ready to incorporate that aspect of customer experience into their operation and give equal importance to all customer interaction channels.  Only then they will be able to provide the customers with the multi-channel customer service that modern customers deserve.

Trend 5: Employee Management

Most of the time call centers fail to meet customer’s needs due to disengaged agents who lack power and freedom to improvise or take a decision. Therefore, empowering the agents with knowledge, giving them some decision making freedom and engaging them through a reward-based culture is very important. A company can also arrange for interim training wherever needed to train their agents better.

These are some of the most important call center trends that will help a call center to become successful in 2019 and beyond.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/5-trends-call-center-must-follow-in-2019.html

Publish Date: December 10, 2018


Will AI (Artificial Intelligence) Replace Or Enhance A Call Center?

 

In this age of technology, we move towards a day when all our problems can be resolved at the press of a button. However, such a day of instant quality solutions to the difficult problem is still a distant dream. However, some think that the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) will change the whole call center scenario and replace the human agents for a faster, quicker and richer customer experience.

We are already seeing AI at work at some of the biggest brands. IVR and chatbots have already become very popular as a customer service solution. But they cannot offer a solution to all the issues a customer might face. And as of now AI also lacks the human touch that most customers want.

Therefore, even when many see AI as a saving grace that replaces human agent but keeps the human touch, the reality is far from it. While most AI systems (IVR, Live chat system etc.) can resolve the basic queries, they do not have the machine learning capabilities to offer solutions to complex problems. Sure, the data shows that AI has been extremely helpful at times, but to call it a savior would be an exaggeration. You can call AI a performance enhancer for the contact center, not a replacement.

Here are five reasons why AI will not replace a call center in near future:

1) AI is extremely expensive to fully implement

As the popularity of AI in customer service increases, many small and medium businesses start worrying about how much money they have to spend to meet the customers’ need for a faster solution that only AI can offer. While you want good CSAT scores by meeting customer expectations and providing them with good customer experience, you should also ask yourself whether it is worth shelling thousands of dollars on an AI system just to meet customer expectations.

Knowing your customer base is the key here. While a business with a younger customer base may want to choose AI over call center as young customers want a prompt solution to their problems, businesses with older customer base would do well by sticking to contact centers. According to SoftwareAdvice, 63% of people over the age of 35 prefer human interaction in the form of a phone call compared to an automated live chat.

2) Contact Center AI technology is not up to the mark - yet

Properly setting up the systems that require AI and the automation that encompasses it takes a vast amount of resources including money. And yet, today most AI systems do not have machine learning capabilities that help a customer find the exact solution they are looking for. Today AI is in a place where it is nothing more than a system that pulls from a database. If the customer query fetches the wrong result, then the customer has to go back and put a new set of keywords. The machine and AI today does not have a self-taught system that is smart enough to correct itself.

3) AI can streamline your lower level inquiries

People still prefer human agents over automation in sales and customer support. But AI can make the lives easier for customer support agents. You can set up an online FAQ form or get a system with IVR capabilities to streamline the regular queries and basic solutions. It will ensure that the customers call your contact center only when it is necessary and urgent.

4) Technology today requires sophisticated answers

The problems or pre-smart gadgets era were far less complex than the issues of today. As the technology advances, its issues grow more complex, and their solutions, therefore, have to be more sophisticated. And only a real live human agent can provide you with the solution as of now.

There is no way you can tackle the vast possibilities of customer queries through FAQ page, IVR or chat. The complex the problems, the more you need a human to resolve it.

5) AI is a complement to contact center operations

Today most contact center solutions offer a number of automation features that SMBs want to achieve through AI including - IVR and advance scripting. These features can definitely improve your contact center operations. But it is not yet in a position to replace it.

AI is still not in a position where it can replace a contact center. While it can definitely act as a performance enhancer and complement your call center operations, it still requires a lot of time and resources to implement. In addition to that, AI is not in a position to resolve complex queries – that power still remains with the human contact center agents. So, it can be said, AI has miles to go before it can become a successor of the contact center, if at all.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/will-ai-replace-or-enhance-a-call-center.html

Publish Date: November 12, 2018


Fusion BPO Services Opens New Center in Europe – Albania

Fusion BPO Services is a leading name in the global outsourcing industry known for its quality of service, a variety of service offering, and a high growth rate. Recently we have added a new contact center in Tirana, Albania, South-Eastern Europe. With this new center, Fusion continues to increase its global footprint.

By adding highly-skilled and multilingual resources to its team Fusion aims to strengthen their position as a global leader in outsourcing services and comprehensively cater to the varied outsourcing needs of its clients worldwide.

Here’s how our Albania center can support you better:

Increased Language Support – Apart from English, employees speak a number of languages including French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Greek.  Portuguese, Russian, and Dutch are the most common second languages in Albania. Therefore, we can provide an outsourcing service in a language your customers speak and understand, thus eliminating the communication gap.

Highly Tech-savvy Resources - Albanian labor force is highly educated and skilled, and such resources are definitely going to help Fusion to serve various outsourcing needs of its clients both in Europe and America.

Location Advantage – By securing good ranking on the ‘Doing Business’ rankings by the World Bank for three consecutive years, Albania has become one of the most sought after outsourcing destination in South-east Europe. Apart from being a perfect nearshore outsourcing destination for our European clients, the outsourcing industry of Albania boasts cheap but highly-skilled workforce, making it an ideal outsourcing destination for our clients across the globe.

To sum it up, our clients can now enjoy the benefits of a cost-effective, resource-rich, multilingual outsourcing destination in Europe that is more than capable of supporting all your outsourcing needs in over 9 languages.

We hope that our new center will not only help us expand our global footprint but will also help our clients reach their business goals with the same dedication and efficiency they have come to expect from the brand named Fusion BPO Services.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/fusion-bpo-services-opens-new-center-in-europe-albania.html

Publish Date: September 12, 2018


4 Ways To Use On-Hold Time To Improve Customer Experience

 

Calling a customer care is deemed a little old-fashioned and yet according to a study by Google, 61% of mobile users call a business when they’re in the purchase phase of the buying cycle. People love talking to fellow human being while making important purchasing decisions and turn to them when in problems. This is the reason calling customer support is still a popular choice as a customer communication channel.

However, there are a few glitches that tick people off the phone. The major issue with phone calls is being on hold for a lot time. Studies indicate that Americans spent 13 hours a year on hold.

If being fo-rev-er on hold is irritating, that is nothing compared to what happens during hold time. Here’s a few example-

  • Silence – in such situations after a call goes on hold, the caller faces complete silence. They don’t know if they’re still connected. No one likes to be left in the dark.
  • On-hold music – on-hold music is seldom considered music to ears. If the caller is not doing anything else, music can be ok. Most callers hate them.  It is also disruptive for people who tend to put on-hold calls on speakerphone so they can do other things while they’re waiting.
  • On-hold Message – automated messages such as “Your call is valuable to us. Unfortunately all our callers are busy. We thank you for your patience,” are fine for one or two times, but play that same message a third time and the customer loses his cool.

These are the reasons people hate staying on hold or calling customer support. But if you come to think of it, on-hold time can be put to use to inform, educate or even engage your customers.

There are a few ways you can make use of hold time to provide a better customer experience.

  1. Provide important messages – provide important tips regarding your product, such as safety tips, simple fixes, or warnings as on-hold messages. These will interest your customers. For example – during rainy season many electrical appliances malfunction. If you are a seller of electrical appliances, you can warn them about using the appliances when wet and stress on taking safety measures.
  2. Customized messages - Some on-hold systems can recognize who is calling and match up messages to specific callers based on their buying history or other information. This may cause callers to pay attention to on-hold messages, become interested in purchasing additional offerings, and learn more about the company.
  3. Gamification – you can ask the customers to take part in a quiz while they wait and allow them to win movie passes, discount coupons and loyalty points. This will definitely elevate the mood and offer them a good customer experience. However, do not forget to offer them a chance to opt out.
  4. Offer on-hold discounts – for a hold time of more than half an hour you can offer your customers a special discount for their inconvenience. This too will be a great customer service tool.

Don’t waste the valuable time you have with callers by playing a boring old “your call is important to us” message. Use that time to benefit both the business and the customer. After all, 88% of callers prefer messages on-hold to other hold options. And it provides your company with the opportunity to educate and even upsell on-hold callers. It can also be used as a tool to deliver a positive customer experience.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/4-ways-to-use-on-hold-time-to-improve-customer-experience.html

Publish Date: September 4, 2018


5 Significant Live Chat Support Benefits Every Business Can Reap

 

Gone are the days when customers had to use a phone to communicate with a business. Today, we have numerous communication channels that can help a customer reach a business without having to spend time in the call queue. Among these channels, live chat is the most satisfying communication channel for over 73% customers.

