How To Measure the DSAT In a Small Call Center?

The truth about the DSAT score in a call center

The right information regarding customer behavior is the sole reason for a call center to meet customer expectations. Who, when, and why are you quitting to continue business relationships with your company? This is the main concern for the smart head of a call center.

Only conducting the homework through gathering these vital pieces of information regarding DSAT by a manager, account executive, or responsible person in a company. After putting the agents to the work with these data gems as the main resource for agents to act. 

The roadmap for agents becomes clear and it turns out in decreasing the DSAT rate while increasing customer retention in the long haul. One of the pieces of information would be the causes and solutions for the DSAT metric in a call center.

What is the essence of the DSAT rate for a successful call center? 

In short, the DSAT rate in a call center reflects the dissatisfaction with customer support of your prospects and customers with the product or services you are selling. 

A more detailed explanation implies DSAT in a broader perspective by describing the reasons why dissatisfied customers are willing to choose another brand and not yours. 

It also encompasses why people are willing to choose your service one time and then quit. 

For the manager of a call center knowing the DSAT causes and effects means knowing what exactly he must do to sustain and improve the performance of call center agents, eliminate mistakes most call centers commit, and win the undying love of happy customers. 

Let’s see the DSAT meaning in a call center

In any business selling and budget stability surely has the first place in a call center. After all, once your budget is on the decline and the DSAT rate is on the rise, you’ll start to experience hard times or maybe be in danger of bankruptcy. 

Now is the moment you must be advised about the growth of the DSAT rate. Often, it indicates the number of customers and, in detailed highlighting, the reasons why dissatisfied customer issues were provided to each customer. 

Thus knowing the facts about the DSAT rate and acknowledging ways of how exactly you are able to fix problems make the real difference between the top call center and others.   

Clear DSAT meaning in a call center through the formula 

Count the number of your dissatisfied consumers. Then count the total number of your consumers. The formula must look like this: 

Thus in this example, we achieved 6% of dissatisfied consumers. 

What is the essential difference between customer dissatisfaction, customer satisfaction, and customer experience?

What are CSAT and DSAT? Are customer dissatisfaction (DSAT), customer satisfaction (CSAT), and customer experience (CSAT) the same metrics? Actually, each of them reflects the different behavior of customers. 

Let's describe the difference more precisely. The CSAT metric shows satisfied customers that are satisfied with the products and services, with emphasis on what exactly they like. 

The customer experience, in the essence, is the encompassing metric that carries the customer satisfaction levels, customer effort scores, and promoter's performance. Mainly the customer experience is evaluated by the customer during and after using products and services.

While the customer DSAT metric is showing the areas where customers meet problems with products and services. If a call center provides a rapid and effective solution - the DSAT decreases. On the other hand, if customers struggle to reach timely and relevant assistance from a call center then the DSAT metric is likely to increase. And customer experience shows customer satisfaction levels while using your product and services. While customer DSAT is showing the problems and obstacles consumers encounter on a day-to-day basis. 

Hint: As a head of the call center, try to gather a lot of information about your consumers. Specifically, you are interested in what they are looking for in products and services. 

What products and services similar to your company's niche improve their lives? And what is the situation on the market? Is your product competitive and performing? 

How to solve customer issues connected with the DSAT?

In other words, how to eliminate everything that’s wrong and unpleasant for customers. It sounds bold and brave to most of the heads of call centers around the globe. 

And they start questioning themselves: Is it possible to make consumers 100% satisfied and the DSAT rate lowest? The answer is resounding – yes it’s possible on a scale of your company's capacities. How? 

First. You as the manager of the call center must know the market and the product or service you are selling or supporting. Do your homework, and before you answer clearly and accurately the questions listed below, you need to continue your research. Here are these questions you need to get clear answers to if you wish to solve the issue with the DSAT in a call center: 

• How does my solution (product or service) help people or companies in their day-by-day life
• Is there a better solution on the market than in our company? And how exactly are they better?
• What are the main complaints about agent inefficiency (DSAT factor) and trouble while using your product or service? 
• How can you fix these issues to define DSAT in full form and make the customer achieve what they need?
• If you conduct a DSAT analysis for a customer dissatisfaction business outsourcing process. Then how to take into consideration the DSAT full form in a BPO environment?
• How to not achieve the blur DSAT meaning in BPO circumstances? But on the contrary, keep them as well in office-based or remote customer service coaching platforms. 
• Is customer dissatisfaction triggered by the product and service quality or by the agent’s performance as well? If so, you need to listen to audio recordings to see the difference. 

