8 concrete tips on how to optimize your IT calls

Avoid unfortunate expressions

If you mention unfortunate terms more than twice in a conversation, the customer is more than twice as likely to express dissatisfaction.

Unfortunate expressions include words such as “I don’t know” and “damn”.

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Increase the level of friendliness

If you use welcoming and positive terms, the likelihood of satisfied customers increases by about 8%.

Examples of welcoming language include “I understand!” and “Let me help you”.

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Ask more questions

If you ask more questions at the very beginning of the conversation, you are more likely to get happy customers.

In fact, this strategy will increase customer satisfaction by as much as 10% because you will quickly be able to identify customer needs and know which kind of solutions you should suggest.

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Be polite and apologize when necessary

You are 11% more likely to get more satisfied customers if you use apologetic phrases in your IT support calls.

Apologies typically include “I’m sorry” or “... our fault”.

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Avoid long waiting times in your phone queue

Long waiting time often results in dissatisfied customers.

So, if customers mention early in the conversation that they have spent a lot of time waiting in your queue, the likelihood of them being dissatisfied increases by up to 30%.

Customers can express dissatisfaction by using words like “annoying” or “hassle”.

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Solve the customer’s problem during their first call

It is important that you continuously try to solve the customer’s problem during their first call.

In fact, customers who have already spoken to you or one of your colleagues are 24% more likely to express dissatisfaction when compared to those who had their problem solved in the first place.

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Avoid incident ping pong

Repeat calls can take up to 20% longer than an average call.

Therefore, it is a good idea to try to avoid incomplete solutions and incident ping-pong, where the customer is redirected to other departments.

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Have a structured problem-solving approach

The probability of receiving more repeat calls decreases when you do structured problem solving.

One way to do structured problem solving is to say: "Do we agree that ...?" or by mentioning words such as "priority".