In this age of online shopping, many customers look for answers to their questions in real time with precision. To resolve this, many businesses have added live chat support that helps businesses provide an answer to customer questions in real time. Apart from that they also have quite a few benefits:

1. Convenient for Customers

Many online consumers want help from a live person while they are shopping online. A study called “Making Proactive Chat Work” conducted by Forrester Research found that 44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a Web site can offer.

Live chat gives online customers an immediate access to help. Wait times are often significantly less than phone support, and customers can easily multi-task while waiting.

According to an ATG Global Consumer Trend study, 90% of customers consider live chat helpful. As per an eMarketer.com survey, 62% customers are more likely to purchase again from a site with live chat while 38% respondents said that they made the purchase because of the chat session.

2. Cost-Effective

While live chat software can be a considerable investment at first,  it will drastically lessen both employee task time and phone expenses. Live chat reduces contact center costs by lowering average interaction costs. It increases efficiency by allowing live chat agents to handle multiple chats simultaneously (4-5 chats), thus reducing the need to hire more.

With agents spending less time on the phone, they will be able to multi-task during chat conversations and cut the waiting queue to a bare minimum, thus increasing the chance of overall sales.

3. Increases Sales

To quote a study by Forbes magazine - “In 2008, Wells Fargo made a second attempt to leverage online chat to drive sales, and happily, this time the results have been crystal clear. High customer satisfaction scores and a double-digit increase in converted shoppers have shown the value once and for all of this technology.”

The main aim of a live chat support is that customers should have someone who can help them during a purchase by answering their important questions and resolving their confusions regarding a product or service.  It helps eliminate bounces away from e-commerce websites and ensure that the products or services carts make it through check out.

4. Gives You an Edge of Your Competition

If you want to gain an edge on the competition, live chat is a necessary feature to add to your website.  Live chat provides a simple way to connect with customers who spend a good deal of their money online.  According to E-Marketer, “Almost two in 10 live chat respondents did more than 75% of their holiday shopping online, compared with 14% of those who did not chat. A further 25% of chatters made 51% to 75% of their purchases on the Web, versus just 10% of those who did not participate in the chat service.”

So, besides cost benefits, customer support, and increased sale, live chat support can help you book the top spot ahead of your competition.

5. Access to Customer Pain Points

A chat support is an excellent opportunity for a company to know the frustrations and needs that are yet to be filled. When customers use live chat, they’ll try to ensure that a product will perform as advertised or that a promotion will provide the discount they are looking for. In addition, as live chat agents talk to customers, they can find out how a customer wants to improve a company’s products and services.

These are some of the benefits a business can reap by incorporating live chat support on their website.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/live-chat-support-benefits-every-business.html

Publish Date: May 7, 2018


Perks Of Hiring Virtual Assistant Services

 

The key to success lies in time management and smart work. However, it is not always possible to find time for every small task in your day-to-day schedule. And even if you do it all, the quality of work is bound to be hampered. So, what can you do about that? Well, having a little help in hand does not harm. And that is why having an assistant is a good idea.

But hiring a full time assistant to take care of small tasks does not sound promising at times. Just think about the time and money you have to spend on short listing candidates, and interviewing them. And then you will also have to pay them salary and give employee benefits. Is paying so much for an assistant who will perform small tasks whenever needed justified? Fusion thinks it is a complete waste. Why pay for a full time assistant when you can hire a virtual assistant and receive professional assistance at your convenience.

Our virtual assistant services offer you highly skilled professionals who are at your disposal working round the clock to get your job done, no matter what it is. Virtual assistants takes care of everything from administrative tasks to social media management, website and blog maintenance and what not. Delivering your tasks on time are their first priority. But that’s just one of the perks of hiring a virtual assistant. Want to know more about the perks? Read on:

Gift yourself the time to unwind

Don’t you crave a break amidst tight schedules and long working hours? Everyone needs a little downtime for relaxing and rejuvenation. But you cannot achieve that with an assistant who is right beside you. You will feel the need to supervise their work or clear their doubts. But with a virtual assistant, you won’t have to supervise anything as they are highly skilled professionals who know their job and they have their superiors to make sure that you get nothing but the best output. All you need to do is to enjoy your downtime.

Round the clock service

Hiring an assistant burns a hole in your pockets.  Full time assistants often tend to do a poor job when you ask them to do a job urgently especially if it means they might need to stay back. Whereas, a virtual assistant is always at your service and they do not compromise on the quality. Even when the world is sleeping, your VA is always there for you.

