The 3 Inbound Contact Center Hacks for NPS Gold

Ahead-of-the-curve inbound contact centers are always searching for ways to make customers happier while growing their business.

Managers who focus on generating a high Net Promoter Score (NPS) by pleasing their customers speed up this process.

But what exactly is NPS, and how does a company measure it?

And how can companies utilize inbound contact center software to create the best customer experience – and mine NPS gold for years to come?

Well, stay tuned because that’s exactly what’s covered in today’s post.

What’s So Great About NPS Anyway?

Way back in 2003, Harvard Business Review, the most prestigious publication of tactical business advice, proclaimed the Net Promoter Score (NPS) as “The One Number You Need to Grow.”

With that one article, one of the most important business Key Performance Indicators (KPI) was born. What made it so great?

Companies could now measure customer loyalty in an unprecedented way – all by making a simple change to a customer survey form.

Instead of making customer surveys directionless and non-quantifiable companies started asking questions like…

“How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”

Then they would ask customers to rate their recommendation likelihood from 1-10. Customers who rate 9-10 are “promoters” and any businesses’ most valuable customers.

Why?

Because research found these promoters are 5 times more likely to be repeat customers. Promoters are also 7 times more likely to forgive a company when it makes a mistake. They’re also even more likely to try new products and services from that company, too.

Today, NPS continues its reign as an essential metric as businesses innovate and use it to gain even more customer experience data…

A little reflection will tell you, the quality of one’s questions determines the quality of one’s answers. Sometimes the simpler questions yield the most valuable results.

So a call center that consistently receives 9-10 scores in their customer surveys is adored.

But if a call center that routinely gets 1-5 scores, it clearly needs to improve.

Customers might not leave detailed feedback in these basic NPS surveys, but modern inbound contact center software provides all the tools a call center manager needs to increase NPS and analyze their center’s areas of opportunity.

This makes increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty a more understandable challenge.

NPS Organically Increases When Call Centers Solve Customer Problems Efficiently

The best call center managers know that a customer’s first impressions when calling a customer service line is everything.

They want their problem solved as close to instantly as possible.

The #1 hack a call center manager uses to ensures fast customer problem resolution happens by implementing a custom Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, an essential piece of inbound contact center software.

An IVR system is an automated, prerecorded solution that asks customers questions to either:

1. Solve their problem almost automatically (think: account balance or bill pay).
2. Route them to the most skilled agent available to expertly resolve their issue.

When used properly, IVR saves customers time and headaches. If a call center is doing it right, NPS should be sky-high.

When call centers are receiving low NPS, managers might consider redesigning or tweaking IVR menus and questions.

Routing Complicated Customer Calls to the Right Agents Is an NPS Game-Changer

A call center can have an epic IVR system that can handle most customer issues without the need to speak with an agent. That level of convenience and ease can lead to an NPS boost.

What happens if that level of service drops off a cliff when a customer with a complicated problem needs to speak to an agent?

Say goodbye to any hopes of maintaining call center industry gold level NPS status.

That’s where the Automatic Call Distribution System (ACD) saves the day.

ACD is an indispensable inbound contact center software hack for producing NPS golden nuggets with every agent-customer contact, leaving customers feeling cared about and appreciated when they hang up the phone.

It does this by routing incoming calls to the best, most skilled agents available while also taking the customer’s needs into account.

So the agents with the best skills in diffusing angry customers and finding the most appropriate solution are on the front lines when the need arises – a huge relief for call center managers.

ACD also features queued callback, which prompts customers to receive a callback when the next agent becomes available. Now the customers’ place in the queue is saved and they don’t have to wait on hold!

The Key Customer Background Information-Gathering Hack That Makes High NPS Almost Certain

As we’ve seen, a call center’s IVR and ACD systems work together to serve callers on a higher level, increasing its chances of receiving high NPS.

But there’s an essential, missing link that amplifies these tools, making them more effective and all but ensuring higher NPS is just around the corner for reputable call center operations…

We’re talking Agent Gateway, a full spectrum data dashboard that displays:

1. Customer’s past calls.
2. Customer’s questions answered.
3. Customer’s personal information.
4. Manager’s notes and other relevant information.

It also records customer-agent conversations, creating reviewable transcripts that provide learning opportunities to agents and managers. If acted upon, this information leads to improved customer surveys and practices in handling similar situations in the future…

And that’s just scratching the surface.

Take NPS and Call Center Operations to the Next Level with Inbound Contact Center Software

There’s no denying it – managers who still use on-premises call center equipment miss opportunities to grow their business every day.

Just like call center managers who have no idea about NPS and how measuring it can create everlasting changes to their business

Sure, on-premises systems can deploy IVR and ACD, which can boost NPS. But these systems are nowhere near as effective and cost-effective as a cloud-based solution.

More and more call centers are taking advantage of cutting edge cloud-based call center software every day and leaving the “stone-age” on-premises operations behind.

TCN offers one of the best cloud-based call center solutions in the industry.

And the best part?  TCN services require no contracts. That means a call center business can cancel at any time. How many other call center services can say that?

We put together a free ebook detailing why so many forward-thinking call center executives are making the switch and how easy it can be.

So download the free “Fred Flintstone vs. George Jetson” ebook today to discover why moving to the cloud is right for call centers, big and small.