Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Strategic Scheduling Key to Running a Multilingual Call Center
Call center managers have to combat a variety of obstacles every single day. One of the most prevalent of these issues revolves around scheduling. For many, scheduling agents during the times they want to work is a top priority simply because people are happier when they work the hours they want. Happy agents are typically friendlier and more inclined to help customers on calls, which is consequently good for the company as a whole. However, there are other aspects than happiness to consider when putting together agent schedules. One of the biggest elements to take into consideration is whether or not you have multilingual agents on staff each shift.
Having multilingual or even bilingual agents working in the call center during each shift is important to the company’s success. Thanks to advances in technology, businesses and, consequently, their call centers, are operating on a global level these days. That means that people from all over the world could be calling in at any point during the day, and they’re not all going to speak English. Even some American citizens don’t speak English, so callers from different continents can’t be expected to do so.
If a call center has no multilingual speakers, international callers will be unable to communicate their concerns. It’s important to have more than a handful of multilingual agents on staff, so that they can be scheduled to work throughout the day. International customers will be calling in at all times of the day—someone from China wouldn’t be calling a contact center at the same time as someone from France or the U.S. If call centers with a large global customer base do not have a few multilingual agents on staff during each shift, there’s a chance some customers will not be able to be helped.
There are a number of benefits when it comes to operating a multilingual call center. Not only is it guaranteed that all customers will be receiving the help they need, but it can also improve conversion rates, reduce operating costs (the more languages someone speaks, the less agents you have to hire), and lower call attrition rates. So be sure to not only hire multilingual agents, but schedule them appropriately as well.
Edited by Maurice Nagle