As the world continues to slowly rise up against the drawbacks of a difficult 2020, we look back at the value of customer service during a challenging time, and how call centers became a bridge that connected brands to their customers despite an ongoing pandemic. Uniphore, as mentioned in a Business Wire article, reported that the call center became a lifeline for customers who contacted their brands to ask for support. While customers looked for vaccines, asked for help in refunding, or called to cancel travel reservations, call center agents experienced how customer interactions during the pandemic increased tenfold—hold times had increased 50% at the start of COVID-19, as the number of agents taking calls were not enough to handle the long queue of customers trying to get answers to their issues as soon as possible.
In a recent Forrester report on customer service predictions for 2021, digital customer service interactions are forecasted to increase by 40%, as 33 million consumers would seek support and contact customer service channels post-COVID-19. Furthermore, Forrester also stated that empathy will be a key factor in helping customers solve their issues.
Standing out from the competition is already a big enough challenge on its own and connecting with the customer becomes a harder task when customers are frustrated and anxious. The value of human connection, emotions, empathy, and personalization are now more important than ever, especially in a post-pandemic world surrounded by the future’s uncertainties. To be able to connect with customers, organizations and brands must recognize and address the need for a customer-centric, more empathetic customer service experience.
While technologies such as automation and chatbots assist humans in simplifying low-value or repetitive tasks, it is empathy that ties a great customer experience together: the power of a personal and caring customer interaction is strong enough to go where technology cannot. This is why organizations must support its customer support agents and let them learn the value of delivering emotionally intelligent interactions to today’s customers.
As the global leader in customer experience management, Teleperformance recognizes the value of emotional intelligence and empathy, and balancing both with technology to better provide better customer experience to our clients’ customers. We continuously aim to create a workplace culture that recognizes empathy and open communication and use it to lead and inspire our teams around the world. To further jumpstart our employees’ career growth, we focus on learning and development programs that enhance our employees’ listening skills—an important skill to have in practicing empathy.
In today’s new setting where optimism may come in limited supply, empathy is not just about telling customers that we know how they feel—it’s all about reassuring customers that helping them is a main priority, and the genuine expression of concern and care. We continuously remain steadfast in our belief that human empathy can go a long way in inspiring loyalty and meaningful interactions that can truly improve the customer's overall experience.
Our proven experience allows us to have deep understanding of the customer journey. Learn more about Teleperformance’s customer care solutions to help you elevate customer satisfaction!
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