How to improve CSAT for your contact center

Highlights:

• The CSAT score indicates how well your contact center is meeting customer requirements and keeping them happy.
• CSAT is the most reliable indicator of brand advocacy and customer loyalty.
• To achieve a high CSAT score, a contact center must be able to:
  • Accommodate relevant communication channels
  • Integrate self-service platforms and live agents
  • Support advanced call routing strategies
  • Empower agents for first contact resolution
  • Provide actionable performance reports

CSAT is one of the most widely used KPIs in the business world. The CSAT score, short for customer satisfaction score, measures how well a business meets customer requirements. It encompasses the product or service rendered and touchpoints like purchasing, delivery, and customer support.

CSAT scores are primarily derived from direct customer feedback through surveys and ratings, but contact center CSAT can also be calculated from factors like the number of problems solved over a given period, average resolution times, or the average number of calls a customer makes before getting satisfactory assistance.

Tracking your contact center’s CSAT score is critical for business success. However, merely measuring CSAT does not help your business. The value of the CSAT score comes from the steps you take to improve it.

There are five essential steps for boosting contact center customer satisfaction. These “Must-Dos” are:

• Supporting the channels your customers prefer
• Blending self-service and personal interaction
• Implementing advanced call routing
• Targeting first contact resolution
• Monitoring related KPIs through contact center reports

1. Supporting the channels your customers prefer

Today’s typical customer expects to interact with their favorite brand through numerous channels, from native options like phone calls and texts to new-age platforms like apps, online chats, and social media. Therefore, if you are only using calls and emails to communicate with customers, the chances are high that they are already planning to move to a more versatile competitor.

Supporting numerous communication channels can be costly. So, instead of ticking all the possible boxes, do some analysis to determine the platforms your customers most prefer.

For instance, if your customers are primarily millennials or younger, you can achieve higher CSAT by reinforcing social media interaction and self-service options than by increasing the number of call agents.

2. Blending self-service and personal interaction

Contact centers are increasingly replacing costly human agents with self-service platforms. In addition to cutting expenses, self-service has contributed to CSAT improvements for some businesses, primarily thanks to a growing segment of tech-savvy customers who prefer solving problems independently rather than waiting for an available contact center employee.

However, automated systems can harm customer experience, especially if they do not provide an option to speak to a live agent. Customers want to know that human support is instantly available if the self-service platform cannot deliver the desired outcome.

Although having agents on stand-by to supplement your self-service solutions can be costly in the short term, you will recoup these expenses from the customers you retain.

3. Implementing advanced call routing

Lengthy hold times are among the primary deterrents of satisfactory customer experience in contact centers. No customer wants to wait in line as their call jumps from one agent to another.

Call routing can significantly improve your contact center’s average hold times. With advanced routing strategies like geographic, skills-based, and percentage-based routing, you can ensure your callers are always directed to the agent who is most suitable for their needs, minimizing unnecessary transfers.

4. Targeting first contact resolution

All customers expect a contact center to resolve their issues swiftly and effectively. The longer your agents take to solve problems, the lower your ratings will get. To maintain high CSAT scores, ensure your agents have all the tools, skills, and data access they need to resolve issues at the first attempt.

Adequately equipping your service team also helps reduce the questions they ask a customer before reaching a proper resolution.

For instance, having a cloud contact center with the capability to record customer interactions gives your agents reliable information about previous conversations, enabling them to pick up conversations from the right point for timely resolution.

5. Monitoring related KPIs through contact center reports

A contact center’s service quality depends on various factors, including your team’s size and skill profile and your enterprise’s level of operational service. These aspects can be linked to key performance indicators like average hold time, first contact resolution, and business service levels.

If you are looking to improve your CSAT score, you can start by analyzing contact center performance metrics. Robust contact center software provides reports like total calls answers, calls dropped, calls fielded per agent, and average hold times, giving you valuable insights into your contact center’s current service levels.

That way, you can precisely know which metrics undermine satisfaction and focus your improvement efforts on them.

How Can RingCentral’s Integrated Cloud Contact Center Help You Improve CSAT?

As the primary link between your business and customers, your contact center must be well equipped to achieve the highest possible customer satisfaction levels. RingCentral is the one-stop-shop for all the solutions you need to improve your center’s CSAT score. With a cloud-based RingCentral contact center platform, you can give your team the right channels, tools, data access, and insights for maximum customer satisfaction.

Sign up for a demo today and see first-hand how RingCentral can transform your contact center.

Originally published Jan 05, 2022, updated Dec 30, 2022