Second. It’s crucial to put the professional responsibility for agents in delivering the information to people via phone, chat, social media, email, or even letter. 

Here as a head of the call center, you must dig into the “gray areas” of contracts, purchasing, discounts, customer support, guarantee period, terms and conditions, etc. Why is it important to know all these things regarding financial relations between you and a customer?

Because in case trouble occurs, which is inevitable for all companies for various reasons. You need to have accurate data about customers to settle the deal over the phone for both parties. 

The manager or account executive usually conducts this kind of job by gathering all the data on the product and the company’s policy. A tough job indeed. However, it guarantees the minimum of headaches during the working shift for you and your employees. 

Third. Seek out the cases consumers feel they’ve been mistreated or even tricked. 80% of these cases are triggered by misinformation from agents, misunderstanding by consumers, or struggles during using products and services. All these issues must be accurately defined, noted, and solved by the head of call centers or account executives. 

Hint: Transpassing the information regarding customers and prospects is the sole of the call center job. Too many times, information is held by the senior staff of a call center, and unable to reach the front-line agents. 

Or, for instance, agents frustrate the work of the call center by not reporting important cases to the supervisor or manager. The numerous pieces of evidence show that only a manager or senior person in a call center is able to eliminate barriers to information transpassing by assigning senior agents with controlling and reporting functions regarding the passing of information to all colleagues in a call center. 

To slash the problem of passing the information, assign the reporting functions of agents or senior personnel in case of troubles occur, directly to a manager. This manager could timely take action to solve this ultra-critical issue. 

Fourth. Put yourself in a consumer’s shoes. Although many heads of call centers and agents are reluctant to dive into people’s minds by putting themselves in a consumer’s shoes – that's a huge mistake. Perhaps small adjustments can be made to eliminate unnecessary customer effort and that would be the winning situation for a call center.

Because here’s where the complaints and DSAT rate is increasing the most. People feel mistreated by a call center’s side and quit purchasing products and services. 

Likewise, the situation with the terms and conditions, policies and rules, solutions and obstacles, refunds and guarantees, all these small gems of information must be delivered to the prospects and customers. Question yourself, in case your agent fails, what is enforcement of regulation compliance?

Customers want to know everything regarding their products and services. After all, they are the ones who pay the bills. Do that and you never will be forced to ask for an order twice.

Do you perceive the QA session with a customer in the right way?

You may conduct the QA sessions for your prospects and consumers. However, here’s a trick. The Gallup surveys and many other surveys indicate that people tend to say what they are seeking is right in the current situation. And they even trick themselves by saying something that does not reflect the real situation. 

Here’s an example of an answer and question: Would you continue to prolong the business relationships with the particular company? Yes, of course, respond to the customer. But the real situation, later on, showed that a particular customer switched to another brand. What's that mean?

Very simple though. Keep a sharp eye on the assessment tool such as QA surveys after customer service. Or a statistical program for the calculation of consumer feedback. These ones became the graveyard of many potent startups and companies. The heart of customers is not always where their words are but more often when their wallets are. 

The toughest job for the head of a call center is this

What do you think is the toughest job for a head of a call center? Is it the ability to pass the experience to employees? Or maybe the capacity to reach the company’s goals in a given period? Maybe this is the ability to clearly distinguish CSAT vs DSAT and then pass the knowledge to employees? No. 

The toughest job for a head of a call center is to hire the right employees. By the way, every successful company outside the call center industry knows this, and here’s what they are doing.

The hiring process has several steps, which means the individual must satisfy all of them to be considered the relevant applicants for the position of agent or sales rep in a company. Here are these qualities.

Motivation is sole for newbie agents in the call center industry to achieve the lowest DSAT scores in the future

Agents that already have a record are much easier to hire and to make them perform. You just need to make an interview and see whether their previous experience is relevant to your company. Below we’ll talk about the agents that have zero or little experience.

So, jumping to the newbies. What is the main motive power for an agent to become part of the call center product team? Is there money or does the job as a call center agent suit them because of their natural and developing skills? As you may already know, such research agencies as Gallup confirm the fact that the second quality is vital for the newbie. Whether they are at customer support organizations or sales departments.

And it’s easy to identify the motivation of the hiring employee. Just ask questions about the call center industry. Specifically, what do they already know and can tell about the job of the customer service or sales representative? Be advised, each individual that has a motivation in the particular job has already conducted research on the job and knows something about it. 

