Customer Service King

Our guest blogger today is John Joseph, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Envox Worldwide. He manages worldwide marketing, including corporate and marketing communications, product management and marketing, and all 3rd party marketing for the company.

With all the news out there it’s hard to decipher what’s important and what’s not. Nowhere is this more confusing than in the world of technology. As a call center manager you are faced with daily technology news updates, vendors calling to sell their latest products, agents complaining they need more automation and management looking over your shoulder to be sure expenses are managed while efficiency and productivity aren’t compromised.

Here are the Top 5 Tech Developments you should pay attention to:

#1: Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) - optimize contact center efficiency and personalize the customer experience by adding intelligent call routing, screen pop, call monitoring and click-to-call functionality to your contact center solution.

#2: VoIP - Internet telephony enabled by Voice over IP (VoIP) technology can lower corporate phone bills by as much as 40% and centralize your contact center operations for increased agility, streamlined management and more efficient use of staff.

Rey is currently a facilitator of an English Proficiency Program for kids and had worked in a call center. His company is planning to expand its services to include call center training, focusing on English grammar training. He asks, “What software can you recommend for training; mock call simulation, soft skills and other materials necessary to prepare the students for a successful call center career."

With his experience, he knows that language training isn't enough to make a person “call center ready”. I agree 100%. 

One of the global big players in the outsourcing industry has just launched their home based agent program at their Albuquerque facility.   Starting with 200 agents, they are sure to expand their services through North America.  This is a great strategy and something that I’ve been looking out for from the global movers in the industry.

It just makes sense that they start at the home front and provide alternative solutions for their North American clients.  I’d like to see them expand further by providing this to their outsourced sites as well.  We’ve received a lot of job seekers who prefer to work at home in India and the Philippines.  The company clearly has sites on those locations.

I will spend some time to organize the blog in the next few weeks to keep it more organized for all of you.  It isn’t an easy task contrary to the fact that I thought it would only take me a few hours to do it.  Considering there are hundreds of posts within the blog in itself, I have yet to scan and read each post and decide where it should be categorized.

The only major change would be to remove the subcategories and place them as topics within the main category.  Some readers told me it was a bit difficult to surf the list when the drop down was activated.  They would accidentally click one of the sub-categories (though it was also beneficial as they were directed to a page they didn’t think was there and found something new to read) and sometimes it frustrated those that were in a hurry.

There were other suggestions from different people and this is just a start.  Thanks to those who emailed and offered their recommended topics.  There is indeed more to come and expect it soon!

It has been months since I’ve written and there is a valid reason for everything.  Oh yes, the industry has time and time again, taken time out of my personal life, that even writing has been missed.  But, this time it was for a good cause.

I’ve been researching a lot for the past few months so that I can start on my long awaited book.  Yes, you heard it right here.  A book is coming.

My editor is excited and I am too.  It’s a project that I’ve been putting off for so long that I had to just make a decision to push through with it…and I did a few months ago.

What is it about?  Well, if I told you now then we will spoil the surprise!  Hey, I’m not saying that it will be a bestseller, but at least it’s something that I’m hoping call center professionals (on all levels) will appreciate.

I don’t understand why a building would even allow their office space to be leased by many call centers and not even plan or consider elevator traffic.  If I were to do this, I’m sure to tell my architect to think whether three elevators are enough to handle the volume of people wanting to go up (or down) to their office.

From all the sites we have, there is one that always suffers from tardiness and over breaks.  This is now the oldest excuse in the book, but considered as valid because it is true.  Managers are late for their next conference call or meeting because of the same reason.  Agents go down to eat their lunch but only have 30 minutes and they get all stressed and are rushing all the time because they know it’s going to take them half of their break time just to go to the restaurant for fast food.  Talk about affecting someone else’s health by eating processed food all the time.

If you are looking for your next location, do check with the building administration and ask whether they can handle the volume and traffic of call center personnel.  Perhaps it is also good to show your operating hours to them.  Best of all, test and time it.

Call simulations or doing mock calls are often done during recruitment and training. It is an effective way of helping agents get more comfortable and ready for a live call.  This is why the environment for them to do the simulation is important.  You would all agree that this is the case, but reality doesn’t show proof of that.

Several contact centers always prioritize the operations floor, as this is tied to revenue.  One thing missing is an area where they can do mock calls.  In the absence of such, they are then done in complete view of other employees or other trainees.

This is not recommended because you raise their anxiety level and they feel more nervous than ever.  If this is for assessment purposes or even for practice, you will not be able to see their true abilities when handling a call.  Eventually, they will fail.

Make sure there is a small room that simulates a cubicle when they are on the production floor.  Place it in an area where they feel comfortable and away from distractions.  Also, don’t make the next one wait for their turn outside the door.

It is important for a team of call center agents to get together as a group and celebrate their success or just to know more about the newest member.  Funds are always budgeted for team buildings and the call center or operations manager is in charge of allocating this on a timely manner.

A common practice is to spend the money monthly but some do it on a quarterly basis.  Even as far as every six months.  But, what would be a good timeframe to recommend?

By doing a monthly gathering is great especially when the agents are bombarded with stressful calls and if there are times when they have to work long hours and do overtime.  But by doing it monthly, the allocated budget is then smaller for the group.  You can only spend for dinner or a night out on a weekend.

If you do it quarterly, agents prefer this because you do more activities as a team.  During summer, you can book an overnight stay (even the whole weekend) at a nice hotel or travel to the beach.  The longer you spend time with them; you can then learn more that will help you motivate your agents in the long term.

“But I am not a business suit kind of guy!”  Have you heard this before?  There are several rules on how agents and supervisors should dress in call centers.  Most would think that jeans and a shirt are good since you expect a fun environment, different from other brick and mortar companies.

There are other centers that require agents to do the “business attire” or sometimes called “Monday attire” every day.  Some would have a policy based on the position you are holding.  So, agents ok with jeans but supervisors up have to dress otherwise.

Such a simple rule, yet too many complain about it.  My thoughts?

I’ve always believed that employees join a company and are committed to stay based on its culture.  So, the dress code policy should be based on that.  If that is the basis, then it will be a topic of the past amongst your workforce.