Call Center Management Featured Article
How's Your Call Center Scheduling Adherence?
There’s nothing like the beginning of the holiday season. Halloween is permeating the air, with orange and black gracing many a doorway, whether commercial or residential. Seasonal stores are popping up everywhere and consumers are rushing out to get the latest decorations, costumes and candy. Hopefully, these stores are adequately stocked with merchandise and staffed with the right number of professionals to meet the need.
To match the demand for goodies this time of year, stores have to correctly estimate the volume of traffic they will see through their doors, on their websites and with their call centers. If not, customers will leave frustrated and feel like their business isn’t appreciated. When it comes to call center scheduling, it really is critical that management pay attention to the details or lack of adherence could quickly become a problem.
For instance, it’s easy to give Mike the evening off to attend his daughter’s school program, but if Mike’s shift isn’t covered, the center could have issues with response time. Sara may need to be gone for just an hour to attend a mandatory training, but that hour ends up being the heaviest calling period of the day, causing longer hold times and an increase in abandoned calls. In this case, it’s a management problem. But not all call center scheduling problems occur just because a manager isn’t paying attention to the details.
The bigger problem occurs when call center staff don’t respect call center scheduling as a critical activity that contributes to the overall success of the organization. The individual who is five minutes late on a regular basis may just operate with the belief that they are simply late by nature and everyone should accept it. The individual who takes multiple smoking breaks without permission is again taking time away from calls and creating problems for those who are adhering to the schedule.
When several members on your team are taking a few minutes here and a few minutes there on a regular basis, it appears as though you are understaffed to meet the demands of the call center. The obvious next move to fix that issue is to hire additional staff. You’ve now incurred more cost in the call center that is completely avoidable if employees simply adhere to the call center scheduling plan.
If you want to be sure to encourage schedule adherence so as to avoid issues and additional costs, it’s time to make it a priority. Monet Software can help. The company is offering a free, 45-minute webinar on Oct. 28,at 11 a.m. PDT. Register for your space now so you can learn the tips and tricks of call center scheduling adherence and how you can keep issues at bay.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi