Call Center Connections E-Book

Peter Lyle DeHaan

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Call Center Success Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 165

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Running a call center is hard. But it can also be rewarding. 

Tip the balance in your favor with Call Center Connections to discover the keys to produce successful customer service outcomes. 

Experience a thriving center operation and become a leader in customer service with Call Center Connections. 

Benefits: 

- Boost staff morale and appreciation 

- Create a positive customer experience 

- Improve leadership skills and strategies  

What's inside:

- Learn how to find the perfect call center manager 

- Explore the benefits of using home-based agents 

- Discover the impact of artificial intelligence on call centers 

Written by call center veteran and publisher of Connections Magazine, Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, this book offers practical insights and tips from his extensive industry experience. 

Discover: 

- How your management style may be hurting your call center 

- An easy way to determine agent starting pay 

- Ways to enhance the customer experience 

- Five tips for agent customer service success 

- How to optimize your call center for better outcomes  

Don't miss out on the opportunity to improve your call center operations and exceed customer expectations. 

Get your copy of Call Center Connections today.

Leseprobe

CALL CENTER CONNECTIONS

KEYS TO PRODUCE SUCCESSFUL CUSTOMER SERVICE OUTCOMES

CALL CENTER SUCCESS SERIES

PETER DEHAAN

CallCenterConnections: Keys to ProduceSuccessfulCustomerServiceOutcomesCopyright © 2024 by PeterLyleDeHaan, PhD

Book 3 of the CallCenterSuccessSeries

All rights reserved: No part of this book may be reproduced, disseminated, or transmitted in any form, by any means, or for any purpose, without the express written consent of the author or his legal representatives. The only exception is the cover image and short excerpts for reviews or academic research. For permissions: peterlyledehaan.com/contact.

ISBNs:

979-8-88809-081-7 e-book

979-8-88809-082-4 paperback

979-8-88809-083-1 hardcover

979-8-88809-084-8 audiobook

Library of CongressControlNumber: 2024904164

Published by RockRoosterBooks, GrandRapids, Michigan

Credits:

Developmental editor: JulieHarbison

Copy editor: RobynMulder

Cover design: CassidyWierks

Author photo: JordanLeighPhotography

To all my many friends and colleagues in the call center industry

SERIES BY PETER LYLE DEHAAN

CallCenterSuccessSeries

Join call center veteran PeterLyleDeHaan, PhD as he shares a lifetime of industry experience to help readers operate their call centers with increased effectiveness, produce greater success, and generate long-term profitability.

StickySeries

TheStickySeries of career development books breaks down key business strategies in a coherent story-driven process to highlight what works and what doesn’t. Through personal stories and eye-opening insights, Peter shares how readers can more effectively produce long-term results and increase their workplace fulfillment.

Be the first to hear about Peter’s new books and receive updates at peterlyledehaan.com/newsletter.

CONTENTS

Are You in or Out?

OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT

Answering the Call Is Just the First Step

Is Your Management Style Hurting Your Call Center?

Responding to Call Traffic Fluctuations

The Importance of Channel Consistency

Call Center Shrinkage

The Fast-Food Factor

We Can Do That

Do You Survey Your Callers?

Seven Tips to Conduct Engaging Customer Surveys

How to Combat Survey Fatigue

STAFFING

A Positive Attitude

The Art of Finding a Call Center Manager

Be Nice

Be Careful What You Say

Don’t Make Extra Work for Your Agents

Work-At-Home Opportunities

The Benefits of Home-Based Call Center Agents

Work-at-Home for Everyone

Managing a Distributed Workforce

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Service Sold It

Five Tips for Agent Customer Service Success

Start Great Customer Experience with Customer Service Essentials

Don’t Forget the Human Touch

Amaze Your Customers . . . or Annoy Them

How Would You Like Us to Contact You?

How to Enhance the Customer Experience

What Kind of Customer Experience Do You Provide?

Is Being Effective Good Enough?

Your Company Is Only as Good as Your Weakest Link

Customer Service: You Can Do It the Easy Way or the Hard Way

Customer Service Recovery

TECHNOLOGY

What’s Your Technology Strategy?

Social Media and the Contact Center

Consider How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Us in the Call Center

Will Customer Service Chatbots Ruin Customer Service?

Chatbots Should Learn from the Errors of IVR

Strategic Call Distribution

Is the Future Your Friend or Foe?

