Why we love the contact centre, and why you should too!

How do you view the contact centre? A necessity to get the job done quickly or a chance to provide exceptional customer service to increase brand loyalty? Surely every business uses their call centre as an opportunity to provide the highest customer care possible… wrong. Many businesses still don’t understand the true value of the contact centre, even with the bombardment of customer experience this and customer journey that many are still focused on reduced expenditure and minimizing call times at the expense of customer service.

But it’s time to change. Brands should have the interests of the customer at the heart of everything they do and this starts at the contact centre. Whether your call centre supports promotional helplines, customer service, inbound or outbound calling, upselling or cross selling, invested interest in the consumer should always be adopted so that a positive customer experience is created at every touchpoint.

The contact centre is a place where customer relationships can be nurtured and where brand loyalty blossoms. However, poor satisfaction in the call centre can dramatically affect the reputation of your company and with social media at an all-time high this is more prevalent than ever before as customers take their frustrations to Twitter & Facebook. Not only that, ClickFox found that 52% tell family, friends and/or peers about the bad experience from a contact centre, 35% stop doing business with the company and 16 percent post comments on social networking sites, even more evidence of how important good customer service from a great contact centre is for your brand, and why you should love the contact centre.

It’s important to find a call centre that shares the same brand values, a contact centre that cares about yours and their own reputation, a call centre that has the best accreditations and a contact centre that is devoted to providing the best customer service possible at all times. And the reason we love the contact centre is because at Granby we do all of the above. After all, the contact centre can shape how your brand is perceived and can have a direct impact on customer retention.

Your contact centre’s reputation is how customers remember your brand, off-shoring is quickly becoming more and more disliked by UK consumers which has seen an influx of brands bringing their contact centre services back to the UK. But be sure when choosing your outsourced contact centre that they are reputable, ask them if they are adopters of the DMA Vulnerable Consumers Initiative, if they are ISO 27001 accredited and if they have all relevant procedures in place. All this will help you love your call centre just as much as we do.

UK contact centre services have unfortunately had bad press in recent months with the revelation of wide spread charity misconduct; however it’s important to remember that not all call centre providers should be tarnished with the same brush. There are still many ethical and trusted companies such as ourselves who have an invested interest in the end consumer as well as the brand.

We love the contact centre because it’s an opportunity to win over the customer, nurture brand loyalty and provide the best customer service and customer experience possible. It’s a chance to show your customers you care – put your trust in the contact centre!