Call Center Management Featured Article
Use the New Year to Drop Some Bad Call Center Management Habits
2019 is still brand new, and while many of us are struggling with getting to the gym and eating more vegetables, it might be easier to focus on turning over a new leaf in the office (no treadmill or salads required). Most workplaces, contact centers included, can only ever be as effective as their management. Good managers inspire good work practices, which can keep quality high and turnover low. It’s also true that poor or indifferent management can lead to ineffective operations and even damage to the business through customer dissatisfaction and attrition.
While no one’s going to turn into L.L. Bean customer service overnight, there are some obvious ways to improve contact center operations from the get-go by eliminating common but damaging problems, including the following:
A lack of accountability. Too often in the contact center, it’s “no one’s” fault when schedules are bad, employee turnover is high, training is poor, call queues are long and customers aren’t getting answers. If this is the case in your contact center, it’s time to build accountability into daily operations. Clear metrics need to be put in place to accurately measure the performance of individual employees, supervisors and managers. Ensure you’re putting metrics in place that accurately measure performance and don’t put further strain on the quality of customer support (such as forcing agents who are already struggling to take even more calls per hour). If calls are too long or ineffective, consider changing scripts, adding training and streamlining agents’ desktops.
A lack of incentive. Burnout is rife in the contact center, and most agents respond better to a carrot approach than a stick approach. If your incentives are lame – hint: a dozen stale donuts in the kitchen once a week – consider implementing some incentives that employees will truly value, such as first pick of shifts or vacation slots, a better parking spot, work-at-home privileges or gift cards.
Poor training. Many contact centers rush to get agents up and running and skimp on training to achieve this. Poorly trained agents will ruin your customer relationships, so don’t be tempted to get a new hire up and running in 90 minutes. Structure your training in a logical way: classroom training first, then hands-on rehearsals followed by shadowing or mentoring by supervisors or senior agents. Ensure there is always immediate help available for agents who feel out of their depth.
Bad tools. Be honest: are your technologies old and outdated? Do they cause more trouble than they’re worth? Are they properly integrated? Are they helping or hindering agents? It may be time to switch to solutions that are easier to use, more intuitive, and connected to every part of day-to-day operations and quality management.
None of these solutions are likely to help you with your waistline, but they may help eliminate some of the biggest operations headaches: employee turnover and customer attrition.
Edited by Maurice Nagle