Customer experience in the UK is the lifeline of any business. When your customers’ needs and expectations are met, you’re more likely to improve customer satisfaction levels. This is important in predicting customer loyalty, retention and the product repurchase rate. Data gathered through customer interactions is critical in helping you improve or recreate customer experience. 

Although contact centre software helps to ensure customer interactions, that is not all. You can leverage this technology to improve customer experience in the UK. Here are five ways call centre technology can improve customer experience:

• Contact centre software allows you to track employees’ performance

One of the challenges of running a call centre is being able to monitor the performance of your agents. Well, contact centre technology makes this possible for you to track your employees to ensure they’re performing according to the set standard. You can also use this software to identify problems your callers may be having as well as get insight into product enhancement and development.

• Meet your customers’ needs

You can only improve customer experience when you have a good understanding of what they need. You can analyze the data generated from the contact centre solutions to establish what customers like about your service, the issues they are facing and the grey areas. Armed with this information you can then create a standard procedure that is tailored to address specific needs. Contact centre technology also helps to speed up the resolution process so that customers know you care about what they need.

• Shortens onboarding period

When you bring in new agents, their attitude is critical to how they perceive the business. Call centre technology helps to manage the onboarding process so that they are efficient and effective when engaging callers and offering custom solutions to their issues. This technology gives new hires access to the information they need to seamlessly fit in your operations. You can use call recordings as to train and coach new hires on how to handle callers who call with certain needs. This minimizes chances of then being unable to address caller’s needs that have been previously addressed.  

• Enhances communication with team members

Call centre technology presents a perfect opportunity for you to have constant communication with your employees. While they (agents) are constantly talking to callers and providing solutions to their concerns, you need to communicate with the agents regularly to understand the emerging issues and effect necessary changes for your procedures. This is important because it boosts their motivation.

Why Improve Customer Experience?

You have likely spent some time designing customer feedback especially if you have a call centre. This is a sure way of ensuring you maintain customer expectations and retention. Here are three reasons why you should improve customer experience in the UK:

Increase up-selling and cross-selling. When customers are satisfied with how your agents responded to their concerns, they will become repeat customers. Moreover, when talking to clients on the telephone you are likely to identify an opportunity to upsell. 

Improve customer satisfaction. One of the reasons why businesses invest in having a call centre is to draw in more business. When clients can talk to your agents at any time of the day and have their issues handled, they will have a higher level of customer satisfaction that will result in more business not just from them but also others.

Better customer retention. Customers appreciate it when you show a level of concern for their needs. When customers are impressed by the customer experience they receive, they soon become raving fans that are guaranteed to give you repeat business. 

The importance of contact centres in enhancing customer experience in the UK can’t be overlooked. You need to have the right tools to stay ahead by having a team that is trained and can identify the needs of clients or improvements. With the fast-changing nature of technology, you need to consider investing in  Contact centre as a Service (CCaaS) solution. This means that you only purchase the technology that you need and you can access it from wherever you are. 

Consequently, you don’t have to worry about making significant investments whenever there is a software upgrade. Moreover, these options let you save on money you’d have spent on IT infrastructure and support staff yet you’re still able to tap into all the benefits of using the software and more. When you invest in contact centre software from a reputable provider, you can be sure to turn around customer experience for your clients for good.

Keeping on top of your finances is an essential part in the pursuit of leading a stress-free life. Money worries are one of the most common causes of concern for people in the UK and these worries are often created not through a lack of income, but from a misunderstanding of monthly budget requirements.

Below are a few tips on how to start putting together your own personal budget – as well as how to manage it and have the discipline you need to follow your own monetary rules.

Work out your income and outgoings

The foundation of any budget comes through working out your predicted outgoings every month. Things such as energy bills, mortgage payments and direct debits should be listed together – and quarterly payments factored in too. Once you have a comprehensive list of your outgoings you should take this away from your estimated income every month, this will give you the amount of money you have left to spend.

There are several budget calculators and planners online which can help you calculate these figures and come to an accurate conclusion on your spending.

Problems occur when these outgoings are more than your income in which case you need reduce the amount that you’re spending every month or supplement your income to get more in (or maybe a max of both?). Using tips and tricks from sites such as Free Money can help you to be savvier when it comes to making a little extra cash to assist this.

Question everything

Once you’ve got a detailed view of your incomings and outgoings you can then start to question the specifics and make a real change to your situation.

By being honest with yourself about your spending habits and asking the question “do I need this?” you can often dramatically cut back the amount your spending.

These savings can be made through things such as ending expensive TV packages, cutting back on the number of takeaways ordered throughout the month and stopping monthly subscriptions from gifting companies.

