Actionable Ways

to Improve
Call Center CX
& Customer Service
 Introduction

Companies that are not customer-centric will not continue to sustain and grow. Customer
service (CX) is the key differentiator companies can and should optimize to outperform.
Products, services, and financials matter, but CX has the power to consistently deliver
across the customer journey, building long-term customer loyalty, brand recognition, and
corporate reputation.

Before we dive into a comprehensive list of tips in improving call center CX, let us take a
look at some statistics which show the power of excellent customer experience:

• Customer Retention: “It is anywhere from 5 to 25x more expensive to acquire a new
customer than it is to keep a current one.” (Harvard Business Review)

• Willingness to Spend: “US Consumers are willing to spend 17% more to do business with
companies that deliver excellent service, up from 14% in 2014.” (American Express Global
Customer Service Trust Barometer)

• Revenue Growth: Increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits anywhere

from 25 - 95%.” (Bain & Company)

• The Future of Business Growth: “As a group, Millennials are willing to spend the most
(21% additional!) for great customer care.” (American Express Global Customer Service
Trust Barometer)
It cannot be denied that CX is paramount to business success. And nowhere is CX more
prevalent than in a company’s call center, where agents interact with customers on a daily
basis. Call center agents are listening, building relationships, troubleshooting, delivering
solutions, and spreading the word about corporate brand and culture -- all points that directly
impact continued customer spend.

This eBook provides an overview of the most common challenges facing call centers, agents,
and companies today. It also outlines solutions that can be immediately implemented. Here’s
what to expect:

1. CX for Contact Centers - A Practical Guide

A comprehensive introduction to call center CX; what to do and how to improve.

2. Agent Emotional Intelligence Drives Improved CX

Learn how and why call center agents trained with high emotional intelligence and
empathy drive greater results.

3. How to Build an Emotional Connection Between Call Center Agents and Customers

Discover ways agents can build an emotional connection with customers for improved call
center CX. Learn how to encourage and nurture this way of doing business.

4. How Scorecards Support Customer-Oriented Behavior

Find out how to implement scorecards call center interactions for tracking, so each critical
moment in the customer journey may be measured, managed, and improved.

This eBook is a guide for corporate leadership, call

center managers, and customer service agents alike.

The goal is for you to take away key insights to help

improve the call center experience of customers and
prospects and to help grow your company.
 CX for Contact Centers -
A Practical Guide
Customer experience (CX) is often classified It’s a make-or-break factor that increasingly
as an intangible concept; a concept from impacts a company’s success.
which it can be difficult to extract actionable
Did you know that in the US alone,
insight. Sometimes organizations which don’t
companies lose more than $62 million a year
have a systematic method of measuring the
due to poor customer service?
quality of CX in the contact center, can fall
into the trap of perceiving their customer A positive customer experience is crucial
experience as one of three rankings, good, to business success and can be especially
bad, or indifferent. important when looking at CX for contact
and support centers where customers might
For companies that recognize the importance
have their first interaction with a live person in
of CX, an abstract concept deeming success
the customer journey. It’s that simple.
or failure just isn’t good enough. These
companies want quantifiable results that can
be measured and managed with one goal in
mind: to improve customer experience.

How Great CX is Effected

By not measuring the level of CX in the

organization in a consistent and systematic
manner, the company is essentially blind to
whether they are serving their customers
properly or not. Worse yet, without a solid
system and process in place, it’s impossible
for compliance managers to know if the
company is compliant with the relevant
regulations - something that can cost a
company in hefty fines or even bar them from
continuing to operate.

