8 Tips for Call Centers When Tracking Customer Satisfaction

Cecily Giancaterino

May 28, 2023

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17 min read

Calling

Managing a call center involves much more than handling calls and generating sales. There's a lot more that happens before, during, and after a phone call that determines how satisfied customers are with your service. A good customer satisfaction rate is only possible by tracking agent performance, generating customer feedback, improving business processes, and using the latest call center technology. Learn the different ways you can track customer satisfaction in your contact center below.

Key Takeaways:

1. Customer satisfaction is critical for call centers in every niche. That's because satisfied customers are more likely to stay loyal to your business, helping you generate higher profits.

2. Dissatisfied customers can stop purchasing your products and services and share negative experiences with others, jeopardizing your call center's reputation. 

3. There are various methods for tracking customer satisfaction in your call center. These methods include monitoring agent performance, analyzing the call escalation process, carrying out customer surveys, and evaluating social media sentiment. 

4. Investing in a CRM system can also help you track customer satisfaction levels. The best systems generate valuable insights into customers, agents, and business processes, allowing you to improve customer service. 

5. FiveCRM is a CRM system that generates customer engagement insights, agent performance data, sales efficiency analysis, and more. Use it to achieve your customer service benchmarks and develop deeper relationships with the people that contact your call center! 

Why Is Customer Satisfaction Important?

Before you learn how to track customer satisfaction in your call center, here are some reasons why customer satisfaction is so important:

• Good customer satisfaction results in greater customer loyalty and can generate higher profits.

• Dissatisfied customers might stop purchasing your goods and services, complain to your company, and share negative customer experiences with others. 

• Acquiring new customers is more expensive than maintaining relationships with existing ones. Tracking customer satisfaction can improve customer retention in your company (or the brand you provide call center services for). 

• If you handle calls for another company, customer satisfaction can help you meet service-level agreements. The company might renew your contract if you prove you can handle customer calls, call volume, customer interactions, and call center performance efficiently

Tracking customer satisfaction in your call center is imperative. All centers need to work efficiently and provide insight into every process. Issues arise due to a lack of visibility, missing data, call-back failures, and more, which you can remedy using call-tracking software and other digital tools. This call center software can improve the customer experience, manage customer expectations, and lead to more successful customer service outcomes for your organization.

Now you know why customer satisfaction is crucial, learn the different ways you can track it in your organization:

1. Tracking Customer Satisfaction: Monitor Agent Performance

Agents are often the first point of contact for customers in your call center. Keeping track of which agent makes which call lets you determine how agent performance influences customer satisfaction. 

It's also impossible to monitor agents manually. That's why it's a good idea to invest in digital tools that do this task for you. The best software collects data from inbound and outbound calls, and you can use this information to learn about how agents communicate with customers over the phone. Tracking call center metrics like average handling time, abandonment rate, response time, dial transfer rate, wait times, hold times, the number of calls, schedule adherence, and agent occupancy can provide valuable insights into agent performance, customer support, and customer satisfaction. 

Say you received a customer complaint about poor service during a recent phone communication. You can use digital tools to identify the agent who engaged with the customer, review key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics, and determine whether the agent is to blame for the customer's negative experience. You might want to track the agent's performance during other inbound calls. The agent might have a low average handling time, suggesting they rush calls and don't adequately solve customer problems. 

Using digital tools also allows customers to connect with a representative they spoke to previously instead of playing "representative roulette" every time they call your company.

2. Record Calls

Without a record of phone conversations, it becomes difficult for your company to track and determine quality assurance. With a call recording system, you have the option to listen to and evaluate every single conversation that happens in your call center. This technology can help you resolve customer issues and improve training outcomes. For example, you can play examples of "good" and "bad" calls to agents joining your organization. You can even transcribe phone conversations with speech analytics tools and use these as training materials for new hires. 

Say a customer complains about a recent phone conversation with an agent in your contact center. You can go back and listen to the call and determine whether the agent followed your call procedures. Suppose the agent is to blame for the customer's negative experience. In that case, you can play a recording of the conversation in a performance review and ask the agent to explain their actions. 

Another benefit to recording calls in your contact center aside from tracking customer satisfaction. Call recording software can reveal whether agents adhere to legislation like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. That helps you avoid expensive fines for noncompliance and safeguards the reputation of your call center. 

3. Track the Call Escalation Process

Call escalation is when a customer requests to talk to a supervisor or call center manager because frontline agents can't solve their problem. (Ideally, first call resolution should be a priority for call centers, but this isn’t always possible.) In addition to tracking agent performance for customer satisfaction, you must monitor the escalation process. 

Say an agent cannot handle a customer's query, and the customer needs to talk to someone at a higher post or someone with particular expertise in a matter. You can use digital tools to monitor a supervisor or manager brought into the loop and review key performance indicators.  

After several unsatisfactory calls, the customer might perceive your call center negatively when talking to a senior team member. However, tracking customer satisfaction during this process can help you change their opinion and resolve the issue at hand. 

4. Get Customer Feedback

One of the best methods for tracking customer satisfaction is to conduct surveys that generate feedback about your call center processes and services. You can send surveys by email or text message to customers after calling your center and ask them to evaluate the service they received during the communication. This information will help you determine the agents that provide the best customer service in your organization and identify any problems with workflows. 

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a popular customer satisfaction feedback survey used by many call centers like yours. This survey collects customer data and assigns each caller a customer satisfaction score that ranges from -100 to +100. The higher the score, the better service the customer received. 

Another method for tracking customer satisfaction is to assemble a focus group of customers who have communicated with your call center and ask them questions about the service they received. Although focus groups are more expensive than surveys, they can provide valuable insights into your agents and business processes and help you improve call center operations.

5. Monitor Emails and Live Chat

Many call center managers track customer satisfaction by analyzing phone calls—which make up the bulk of communications in many centers. However, it's important to monitor other communication methods used in your organization, such as email and live chat. 

For example, you can review live chat transcripts and discover how agents communicate with customers. That helps you determine whether an agent adequately solved a customer's problem during the chat or whether the customer left the conversation feeling dissatisfied with the service you provided. You can even automate some live chat software tools to ask customers for feedback after a conversation has ended. Compare these chats with customer feedback to improve your communication processes. 

6. Track Social Media Sentiment

One of the problems with analyzing customer feedback and focus groups is that customers might be reluctant to tell you what they really think about your service. Respondents might want to give desirable answers to "help" or "please" the person conducting the feedback exercise. 

Tracking social media sentiment can solve this problem by allowing you to see what people are saying about your company online. A customer might be more inclined to write about a negative experience on their Facebook feed because they don't think your company will ever read it. 

Social media sentiment collects and analyzes information about your call center from posts on various social media platforms, including posts that don't tag your profiles. It's a great method for tracking customer satisfaction because you can read unfiltered reviews from people who have engaged with your agents in the past, helping you improve customer service. 

7. Read Review Websites

Review websites might include feedback from customers who have contacted your call center previously. These websites include TrustRadius and Trustpilot. Here, customers can stay anonymous when providing feedback about your organization and are likelier to tell the truth about their experiences with an agent or your business. 

Reading review websites can be a hard pill to swallow for some call center managers, especially when learning about negative experiences that caused customers to stop using their services. However, knowing the truth about your customer service procedures can encourage you to make changes in your organization and provide better service in the future. For example, a negative review might cause you to invest in more training for agents so similar problems don't happen again. 

8. Consult With Everyone in Your Call Center

Sometimes, it can be challenging to identify the root cause of customer complaints because you lack relevant information. Say customers are not receiving products on time in the mail. You might presume your delivery service provider is to blame for this issue, but your order management system might not work properly. If you had consulted your IT team, you could have identified this issue before customers flooded your phone lines with complaints. 

Consulting with everyone in your organization can help you track customer satisfaction adequately and provide better service in your call center. Set up meetings with different teams regularly to identify trends and patterns that might impact customer service outcomes. 

How Can You Improve Customer Service?

Now you know the methods for tracking customer satisfaction. But how can you use information about customers, agents, and processes to improve customer service in your call center?

Improve Collaboration Between Different Departments

You might have agents who take calls from customers and agents who respond to emails and live chat messages. If these departments don't communicate with each other, it can result in customers having bad experiences. You can improve collaboration by investing in an internal messaging system where departments can exchange communications about customer service trends. For example, if a phone agent identifies a problem several customers are experiencing, they can share that information with email and chat agents. Also, encourage all departments to leave notes about customers in computer systems after every communication. If a customer contacts your center, an agent can check the customer's previous interactions and learn more about the problem without asking the same questions again. 

Improve Call Etiquette

Many customer service problems stem from a customer perceiving an agent as "rude" or not knowing how to solve their problem. The customer can then share that negative experience on social media and damage the reputation of your call center. You can prevent this situation from happening by encouraging agents to use the correct etiquette when talking to customers over the phone. That might include appropriately responding to customers, listening to what they say, addressing customers by the right name, and apologizing for any bad service. A call script or guide can help agents navigate calls and ensure customers receive the correct information. Scripts and guides can also help you comply with regulations when collecting customer payment information over the phone. 

Invest in Agent Training

Customer service issues can arise because agents lack the proper training to deal with certain situations. For example, an agent might provide a customer with incorrect information about a product or service, resulting in a subsequent—and angrier—call to your center. While agent training can be expensive, it could provide a return on investment if customers receive better experiences when communicating with your organization. Training can also be effective for call center functions such as call routing, performance optimization, handling telephony technology, and improving resolution rates. You might want to carry out training exercises in your call center yourself or hire a third-party provider. 

Create a Process for Customer Complaints

Even the most successful businesses have dissatisfied customers. However, these companies know how to deal with customer complaints and maintain the reputation of their brands. Creating a process for complaints allows agents, supervisors, and managers to resolve customer-related issues in the quickest possible time.

