Call Recordings are the Secret to Better Customer Support

Unlock Vital Data in Your Call Recordings with Conversation Intelligence Technology

According to Zendesk, 67% of customers prefer self-service over speaking to a company representative when they need assistance. There’s a reason for this, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what it is. Customer Support has developed a reputation that is anything but stellar, and most people will do just about anything to avoid direct interaction with them.

When they do reach out to Customer Support, they expect top-notch service that resolves their issue as quickly as possible. If your Support specialists aren’t equipped with the right skills, they can add frustration to the process instead of reassuring your customers. Support Reps need to know how to reassure customers that their issue will be resolved, even if it’s complex and must be escalated to another team. Understanding and empathizing with customers is crucial to their satisfaction – one bad Support call could lead to an account churning.

The issue began with the tools, most Customer Support software focuses on performance metrics and SLAs, like how long a case has been open, post-call satisfaction, and how often that type of support ticket occurs. Conversation Intelligence technology focuses on the relational aspects of customer support, optimizing human-to-human interactions vs systems and processes. It doesn’t depend on the customer submitting post-interaction “1-10” quality feedback, instead, it pulls data directly from the customer interaction like call sentiment, keywords and phrases, and talk to listen ratio.

To accomplish this, CI leverages AI to analyze and transcribe calls while flagging key moments and coachable moments in the conversation, it then alerts reps and managers to areas they should focus on. Conversation Intelligence technology provides a means for Support Leaders to coach their reps while encouraging reps to participate in their own development. It provides visibility into whether or not your team is aligned on messaging and how they’re handling specific inquiries. Most importantly, because CI analyzes interactions instead of activities, it ensures that your customers are more than a number on a support ticket and are treated that way.

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Coaching Support Reps

Learning the art of guiding, not telling is a challenge for any Support specialist. The easiest way to master it is through call coaching, but current methods like call shadowing or reviewing old recordings are inefficient. Conversation Intelligence technology was built to solve these issues, giving managers the ability to quickly access, sort/find and listen to calls while providing feedback through comments, highlights, and scorecards.

With CI software, managers have visibility into what’s happening on calls and the ability to answer key questions like:

1. Are your reps getting the right information on the first call?
2. Are your reps being clear in their responses? Do they take complex issues and translate them into clear instructions?
3. Do your reps follow the support workflow? Are they using specific keywords and phrases?
4. Can you identify trends in your teams’ performance? Do you need to focus your coaching on specific aspects of calls?
5. Does your reps’ perception of their performance match their actual performance?

Managers can use this data to track how reps improve holistically over time as well as on individual calls. You’ll have a clear picture of how reps are responding to coaching and see how new hires progress during onboarding.

Shorten Onboarding & Ramp Time

Working on support can be quite intimidating–you are the face of the company and are usually the first person on the team to deliver bad news. Learning how to set expectations, extract the necessary details and prove a sympathetic voice is a key to minimizing a customer’s frustrations over your product. Building these skills quickly leads to reps that are confident on the phone sooner.

Conversation Intelligence software aids in the onboarding process by giving Support specialists a resource to quickly find best practices and hear them in action. CI technology makes compiling libraries of your team’s best calls easy and enables you to categorize them based on specific skills, issues, and overall quality. When your reps can hear exactly what a “good” call sounds like, they’ll be comfortable on calls faster. Your experienced reps can also utilize libraries when they find themselves struggling with specific customers, skills, or even when they need a pick me up after a difficult call.

Empowering Users & Customers

Support Teams can make educated guesses on the most common issues users are facing, but between the fast-paced nature of the department and juggling numerous tickets, things can be overlooked. Conversation Intelligence technology reduces this problem by allowing reps and managers to quickly find and replay calls. Support Teams can create saved searches for particular phrases or keywords to quickly assess if particular issues need a corresponding Help Center article. This helps Support Teams offer a premium level of self-service that customers want and helps drive customer satisfaction throughout the Support process.

Aligning with Customer Success & Product Teams

Customer support can oftentimes feel like a game of telephone. Support Specialists are often the first to hear of major product bugs or a client’s dissatisfaction. Being able to quickly communicate this to Product and Success teams is important, however, it’s easy to create confusion as the middleman.

Conversation Intelligence technology eliminates having to play telephone. Support specialists can highlight relevant portions of a call and send that highlight directly to someone in Success or Product so they can hear exactly what the client said. This cuts down the time it takes for other teams to understand an issue and helps get things resolved faster.

Client Success teams are always fighting to prevent and spot churn. Support can aid in this process by flagging accounts that may require additional attention from the CSM. CI technology makes it easy to share churn indicators with Success. This software enables both teams to remain aligned on messaging, leading to smoother feature rollouts and other communications. By having real calls in addition to notes, both teams can be confident they have all of the details.

Sometimes, no matter how detailed your ticket is, the Product team doesn’t understand the issue or can’t reproduce it. Support specialists can share calls and highlights with Product teams allowing them to hear exactly what the user described the issue as. This may lead to an “a-ha!” moment or help them identify what additional information they need to resolve complex issues. Support teams can leverage CI platforms for sharing positive calls with Product teams so they can see the impact of their work.

Conclusion

Having a great Customer Support team is important for any business. Conversation Intelligence software is the only Support tool that focuses on human interactions and empowers specialists to provide better service. CI technology offers unprecedented visibility into what’s being said on Support calls while offering a simple and effective way to provide context to tickets.