Call Deflection: A Complete Guide to Improve Customer Experience

The success of your Contact Center Software depends on providing a seamless customer experience. Speed, knowledgeable help, convenience, and friendly services characterize this. And, call deflection can enhance it. But, how? Keep reading this step-by-step call deflection guide.

Your business can’t afford to ignore the queries and requests of this mobile-first generation. It can impact your brand reputation. According to Statista, smartphone users have already surpassed 6 billion worldwide. In the next few years, smartphone users are forecasted to grow by several hundred million. This smartphone generation does its most work on the phone only. They search for products, buy and order products online, give reviews and ratings, and visit websites. Customers call customer representatives for solutions to their queries. To sum up, the wide use of smartphones and the latest technologies are transforming customers’ behavior. Customers have higher expectations from brands. They want to interact with them through their chosen communication channels. Customers are not ready to compromise with standards and quality.

Businesses are also adapting to changing customer behavior. They are implementing new technologies ranging from call-focused support to digital contact centers. But, why are business owners doing so? The reason is clear. They want to give the best customer experience. This is the only way for their business to stay in the competition and grow.

A call agent can handle only one customer at a time. But, digital customer channels such as Visual IVR System or chatbots can handle many customers at a time. So, if you run a contact center and need to know how to handle high call volumes, here we have explained the concept of call deflection and its benefits.

Content:

What is Call Deflection?

What is the Need to Start a Call Deflection?

Benefits of Call Deflection

Conclusion

 

What is Call Deflection?
Call Deflection is a technique that temporarily reduces high inbound call volumes of a call center, Omnichannel Contact Center Solution, or help desk by routing the callers to a substitute self-service or digital channels. A lot of customers prefer to solve their problems on their own rather than, calling and speaking to a live agent. As it gives more control over them and gives more options to switch various channels or advance with a voice call.

Typically, a call deflection is a process to divert an inbound call to a lower-cost channel like a messenger app like WhatsApp, Line, Viber, website chat, email, or SMS.  It is useful when there is a high call volume. Customers are provided self-service options like FAQs through visual IVRs. Once the call is disconnected, an SMS is sent to the customer’s phone with the link to the self-service portal, chatbots, or Visual IVR. The alternate/substitute channel is designed to assist the customer and resolve his issue. In case the customer is not satisfied with this, he/she can also have the option to connect to a Live Chat Software agent. By using call deflection, your contact center can send the customers to the best communication channel and create better engagement.

What is the Need to Start a Call Deflection?
Call Centers need to start a call deflection due to high call volumes. Whenever the call volume is high, it makes customers wait for a longer time. Thus, increasing waiting times cause customer dissatisfaction or even higher call abandon rates. So, high call volumes can create big challenges for your contact center. And, also harm the brand reputation which nobody wants. To deal with such a scenario, initiating a call deflection is the best option.

A Shopify study suggests that call volume touches its highest peak, i.e. over 70% during the holiday season. Such scenarios put extreme pressure on call centers. Call Center Software India has limited human resources to deal with the surge in calls. Also, call agents are not available in the same proportion in all the shifts. Some businesses may not have 24x7 agent assistance too. But, customers can call even at midnight for the solution to their queries. Hiring additional human resources to handle calls at midnight and beyond working hours turns expensive for companies. But, call deflection reduces cost by giving options to customers. Also, it reduces wait times for customers.

To start a call deflection, IVR provides an option to select for call deflection. Once the customer makes the choice, an SMS/Text can be sent to the caller's number. It can also be sent on WhatsApp or other messaging channels like Telegram.

Benefits of Call Deflection
Call deflection gives customers many ways to sort out their issues. Today’s modern customers want fast interaction with customer service. They want an immediate solution for their issues. With call deflection, you can ensure your customers get the information they are searching for efficiently. Using call deflection brings you many benefits such as:-

1. Improve Customer Experience:
Call deflection provides an alternative to customers waiting in a call queue. They can immediately switch to another digital channel as soon as they are aware of their queue position, send their queries, and get them solved. Customers can use call deflection for pre-purchase (for example prospects can enquire about products or information about the business or services provided). Customers can be assisted to solve their purchase issues (to make payments and other privacy-related issues) and post-purchase queries. All these digital options provided to customers will lead to improving customer experience.

Here’s how a call deflection helps you deliver a superior customer experience

i) Quick Response: 
Getting customer support is always frustrating. Many of you have experienced this frustration. More than 70% of customers admit that they hate the long waiting times when trying to connect to call agents. Call deflection deals with such scenarios by allowing customers to get connected as soon as they have called. Also, it ensures their queries are resolved.

ii) Analyze Customer Behavior:
Call deflection reveals valuable information about customers’ behavior. For example, it helps you know how customers reacted during the engagement and how they reacted to responses. All this information will help you transform your business into a customer-centric one.

iii) Gather Customers Feedback:
Customers often skip when it comes to giving feedback on a call. Instead, they find it easy to rate your services inside the chat or Visual IVR interface. Such feedback can tell you where you lack in providing better services to customers.

2. Promotional Activities:
Businesses can offer promotional or special offers to customers through call deflection. Visual IVR or WhatsApp chatbots can showcase ongoing offers/promotions on their banners or with CTA buttons. Such promotional content can be changed from time to time. So while solving customer queries, the call deflection technique can offer to upsell or cross-sell opportunities.

Some other benefits that you get from call deflection include:-

Position your business as a first digital-first brand.
Reduces the cost of managing high call volume.
It enhances call agents’ efficiency. They get enough time to handle difficult queries.
Reduce the average handling time and ease the burden on call agents.
Improve the interaction quality and increase customer satisfaction (CSAT).

Conclusion
Call deflection can help businesses to reduce operational costs and save money. Improvement in customers’ experience is what every brand wants. If you are also looking to improve your brand recognition and customer experience, then give a try to C-Zentrix’s call deflection strategy.