What are your plans for improving the customer experience in 2022?

There is one thing we have spent an enormous amount of time on here in American Profit Recovery and that is making sure all clients have an enjoyable and productive experience with our team. People compliment us every day when they call our front desk because they can tell the person answering the phone is smiling. You can hear it in their voice.

It doesn’t matter if you come to us for commercial debt collections or medical collections, we want to make sure that your journey with our team Is one that impresses you and resolves your cashflow challenges. Our people are committed to helping your business and they do it with a smile on their faces.

Will you improve the customer journey this year?

If you have one ultimate goal for your organization in the year 2022 it should be improving the overall customer experience. It is not enough these days to just have a customer service department. While that is an integral part of the overall customer experience, your business needs to analyze exactly what a customer goes through during the entire journey of their relationship with your organization.

Improving the experience that your customers have helps your organization in so many ways during the relationship. A stellar customer experience helps you understand their needs better, helps you meet those needs, allows you to provide better advice in decision making, and even improves the chances of resolving a dispute if one arises. A company that truly focuses on the customer experience also keeps more customers for the long term.

Laying the groundwork throughout the customer journey will also improve your chances of resolving a dispute if one arises. And as a collection agency serving many types of industries, we know firsthand that when a customer has a great relationship with a business, it is much easier to come to a resolution on a past due financial obligation.

A few ways to build a rock-solid customer experience

If you’re going to build a culture revolving around true customer experience then you will have to make it a point to understand that the customer experience is everybody’s responsibility within your organization. We mentioned the way we answer our phone as a collection agency. That didn’t just happen by accident. We want everyone whether they are a potential client or a consumer trying to resolve a debt to understand that we are there to help. Everyone here at APR understands not only why we are here, but their role in the experience of people who call us-client or consumers.

We also understand that whether you are a business or a consumer, when you call our office you may be under a certain amount of stress. We want you to know we understand and we want to do our part in lowering your stress.

Your entire team also needs to look at the services you provide and constantly improve the delivery of those services. Look at your organization through the lens of a customer and identify any pain points. You not only need to make it easy for people to do business with you have to make people feel good about their relationship with your organization. This involves a consistent review of the customer journey, the systems you have in place to meet a customer’s needs, and resolving issues as they come up. Can you improve the time it takes back to get to a customer? Can you improve an online portal for customer communications? Can you implement new systems that give your customers more time and better results?

When your organization needs to recruit new talent, make sure you are hiring individuals that have values that align with the organization’s. It should be very clear upfront in interviewing as well as the onboarding process what your organization stands for, the values that your company possesses and how you plan to embrace that new employee into the customer-centric culture. If values are not aligned between the organization and the team member, you will never be able to 100% serve the customer properly and to a greater degree, you’ll see employees burnout because of misalignment. Make sure you have values as an organization, not just a poster on the wall, and that you understand your team member’s values.

It’s also important to empower your team members to serve the customer best and make decisions in the best interest of your customers. Give them the tools they need to make decisions without having to “ask the manager.” Our professionally trained debt collectors here at American Profit Recovery know exactly how to solve problems for consumers. And our customer service team is empowered to do what they need to do to ensure our clients have what they need to be successful with our systems and see impressive results. That only happens when you empower your team members to make critical decisions.

Communication is also key when it comes to creating an organization that has an above-average customer experience. You never want customers complaining that they did not hear back from you or that it is taking too long for you to resolve their issues. Everyone on your team needs to understand that communicating with the customer within a reasonable time frame is one of your top goals. Lack of communication is one of the number one complaints of consumers. Even if you don’t have the answer the customer is looking for, it’s important to communicate in a timely manner.

As a collection agency, we have spent countless hours looking at our systems through the eyes of our clients and we encourage you to do the same.