10 Tips for Creating Outstanding Customer Interactions

Delivering outstanding interactions has never been more critical. From managing customer emotions to leveraging cutting-edge AI tools, creating meaningful experiences is the key to building loyalty and trust.

In a recent Call Centre Helper webinar, Sandra Thompson, CEO and Founder of Ei Evolution, and Shaun Hewitt, Account Executive – Advanced Analytics, AI & Automation at NICE, shared their expert insights into how businesses can achieve these goals.

Together with valuable contributions from the audience, here are ten actionable tips to help contact centres elevate their customer interactions and foster lasting connections.

10 Ways to Create Outstanding Customer Interactions

1. Be Proactive to Reassure Customers

Is it possible to predict what is likely to happen? If you’ve been through the process before, you know what’s likely and can prepare the customer for the next step.

You’ve never heard a customer say ‘I would rather call you after an event than you letting me know what’s about to happen.’ Be proactive. You can do it.

Contributed by: Sandra Thompson

If you are looking for advice on how to make proactive customer service work in your contact centre, read our article: What Is Proactive Customer Service? With Examples

2. Harness Real-Time Data to Improve Experiences

We often see agents coached on a few calls per week, sometimes using recordings from weeks earlier.

With real-time data and tools, supervisors can now provide guidance in the moment, making feedback more actionable and meaningful.

Contributed by: Shaun Hewitt

3. Align Apologies With Emotional Impact

Make sure the apology and solution match the level of the emotional damage the customer experienced.

Audience Tip Contributed by: Jason

For advice on how to deliver an effective apology, read our article: “Sorry for the Inconvenience” – How to Offer a Genuine Apology

4. Embrace Technology to Enhance Empathy

AI can now analyse customer sentiment and provide guidance to agents during calls, ensuring they stay on track emotionally.

This empowers agents to deliver more empathetic and effective responses, even in high-pressure situations.

Contributed by: Shaun Hewitt

5. Show Genuine Compassion When Saying Sorry

It is not enough to just say ‘sorry.’ You have to genuinely feel compassion for what the customer is experiencing.

Audience Tip Contributed by: Shmuel

6. Leverage Data to Personalize Interactions

Data breadcrumbs let you organize better. Humans can’t always articulate what they need, but their interactions provide little pieces of information.

By connecting these dots, you can ask better questions, uncover new needs, and even suggest solutions customers didn’t realize they wanted.

Contributed by: Sandra Thompson

7. Build Trust Through Consistent Action

It all comes down to trust. If you trust someone to do something, whether they do it in two hours or two days makes no difference, as long as you have confidence that it is being done.

Weave building trust into how you build relationships with your customers and their link to your product and/or services.

Audience Tip Contributed by: Charlie

If you want to find out how contact centre advisors can build trust with customers while improving overall customer relationships, read our article: How to Build Customer Trust From the Contact Centre

8. Shift Mindsets to Embrace Emotional Intelligence

Empathy is often misunderstood. People say, ‘I know how that feels’ or ‘That happened to my friend’, but this risks winding the customer up.

Instead, try phrases like ‘Help me understand how you feel’, or ‘How can I support you?’ Shifting from ‘I’ to ‘you’ changes everything.

Contributed by: Sandra Thompson

For advice on how to develop emotional intelligence in your contact centre, read our article: 15 Tips for Building Emotional Intelligence in Customer Service

9. Simplify Agent Tasks With Automation

One big part of average handle time is the after-call notetaking.

Interactions can now be summarized automatically, allowing agents to focus on the conversation.

This has proven to deliver significant business value, with ROI typically achieved within six months.

Contributed by: Shaun Hewitt

10. Prove You Listened

Train your agents to listen to connect – not just to respond.

This is about really listening, setting an emotional tone, responding to emotional cues, and supplementing human empathy by using alerts. Quite simply, prove you listened!

Contributed by: Sandra Thompson

This webinar showcased the power of balancing proactive communication, empathy, tailored solutions, and customer-focused metrics.

By weaving together expert guidance and actionable audience insights, businesses can create outstanding customer interactions that foster loyalty and trust.

For more tips and insights, catch the full webinar replay or check out our entire collection of recorded webinars!

If you are looking for more information on improving your customer service interactions, read these articles next:

• The 5-Star Customer Service Skills Your Team Really Need
• 21 Tips to Make Your Customers Feel Truly Valued
• 3 Steps to Better Understanding Your Customers

Author: James Groves
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson