What Can Call Centers Do Better as Millennials Take Over?

The ongoing task for anyone involved in the call center – from the front lines, to management and the back office, is to ensure customer needs are always being met. It’s the chief goal no matter what industry or market you’re talking about: Keep the customers happy and keep them doing business with you.

But meeting those goals is a moving target. Changes in the call center are constant. Today, millennials have taken over and they are the “always connected” society that’s come to expect instant gratification.

Ensuring your call center can meet this need is important. The recent results from a recent study uncovered that a call centers inability to meet customer needs is resulting in a considerable drop in satisfaction. And we all know what that leads to.

The study, by CFI Group, used the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) methodology, and found that customer satisfaction has scored the lowest than it ever has in nine years since its been conducted.

More specifically, the Contact Center Satisfaction Index (CCSI) has found that consumers are fed up with IVR systems and are growing impatient waiting to have their issues resolved.

The satisfaction index found a four-point slide from 72 points in 2015 to 68 points in 2016 on a scale of 0-100.

CFI Group CEO Sheri Petras noted that the problem is coming from the stark contrast between the generation that preceded today’s Millennials and the fact that they are now the largest living demographic.

"Millennials simply expect the information to be available at their fingertips. Just having to reach out to a contact center at all because they couldn't find the information themselves with a few taps on their phone puts an organization behind the 8-ball right away. And when half of these inquiries are not resolved with the first contact, you are creating ill will among a key customer base,” Petras said.

The inability to quickly solve customer issues combined with the increasing expectation of faster service is really making for a problem that needs addressing. According to the study, one-third of consumers couldn’t use the self service IVR for their issue only 52 percent of calls was resolved the first time.

When it comes to call centers and the millennial demographic, Petras advises, “paying attention to the preferences of this group is absolutely critical if contact centers hope to thrive in this changing customer service environment."

Edited by Maurice Nagle