In our current, fast-growing economy where

many companies are delivering quality
products and services, CX can become the
key differentiator between two competitors.
Measuring CX for Success
So, what are some ways in which CX can be
specifically measured for optimal success?
1. Set measurement goals
We firmly believe that good decisions can
only be made with consistent data. It’s
necessary to step back and look at your
call center holistically. How does it fit into
the larger company’s operations? What is
the company’s mission and objective? What
are the contact center’s goals? Then begin
to drill down into how each phase of the
customer journey ties into a measurable
experience.
Possible measurable areas of consideration
might include:
• Abandon rate, Call wait time, Length of
call, Number of calls answered, First-call
resolution, Customer satisfaction
• Rapport, Tone, Effective questioning,
Careful listening
You know your company, your call center,
and your goals. It is essential that you map
out a plan for what success in the contact
center should look like before moving
forward.
2. Quality starts in the home
Companies with call centers are
automatically in the business of
communication. It is impossible to expect
that agents will clearly communicate
with customers if you are not clearly
communicating with your agents first.
Now that you have your goals in place,
you must actively and consistently share
those goals with your call center agents.
Quality Starts in the
Home
Set Measureable
Goals
Agents Self-Score
Their Experiences
Perfprm Quality
Assurance Monitoring
This transparency will earn their trust and
support, let them know what you’re aiming
to accomplish, and why you are measuring
the moments you’ve chosen in the customer
journey.
Consider empowering your employees by
suggesting they suggest what should be
measured. Ask them: what metrics matter
most to your success?
3. Perform quality assurance monitoring
If you’ve communicated your goals and
your agents understand and support them,
quality assurance monitoring should be
a more seamless process. Either way, QA
monitoring is essential, but it will prove a far
more successful measurement tool if you
have employee buy-in.
Evaluators should receive regular training
on how to interpret the data, customer
interactions, and agent messaging. They
need to have a thorough understanding
of the company’s and call center’s goals
so that they know what to listen for and
measure. Evaluators should be encouraged
to annotate their evaluations with coaching
tips and to remain flexible and open to
discussion.
Yes, we’re in the business of measurement and precision, but we cannot deny that some
grey areas exist. Open dialogues and iterative process development will give evaluators and
agents more ownership of the process.

4. Invite agents to self-score their experiences

Want measurable results? Invite your call center agents self-score each call’s success. Enable
your team to own this part of the process.

This does not need to replace the manager’s QA scorecard for the call, but can be used as
supplemental resources; these self-assessments naturally lead to more impactful dialogues
between managers and call center employees. They shed light on discrepancies and help to
tighten up those seemingly less tangible, or quantifiable, parts of the business.

Perhaps, most importantly, they give call center agents a voice, an opportunity to express
their ideas and thoughts in a formal, efficient, and productive manner. Something that can
only help an organization’s CX improve.

Many call center success strategies focus on their own call center agents. But keep in mind,
the focus ultimately isn’t on the agents, managers, or even business leaders. The objective
is to make and keep satisfied customers. Happier, more effective call center agents lead to
satisfied customers and happier customers ultimately leads to greater revenue, especially
when looking at the lifetime value of a customer.

Next, we’ll look at how Emotional Intelligence drives improved CX, and why it is so important
in nurturing customer relationships as well as how to empower agents to develop their
emotional intelligence.
 Agent Emotional Intelligence Drives
Improved CX
Call center professionals represent the tone
and voice of the company. Not only are they
often the first to speak to customers, but they
bear the weight of responsibility to ensure
that these interactions are satisfactory - both
from a compliance perspective and from a
customer experience perspective. We cannot
overstate the essential nature of the call
center and how much it impacts a company’s
success. Each interaction represents a
moment in the customer journey. Mapping
these journeys to truly understand what your
customers need and when they need it is not
an easy task, but a necessary one.
Contact Center Training
These are touchpoints that allow chances
for upselling, of course, but they are also
opportunities to create goodwill, earn trust,
and develop an emotional connection with
customers. Something that very few other
departments have the ability to accomplish
for your brand.
Monitoring and measuring this emotional
connection between call center agents and
customers will empower companies to know
what works best and what actions they
need to take to improve. The goal is always
to enhance the quality of the customer
experience, but the question remains, how
can this emotional connection best be
developed and nurtured throughout the
customer’s journey?
How To Develop An Emotional Connection
Between Agents and Customers
The first way to improve the emotional
connection between agents and customers
is to measure the contact center customer
experience. Getting a baseline to know where
you stand is critical to growth.
To begin:
1. Set call center measurement goals.
2. Clearly communicate those goals.
3. Perform quality assurance monitoring.
4. Invite agents to self-score their
experiences.
Perhaps the most impactful action that may
be taken is to empower your call center
agents. Suggesting that your team adopt
self-scoring and measures for personal
improvement will help them understand and
support the company’s overall goals. Clear
communication with call center agents will
result in those agents clearly communicating
to your customers.
A study conducted by Kiffin-Petersen and
Soutar shows that more effective customer
service occurs when personal initiative
is undertaken by people working with
customers.
It is best practice to encourage your call
center agents to take personal initiative,
enabling them with the flexibility to creatively
problem-solve.
This type of call center environment results in
enhanced customer-oriented behavior that
leads to creating actual emotional connection
as an enabler of better CX.
 How Can Agent Behaviors Affect
Contact Center CX?
With a more thorough understanding of the
customer journey combined with clarity on
company, call center, and personal goals,
call center agents can be armed to exceed
customer expectations.
We know that customers rate quality better
when agents employ the following customer-
oriented behaviors:
Anticipate customer requests
A call center with efficient measurement
and management in place will be able to
recognize trends and pinpoint patterns along
the customer journey. When an agent can
anticipate customer requests, they shorten
the time to call resolution. The customer feels
connected and cared for resulting in overall
greater customer satisfaction.
Educate customers
Teachable moments about your company’s
products and procedures can and should be
shared with customers when appropropriate.
Customers will likely appreciated leaving a
customer service call with more knowledge
than when it began. Opportunities to educate
customers about the culture of your company
and its commitment to customer service
initiatives should also not be missed. With
proper training, call center agents should
have top-notch knowledge about corporate
objectives and strategies. They should be
encouraged to share this knowledge as
teachers or advisors, promoting a consistent
message.

