Customer expectations are high, and how you attend to your customers’ needs will affect customer retention and business growth. So you need an effective call center management strategy.
Forbes Advisor has compiled a list of eight best practices for effective call center management. We’ll show you the best practices and tips to follow if you want to run a smooth call center operation.
What Is Call Center Management?
While call centers serve as the point of call for customer service and support, they are often fast-paced, with plenty of tasks and employees to manage. Call center management, thus, goes beyond customer satisfaction. It involves managing the daily operations of a call center in charge of developing, implementing and streamlining inbound and outbound communications between agents and customers.
Call center management includes employee hiring, agent onboarding and coaching, regular communication amongst team members, task scheduling, performance monitoring, technology utilization and compliance with applicable laws.
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.
1. 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.
Let call center agents know what you expect from them, and keep empowering them with continuous coaching on how best to deal with customer complaints.
2. 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).
The call center supervisors shouldn’t have anyone contest activities such as training and monitoring call agents’ interactions, working towards the center’s goals and alerting the call center manager of critical issues. Then, agents should focus on their duties, including speaking directly to customers, resolving caller issues and following supervisor and manager instructions.
Following a work scheme and structure will create better performance at your call center.
3. 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.
Also, ensure you attend to call center agents’ and supervisors’ feedback.
4. 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.
They will make employees feel appreciated and motivate them to provide high-quality service even during challenging conversations.
5. 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.
6. 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.
- First Call Resolution (FCR) Rates: The percentage of customer complaints resolved at the first point of contact with your agents.
- Cost per Call (CPC): The average operational cost per agent, used to determine overall agent efficiency and productivity.
- 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.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): The likelihood of users recommending your service to someone on a scale of zero to 10.
7. 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.
8. 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.
If you’re unsure about the applicable laws in your area, consult an attorney for advice to avoid significant penalties.
Bottom Line
If you’re looking to start a call center or elevate one, you’ll need to follow these call center management best practices. With these right strategies in place, managing a team of call center agents and supervisors becomes easier; and customer satisfaction and business growth will increase.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is a call center?
Also known as a contact center, a call center is a department or team that communicates with new and old customers looking to make inquiries or resolve specific issues. Call centers are accessible via phone or video calls, texts, email, web chat and social media.
What does a call center agent do?
Whether working under an organization’s department or as an outsourced agent, a call center agent is a company’s frontline who handles all inquiries and support requests. A call center agent’s primary duties include answering questions, addressing complaints and troubleshooting issues. They also make calls to gather survey data, set appointments and inform customers about ongoing promotions.
What is the best call center software?
The typical call center software offers call routing and IVR to help you connect with old and new customers via phone, live chat, email, social media and more. But for effective call center management, you’ll need feature-rich software such as RingCentral and Freshdesk, with advanced features for identifying what’s working and tracking interactions between agents and customers.
