What Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) means to a Customer?

We must have come across many articles and discussions where the Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) for a Contact Center been discussed. CSAT remains a prime objective for each and every successful contact center wherein FCR (First Call Resolution) tops the matrices chart to attain higher CSAT. And to achieve so companies rely heavily on 3 factors Persuasive Agents, Their Training and Technology.

But what is customer satisfaction for someone who is on the other side of the line? Simplicity of the question makes most of the people end up misjudging the depth of it. The problem lays in the fact that contact center agents have to follow some structured set of instructions. This process flow appears great on paper and even works well to accomplish the assigned task but not before acting more technical. Here the term technical can be replaced by being less human or robotic, or programmed, or recorded etc. etc.

No customer would prefer to talk to recorded messages or robots and the reason behind is that every individual has got a personality and ability to understand the core issues behind the problem he/she is facing. It’s not about whether the customer query has been resolved or not but it is all about how well the problem of the customer has been understood and the sincere most effort has been made towards the resolution of the same. Some basic complaints registered by customers on regular basis are about being not listened properly and thoroughly, and about mechanical tone of the conversation; resulting in more frustration and dissatisfaction for the customers and no first call resolution achievement for the Call centers.

A directional change in training modules emphasizing more towards not being too much technical is much recommended. And not to forget that here we are considering something that acts as a win-win situation for both the parties.