In today’s competitive business and customer service landscape, all call centers must provide excellent and enhanced service that succeeds in ensuring engagement and immersion. The call center’s role within the customer service experience (CSX) is no longer segmented for customers to resolve or fundamental questions about a product or service but exists across the entire customer journey. David Highbloom, a 25-year entrepreneur with extensive experience in business models that emphasize the customer service experience, says that from awareness to the interest of purchase to service and advocacy, customer service agents must be prepared and equipped to lead customers through the entire customer service journey.

Highbloom points out that there is always room for improvement in how companies deliver first-class CSX programs. Areas of improvement seem simple enough but are often overlooked and should be reinforced in a continuous, professional training program.

One of the first areas of focused training to improve CSX is to be responsive. Highbloom says that the first step for CSX agents is to be quick to respond. Customers want speedy answers and resolutions to their inquiries, and the CSX agent is the first point of contact. Also, of great importance is to be user-friendly and be proactive. One way to ensure improved CSX initiatives is by investing in unified agent desktops and tight integrations with various applications. They provide call center agents the toolset to help solve customer problems immediately. With an effective omnichannel solution, agents can transfer customers from their current interaction channel to the right channel.

Highbloom reminds us that these improvement points are relatively straightforward and have existed for some time. However, he points out that there are more recent elements that need continuous training to improve competitively. These include personalizing the customer service experience, instilling empathy toward customer issues, and being open to receiving and implementing constructive feedback from customers themselves.

With global events shaping our world and how we interact with businesses and brands, creating processes to improve the customer service experience can be the difference in how every customer regards your product or service.