Deliver explanations and justifications

Providing facts, explanations, and

justifications helps to provide customers
with greater context. More knowledge helps
customers understand what is happening,
why, and how it can be resolved. Over-
communication can be encouraged. Ensuring
that customers have the facts, thoroughly
understand the situation and challenges-
at-hand, and are prepared for next steps
will help improve the emotional connection
between agents and customers for better
contact center CX.
Provide emotional support

A little empathy goes a long way in most relationships and the relationship between call center
agents and customers is no different. Listening and letting customers know you hear and
understand their challenge puts them at ease and helps you connect in a way that encourages
them to be more optimistic about the outcome.

Offer personal information

Personal information can be a basic tool in the agent’s kit. Call center agents should be
encouraged to discuss things like the weather, their city, new company initiatives, and other
personal anecdotes as appropriate. Keep in mind that customers call to talk to a person
and not to a machine, so being personable is always encouraged when aiming to create an
emotional connection.

Be Authentic. Get Off Script

Call scripts do not work well. Why? Because customers can tell when a call center agent
is using a script. It creates an inauthentic and untrustworthy experience. It also puts your
agents in a compromised position. Scripting only serves to hamper agent autonomy, and
without the ability to go off script, agents might get flustered when conversations do not
go according to plan. It offers them no power to create a genuine connection and instead
widens the gap between the two parties. Train to encourage a connection in conversation,
not in writing and memorizing bad scripts.

