How to Reduce the Number of Escalated Calls?

Every call center or business customer support line has experienced unwanted and uncontrolled customer frustration where customers have expected out-of-policy requests or demanded to talk with the desired person or resolve a problem out of the frontline customer support agent’s reach.

Suppose you have experienced such escalated call situations in a call center or contact center operations and have faced such circumstances as a call center agent, business owner, or contact center manager. In that case, you can relate to these escalating call experiences.

Read this comprehensive blog guide to understand escalated calls and learn how to reduce the number of escalated calls in call center operations.

What is an escalated call?

An escalated call in a call center is a customer service interaction that gets transferred to a more senior or specialized representative. This typically happens when the initial or frontline customer representative or agent cannot resolve the customer’s issue for various reasons.

Sometimes, an ISP(Internet service provider) or any other company’s customer support or call center can receive multiple calls from customers expressing concern about ongoing network issues and complaints regarding service or product, such as slow internet connections or lost connections for a certain period for ISP or other cloud-based communication services. 

Sometimes, customers get frustrated and unsatisfied with the customer service support system offered by the frontline call center agent or the business, and they try to address their issues and problems by calling customer support. Still, the situation may not be favorable and comfortable enough to resolve their issues. 

As a result, it is necessary to escalate the call to a specialized team or supervisor for better assistance. This scenario represents a call escalation or supervisor escalation.

These escalated calls typically involve customer complaints, technical issues, or billing disputes that could lead to failed issue resolution by the initial support team. Escalated calls can sometimes be a nightmare for call center agents and hamper overall business operations.

Types of  Escalated Calls

Here are the types of Escalated calls are categorized into various requests made by the consumer:

I. Customer complaints: 

If an initial agent cannot resolve a customer’s issue, the customer gets displeased with the agent who offers assistance, and the agent does not provide customer satisfaction, escalation to a supervisor or manager might be necessary. In these cases, an unsatisfied customer may request to speak with a supervisor about their experience with a product, service, or agent.

II. Technical Issues: 

Technical issues beyond the initial agent’s expertise, such as software malfunctions or hardware defects and troubleshooting steps that fail to resolve a technical problem, may require transfer to a technical specialist. Escalation to a specialist with more profound technical knowledge becomes necessary.

III. Billing Disputes: 

Complex billing issues, such as prorated charges, uncertain additional charges, or service plan changes, might necessitate supervisor involvement for clarification and resolution. Also, customers who believe they have been billed incorrectly or wrongly may request an escalation to dispute the charges and seek a resolution. 

IV. Special call request:

 Sometimes, customers expect to modify the service or plan they are offered. In such cases, the frontier agent may not have these authorities, such as customers seeking exceptions to company policies, such as returns outside the return window. This can lead to call disputes that may occur during the conversations and might need a supervisor or higher-level authority intervention to determine feasibility and resolve customer issues. 

V. Calls requiring approval:

 Escalated calls requiring management approval occur only when frontline customer support reps and agents may lack the authorization to make the exact choice that the consumer requests. Financial transactions over a certain amount may require supervisor authorization for security reasons. Supervisor approval might also be needed for exceptions to company policies, depending on the circumstances.

What are the reasons for escalated calls?

Some of the reasons for escalating calls are: 

1. Lack of knowledge and authority: 

Agents with limited knowledge and inadequate decision-making authority may be incapable of providing accurate guidance, technical support, and solutions or may be unable to offer specific customer request requirements and solutions (discounts, credits) due to limited permissions, requiring supervisory intervention.

2. Unresolved and Complicated Issue: 

Due to policy expectations and complex technical problems, high-authority, and knowledgeable experience experts are needed to resolve such complicated issues and meet customer expectations; transferring to a higher tier of support becomes necessary. 

3. Miscommunication: 

Unclear, misleading conversations and a lack of transparency can lead to misunderstandings and customer frustration. Agents lacking attentive listening or poor listening skills might miss key details regarding customer issues, problems, and concerns, resulting in incorrect or irrelevant solutions being provided to clients and escalating unnecessary calls.

4. Customer support system issues: 

Excessive hold times due to unexpected or regular technical problems with call center software or equipment can disrupt the call flow of call center and customer service operation and lead to call drops or errors that can cause the system to restart, which can anger customers. Longer wait times for addressing customer issues and resolving time can test customer patience and contribute to frustration, increasing the likelihood of negative call escalation.