STRATEGY

A Brief History of Call Centers Versus Self-Service

Are You a Call Center or a Contact Center?

Is Your Call Center a Profit Center or a Cost Center?

Developing Your Callback Strategy

It All Depends

Optimizing Your Call Center

Benchmarking

Business Improvement Groups

Call Center Innovation Provides Fresh Opportunities

Is Your Call Center Ready for Anything?

About Peter Lyle DeHaan

Other Books by Peter Lyle DeHaan

ARE YOU IN OR OUT?

UNDERSTAND INDUSTRY NUANCES

Since you’re reading this book, you’re in the call center industry. Yet the question, “Are you in or out?” doesn’t ask about your connection to the industry, but rather your operation’s role within it, relative to the greater call center industry.

Forgive me if you already know the answer, but too many people—even if they know their call center’s role—don’t have a comprehensive industry view. Here are the basics to get us started.

We classify call center activity in two ways. The first is if they handle inbound traffic or outbound traffic. The second is whether they are an in-house or outsource operation. Therefore, “Are you in or out?” implies two questions. This produces four possible outcomes:

1) Anin-house call center, doing inbound work

2) Anin-house call center, doing outbound work

3) Anoutsource call center, doing inbound work

4) Anoutsource call center, doing outbound work

Inbound or Outbound?

Inbound or outbound refers to the direction of calls. That is, whether the center makes calls (outbound) or receives calls (inbound). For an outsider—or even an uninformed insider—this would seem to be a small distinction. “What’s the big difference?” they ask. “Both involve agents, use phones, and are supported by technology. If you’re doing one, the other should be no problem.”

Not so fast. The differences are as profound as day and night.

Inbound: Since inbound call centers answer calls, agents work in a reactive mode. That is, they wait for the phone to ring (or for the next call to drop from the queue) and then they react to it.

Inbound call centers are equipped with ACDs (automatic call distribution) to send calls to the next available agent. Inbound operations are staffed more hours of the day than their outbound counterparts, with most operating 24/7. Agents are scheduled to work in anticipation of projected call volume based on historical data, future projections, and marketing initiatives.

Outbound: For the outbound call center, agents must be proactive. That is, they need to take initiative. The successful outbound agent has a different personality than the ideal inbound agent. Even if the nature of their outbound work is not specifically in sales, they still need a sales mentality. They need to engage the called party, lead them toward a stated objective, and deal well with rejection—some of which may be personally directed.

Outbound call centers rely on predictive dialers to place calls. Outbound centers have reduced hours of operation, limited by law and the needs of specific campaigns. In this situation, agents are scheduled as needed to complete a requisite number of calls within a certain window of time.

Outbound call centers must comply with national and state laws that regulate (that is, limit) outbound calling, historically called telemarketing. When these laws were implemented, it greatly curtailed outbound calling and forced marginal players out of the industry. Most that remain are professional operations, providing a valuable service.

Blended: Not to be overlooked, the concept of blended call centers (those doing both inbound and outbound work) has been pursued, although with varying degrees of success. Blending can occur at different levels.

The first is within a call center, where some agents are answering calls while others are placing calls.

The second level of blending occurs with agents who are proficient with both calling disciplines. They can be scheduled for either activity as needed. Most agents cannot successfully make this transition from one day to the next, but those who can appreciate the variety.

The third level of blending occurs from call to call. If an unexpected rush of incoming calls occurs, the outbound reps are automatically removed from the agent pool of the predictive dialer and placed into the agent pool for the ACD. This continues until the rush ends and the process reverses. Conversely, if it’s a slow day for incoming calls, these agents can be automatically switched to the outbound campaign. While this type of efficiency excites upper management, it often works better on paper than in reality. Reps who can successfully handle this type of on-the-fly mental adjustment are rare.

In-House or Outsource?

While the concepts of inbound and outbound are generally understood, the terms in-house and outsource cause some confusion. An in-house call center is one where the work done is performed for the company itself—that is, internally—and is generally secondary to the main function of the company and the products or services they produce.

Conversely, an outsource call center provides call center services to other companies. Phone work is all they do; it’s their business.

In-House: There are arguably 50,000 to 100,000 call centers in the UnitedStates. The range is so great because they are sometimes challenging to identify. Of these, most are in-house operations.

Outsource: Outsource call centers, though a minority, are increasing in number and importance. This trend is due to more and more companies looking to outsourcing to increase service levels or options, return to their core competencies, save money, or all three.

