SOMETHING exciting has been happening at the Econet Call Centre in recent months.
With more agents, it now takes just a few rings for your call to be answered.
The “holding period” has drastically reduced, making it possible for the agents to help more clients.
That’s thanks to a number of innovative solutions implemented at the Call Centre.
Karabelo Lerotholi, Head of the Customer Services department, says instead relying on calls they have introduced Whatsapp line, Twitter and Facebook as platforms to keep in touch with the clients.
“Our clients can now reach us easily and we deal with their concerns quickly. The interaction has become almost instant because of those additional platforms,” Lerotholi says.
“The beauty about it all is that these channels are not alien to our clients. They are already using Facebook Whatsapp and Twitter. We are only saying use them to get in touch with us when you have issues.”
He says the Call Centre has also diversified so that it doesn’t only receive calls from clients. Using outbound calls the agents are communicating with clients about EcoCash, EcoSure and Kwese TV.
“Through those calls we are proactively engaging our clients. We are reminding them about their premiums and subscriptions,” Lerotholi says.
“In addition we are using those calls to get feedback about our products. This helps us understand our customers better.”
“We are able to deal with issues before they become huge problems.”
Apart from responding to queries and making calls to clients the agents are also playing a crucial role of testing products before they are introduced to the market.
“It’s sort of a mini-lab to us but to the agents, the education is very important because they get to experience what clients are likely to experience when the product gets to the market. They will therefore communicate with clients from an informed perspective.”
Behind the Call Centre is the Back Office department that helps agents escalate customers’ queries to other departments in the group.
“That means no customer concern is left unresolved,” Lerotholi says.
All these innovations at the Call Centre, he says, have improved Econet’s communication with the clients.
“We are dealing with issues faster and we are communicating better with the clients”.
