Call Centers For Dummies E-Book

Real Bergevin

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 542

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Tips on making your call center a genuine profit center In North America, call centers are a $13 billion business, employing 4 million people. For managers in charge of a call center operation, this practical, user-friendly guide outlines how to improve results measurably, following its principles of revenue generation, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. In addition, this new edition addresses many industry changes, such as the new technology that's transforming today's call center and the location-neutral call center. It also helps readers determine whether it's cost-efficient to outsource operations and looks at the changing role and requirements of agents. * The ultimate call center guide, now revised and updated * The authors have helped over 60 companies improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their call center operations * Offers comprehensive guidance for call centers of all sizes, from 20-person operations to multinational businesses With the latest edition of Call Centers For Dummies, managers will have an improved arsenal of techniques to boost their center's bottom line.

Leseprobe

Call Centers For Dummies®2nd Edition

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: From the Ground Up: An Overview of the Call Center

Part II: The Master Plan: Finance, Analysis, and Resource Management

Part III: Making Life Better with Technology

Part IV: Creating High-Performance Teams

Part V: Ensuring Continuous Improvement

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Appendixes

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: From the Ground Up: An Overview of the Call Center

Chapter 1: A First Look at Call Centers

Defining Call Centers

Inbound, outbound, or blended

Contact or call center: What’s in a name?

Tripping Down Memory Lane: The Evolution of the Call Center

Moving from low-tech to high-tech

Moving from cost center to profit center

Meeting legal and image challenges

Today’s call centers: Ringing up big numbers

Making Call Centers Work

Identifying good call center managers

Defining the culture

Understanding What Makes Call Centers Good or Bad

Characteristics of a good call center

Characteristics of a poor call center

Chapter 2: Business Basics: Models and Drivers and Goals, Oh My!

Creating a Call Center Business Model

Developing your mission

Dissecting a typical call center mission

Determining Your Business Goals

Defining a good objective

Avoiding misleading measures

Considering service level

Flowing goals through the accountability funnel

Measuring Progress with Performance Drivers

Categorizing the drivers

Balancing the drivers

Carrying Out Call Center Best Practices

Focusing on people

Focusing on process

Focusing on technology

Reporting: Providing Feedback

Chapter 3: Developing the Cast of Characters

Designing an Organizational Chart

Key considerations

Key tasks

Introducing the Call Center Team: Roles and Responsibilities

Senior management

Call center manager

Agent performance team

Scheduler

Analysts

Compliance and procedures officer

Call center agent

Finding the Best People for Your Jobs

Locating a call center manager

Picking an agent performance team: Recruiter, trainer, and team leader

Hiring a scheduler

Acquiring analysts

Rounding up a compliance and procedures officer

Recruiting agents

Creating and Managing Call Center Culture

Sizing the Organization

Ensuring the best management span

Planning for growth

Chapter 4: Building a Call Center of Your Own

First Things First: Asking Questions

What are the call center’s business goals?

What functions will the call center perform?

What support services will the call center require?

What skills do you need on your planning team?

How big will the call center be?

Will the call center stand alone, or do you plan to network it?

X Marks the Spot: Situating Your Call Center

Considering infrastructure

Considering the available workforce

Locating near other facilities in the corporation

Getting close to your customers

Being far, far away from your customers

Going big-city versus rural

Setting Up Shop

Beyond bricks and mortar: Planning the facilities

Designing the ideal space

Understanding environmental issues

Taking special needs into account

Building a Call Center One Step at a Time

Creating the plan

Managing the project

Planning for Problems

Multiple locations

Stand-alone call centers

Networked call centers

Chapter 5: Choosing the Outsourcing Option

Understanding the Benefits and Risks of Outsourcing

Potential benefits

Potential risks

Deciding Whether to Outsource

Clarifying your internal costs

Adding hidden costs to your outsourcer’s cost

Putting your comparison together

Picking the Right Outsourcing Partner

Looking for outsourcers in all the right places

Designing the contract documents

Negotiating the contract

Planning the Transition

Elements of a typical transition plan

Roles and resources required

Developing a Strong Relationship with Your Outsourcer

Setting expectations and creating operating guidelines

Verifying the outsourcer’s understanding

Staying involved

Knowing when to jump in

Part II: The Master Plan: Finance, Analysis, and Resource Management

Chapter 6: Analyze This!

