The 5 core ingredients for growing customer service delivery

Let’s get this out of the way. Customer service doesn’t always have a great reputation.

You’re forgiven to think this. Everyone’s been on the receiving end of customer service that doesn’t hit the mark.

Customer service departments (usually a contact center) experience many growing pains to improve customer satisfaction and retention in accord with emerging technology and increasing expectations—with varying degrees of success.

Because there’s one key difference that separates good customer service from great customer service…

Why do some contact centers make the same mistakes and struggle to grow stably while others can better adapt to new processes and flex to meet customer demands?

The main difference boils down to one thing: frame of mind.

There’s an idea in psychology that compares how people perceive situations to achieve success. Either you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

Those with fixed mindsets avoid challenges, give up easily, resent effort, ignore useful negative feedback, and feel threatened by competitor success. They tend to believe outcomes are fixed. Their growth trajectory is more like a plateau as they never excel and fulfill their potential.

On the other hand, those with growth mindsets embrace challenges, persevere through setbacks, appreciate effort, learn from criticism, and get inspired by the successes of others. People with growth mindsets are magnets for success. They believe anything is possible when they put their minds to it.

Contact centers are made up of teams and leaders who approach customer service with either of these mindsets. Those with a growth mindset tend to brave through uncertainty and evolve familiar methods to attract success. Their contact centers—surprise, surprise—actually grow as a result.

But don’t write off contact centers with fixed mindsets just yet. They’re often a product of circumstance beyond their immediate control, such as inefficiency, inexperience, and inadequate planning and execution.

The good news is, things don’t have to be this way.

A fast and cost-effective way to improve your customer service is to outsource it. Enlisting an experienced, understanding BPO partner can take the weight off your team’s shoulders and help them focus on other matters, as well as optimize operations and build skills.

We’re different from other BPOs because of our more intimate, flexible approach to getting customer service up and running for your brand. Over time, your customer service center moves from a cost creator to a profit center. With an experienced partner creating and executing your CX strategy, the result is the stability to scale up successfully.

What gears a contact center to grow big? Here are five vital things a contact center needs to build on to grow skywards.

1. Technology supporting teams to deliver

From data management to internal training tools, customer service agents have more power than ever to deliver flawless customer service.

Growth-oriented contact centers invest in technologies that keep up with the pace of customer expectations. Many such technologies are designed to evolve and adapt to changes in volume.

Here at Ubiquity, there are a few technologies that we celebrate such as bespoke IVR solutions and agent management and training tools (you can read more about these on our Technology page).

Sure, technologies can be expensive upfront investments. But these technology investments more than make up for themselves over time as employees become more engaged and customers become more satisfied.

2. Investing in individuals’ futures

Your people are your most valuable investment. Empower them to be the best they can be.

We create in-depth, sociable training programs that immerse agents deep into your brand’s culture. Our approach to training is that the learning never stops.

If you help your people grow, it follows that your contact center will stabilize growth too.

What’s more, Ubiquity recognizes when people invest in themselves as well. We offer regular incentives and rewards for hard work, including the chance to enter our profit-sharing programs after three years of tenure.

The negative stereotype about high turnover and career progression is no longer true. Building relationships with people and providing a path to progress is key for mutual growth.

3. Investing in people’s well-being

Happy teams equal happy customers.

It’s critical to invest in an employee engagement system to manage teams and get an accurate check of your team’s health and well-being.

Regular check-ins on morale, process, and performance help your BPO know where to optimize resources to support productivity and keep customer experience at its highest standard.

Over time, you improve staff retention, streamline operations more efficiently, and boost customer service.

4. Measuring what matters

They say if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

That’s why it’s critical to provide opportunities to offer feedback to improve processes, manage workflows, and highlight areas for training and skill development, both with customers and agents.

NPS and CSAT are two of the most-celebrated metrics. They’re useful for gathering insights into both the immediate and longer term perceptions of performance.

A caveat to this—don’t let the metrics get in the way of doing a great job.

Transactional Outsourcing places so much stock in hitting targets that customer service quality is neglected. Most customer situations are complex and success looks different for every customer, especially for industries such as healthcare.

5. Fostering a culture of continuous improvement

Everyone in your team should feel empowered to advance your business.

We encourage teams to constantly re-evaluate processes and see where they can be improved to better meet business needs.

This provides a key difference between a static contact center and one destined for growth. Constantly staying alert to opportunities helps brands adapt, evolve, and better serve customers.

With a growth mindset, real growth isn’t far behind. Customer service centers with all these pieces in place have what it takes to grow by leaps and bounds.

And a BPO partner who understands this view can be your guide to long-term growth—and it’s done with a little something we call Relationship-based Outsourcing.

If you’re ready to grow and transform your contact center from a mere service supplier into a valuable customer experience provider, then let’s chat.