Call Center
Call Center Management Best Practices
Without the right strategies, a call center is bound to fail. From choosing team members and training them to provide the best services to structuring tasks and communicating regularly to ensure the best customer experience, you need to know how to deliver top-notch customer experiences.
Below are call center management best practices and tips to help you improve your call center operations or start one on the right foot.
Hire the Best Employees and Train Them
Ensure that you hire only those with relevant skills and attitudes, such as effective communication and enthusiasm. Then, provide employees with comprehensive training on your company standards right from the beginning.
Assign Specific Roles to Employees
To ensure that your call center performs at its best, you need to define roles and responsibilities. Share the myriad of tasks between employees, including the manager, supervisors and agents. For example, specify the manager’s duties as evaluating customer expectations, defining supervisor and agent roles and determining key performance indicators (KPIs).
Keep Communication Lines Open
Make it a habit to communicate with your agents and supervisors. Find out about their needs and challenges when carrying out their duties. You can further institute engaging activities such as scheduled meetings, where individuals can share their ideas and experiences, and group brainstorming sessions and retreats for process improvements and better overall performance.
Establish Incentives for Better Performance
Incentives are known to encourage the optimum performance of employees. So, if you want your call center to be on top of its game, with agents remaining friendly and doing their best to resolve issues, you need to factor in incentives such as quotas and rewards.
Ensure Proper Scheduling and Workflow Balance
You need to consider proper scheduling and workflow balance to get more work done without sacrificing quality. To achieve a schedule that doesn’t overwhelm agents or supervisors while maintaining a workflow balance that meets the demands of your call center, consider factors such as peak and low hours, availability of agents and periods between shifts. It will avail everyone enough time to recharge and offer the most friendly service on each call—affording the successful operation of your call center.
Track Call Center Metrics
You’ll need to track applicable metrics to gain insight into your call center operations and make informed decisions. Below are relevant metrics for call centers and how to calculate them.
- Cost per Call (CPC): The average operational cost per agent, used to determine overall agent efficiency and productivity.
CPC = Total Calls per Month/Year / (Operating Costs + Agent Salary)
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Rates: The percentage of customers whose needs and expectations are met on a scale of, say, one to five, with four and five being positive scores.
CSAT % = (Number of Positive Scores / Number of Total Scores) x 100
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): The likelihood of users recommending your service to someone on a scale of zero to 10.
NPS = % of Promoters – % of Detractors
Invest in Technology
For effective call center management, prepare to invest in technology. For instance, using contact center tools such as RingCentral will complement the efforts of the people working at your call center.
They’ll provide data management, call recording, call monitoring, ring groups, skill-based routing, interactive voice response (IVR) and other features you’ll need to provide existing and new customers with the best customer support possible.
Know the Laws in Your Area
As a call center manager, you need to understand the local, state and federal laws associated with your call center and comply with them. For example, in reaching out to prospective customers, pay attention to the National Do Not Call Registry (NDNCR), a database listing people who have requested that telemarketers don’t contact them.