Adding It Up: Call Center Math

Understanding the fundamental concepts

Using models in calculations

Analyzing Business Goals

Measuring Business Goals

Breaking down the operating budget

Measuring cost per contact

Measuring cost per customer

Measuring cost per resolution

Ringing up revenue

Scoring satisfaction

Performance Drivers: Managing the Results

Cost per agent hour

Call length

Contacts per customer

Occupancy

Conversion per contact

Dollar value per conversion

Accessibility

Agent professionalism and ability

Company and call center policies and procedures

Setting Performance Targets

Targets for accessibility/service level

Targets for call length

Targets for occupancy

Chapter 7: Right People, Right Place, Right Time: Resource Management

Understanding Resource Management Tasks and Concepts

Forecasting

Scheduling

Full-time equivalent

Real-time management of resources

Forecasting: Timing Is Everything

Long term: Setting budget and capital projections

Midterm: Creating the schedules

Short term: Making adjustments

Tracking forecast accuracy

Using the Tools of the Scheduling Trade

Calculating with Erlang C

Planning with spreadsheets

Using workforce management software

Scheduling the Work That Your Call Center Needs to Do

Starting long: The first step in forecasting call volume

Breaking the forecast into intervals

Forecasting call length

Accounting for unique situations

Chapter 8: Call Center Scheduling: Not As Simple As 1, 2, 3

Calculating the Resources Required to Do the Job

Considering occupancy

Calculating expected occupancy

Calculating expected occupancy versus optimal occupancy

Affecting occupancy

Give ’em a break: Accounting for off-phone time

Determining When the Resources Are Required

Calculating base staff requirements by half-hour intervals

Adding in the off-phone requirements

Using your forecast to determine call center size

Scheduling Available Resources to Meet Caller Demand

Starting to build your schedules with full-time shifts

Filling in the gaps with part-time shifts

Creating a summary of schedules

Creating weekly schedules

Creating People-Friendly Schedules

Letting agents bid for shifts

Offering flextime

Accounting for Unique Situations

Scheduling for different types of work

Making contingency plans

Scheduling for multiple-site call centers

Part III: Making Life Better with Technology

Chapter 9: An Introduction to Call Center Technology

Seeing What Technology Does for Call Centers

Using Telecommunications Technology in the Call Center

Automatic number identification

Dialed number identification service

Dynamic network routing

Automatic call distributor

Predictive dialing

Interactive voice response

Voice over Internet Protocol

Hosted call center applications

Web tools

Getting Information to Agents

Giving agents the tools they need

Providing specialized call center applications

Connecting agents to the local area network

Generating Reports

Using multiple systems to generate reports

Pulling the data together

Chapter 10: Technological Enhancements: Getting the Newest and Coolest Stuff

Integrating Phones and Computers

Screen pops

Mandatory data entry

Soft-phone functionality

Enhanced reporting

Idle-time training

Coordinated screen transfer

Call routing

Dynamic scripting

Call blending

Web-enabled call centers

Warehousing Data to Track Agent Performance

Monitoring Quality

Using Customer Relationship Management Technology

Putting CRM to work

Developing a CRM strategy

Employing a Knowledge Base

Surveying Customer Satisfaction

Getting Approval for Technology

Chapter 11: Using Home Agents

Seeing Reasons for a Home Agent Program

Making your business run more efficiently

Providing an attractive work option for your agents

Deciding Whether a Home Agent Program Is Right for You

Figuring Out the Technology

Deciding where to host the network

Setting up a network in-house

Implementing the Program

Creating an operating plan

Planning the work

Building a management team

Explaining the program to your staff

Selecting and/or recruiting agents

Setting up the agents at home

Integrating Best Practices into the Program

Delivering uniform customer service

Aligning the workforce and quality teams

Helping Agents Deal with In-House and At-Home Differences

Training

Isolation

Part IV: Creating High-Performance Teams

Chapter 12: Hiring and Training

Recognizing the Key Components of Optimal Performance

Managing Employee Performance in Five Simple Steps

Recruiting the Right People

Evaluating skill

Evaluating motivation

Setting Agent Expectations

Setting performance goals

Establishing bonuses

Doing the math on agent performance

Balancing your expectations

Giving specific directions

Providing Appropriate Training

Keeping the training simple

Covering the basics

Keeping the training short

Encouraging continued training

Chapter 13: Creating a Coaching Culture

Seeing the Benefits of Coaching

Financial benefits

Performance benefits

Understanding the Principles of Coaching

Get the coach on the court