At outsource call centers, processing calls is all they do. Therefore, they must do it well and cost-effectively if they are to remain viable. They also enjoy an economy-of-scale not feasible for most in-house operations. As such, their margins allow the client to save money and the outsource call center to make money.

The outsource call center industry traces its beginnings to the post-WorldWarI era, when enterprising telephone answering services begin popping up around the country. Even though the label would follow decades later, these entrepreneurs were, in fact, the first outsource call centers. The modern era of outsource call centers began in the 1980s, when the introduction of toll-free numbers made it cost-effective to centralize call centers. Still, it wasn’t until more recently that the outsourcing label was applied.

Outsource call centers are similar in design and function to their in-house counterparts. There are, however, a few important distinctions.

First, while an in-house call center can be viewed as either a cost-center or a profit-center, the outsource call center must be a profit-center and is often the only source of revenue for the company.

Second, the outsource call center must continually search for and find new clients to serve. Therefore, it has an external sales and marketing aspect that is not needed at in-house call centers.

Last, in-house call centers service their company’s customers, whereas the outsource call center serves their clients’ customers. Therefore, agents at an outsource call center work for their clients, but they work with their clients’ customers or prospects.

Outsource is Not Synonymous with Offshore

There was a trend to move call center activity to other countries that boast stable technological infrastructures and offer qualified workers who possess lower wage expectations. This is offshore outsourcing, but it is too often wrongly shortened to outsourcing.

This is incorrect shorthand, as the majority of U.S. call center outsourcing is, and will continue to be, to U.S.-based call centers. Offshore outsourcing, which is getting all the attention, is a small minority of the total call center outsource picture. Although offshore outsourcing will continue to occur, some companies have tried offshoring and then pulled back in disappointment when it failed to deliver the expected results.

Moving Forward

Whether your call center is inbound or outbound, in-house or outsource, this book is for you.

OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT

We’ll begin our discussion of call center success by looking at considerations that fall under the general umbrella of “operations and management.”

With these chapters as our backdrop, we’ll then use them as a foundation to delve into specific areas in upcoming sections.

Let’s get started on this exciting journey.

ANSWERING THE CALL IS JUST THE FIRST STEP

THE GOAL IS TO SERVE CALLERS

Companies once embraced a vision of providing online self-service, shutting down their call centers and staffed customer service offerings.

This didn’t work as well as hoped, with companies moving away from forced self-service to some degree of customer service. It matters not if they offer customer service by telephone, text chat, or email. What’s important is their attempt to provide support to customers and not let them flounder. This is good for consumers, companies, workers, and the contact center industry. Everyone wins.

While some companies hide their customer service channels behind a wall of self-service options and FAQs, others make their offerings prominent. They are the champions. They want to make it easy for customers and potential customers to reach them. They’ve figured out that it’s good business to help the people who buy their products—the same folks who make it possible for them to stay in business.

Unfortunately, some companies try to control the method of contact. They still don’t comprehend that the customer is important, but at least these businesses are doing something. Other companies limit their hours of availability. They decide they can’t justify having customer service staff work on the third shift or outside regular business hours. News flash: Outsource the work to provide 24/7 coverage on a cost-effective basis.

Smart companies offer a full range of contact options: phone, chat, email, and even snail mail for those so inclined. And they offer them 24/7. I applaud them. They have the right vision and understand the importance of providing support to their current customers and prospective buyers.

Yet this is only the beginning. Answering the phone, accepting a chat request, or reading an email is just the first step. It’s a critical step, to be sure, but execution makes the difference.

Final Thoughts

I commend companies for answering their phone. The next step is to help the people who contact them. That’s the key to good customer service.

IS YOUR MANAGEMENT STYLE HURTING YOUR CALL CENTER?

AFTER DOING ALL YOU CAN TO HIRE STAFF, TURN YOUR ATTENTION TOWARD RETENTION

A college friend shared his experience working at his part-time job. Several of his coworkers had quit, and he planned to do so as well. His departure would move his employer from drastically short-staffed to critically understaffed. She begged him to stay and offered him a significant pay bump, moving him to nearly three times the minimum wage for his unskilled, entry-level position.

He accepted, but he quickly regretted his decision.

Three weeks later he quit for good. “She was just too hard to work for,” he said, “and no amount of money would get me to stay.”

