Improve Customer Experience Using Call Center Simulation Assessment
Whether your business is B2B or B2C, customers are expecting more from brands than ever before. In fact, customer experience will surpass price or product selection as the key brand differentiator and 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for better customer experience.
One key area of focus for businesses is the need to improve the quality of customer interactions. And this starts by hiring and training call center agents to deliver consistent and outstanding service on every customer interaction. As call centers morph into contact centers, digital channels are introduced, the work becomes more complex, and hiring agents who can communicate effectively and efficiently in writing becomes all the more important.
What’s the best way to determine if contact center agents have the necessary skills to perform at a high level? Many organizations are turning to call center simulation software and pre-employment assessments to help them improve the quality and efficiency of their contact center.
What's Contact Center Simulation Assessment?
Simulation software is widely used in training and recruitment to help organizations assess the performance of potential and current employees.
Contact center simulation software is designed to immerse users in a virtual environment that recreates activities they need to perform as a contact center agent. The interactive experience provides a hands-on way for users to carry out their job functions in a life-like manner, increasing the effectiveness and accuracy of the training and assessment software.The interactive experience provides a hands-on way for users to carry out their job functions in a life-like manner, increasing the effectiveness and accuracy of the training and assessment.
As a training and recruiting tool, call center simulation tests offer objective data on candidates' performance in real-life situations. In addition, most call center simulation software allows employers to assess how agents perform in other customer service channels, such as live chat, SMS, social media, and messaging apps. It sounds simple, but the ability to type quickly and accurately, and communicate clearly in writing, is essential.
How Organizations Use Call Center Simulation Assessment To Improve Customer Service and Reduce Cost?
Contact center simulation software allows organizations to test candidates and employees on how they handle a variety of customer interactions — from simple data entry to complex situations such as dealing with difficult customers or handling complaints.
You can use call center simulation software to evaluate a candidate's ability to follow procedures, understand a customer's needs, collaborate with a team, identify a problem, and devise a solution in a responsive manner — and in the case of channels like chat, it tests their ability to balance multiple interactions at once. You can also assess the sales and marketing skills of candidates, determining their ability to cross sell and upsell when appropriate. This can help increase sales and conversion rates.
Here's how organizations can benefit from using call center assessment tools:
- Improve the performance and productivity of agents, reducing average handle time and increasing first contact resolution (FCR).
- Enhance the proficiency of agents to reduce the number of escalations to higher tier customer service representatives, which is often a time consuming and costly process.
- Leverage simulation results to predict workloads and streamline workflows so you can optimize staff utilization and increase cost-efficiency.
- Increase your agents' range of skills so they can be reassigned to help with overflowing calls during peak hours and maximize call handling efficiency. Many agents also appreciate the ability to rotate jobs whenever possible.
- Improve the quality of customer interactions to increase customer satisfaction and retention.
- Test and refine new routing methods, workflows, scheduling, and capacity planning before implementation.
Selecting Contact Center Simulation Assessment Software
Based on the needs of your organization and business objectives, you can choose from a variety of call center simulation software applications. Here are some key capabilities to consider:
- Pre-employment assessments to accurately predict agent on-the-job performance and determine the skill levels of agents.
- Integration with other software applications (e.g., MS Office, contact center platform) so you can holistically assess all the skills required for an agent to perform the job.
- An engaging and immersive experience that effectively tests the real-world problem-solving skills of agents and candidates.
- The ability to export and combine data from other sources for a 360-degree evaluation of the customer experience.
Conclusion
The right assessment tools can help identify the most suitable candidates for each position while offering data and insights to help fine-tune your contact center's operation and efficiency. Hiring well is the first step in delivering the customer service and experience that boosts conversion rates, increases customer satisfaction, and improves customer loyalty.
This article contains important information related to contact center solutions and best practices. And while 8x8 doesn’t currently provide call center simulation software, we can help your contact center connect and collaborate internally and externally to excel in the experience economy. To learn more, call 1-855-820-9767 or fill out the form below to speak with an 8x8 product specialist.
