![]() ![]() Paying bills and reporting outages are often the easiest places for both utilities and their customers to start with self-service. Ask customers what they’d prefer to do themselves and make sure they can do it. Follow these tips to increase self-service adoption: Most utilities are trying to figure out how to increase enrollment in online account management, paperless billing, email and text message alerts, and other programs that meet customers’ needs while decreasing contact-center volume. Self-service adoption in utility customer service has the dual benefit of improving the customer experience ( CX) and decreasing costs. Customers who use self-service channels are more satisfied with their utility than those who don’t, so getting more customers to adopt these channels can positively influence overall customer satisfaction. Above all, customers want quick and easy resolutions to their issues, no matter how that’s accomplished. Though a customer may prefer to speak with a live agent, if they’re able to quickly and easily accomplish their transaction through another channel, they will still be satisfied with their service. ![]() Provide user-friendly self-service transactions Figure 1: Best practices for deflecting calls to self-service channels At the top of our list of best practices for call deflection is ensuring that your self-service options are user-friendly.ġ. We’ve gathered five best practices for deflecting calls to self-service channels ( figure 1). For example, skills-based routing can produce efficiencies by connecting a customer to the agent best suited to handle their call. ![]() Our report Creating human connections in the call center (available with certain E Source memberships) highlights the benefits of call-routing techniques that may reduce customer follow-up calls. The E Source Omnichannel Survey shows that customers often decide to call and speak with an agent after they’ve been unsuccessful using another channel, so making it quick and easy for customers to resolve issues via alternate channels can deflect calls.Ĭall-routing strategies can also help improve first-contact resolution along with call deflection. Utilities can also deflect calls by improving the first-contact resolution rate, or how quickly a customer issue is resolved after they’ve first contacted the utility through either a call to the contact center or another self-service channel. A 2016 article, How Call Deflection Can Enhance the Customer Experience, from website-visit-monitoring company SessionCam defines call deflection as “the science of re-routing a customer call to an alternative service channel” and notes that businesses should always focus on deflecting calls, not customers. A solution that’s increasingly common outside the utility industry is the use of virtual assistants or chatbots to help customers find solutions to common problems.Ĭall deflections are primarily a result of giving customers a way to quickly and easily solve their problem without interacting with a live agent.Several utilities saw their call volume plunge after implementing proactive outage communications. Customers who use self-service channels are more satisfied with their utility than those who don’t, so getting more customers to adopt these channels can positively influence overall customer satisfaction. ![]()
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