5. Complex customer issues and demand: 

Customers with emotional instability can make unfulfilling and irrational requests that are out of customer support’s reach. Incoming customer calls from upset, angry, or irritated customers may be more challenging and require supervisor intervention.

Prevention measures for call escalation

1. Proper agent training and empowerment: 

Train agents in active listening, empathy, and verbal de-escalation methods to calm upset customers and empower them to resolve issues independently within defined criteria and access authority. This boosts custom support assistant confidence and reduces call escalation due to agent hesitation or lack of authority.

2. Active listening: 

Active listening is the process or practice of concentrating and being fully present with the other speaker during their speech to analyze and process what they’re saying and adequately address them. 

Develop an active listening program and encourage agents to listen to the customer’s concerns in an interruption-free and professional manner; this helps to improve the customer’s emotional state with desolate verbal negativity and avoid reputation-damaging call escalation.

3. Transparent communication: 

Pre-informing or addressing notice about wait times, resolution timelines, and available solutions upfront with clarity helps to prevent call escalation. Being truthful about limitations and keeping customers informed throughout the call, especially if the issue requires further investigation or escalation, explaining the situation transparently, and serving customers with understanding verbal conversation can positively drive a customer’s resolution.

4. Customer-centric support system: 

Equipping an omnichannel support system, call deflection, sentiment analysis system, and self-service options like FAQs, customer support resources, knowledge bases, or chatbots in a call center or contact center can empower customers to solve simple issues independently without agent assistance, reducing call volume and potential escalation.

5. Customer feedback analysis:

 Identifying the dynamic market trends and regularly analyzing customer feedback to understand common pain points can effectively improve call handling with provided skill enhancement agent training.

6. Skilled-based call routing:

 To match the customer with complex issues, a relevant and skilled agent must connect them to resolve the client’s problems accurately and promptly without unnecessary escalation. 

Utilizing skilled-based call routing and predictive routing technology helps predict customer needs based on caller data and route them to the most suitable agent for first-call resolution. Skilled-based call routing routes calls to agents with the specific skills and knowledge required to efficiently address the customer’s issue, reducing transfer times and customer frustration.

How to reduce the number of escalated calls in a call center?

Improve first-call resolution: 

Develop standard procedures for handling frequent customer issues to ensure effective, quick, and consistent resolutions with different ring strategies. This facilitates agents with the knowledge and resources to solve problems independently, which can reduce transfers and frustrations.

Develop a call escalation matrix.

 Escalation matrixes automate the customer issue-handling process, and incoming calls can be handled faster and with prompt call resolution. The call escalation matrix provides a structured framework outside of the de-escalation script call center agents receive.

Train call center agents: 

In-depth knowledge of the service and product allows agents to address customer concerns and minimize call escalation effectively. Training agents with call de-escalation Techniques, such as active listening, empathy, and verbal de-escalation, calms irate customers.

Acknowledge customer frustration and show empathy: 

Taking ownership of the situation and apologizing for any inconvenient customer service errors and problems helps shift the conversation from the problem to potential solutions.

Gather customer feedback: 

Monitor the agent call, equip CRM solutions for customer feedback management, and conduct regular surveys to understand customer experience and identify areas for improvement in call handling. Encourage customers to communicate their frustrations or suggest improvements directly with open questions or conversations.

FAQs

How to handle an unhappy customer call?

Listen actively with patience, maintain positive communication, remain calm, acknowledge, empathize, apologize, offer a solution to a problem, and offer follow-up through to ensure the issue resolution process is implemented and offer follow-up with the customer. 

How to Handle Escalated Calls effectively?

• Stay calm and professional,
• Be patient and show empathy for customer pain points.
• Provide effective solutions to the customer’s issue, such as forwarding the call to the higher executive agent or connecting with the customer’s desired party.
• Offer callback to customers and collect feedback about customer satisfaction and experience.

Tips to prevent escalated calls in the future

You can follow these tips to avoid escalated calls in the future:

• Try to resolve customer complaints during the initial contact phase.
• Provide the necessary support to customer representatives or agents with the required training, knowledge, and guidance.
• Try call-deflection techniques
• Hire a professional customer support agent
• Find the root cause for call escalation.

What is called escalation? 

Call escalation is the act of transferring a customer’s call to higher-level assistance, such as supervisors and managers when a call center agent cannot handle the complex customer’s issue or request for various reasons. 

This occurrence of a scenario in a call center or business is known as supervisor escalation or call upgradation.