11 Mar
The new year demands new strategies for improvement and efficiency and we offer exactly that. One of the necessary call center strategies is using a power dialer, for example.
Now, let’s dive deeper into many more!
- Automated Your Call Center Processes
- Gather Customer Insights From Other Channels
- Organize Your Call Center
- Allow Agents to Work Remotely
- Choose a Flexible Call Center Software
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Automate Your Call Center Processes
Automation is a beautiful tool that makes your life so much easier! It’s unfathomable that anyone would continue going on without it.
Needless to say, automating your call center processes is a necessity and a luxury that you cannot ignore. Many power dialers now focus on the ability to automate tasks like pre-recorded voicemail drop, automated reporting, automated follow-up scheduling and more.
According to Forbes, nearly ⅔ of sales peoples time is spent not selling. Instead they are
- Emailing
- Inputting customer information
- Creating reports
- Sharing calendars
- Baking up Files
- Online Forms
- Researching
- Sorting Data
- Lead Nurturing
- Customer Service
- Updating contact information
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Gather Customer Insights
Data can tell you a lot of what you need to know, but so can the customer! Gathering insight from the source is a wonderful way to understand the audience and serve the needs of the audience even better. Here are just a few ways your company can retain insights from the customer:
- Make the customer service department more readily available. Whether that’s hiring more people or getting software that will help agents quickly answer and resolve issues, you need to ensure that everyone who calls will be helped soon. Too many people hang up before they even get to speak to a customer service agent because they don’t want to wait for the next available agent. There are so many valuable insights that never get heard because the customer wasn’t helped right away.
- Equip the customer service agents with questions that will provide insight.
- Send email surveys. These could be sent after a purchase or even routinely to see how the company can better help meet their needs.
- Ask customers over the phone. This method is the cheapest and most convenient. If your sales/customer support agents are already on the phone with them they might as well ask for feedback.
- Assign agents to customers for strong relationship building. When customers feel comfortable with an agent, they are likely more open to sharing feedback.
- Look at the reviews. Your potential buyers are looking at the reviews, so the company should also know what is being said about the product, service, etc. Customers are often more honest in online reviews because they aren’t speaking directly to an agent, so the company is able to gather more honest insights.
- Use support tickets. Support tickets are helpful for customers to share their opinions and problems with a product post-purchase.
- Use a chatbot on the company website. This is helpful for both pre-purchase and post-purchase to gain insights on the website, what information the potential buyers are interested in, etc.
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Reorganize Your Call Center
Call center management is difficult and it can be especially difficult to do when the call center isn’t operating to its full potential. Over time many companies will notice that their business practices, goals, and the organizational structure can become stagnant. This can be avoided though by reorganizing. Taking the time to reorganize the call center will allow for fresh innovations and healthy change to take place. Here are a few ways in which you can set your call center up for success and avoid stagnation:
- Communicate with your agents. Just as the customers wants and needs to be heard, so do the employees of the company. Not only can they provide valuable insight/ideas, but you can create a synergy that promotes healthy communication in the office.
- Define a process. Again, over time your process will need to be adjusted to suit the external and internal circumstance that the company is facing. Having a process creates stability and structure which is much needed in businesses where there are many employees or where people mostly work independently.
- Set standards for employees of the company at every level of the business hierarchy. Everyone serves a purpose for the company and needs to be aware of the part they play within the company. Creating individual standards, as well as department standards gives employees responsibility and goals that they can focus on.
- Define the levels of hierarchy. Along with setting standards, there needs to be clear levels of hierarchy, yet also a cohesive work environment. When employees know the roles of everyone within the company they are able to collaborate, go to the right source for information or share ideas, and much more.
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Allow Agents to Work Remotely
The trend towards remote work is only increasing as we continue on into the new year. It is especially increasing in the call center industry because a call center can function well as a centralized location or a decentralized location. Since they can do both, managers are weighing the options and the results seem to be in favor of remote work.
One major benefit of allowing agents to work remotely is the large pool of eligible employees to choose from since there are no commuting limitations. The call center can then be more selective on who is hired, for instance, you could hire only individuals who have experience in the industry. This would eliminate the need for extensive training over the computer, since your candidates would already be knowledgeable and well equipped for the job.
With the help of Zoom, conference calls, or even rented meeting spaces, call centers can still produce the synergy that a centralized office would have. By putting emphasis on communication and team cooperation, the company can still function as one unit.
Helpful Tip: Want to know how to start a virtual call center?
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Choose a Flexible Call Center Software
Another way to create a cohesive and functional environment for remote work is through the use of a cloud-based TAS software. A TAS will have features like:
- Call monitoring and coaching
- Omni-channel communication
- Multi-call handling
- Client information managing
- Custom scripts
- Cloud-based security
- User/seat managing
- Real time and historical calling reports
- Cloud call recording
- And much more!
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