Call center wallboards offer the basis for a strategy that will help you more effectively managing your staff. While the transparent reporting methods offered by the two are of great advantage to call center managers, adding in desktop analytics provides yet another avenue to collect and disseminate information to your team.

According Spectrum Corporation’s Marketing Director, Dan Boehm “Using wallboards, agents know the managers are aware of the status of the call center and will work to meet the stated goals. Wallboards keep everyone on the same page and everyone works towards improving and reaching the goals. With desktops managers agents are aware of the status of the key metrics and should be taking care of the customer. Agents are able to manage themselves and obtain their goals.“

While they work in tandem to provide real-time information for your staff, wallboards and desktop managers need to be utilized in distinct for the most efficiency. Agent desktop information needs to be directed specifically at the agent and the groups they are logged into, average speed of answer, abandonment rate, and adherence for example. Wallboards on the other hand should be group related metrics. The information displayed will depend on what the goal of the call center and how achieve said goals.  Calls in queue, longest wait time and service level are examples of the types of metrics that would make the most sense on wallboards.

The results of incorporating both strategies in you call center operation offers an increase in adherence, and customer service levels.   You’ll find with this strategy that agents will take ownership of their performance and the environment will change to where everyone in it wants to keep the metrics positive and obtain the goals. The benefits don’t stop with agent though; as managers and supervisors will be able spend more time working on customer issues and not on task issues as well.

Giving your agents something to focus on allows them to more quickly change their behaviors to accomplish the goals you have set. The incorporation of call center wallboards and agent desktops is the perfect way to direct this focus.

Chris DiMarco is a Web Editor for TMCnet. He holds a master's degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) Chris worked with e-commerce provider Suresource as a contact center representative and development analyst. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Rich Steeves