Prioritize ruthlessly

Distinguish among management, leadership, and coaching

Ask, don’t tell

Put energy before value

Build on strengths

Focus on one skill and one step at a time

Be specific

Follow up

Practice consistency, repeatability, and results

Coaching the Coaches

Chapter 14: Creating a Motivated Workforce

Knowing What Motivating Your Employees Involves

Seeing the benefits of motivating agents

Identifying why agents leave

Figuring Out What Motivates Your Agents

Understanding what agents want

Surveying your agents

Comparing your call center with others

Motivating Your Agents

Making agents feel valued

Taking time to recognize agents

Paying agents appropriately

Offering incentive and bonus programs

Developing agents’ careers

Part V: Ensuring Continuous Improvement

Chapter 15: The Power of Process Improvement

Managing Complexity through Process Improvement

Considering complexity in call centers

Benefiting from process improvement

Developing a Culture of Improvement

Seeing your company through the customer’s eyes

Checking the internal view

Mapping your processes

Involving the team

Charting the Flow: An Amateur’s Guide to Process Mapping

Doing a root-cause analysis

Documenting policies and procedures

Staying Informed: Legislative Considerations

Law and order: Creating appropriate policies

Knowing the laws

Chapter 16: Mastering Change in Your Organization

Recognizing When Change Leadership Is Needed

Understanding common changes in call centers

Knowing how people react to change

Seeing why things go wrong sometimes

Improving Your Personal Change-Leadership Style

Avoiding change pitfalls

Following the Rule of Change Success

Reducing Resistance to Change

Earn — and keep — agents’ trust

Communicate well

Show empathy

Identify and work with influential agents

Involve the team

Launch a pilot program

Chapter 17: Quality-Control Programs and Certifications

Certifying Your Management Team

In-house versus external programs

A course is a course, of course, of course . . .

Who should attend management certification courses?

Instituting a Quality-Control Program

ISO 9001/2000

COPC-2000

Six Sigma

Finding Other Sources of Help

Consulting firms

Trade shows

Trade magazines

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Improve Agents’ Job Satisfaction

Recruit People Who Value the Work

Clarify Expectations

Provide Thorough Job-Specific Training

Ask, Don’t Tell

Remove Roadblocks to Success

Calm Fears

Don’t Ask Agents to Do Anything You Wouldn’t Want to Do

Communicate Honestly

Ask for Feedback

Be Positive

Chapter 19: Ten Questions Every Call Center Manager Should Answer

How Does Your Call Center Fit into the Bigger Company Picture?

Why Are People Calling You?

What’s Your Ideal Service-Level Objective?

What Does It Cost to Run Your Call Center for One Hour?

Are Your Employees Happy?

What Will the Call Center Look Like in 12 to 18 Months?

What Legislation Affects Your Call Center?

How Does Technology Affect Your Call Center?

What’s Your Disaster Recovery Plan?

What Are Your Three Initiatives for Improvement?

Chapter 20: Almost Ten Ways to Decrease Call Center Costs and Increase Efficiency

Improve Call Control

Map and Improve Call Processes

Achieve Your Service-Level Objective

Make Your Call Center Bigger

Use Skills-Based Routing

Turn Idle Time into Training Time

Eliminate Unnecessary Calls

Find Out What a Change in Agent Utilization Costs

Relocate Your Call Center

Appendix A: Key Call Center Definitions and Concepts

Appendix B: Call Center Support Services

Call Centers For Dummies®2nd Edition

Réal Bergevin with Afshan Bye, Winston Siegel and Bruce Simpson

Call Centers For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.6045 Freemont BoulevardMississauga, Ontario, L5R 4J3

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Copyright © 2010 by John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.

Published by John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

Call centers for dummies / Réal Bergevin ... [et al.]. -- 2nd ed.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-470-67743-8

1. Call centers--Management. I. Bergevin, Réal

HE8788.C36 2010 658.8’12 C2009-906118-X

Printed in the United States

1 2 3 4 5 RRD 14 13 12 11 10

About the Authors

Réal Bergevin is executive vice president of Transcom Worldwide. In 1991, he founded a call center consulting business that he and his wife, Anne, expanded into NuComm International, a global outsourcing call center service provider. NuComm was listed in Deloitte & Touche’s Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies for five consecutive years and, in 2005, was awarded the National Quality Institute’s Canadian Award of Excellence. NuComm was sold to Transcom in 2007.

In 2001, Réal was honored as one of The Caldwell Partners International’s Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 business executives. He holds a business degree from Sir Wilfrid Laurier University and is the author of 23 Steps to an Effective Call Centre (NuComm Solutions, Inc.).

