Reach A Friendly Atmosphere And Customer Satisfaction In The Telecommunication Industry

How do you see a perfect human touch in digital service?

1. Keep language simple

Telecommunication is dealing with a huge amount of different complicated topics every day, but the difference is that a customer doesn’t need to know anything about it. Part of the customer service package is a professional employee on the other side of the phone. Human touch begins with simple and effective communication. Avoid using complicated and difficult-to-understand words and explanations. Help customer to understand the topic by using simple words and examples.

2. Personalise your messages

Whether you’re communicating with customers via e-mail, web-based chat, phone, or in person, a personalised approach can work wonders. If we dig deep into NPS scores, we can clearly see that “personal service” is a key to success here. Even a minor thing, such as mentioning the client’s name, can have a positive influence on customer satisfaction. Personalised messages make customers feel like they’re talking to real people that can solve their issues and gain their trust.

3. Establish a friendly environment.

Customers want to be treated like people and not as sales or account numbers. At Elisa, we set certain goals for employees, such as handled calls. When a client is “on the line”, it is the perfect opportunity to make a customer feel cared for and important and that they can have a feeling that they’re talking with an important agent who is taking care of them.

Customer service representatives should use polite and warming words throughout the contact – this generates a feeling to the customer that he is being treated with respect and empathy. A friendly tone results in better communication and makes customers more comfortable when they are interacting with the company, even if we consider “difficult” topics such as service failure.

Set the goals for representatives, which will encourage them to be interested in customer satisfaction.

It is important to measure KPI, which are important for the customer, and as an employee, it is their duty to make them attractive for the consumer. Experience shows that in case a representative is motivated to keep customer happy, they start to find new and more personal ways to make customer contact journey more personal, caring etc.

How to better understand customers’ needs within their preferred contact channels?

First, collect direct feedback from customers and analyse it. Don’t make assumptions on what the customer needs, regularly analyse the feedback.

Keep a close eye on the competitors, especially ones that are in your market. Estonia is a very small yet fast-paced market, which consists of three operators. Therefore, the competition is constantly evolving, and adjustments need to be made. Make improvements, that way you can grow with the customer.

I suggest not using the same approach in every contact channel where customer can reach you. Customers have different expectations in every channel, therefore build up your service based on their needs.

Determine who is receiving your message. Make sure you understand your customers’ needs and which is the important information your forward. I understand we are not able to predict incoming questions, but it is always helpful to anticipate them.

Listen to the customer and use every single opportunity to increase the value of personal service in their eyes.

In what ways does AI support you to automate and optimise your processes in terms of contact centre?

At Elisa, we are using AI in different ways, and it is one of the biggest helpers for the frontline and customers.

Our chatbot is fantastic! It can resolve 40% of all incoming chats by itself. AI is a great help to inform customers in case we are having a bigger breakdown in some specific region or the whole country. AI constantly analyses our whole coverage and customers’ incoming calls, and in case there is some strange activity in some area or calls, AI understands that and activates a prompt message for incoming calls.

We are using AI as part of our onboarding process, where our bot is directing calls based on the question asked. That way, we can smoothen out the workload and direct calls to the best specialist who is familiar with the topics.

Now we are training our AI to help find the information by just using the search button.