Curious how to build these emotional connections? Below we discuss how building a real
connection gets to the emotional heart of what is most impactful in agent behavior.
 How to Build an Emotional
Connection Between Call
Center Agents and Customers
By this time, you should know that call
centers are where much of the magic with
customer takes place at your company. They
provide a tremendous opportunity to solve
customer challenges, inform customers
about new products and company initiatives,
spread the word about your company
culture, sell, or upsell additional products
or services. The secret is using this to your
company’s advantage by working hard to
build an emotional connection between call
center agents and customers.
How Can Agents Build Their Emotional
Connection with Customers
To begin building an emotional connection
with customers, call center agent teams
should look to the following -- we know that
customers rate quality better when agents
employ these customer-oriented behaviors:
• Anticipate customer requests
• Deliver explanations and justifications
• Educate customers
• Provide emotional support
• Offer personal information
While these non-scripted communication
methods are extremely effective, agents
should be encouraged to build on these
relationships by asking direct questions:
• “How are you?” - This simple question
may come back with any number of
answers. Agents will immediately know
if callers are in a foul mood, if they are
rushed, happy, or annoyed. By paying
attention to tone and other verbal cues,
agents can be more well-equipped to
manage the call in a way that results in a
satisfactory outcome for the customer.
• Clarifying questions - Asking clarifying
questions to make sure agents
understand the customer challenge
is essential. Using the customer’s own
words when phrasing the question will
help them feel listened to and respected.
This will also result in clearer overall
communication between the agent and
caller resulting in faster resolution.
• Elevating questions - Once the agent
feels a resolution has been met, they
should ask the customer if they are
satisfied. This way both parties can take
a step back and assess how the call
went. Questions such as: “How do you
feel about this solution?” or “Does this
solve the issue you were having?” will
give the customer the opportunity to
either say yes or to be clear in saying
things have not gone well, giving both
caller and agent an opportunity to
keep forging forward until a satisfactory
resolution is met.
How Scorecards Support Customer-
Oriented Behavior
McKinsey & Company recently reported:
“Today’s customers do not buy just products
and services — more and more, their
purchase decisions revolve around buying
into an idea and an experience.”
And so call center agents, the people on
the front lines of your organization who
interact one-on-one with your customers
on a daily basis, must absolutely facilitate
this experience. Getting this right requires
call center agents who are trained with the
emotional intelligence to meet customers
where they are. Agents must be able to
engage with and respond to clients in a
spontaneous, but appropriate way that is
unscripted.
Through customer-oriented behavior that
includes a mix of empathy, anticipation,
education, and personal anecdotes,
call center agents can give customer
satisfaction a big boost. The good news
is that Scorebuddy has figured out a way
proven to successfully measure each of
the moments along the customer journey.
Through the use of scorecards, these
seemingly intangible data points may be
collected, measured, and managed in a way
that directs toward that initial goal-setting.
How Can Customer-Oriented Behaviors Be
Measured?
Let’s say, for example, you find that
customers are canceling your company's
services because they have grown frustrated
and are dissatisfied with their call wait
time. According to Harris Interactive, “75%
of customers believe it takes too long to
reach a live agent.” So chances are, this is a
challenge your call center is dealing with.
You may want to measure things like call
wait time, call agent tone, or call resolution.
We know that even though call centers may
face similar challenges, no call center is quite
the same, which is why Scorebuddy delivers
fully flexible scorecards for quick and easy
customization.
Here are some pro tips for call center
scorecard success:
Focus on the goal. Know what you’re aiming
to assess and be clear about it with your
agent. There is no need here for mystery.
Solicit agent input. Don’t go it alone. Be sure
you know what the agent is thinking and
why.
Adjust parameters as necessary. Rigidity will
not help when measuring such intangible
data. Goal-setting counts, but it is important
to be flexible as you learn more.
Collect and share your data. Examine
trends that reveal key insights to share with
leadership and call center agents alike.
How Can Customer-Oriented Behaviors Be
Encouraged?
The #1 way to encourage call center agents
to exemplify customer-oriented behavior is
to include them. Yes, train your team, but
also be sure they understand why they are
being trained as they are. You know that
communication between your employees
and your customers is essential for customer
satisfaction. But do you also know that the
same level of communication is necessary
between your leadership team and call
center agents?
Empower your agents to adopt self-scoring processes. Invite them to develop scorecard
questions they deem important. Let them see their scorecard results ahead of reviews
so there is ample time to learn, grow, and adjust their customer-oriented behaviors. Use
scorecard data to avoid disappointing surprises so that improvements may be made in real-
time, on the very next call. And finally, when succeeding, reward your call center agents

How Can Customer-Oriented Behaviors Be Rewarded?

Ultimately, how your organization chooses to reward its employees is entirely up to you.
What we can tell you is that rewards do make a difference in the personal and professional
lives of your employees. Happier employees translate to happier customers, so keeping your
employees happy is always a good idea.

Scorecards help track which individuals or teams are outperforming, so it is easy to

determine who or which group to reward for overachievement. Reward the most improved
or highest week. Buy the highest daily achiever a cup of coffee or a gift card for a tank of
gas. Rewards do not need to be fancy or expensive to be effective. Contests can be fun.
Consider engaging your agents in some friendly competition or a more collaborative team-
oriented game.
 Key Takeaways - Actionable Ways to
Improve Call Center Customer Service
If your company is truly motivated to push
the needle in favor of a quality customer
experience, take the following actions.
Organizational Objectives
• Set goals
• Determine and share what success
means for your call center and to your
company
• Empower your evaluators and call center
agents
• Communicate frequently with consistent
messaging
• Invite your agents to be part of the
decision-making and scoring process
Call Center Agent Objectives
• Work at improving emotional intelligence
• Be prepared to respond with empathy
• Be active listeners, get off script, listen
some more
• Learn to self-score performance for
personal growth and improvement
Leadership Objectives
• Integrate scorecards as part of
measuring and managing the customer
journey
• Set performance baselines and goals
• Use scorecards to mitigate risks,
benchmark success, and exceed
expectations
Interested to learn more? Good news: you
can start a free trial with Scorebuddy with
no obligation and no credit card necessary.
Start implementing these actions into to see
a return on call center success.

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