When you run an early learning center, one of the biggest drawing points that lets you compete against other education providers is your customer service. But if your phone system is inefficient, your customer service will be impacted and business will suffer. Customers do not like communication problems like experiencing difficulties in trying to schedule an appointment, having to wait a long time to talk to someone who can help them, or having to waste time repeating information they already provided you earlier. Frustrations such as this can hurt your customer satisfaction levels and drive business to competitors.
Choosing the right phone system for handling customer service issues can help equip you to address these challenges. It’s important to choose the right phone system for your early learning center.
Early Learning Center Communications Challenges
Running an early learning center presents office managers and staff with a number of highly important customer service challenges that hinge on good communication:- Negative customer service reviews posted online: Almost all early learning center complaints posted online are about customer service, which accounts for 96 percent of all complaints, with just 4 percent being actually related to the quality of education your learning center provides! Bad customer service can hurt your reputation and poor word of mouth can completely drive away new business.
- Communications issues: Communications problems are the single biggest contributor to customer service complaints in any business, accounting for more than half of all complaints. Issues such as not being able to talk to an actual human being for help, having trouble scheduling a meeting or visit, or simply being given incorrect information are the source of most negative reviews online.
- Extremely long hold times: The second biggest cause of customer complaints is on-hold wait times. One in five people have gone with a competitor’s early learning center due to the frustration of being put on hold for too long.
- Rude employees: Rudeness from employees who handle incoming phone calls is the third largest trigger of negative customer feedback. Unfortunately, what it sometimes perceived as rudeness is really just a symptom of an employee trying to juggle too many tasks at one time. This often leads to the aforementioned extremely long wait time. In addition, trying to do too many tasks at one time oftentimes results in employees being stressed out and in many cases taking that frustration out on customers.
- Billing problems: Billing problems are another one of the most common causes of customer complaints, and typically stem from poor communication. Often these errors are masked from customers because an itemized breakdown of costs is not presented. Even when bills are accurate, customers may complain because no one explained to them how much their total would be after any hidden fees were calculated.
Requirements for an Early Learning Center Phone System
While a comprehensive solution to these challenges needs to be omnichannel, addressing issues such as workflow organization and standard operating procedures, a key component to resolving these items is a phone system that meets your specific needs. When selecting the best phone system for early learning center needs, be on the lookout for several key features that have been proven to help improve communications with your customers:- Automated self-support options:Many customer service issues can be handled through self-support options. Incorporating a phone system that has automated support and can integrate with other self-support channels will drastically reduce the time your customers have to sit on hold, as well as lightening the workload on your employees. Giving your customers more self-service options also helps to lower the number of complaints about employees mishandling their calls.
- Integration of automated and live support channels:While customers can handle many issues through self-support, a significant number of calls will require an actual person on the other line, and being unable to reach a human representative is incredibly frustrating to anyone looking for help. That’s why it’s crucial that any business phone system using automated support can seamlessly integrate to live support when prompted by the caller.
- Security: An adequate phone system for an early learning center must rely on a provider who meets all security standards, including PCI if you plan on taking payments over the phone.