04 Nov
Managing a customer contact center can be a difficult task. You may be dealing with anything from a handful of callers to hundreds of them, all attempting to squeeze as many calls as they can into each work period, making one call after another and another. Keeping call center morale up is a big issue, as is making sure the call center service is up to your company’s standards. So how can you do it all effectively?
There are a number of contact center management procedures you can follow that can help you make sure your call center productivity is first-rate while you retain as many of your agents as possible.
Best Call Center Workforce Management Tips
Effectively managing a call center is crucial as it can lead to an increase in efficiency and customer satisfaction. Some of the most important practices for contact center management success are monitoring calls, communicating with your agents, define a process, set standards, and motivate the agents.
Monitor Calls
One of your most important duties as call center manager is intermittently monitoring and evaluating each agent’s calls. Without good contact center analysis, it’s hard to know which of your agents are doing a good job, what they’re doing well and what they can be doing better. Your agents expect that you will be listening in from time to time — it’s not bad call center phone etiquette, it’s part of the job.
What’s important, though, is what you do with what you hear. Use what you hear to provide targeted coaching for your contact center agents. They may not know they’re doing something that’s turning off their leads, or that there’s a way for them to complete a call more efficiently. It’s your job to listen to what they’re doing and guide them to the right approach.
Communicate With Your Agents
You also want the agents to feel heard and understood. Call center service can be a rigorous job. Making call after call non-stop can be draining, especially if your agents are encountering a lot of resistance. Make sure your agents can voice their concerns and that they’re getting the help they need. Don’t forget to praise them when they do things well.
Define a Process
Having a process that is tested and proven to be effective is very beneficial to implement in your agents daily routine. People and business tend to do much better when there are set ways of doing things. Of course there needs to be some flexibility, but having a process helps to keep things organized and structured, which ultimately helps the operation run much smoother.
Set Standards
There should be three sets of standards or goals. One set for yourself, for the agents, and for the business as a whole. As the manager your standards should be set the highest, because you need to lead by example. Meeting your standards helps to encourage your agents and the business to live up to their own standards. If you can find a happy medium for giving challenges that are achievable, you will be able to help your team excel.
Motivate Agents
If you don’t know already, find out what motivates your agents. They might be motivated by raises, time off, gifts, or words of affirmation. Whatever it may be, knowing what motivates your agents will help you to incentives and reward your team for a job well done. After all, everyone likes to be rewarded for their hard work!
Use a Call Center Management Software
This may be the most important aspect of running a successful call center program today. Automated dialing software programs, such as the kind provided by EVS7, can make your job exponentially easier. It can improve both employee morale and customer service.
What Is a Virtual Call Center?
Even if you run a call center, you may not be aware when you’re placing a virtual call. That’s because today’s virtual call centers are normally designed to give you the impression that your call is being answered by someone who’s located in a central office alongside other agents.
A virtual call center is a call center solution that enables your agents to receive and place calls from different geographic locations instead of your company’s physical premises. Virtual call centers give your employees the flexibility to work from anywhere. They also give you the ability to manage your agents in real-time no matter where you’re situated in relation to your agents’ work stations. A typical virtual call center consists of several small call centers in various locations or a team of freelance agents who work from their home offices.
What Are the Benefits of Virtual Call Centers?
Virtual call centers often provide benefits for small businesses just like they do for medium and large corporations. Some common benefits they provide include:- Reduced physical work space requirements
- Reduced spending on equipment such as desks and chairs
- Reduced employee turnover
Next Steps for Effective Call Center Management
Call center software takes your operation to the next level. Agents can log on from anywhere and better yet, you can monitor and coach them wherever they are. Having this option allows you to hire from a larger pool of agents and it cuts cost be not having to pay/rent a brick and mortar building.
With auto dialer software, your agents won’t need a phone and all can skip all the mechanical dialing that goes with it. They can just click to start each call, saving more time and energy that can then be directed into building relationships with the leads.
Once you have the right approach down, effective call center management can be much easier and more productive. To learn more about how to make your call center more efficient and more effective, contact EVS7 today.
Recent Comments