Here is an example of a customer complaint process:

• Decide how frontline agents will respond to a complaint from a customer via the phone, email, or live chat. A call script can help agents determine what to say in these situations to calm and reassure the customer. 

• Decide when and how frontline agents should escalate customer complaints to a supervisor or manager. If a customer requires a callback, how long will the customer have to wait? If a supervisor can't resolve an issue, what happens next?

• Share your escalation procedure with all members of your team. 

• Review complaints after a month to see whether team members completed the correct protocols. You might want to follow up with customers and apologize for any problem they experienced. 

Take Inspiration From Other Companies

Everyone has experienced good and bad customer service. You can draw from your own experiences when dealing with other companies to improve service in your call center. 

Think about the last time a company went above and beyond to solve an issue you had with a product or service. How did they assist you? What methods did they use to keep you as a loyal customer? How long did it take to resolve the issue? Answering these questions will help improve customer service in your own firm. 

Conclusion

Using a customer relationship management (CRM) platform is more than collecting customer contact details. The best CRM tools hold a wide range of customer information, such as purchasing histories, behavioral trends, and previous interactions with your call center agents. You can use a CRM to track customer satisfaction in your organization and determine customer sentiment. 

FiveCRM is a CRM system for tracking customer satisfaction in your organization. It comes with an incredible range of predictive analytics tools, allowing you to generate customer engagement insights, agent performance data, and sales efficiency analysis in one system. That means you don't need to use separate analytical software alongside your CRM. 

Here are some other benefits of FiveCRM for call centers:

• Improve sales efficiency for telemarketing and other outbound calls by automating dialing sets, managing callbacks, reducing call transition times, and simplifying workflows. 

• Manage up to 999 separate databases in your call center and get unlimited data storage. That helps you scale your business and achieve optimum data management goals.

• Produce more leads with specialized performance and marketing tracking tools that monitor operational performance in your call center and generate more leads. 

• Improve lead management with personalized lead-scoring tools and identify high-value leads in the sales life cycle.

• Collect and monitor real-time information about performance in various departments. This CRM offers key performance metrics that can grow sales.  

Learn more about improving customer service in your call center with a FiveCRM demo. Contact hello@fivecrm.com or get FiveCRM now!

FAQs

1. What is customer satisfaction tracking and why is it important for call centers?

   • Customer satisfaction tracking refers to the process of collecting, analyzing, and evaluating customer feedback to measure their level of satisfaction with the services provided by a call center. It is crucial for call centers because it helps them identify areas of improvement, enhance customer experience, and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction, which can ultimately lead to increased customer loyalty and business growth.

2. How can a call center track customer satisfaction?

   • There are several methods a call center can use to track customer satisfaction, including:

     • Post-call surveys: Conducting surveys immediately after customer interactions to gather feedback and ratings.
     • Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measuring the likelihood of customers recommending the call center's services to others.
     • Customer feedback forms: Providing customers with an opportunity to share their thoughts and suggestions.
     • Quality assurance monitoring: Regularly monitoring and evaluating customer interactions to identify trends and areas for improvement.
3. What metrics should a call center consider when tracking customer satisfaction?
   • When tracking customer satisfaction, call centers should consider various metrics, including:

• • • Customer satisfaction score (CSAT): A rating given by customers to assess their satisfaction with a specific interaction.
    • First call resolution (FCR): The percentage of customer issues or inquiries resolved on the first call.
    • Average handle time (AHT): The average duration of customer interactions, which can affect customer satisfaction.
    • Call abandonment rate: The percentage of customers who hang up before reaching an agent.
    • Response time: The time taken by agents to respond to customer queries or issues.

4. How can call centers improve customer satisfaction based on the feedback received?
   • Once call centers gather customer feedback, they can implement the following strategies to improve customer satisfaction:

• • • Identify trends: Analyze feedback data to identify common issues and areas for improvement.
    • Training and coaching: Provide agents with regular training sessions to enhance their communication and problem-solving skills.
    • Process improvement: Streamline call center processes to ensure efficient handling of customer inquiries and reduce resolution times.
    • Personalization: Tailor interactions to individual customers' preferences and needs.
    • Implement customer feedback: Actively respond to and address customer feedback, demonstrating that their opinions are valued.

5. Are there any tools or software available to assist call centers in tracking customer satisfaction?

   • Yes, several tools and software solutions are available to assist call centers in tracking customer satisfaction, such as customer survey platforms, call recording and analytics software, quality assurance management systems, and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. These tools can automate data collection, provide insights into customer interactions, and facilitate efficient monitoring and reporting.

6. How frequently should call centers track customer satisfaction?

   • The frequency of tracking customer satisfaction can vary depending on the call center's size, industry, and specific requirements. However, it is generally recommended to track customer satisfaction regularly, such as on a monthly or quarterly basis, to capture trends and make timely improvements. Real-time feedback mechanisms, like post-call surveys, can also provide immediate insights for continuous improvement.

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