The holidays are just about upon us, and even though for the greater public that means the hustle and bustle of shopping season is over, your call center can’t relax just yet. Even after the orders have been shipped, the return requests and technical help that follow the holidays are still liable to be ringing off the hooks. To combat the seasonal peaks you’ll want to make sure your staff is equipped with the intelligence it needs to be doing a superior job until everything slows down. Seeing as that probably won’t be until the middle of January, you still have plenty of time to make improvements.

Call center wallboards, for example, can greatly improve productivity within the call center. These innovative, LED screens show agents and team leaders the statistics and metrics that can be used to heighten performance. Having the ability to illustrate activity in real-time can be a reliable and efficient way to keep everyone focused on the same goal.

Choosing to display information like, hold time, queues and abandonment rate can help you motivate your staff. They’ll know exactly where you stand when they look at the wallboard and be able to modify their behavior to address immediate concerns.

If you’re really looking to boost the performance of your agents you may want to consider an online reporting solution as well. The key benefits of online call center reporting include the fact that these Web-base reports can be accessed and viewed from any location with Internet access. This capability offers the manager both flexibility and mobility. This type of reporting also incorporates graphics into the report to deliver more dynamic views of the associated data.

There’s no more stressful a time of the year for your call center than the holidays, but consider these options for improving the overall success and you’ll be ready to combat the increased volume head on.

Chris DiMarco is a Managing 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. Follow him on Twitter (News - Alert) @cpdimarco.

Edited by Juliana Kenny