Their knowledge could be at the initial point or close to it yet that is not canceling the fact that in a few months these individuals are able to offset the company's efforts through great performance and repay the manager’s efforts during the hiring and onboarding period. So here’s the list of questions you are able to ask in order to ensure you have the right person in front of your eyes:

• What is your initial purpose to work as a sales (customer service) agent?
• How do you know that you’ll fit and handle this job? 
• What are you thinking the sales (customer service) agent’s job is all about?
• Where do you see yourself 2 years from now? 
• Do you have a record as a sales or customer service agent? 

These are the main questions that tell the experienced head of a call center that a particular person is a relevant and capable person. Do you know the right answers to the questions listed above? 

The employees may sometimes miss the mark by answering the questions in a practical way as it is in the real call center industry. However, the case when a person already had conducted their own research and sought the answers to questions regarding working in a call center industry means motivation. 

On the contrary, if the person is unable to answer these questions in any way, or the answers indicate that no homework has been done so far, perhaps this is not the kind of newbie you wish to see in a call center.

They've passed the interview yet can they pass the first test?

After hiring an agent for the test period, try to see their strong and weak sides by giving them easy assignments such as chat, social media, and email answering. Once in a while give them a tougher assignment by handling the easiest customer conversations. See how they behave in real working conditions. 

Of course, you need to exclude the lack of product knowledge by giving them the materials to study to make sure they know what to do in a real situation. 

The supervisor or agent is responsible for the newbies in a call center able to control the process. But most importantly, encourage an employee to ask questions frequently directly to you or to the supervisor. That’s how you’ll see the teamwork skills of the applicant. Encourage the person to transfer the chat with a prospect or customer to this person.

The next step is to see the results of how the new employee is handling the assignments and observe clearly-headed the full story of agent performance. 

Make a brief conversation with an employee regarding their mistake and what they need to learn. Watch their motivation and how they are responding to your remarks. If the motivation is still at a high level, and an employee is eager for new customer service interactions, it's a good sign. 

The final step to accomplish the hiring process is to devote large chunks of time with agents to watch the performance of an employee during the easy tasks. In the future, you'll be able to expand their functions by answering live calls. 

Make the final decision about the onboarding or rejecting of the employee after an accurate evaluation of the employee's qualities during the interview and testing period. The answer to the question of how to avoid DSAT increases is to hire the right employees from the beginning. 

Hint: It’s an enormous saving to hire the right agent than to lose a lot of time and consequently money when the wrong person enters your call center. Moreover, the right employee quickly offsets efforts invested in them.

How to train your agents properly to meet the call center’s goals?

Experienced and most importantly – newbies require the constant shaping of their skills and knowledge during the training sessions. These sessions must be on the schedule in every call center because they are maintaining and increasing the agent’s performance. In other words, agent productivity in solving consumer tickets largely depends on preparation. How to do it in the right way?

Put on the schedule of a regular meeting either in a physical or in a virtual conference. That would be the place where you will discuss the main issues regarding the call center’s policies, updates of rules, ways of solutions, etc. That meeting must be carried out at least 1 time per month. Ideally, it is 1 time per 2 weeks. 

1. As a manager or responsible for meetings and training, you must gather the two kinds of materials for the meeting. The first is the strong sides of your call center and the advantages to increase the effectiveness for all employees.
   The second document is the list of problems that must be addressed as soon as possible. You start your meeting from the first document where you highlight the successes of the call center, solved issues, options to expand, etc. And afterward, you are going to discuss the troubles where you need to make the decisions regarding additional training.
2. Decision-making is the ultra-critical step in every training or meeting. Thus each of your meetings or training sessions must imply actions for improving knowledge skills, shaping selling pitches, conducting research, and so on and so forth.
   
   And at the end of the session, you put the person responsible for controlling the process of the training and decision implementation. Or if you are a small call center, you put the responsibility on the shoulders of every agent, which requires additional improvement. 
3. Checking the customer support processes, the training results, and knowledge improvement is an issue of paramount importance. Let’s say you set the goal to improve the researching and solving skills of agents within a period of 1 month. What you need to do as a manager – is to double-check the implementation of this decision in half of the term.
   
   So, in this case, it would be the two-week term. 

Hint: Set short-term goals that are much easier to bring into fruition, such as 1-month or at max 2 months periods. It would be easy for you as the head of the call center to control this training. 

Are there other proven ways to avoid DSAT?

Knowing the difference between CSAT vs DSAT. There are other options to achieve an accurate omnichannel solution to make hold lines shorter, conversation via voice pleasant, and chat with customers more effectively. 

The Voiptime Cloud company offers independent counsel regarding the call center industry and furnishes call centers around the globe with top-notch call center software. If you are interested in call center software, it's easy to order.