Initial Situation
Professional management of customer relationships is critical for the success of an online shop. The quality of customer services directly effects customer satisfaction and therefore also the repurchase probability and the rate of recommendations. For this reason the operator of a leading online market place for electronic products planned to test and optimize the quality of his customer services.
Mystery shopping on the online platform and via calls to the service center, should give the necessary information base. Additionally the quality of the customer service should be compared to the customer service quality of the most important competitors. Based on that information the client planned to initialize dedicated training sessions the service center agents in order to improve the quality of the customer relationship management.
GP+S Services
- Design and realization of a mystery call and mystery mail campaign, to test the customer service centers
- Via phone and email the service center agents were confronted with different cases such as product information requests, ordering and payment inquiries or returns and complaints
- The quality of processing and reacting in the cases was documented with the help of a standardized rating scheme
- The exact same cases were used to test the customer service centers of the most important competitors – to get benchmarking information
- In workshops with the customer service agents the results of the analysis were discussed and reasons for the detected weaknesses, such as lack of information or missing sales skil.ls, were analyzed
- Tailored training sessions with customer service agents to improve sales orientation and increase the agents’ awareness for distinct buying signals by the customer and turn them into direct sales results. Use of role plays to simulate and optimize the handling of critical situations, such as dealing with customer complaints
- The trainings were held in a three to four month rhythm. Each time the latest results from the mystery shopping were presented and discussed with the agents
- Together with the service center management programs and measures were developed to achieve the set goals
Results
- Measurable increase in customer service quality: stronger service orientation, more distinct answers
- Improvement of the sales orientation and complaint processing by the agents: measurable increase of sales
- Motivation and overall satisfaction of the service center agents increased
