Call Center Management Featured Article
Top 10 Tips for Effective Call Center Management
The economic downturn had wide ranging implications throughout the global markets and companies everywhere had to take a new approach to managing their business. For call centers throughout the world, tighter budgets put increased pressure on performance, while a tighter economy cut into revenue opportunities. The good news is, as the recovery is making its way through the industry, there are 10 key tips you can implement within your call center to ensure you can continue to run efficiently, keep increasing your service levels and customer base, and continue to drive revenues. This checklist was put together by Monet software as a working guide to improve your environment.
1. Implement a flexible shift model
Call volumes can vary from day-to-day, yet schedules tend to be fixed over the week, causing overstaffing or understaffing. By implementing a flexible shift model, you can increase service levels by 1 to 2 percent, while also enjoying savings in personnel costs.
2. Keep track of your shrinkage
You likely have considerable agent time where the individual is paid, yet not available for calls. You can’t recover all lost time, but if you can reduce your shrinkage even by a few minutes per agent, you will save considerable costs. If you also consider lost sales due to shrinkage, the profit potential is huge.
3. Improve schedule adherence
Introduce optimized schedules and expect agents to stay on schedule. To improve schedule adherence, inform and educate; measure and manage; and provide financial incentives for those who perform according to expectations.
4. Cross-train agents
Ensure your agents can handle multiple skills and use skill-based routing, you can reduce the number of agents necessary to handle your call volume. Productivity gains from this approach that provides two skills per agent can easily save you 10-15 percent.
5. Compare ACD logon time to time-clock entries
Be sure that your agents are logged in and ready for calls coordinating with the clock time. Consider using the ACD agent login and logout times for payroll.
6. Smarter scheduling
In developing your schedule, consider all agent activities to avoid over- and under-staffing; rank your agents according to performance; and match personality and team.
7. Keep top talent on your team
Top agents are more likely to stay loyal and productive due to their understanding of how their requirements and your schedule can match up.
8. “Check out” your spreadsheets
If you have grown to a size larger than 20 agents, you need something more flexible than spreadsheets in order to use a flexible shift model, reduce shrinkage and improve and track schedule adherence. You need a workforce management (WFM) solution.
9. Think big for small or medium size centers
Use solutions that apply to larger environments to get the same effects. You have to understand that a no-show on your staff of 20 immediately creates a 5 percent resource problem. With more powerful solutions in place, you can implement improvements so that the actions of one do not alter the performance of many.
10. On Demand solutions reduce cost and risk
Throughout the world, users are considering on-demand solutions to gain access to better functionality without laying out too much capital. You can optimize WFM solutions without investing significant amounts of money, using only those tools that apply to your environment.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Chris DiMarco