Working at a call center as a customer service representative has quite a high turnover. Many people do not have the patience to deal with people calling and complaining constantly throughout their days. Social media managers and those who manage social accounts can actually lessen the blow by being proactive and responding to complaints. The following are some ways that social media managers can actually help in employee retention for call center customer service agents.
First Line of Defense
It is much easier to get in touch with a company via social media than wait on the phone for a copious amount of time. The amount of calls that a company receives with complaints because of a lack of response from the social media department might be more than one expects. A social media manager can interact with the customer and even calm them down enough so they do not decide to call and speak to a customer service representative. Just by being responsive many customer will consider their complaint solved. It is much easier to deal with somebody on social media than it is on the phone.
How It Retains Employees: Agents might not be barraged with angry phone calls especially in cases of a power or phone company where service areas go out, a simple Tweet or Facebook post can help clear this up. While there will still be a large amount of angry callers, it will be a fraction of what it could have been as many people follow their service providers via social media.
Can Give Perspective
After a few back and forth tweets or posts via social media, the customer might just realize their problem isn't bad enough to call via phone. Many people catastrophize situations in the beginning and with the help of a savvy social media manager, these disasters will be downgraded. There are many tips for call center agent retention which makes a center more profitable with the more experience its agents have.
How It Retains Employees: Dealing with a calm customer who realizes that the customer service agent did not cause their problem is a dream come true. All too often customer service agents are berated for something that they have no control over which can be quite a frustrating situation.
Some People Want To Be Heard
Some people just simply want to be heard about their displeasure with a company. There are people who can complain about anything but their complaints can be kept to 140 characters via Twitter or some other social media outlet. A quick back and forth between a customer who is a little fired up and a understanding social media manager can help save a customer service agent from an earful. There will be people who will call just to complain although there might not be a solution to the problem they are having (or if it is even a problem at all) or question they have.
No waiting Time For a Response Can Cool A Person Down
Immediate responses to complaints can help turn a social media page into a huge customer service tool. The people who work in the call center value social media teams that help them by responding immediately to a question so the real problems can be solved via phone.
Customer service agents need someone to protect them a bit as they are exposed to some of the most unreasonable people who purchase their product or service. The best thing that a social media team can do to help them is provide them some support. A quick conversation on Twitter can be the difference between the last straw for a customer service agent and keeping them as a happy employee. Each difficult phone call adds up so minimizing these are important for the retention of customer service employees.