These are all nice to haves, but not essentials – and especially not if your budget doesn’t currently work.

Be kind to yourself

Sticking to a set budget is tough, so it’s worth giving yourself a bit of breathing space to accommodate the occasional lapse in monetary judgement. Ensuring a budget is realistic is the key to it being followed, so allowing yourself to spend a few extra pounds on extracurricular fun, while perhaps not optimal, makes sense in the long run.

This is especially true when it comes to months with important dates included. Whether it’s a birthday, anniversary or Christmas time, loosening the purse strings for these times can ensure that you allow yourself to enjoy the festivities in a responsible manner, instead of throwing the budget out the window altogether.

Budgets are best when they are considered part of everyday life and not a chore to be followed and these allowances can help a budget feel like that. Without this, you’re destined for a struggle.

The recent situation brought by this pandemic has proven that a crisis management plan is a must for every industry. It caught the whole world off-guard and caused catastrophic effects to the economy on a global level. Many businesses struggled to keep their operations running, and having no back-up plan made it impossible for them to survive.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused great damage to the global industry. There’s a year-over-year decline of seated diners in restaurants worldwide was a staggering 51.3 percent in November 2020.  Even the Restaurant Industry, one of the fastest growing industries, took a massive impact out of the current pandemic situation. That’s why it is crucial to have a well-thought of crisis management plan for business survival.

WHAT IS CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Crisis management is the tactics and strategies utilized by a business in dealing with unforeseen events that’s considered harmful to its operations. It secures the ability of the business to respond and to recover from the sudden negative event.

In the Restaurant Industry, restaurant crisis management plan is important as it serves as the backup of the whole of the restaurant or takeaway or cloud kitchen. If there’s a solid plan, the restaurant can weather any storm without compromising its operations.

The management  would be surprised on how having a restaurant crisis management plan could mean the difference between recuperating from an unfortunate event and putting the restaurant’s reputation on the line.

This article will help restaurateurs understand what are the basic requirements of a reliable restaurant crisis management plan, and develop their ability to create a plan that would improve the survival of their restaurant in any scenario.

RESTAURANT CRISIS MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

IDENTIFY THE GOALS OF YOUR CRISIS MANAGEMENT PLAN

Before anything else, it is important to know what the goal of the plan is. It should be clear for the whole team to know what they’re preparing for. Once the goals are set, it will serve as the guide to create a crisis management plan that would be beneficial for the restaurant or pizza shops[WU1] .

The basic goals for a good crisis management plan is to quickly recover from the impact of the sudden event, minimize or eliminate the negative effects to the whole restaurant, and to make sure that the restaurant’s brand remains intact.

ORGANIZE A CRISIS MANAGEMENT TEAM

Goals are set to be met, build a team that will be competent enough to carry out the restaurant crisis management plan and are capable of handling stressful situations. Make sure that the staff will be well represented and this team can communicate the plan to the whole restaurant.

INITIATE COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS FOR THE TEAM

Communication that covers internal and external processes is an integral part of restaurant crisis management. Ensure that the team has an effective spokesperson to communicate to the staff, vendors, suppliers, and to the public, if needed, how the restaurant would respond to a certain situation.

The spokesperson should represent the brand and the whole restaurant organization and must address the situation with a professional demeanour.

BE PROACTIVE AND BE ACCOUNTABLE

Be proactive, stay calm, and address the issue with full honesty. It is important to be prepared for different types of situations, so that the team would know how to address the concerns properly.

And should the situation get out of hand, make sure that the restaurant management would address it to the customers in order to take control of the story, and avoid ending up defending the organization.

FEEDBACK ANALYSIS

A feedback from a customer reflects how effective the restaurant crisis management plan of a restaurant is. Also, it allows the management to identify the concerns of the customers before it becomes a major setback for the restaurant. It provides insights about the whole operation from the customer’s point of view.

This enables the restaurant’s management to create actionable steps needed to align with their customer’s needs and demands.

RE-EVALUATE THE CRISIS MANAGEMENT PLAN

Once the plan has been tested out, it is important to assess what are the things needed for improvement and apply necessary tweaks in the restaurant crisis management plan. Modify the plan and tools as needed, communicate it to the team, and train the team to be well-versed to these changes.

MOST COMMON TYPES OF CRISIS SCENARIOS

Crisis and emergencies come in different forms, and any situation may manifest into a business crisis depending on how the organization will deal and communicate the situation. Here are some of the crisis that an organization may face:

• Natural Crisis
• Financial Crisis
• Organizational Crisis
• Technological Crisis
• Personnel Crisis

CONCLUSION

This year was expected to be a great year for the restaurant industry, but due to the unforeseen event – coronavirus outbreak, a loss of $240B is now expected by the end of 2020. They may come up with tons of reasonable excuses but this fast and huge decline just exposed how unprepared the whole industry was.

As the lockdown measures are starting to loosen, the Restaurant Industry is also slowly trying to recuperate from the effects of this pandemic. Restaurateurs should see this as an opportunity to revamp their restaurant crisis management plan in order to protect their business should another unexpected situation happen.

Keeping a positive attitude in dealing towards a crisis would serve as the core of the whole operation. It’ll be challenging and demanding, but it’ll be one of the most powerful moments for a restaurant to,(or any other organization), to have the ability to recover after a crisis.

Who doesn’t love a bit of office gossip? But what if we told you the biggest revelation was not what went down at your work’s Christmas party, but how many germs you are exposed to, every single day? Germs that could be putting your health at risk, simply by going about your everyday activities? Find cleaning services near you. 

Here are the 10 dirtiest areas of your office revealed to tell you more and quite possibly, instruct you where you need to clean…

Lift Buttons

Despite being much smaller, lift buttons hold 40 times the amount of bacteria than the average toilet seat. Lift buttons have two main issues in that they are something practically everyone touches countless times a day, and they are easily forgotten about. Both can lead to a quick accumulation of bacteria and viruses on the buttons.

Door Handles

It’s a fact… nobody remembers to clean the door handles! Given they usually require a firm grip to open and close properly, it’s an easy way to contaminate your hands with germs. People then touch their face and even eat their lunch right afterwards, making door handles a hotspot for bacteria. Find local cleaners in your area.

Desks

Our desks are home to a lot of items. Whatsmore, many people eat their lunch over their desks too. The more things that come into contact with your desk (especially phones or chewed up pens), the higher the chance it’s pretty unsanitary. It’s easy to assume that because a desk ‘looks clean’ that it probably is. But unless it’s subject to regular and thorough disinfection, it most likely isn’t.

Keyboards

The average employee racks up 6,000 keystrokes a day. But take a closer look at any office keyboard, and you’ll notice a film of skin on the keys and even crumbs down the back of it. Because our keyboards are one of the most utilised pieces of office equipment, they can pose a real threat to our health. This is especially the case with viral illnesses such as colds, flu or even stomach bugs, as the infection will happily live on surfaces for days.

Phone

While it may not always feel like it, many hands are responsible for answering that office phone. Every time they do, the person transfers bacteria onto the handset from their hands as well as their nose and mouth. If your office phone has been there for some time, go take a closer look at it. You might just be grossed out when you notice how filthy it is!

Photocopier Machine

When you wait for a document to print, your attention is probably on the document itself rather than what you had to touch to get the machine to print. The photocopier machine is yet another victim of the forgotten surfaces which is why it’s not just the ink levels you need to worry about. The more people in your office that use the printer, the more bacteria is being transferred to and from the buttons every day.

Watercooler

There’s no harm in a bit of water, right? Well if your watercooler only dispenses water instead of said water being used to clean it, then you could have a problem on your hands. From nervous interviewees to parched CEO’s, everyone stops by the watercooler at some point, bringing their germs with them.

Coffee/Tea Machine

Where do you head when you need something stronger than water? The tea or coffee machine of course! Most people can’t get through the day without their caffeine, meaning many trips are made to the location where they can make it. As well as the inside of the device, the main operating touchpoints are likely contaminated with bacteria too.

Kitchen Sponge

While hot water is very effective at cleaning dirty cups and disinfecting as it goes, the same cannot be said for the humble kitchen sponge. It’s recommended to change your kitchen sponge at least once a week for hygiene purposes. But if no designated person is looking out for this, then it could be left to fester instead, ready for the next person to ‘clean’ their plate with. 

Bathrooms

There are obvious areas of bacteria in a bathroom, and then some more conspicuous ones too. Everyone knows the toilet and sinks need cleaning every day. But what about the bathroom locks, door handles or the light switches? Every corner of your work bathroom is a potential health hazard, thanks to the nature of what goes on in there. So it’s important to leave no stone unturned when it comes to cleaning it.

To Sum Up

If the above has left you reaching for the bleach and disinfectant wipes, you’re not alone! The grisly truth is that offices aren’t the cleanest of places. This is especially the case if you have people coming and going all day long, bringing who knows what with them on their hands.

The best protection against a filthy office is to undertake regular cleaning. That’s why most offices hire a commercial cleaning services, who are responsible for cleaning all the main areas of the building including staff kitchens and bathrooms too.

By keeping your office clean, it will benefit all those who work there and look more professional in front of your customers too.