Call data helps companies improve customer service offerings

For a wide variety of companies offering all different types of goods and services, it's important to have strong customer service resources in place for helping patrons address their many needs. Whether it's a buyer distraught because a product isn't working well, or a client with concerns about their B2B service, people are always going to come calling with their questions, and businesses must be ready to answer.

The goal is for consumer care representatives to constantly be improving - becoming more attentive, understanding people better, learning new technologies and more. But for the C-level executives who oversee these workers, it's difficult to judge whether this enhanced service is happening. How do they gauge success or failure?

There's hope that with improved data quality, companies can solve this puzzle. According to Business 2 Community, there are a lot of ways that customer service offices can improve their practices, and one is looking for more hard data on how their client interactions are going. Customer care expert Mary Velan believes this is crucial.

"While call center operations may seem pretty straightforward, there is always room for improvement," Velan stated. "Making call centers more efficient and effective in converting sales revenue can also have a positive impact on customer retention, customer satisfaction, and cross-selling or up-selling company offerings."

So what's there to measure?
Velan pointed out that recent customer service research from Zendesk has been illuminating in terms of better tracking the success of consumer care options. By collecting a few key data points, companies can learn a lot about their strategies for engaging people.

It's a matter of bringing in fairly simple bits of data. For example, the number of calls that a company receives can be a very telling indicator - if calls are going up, that's a good thing because it means more business, but if more people have complaints, that might also be trouble.

Response time is important too. A company's goal should be to handle people's concerns in a quick and efficient manner, so falling times are likely an indication of improving customer service practices.

Thirdly, companies can measure their success with a simple rate stat - percentage of tickets resolved. By looking at this figure, customer service leaders can examine trends and figure out whether their effectiveness is rising or falling.

In all of these regards, looking for trends is a very precise science, so it's important to have high standards for data quality to lead the way. With better knowledge, companies can find clearer truths.