He found another job right away. Though his new one doesn’t pay as well, he likes his boss and feels appreciated. He now enjoys going to work. As a bonus, the hours don’t interfere with his school schedule or studying.

In a different era, his first boss’s management style would have worked. Yes, she would have churned through employees, but hiring a replacement wouldn’t have been an issue.

Times have changed. It seems every business today is in a hiring mode. They’ve upped their pay, improved their compensation plan, and lowered their expectations. But they still have trouble filling open slots, as well as keeping the employees they do have. And some of the employees they have fall short of expectations and are less than the caliber they once hired.

The common solutions to filling open positions in a tight labor market are to pay more, improve benefits, and be more accommodating. These are good solutions, but a better approach may be to re-examine your management style.

Quite succinctly, is your management style hurting your call center?

In thinking back to past jobs, I’ve had managers who were patient, and others who were demanding. Some were kind, and others were tyrants. A few were complimentary, and others were condemning. I liked some and feared others. And when it came to compensation, some were fair, and others were cheap.

For the good jobs with great bosses, I stayed with those companies for a long time, working for them until my situation changed. For the jobs with less-than-ideal bosses, I moved on as quickly as I could.

Each one of these was a learning opportunity, teaching me what to do and not to do when it came to supervising staff and leading people.

WhenI moved into management, I strived to be a fair boss and treat employees well—to be the kind of employer I wanted to work for.

ThoughI didn’t always succeed at meeting my goal, I know that most of the time I did. Some employees noticed this and even thanked me for it. And a few told me I was the best boss they ever had.

I’m not sure how much my focus on being a desirable boss and worthy employer affected our call center turnover, but I do know it helped. I also felt good about myself and the effort I put forth to make the operation a better place to work.

If your call center is short-staffed and you can’t find enough qualified employees despite paying more and offering more, the long-term solution may be to focus on the retention side of the equation.

Final Thoughts

Look at your management style. Seek changes that will allow you to have a more positive impact on your staff and lead them in a more effective way.

RESPONDING TO CALL TRAFFIC FLUCTUATIONS

YOU CAN’T SCHEDULE FOR THE UNEXPECTED, BUT THAT’S NO EXCUSE TO BE UNPREPARED

Traffic at many inbound call centers fluctuates with the weather, affecting some operations more than others. Of course, non-weather-related events can also impact call traffic. This includes natural disasters, pandemics, threats of violence, and media-produced frenzies. The list goes on with as much variety as our imaginations can envision.

Although some traffic fluctuations occur with predictable regularity, other call traffic spurts strike with little warning. What’s a call center to do? Here are some options to consider.

Handle It the Best You Can

The first impulse in responding to more traffic than you’re prepared for is to work faster, cut nonessential tasks, and answer calls with greater intention. This helps . . . a bit . . . for a while. You may tap non-phone staff to put on a headset and get to work.

Cutting breaks and shortening lunches emerges as a tempting thought, but don’t give in to that temptation. Asking staff to extend shifts and work overtime is another approach many call centers pursue. Sometimes this becomes mandatory. It helps to get calls answered, but employee morale takes a hit.

An optional strategy is to ignore the escalating number of calls in the queue and just process whatever calls you can while working at your normal pace. If the call is important, the caller will hold or call back later, at least you hope so. Regardless, customer satisfaction plummets.

Intentionally Overstaff

Given this situation, call center managers may intentionally overhire and overschedule. This provides a nice buffer to deal with traffic peaks and longer-term surges. The side effect of this well-intended strategy is that during times of normal traffic levels, you’re either paying for unproductive work or your staff isn’t getting as many hours as they wish. Neither outcome is a good one.

Throttle Incoming Calls

A third solution entertained by anxious call center managers is to reduce the number of incoming calls during high-traffic situations. One method is to provide a busy signal to callers. A second approach is to play a recording asking them to try later. A third possibility is to allow them to schedule a callback. Of course, the callback solution requires that you’re not still dealing with the high-traffic situation when it comes time to make that return phone call.

Overflow to Another Location

If you’ve concluded that the first three options aren’t good ones, you’re right. If your call center is part of a multilocation operation, an easy solution is to send excess calls to another center in your network. For this to be a viable solution, however, it requires that the other location is not suffering from the same malady.

Some multilocation call centers automatically route calls from one location to another based on incoming traffic and agent availability. In these cases, the overall traffic self-regulates, which means that unexpected high call volume coming into one center will impact all call centers in the network.