With more companies using contact centres for front-end customer engagement than ever before, the relationship between clients and their customers is increasingly dependent on the capacity of the call centre to respond to customer needs efficiently, informatively and professionally.

With an increasing focus today on personalised service, there is much scope, then, to not only take and deliver information efficiently, but also to build a brand’s relationship with its customers on an individual basis. Friendly, efficient and informative customer service will ensure long term brand loyalty and encourage word-of-mouth recommendation. So how can contact centres improve their reputation and increase customer loyalty by building meaningful rapport with customers?

The most important factor is a committed, well-informed and professional tone on the phone, which comes from long-term, happy and motivated employees. But are contact centres and their technology vendors delivering a working environment that sustains the levels of employee satisfaction required to drive productive, long term relationships? Employee absence and attrition levels are a good indicator of wellbeing and satisfaction within contact centres. Industry research over the last few years has shown that agent attrition and absenteeism remains high in the outsourcing industry.

In a recent white paper - Building Trust in the Workplace – I discuss whether we are missing the single most important part of any productive and successful relationship. TRUST. The paper suggests five practical steps that can be taken immediately to sow the seeds for a culture of trust in the call centre and ensure that agents have the tools and access to information to make informed decisions when on the phone to customers.

You can read the full white paper here:

Building Trust in the Workplace