Limitless Tasks

Want to have an assistant who never says ‘No’ to a task, is an all rounder and always delivers quality service on time? What if you can have all that for a small fee? Virtual assistants are the answer. They perform every task you ask for and charge a very small fee for all that. However, please remember that though they are magical workers, they won’t perform unforgivable curses (illegal or unethical tasks).

Hire and Fire at will

Unlike any other form of employment, you can hire or fire a VA at any given point. You pay only when you have a task on hand and hire by the hour.

Office space or tools not required

A Virtual Assistant does not require any workspace, working tools or any stationary; they come well equipped and perform their duties without expecting anything from you. Apart from their working cost, there is no other form of investments required.

No employee benefits

If you hire an assistant, you need to provide them with health benefits, provident funds, bonus and insurances. In a nutshell, you will be spending big bucks However, with a VA, you pay only for the services and not a dime more – no benefits, no incentives, nothing.

So, when you think about it, hiring a VA is like getting yourself a team of knowledgeable, trained and highly experienced employees at the price of one. And you never again have to worry about not getting the results.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/perks-of-hiring-virtual-assistant-services.html

Publish Date: April 10, 2018


3 Things To Remember While Doing Lead Generation Without Skimping On Customer Experience

 

Customer experience is a leading factor in today’s marketing world that means more than optimizing your social media and web page design. A brand culture and identity should encompass all areas of interaction, including newsletters, email, as well as lead generation.

Today people would not surrender their precious information just like that in exchange for daily spam. Today, customers are looking for quality, content-rich data, and connection. If a business wants to brand itself as part of a community, it needs to make every interaction valuable. The future of successful lead generation is in providing relevant, high-quality information, understanding your audience’s buying process, and following-up with customers.

The lack of communication between departments in an organization is another important factor to consider concerning lead generation. Getting your departments to work together can make lead generation easier than you could have ever believed.

One way to fight the silo effect is to invest in sales-enabling tools, which can help your sales and marketing teams work together. Tools such as these allow each department to better succeed in their pursuits. The sales team can provide more relevant input to the content the marketing team distributes to customers and leads, which in turn can increase sales for the sales team.

1. Understand Your Prospects’ Buying Process

Map Out Buying Patterns – Most potential buyers follow a degree of predictability, but their goals can change midway through a task. Social media can help make you aware of the changing wants and needs of your audience. Businesses that anticipate future behavior can address unique concerns via different sales and marketing approaches. Answer questions, educate, and discuss relevant issues to encourage customers to interact more.

Tap Into Social Media Channels – You can gather valuable data from social forums that will give you insights into prospective customers. But don’t forget this is an opportunity for prospective customers to gain insight into your business as well. That is why it is important to utilize your social media platforms as an extension of customer service rather than just to sell your products or services.

Use Your Feedback – By organizing and creating a feedback loop among departments—part of defeating the silo effect—a business can avoid overlooking essential information. Address specific questions and determine what resonates with an audience. Collate data and present the most relevant information to prospects. Comment sections, reviews, and polls are good means of obtaining data as well, but complaints and customer service shouldn’t be ignored either.

Asking yourself how can you streamline the buying process, what strategies are working, and what benefits people are getting out of your services can help you better understand your customers and generate new leads. Consider different ways to close the customer satisfaction gap. Understanding the customer is the best means of building a business.

2. Analyze Your Results to Predict the Future

Are prospects happy with their outcomes? What went right and what went wrong? Such questions can result in lead-generating answers. Using comments and opinions, following-up, and tracking trends can steer you to a broader audience. Gear your newsletters and other customer contacts accordingly. Serve your prospects. They will appreciate it.

3. Follow-Up with Tact

You should always follow-up — one of the most nurturing business components—with tact and respect. Consider your prospective buyers’ journeys. At what point in the buying process are they? What can help them reach a decision?

Businesses can benefit by targeting follow-ups to suit their prospects’ needs. Supportive tidbits and important news will keep customers familiar with, and interested in a company. A firm can add a call to action or provide contact details to help buyers easily obtain further information.

If the prospect has a specific concern—provide educational material. Serving as a resource is a good way to establish a relationship. Should prospects be wavering on taking action—help them discern facts and figures.

It’s not the volume of information a prospect receives that earns a company respect; it’s the quality of the information. Businesses should focus on making all of their communication worthy of attention. Companies that do their best to take their prospects where they want to go will be the ones that come out on top.

Source: http://www.fusionbposervices.com/blog/3-things-to-remember-while-doing-lead-generation-without-skimping-on-customer-experience.html

Publish Date: April 3, 2018

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