Afshan Kinder (formerly Bye) is a partner in SwitchGear Consulting with more than 20 years’ experience running contact centers and more than 8 years’ experience as an industry consultant and magazine columnist. She has been a senior vice president of sales and service for companies including Sprint Canada (now Rogers Communications), ING Direct, and Wardair.

She is a past board member of Contact Centre Canada, a current board member of the Greater Toronto Association of Contact Centers, and the author of the “Dear Affy” column that appears in each issue of Contact Management magazine.

Winston Siegel is a founding partner in SwitchGear Consulting and a specialist in high-growth service businesses and leadership development. He brings multi-industry expertise to call centers, having run customer service operations in restaurants, musical theater, and retail before seeing the call center light. He was vice president of operations for North America and Australia at Lavalife, growing its call centers from 9 to 20, and became president of the company in 1999.

He is a speaker on call center metrics, leadership, and sales, as well as the author of several white papers, including “The 10 Sacred Cows of Call Center Metrics” (Innovators Roundtable). He has a philosophy degree from York University and an MBA from the Schulich School of Business in Toronto.

Bruce Simpson is a founding partner in SwitchGear Consulting with a sales background in pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and insurance. He was a founder and chief operating officer of North Direct Response, a call center outsourcer with clients including Royal Bank of Canada, Clearnet (TELUS), and Hewlett-Packard.

He is the author of industry white papers including “The ROI of Coaching” and “How to Control Payroll Leakage,” published by Frost & Sullivan.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the unsung heroes inside every call center. From front-line agents to team leaders and managers, you inspire us — and you inspired this book.

Authors’ Acknowledgments

We’d like to acknowledge the work of Réal Bergevin, who — with the support of John Dickhout, Daniel Willis, and other members of the Transcom team — wrote the first edition of this book. It was a privilege to add to your work and wisdom. We hope you approve.

Thank you to Amar Sidhu from Trader Corp., Arleen King and Ian Cruickshank from TELUS, Bernie Herenberg from ServiceOntario, Stephen Gaskin from Scotiabank, Paul Gyarmati from Reliance Home Comfort, Mariflor Di Rienzo from Ceridian Canada Ltd., Mario Perez from Telax Voice Solutions, and Karen Jensen from CI Investments for sharing their insights with us.

To the members of the SwitchGear army, who provided “roadside assistance” whenever we experienced writer’s block, thank you for your patience and support. A special “thank you” goes to Suzanne Figueirado, who chased us and prodded us relentlessly for months to make sure that we met the deadlines.

Thank you as well to the team of editors at John Wiley & Sons: Robert Hickey; Kathy Simpson; Pamela Vokey; our copy editor, Laura K. Miller; and our technical editor, Bob Milne. Your feedback and coaching helped us produce a better product and gave us a new appreciation for people who write books for a living.

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Introduction

Welcome to Call Centers For Dummies, 2nd Edition. If the topic of call centers has piqued your interest, and you’re looking for a road map that can help you lead and manage a call center, you’ve come to the right place. The purpose of this book is to demystify call centers, explaining clearly what they do and how they do it, all in a simple, straightforward manner. We hope that you’ll have a little fun along the way, too!

In the first edition, Réal Bergevin clearly laid out his approach to call center management and did an excellent job of covering a wide range of related topics. So why did we write a second edition? Well, call centers have changed significantly because of the advancements in technology and the growing influence of the Internet. A new challenge now exists because customers have many ways to communicate with the call center. In addition to the good ol’ phone, customers can use e-mail, online chat, or text messaging to express their feelings or ask questions about products or services.

In addition, many agents can work from home now, so you need to be able to communicate with those home agents effectively. You also have to find innovative ways to lead, motivate, and coach people remotely.

With change coming at a fast and furious pace, how are you going to provide consistently exceptional service to your customers? You can conquer this seemingly difficult task by sticking to the fundamentals, which we cover in this book. This book draws on the experience and insight of four people (us!), but we all lead our businesses by using the same people-first philosophy.

We can’t think of a better vehicle for sharing our knowledge, vision, and philosophy for leading and managing call centers than this book. We hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.

About This Book

Many people have developed some pretty strong opinions about call centers. Executives and analysts alike realize more than ever that call centers can have a tremendous impact on a company’s revenue, costs, market intelligence, and customer loyalty. Call centers have become a significant part of local and world economies.

A well-run call center doesn’t happen by accident or chance. It happens only if the leader of the center has a clear vision of what can be achieved and creates an environment where high-performing teams can flourish. This book can help because it’s full of best practices for leading people and managing process and technology.

Because of the complexity of operating a business in today’s world, many call center professionals have come to us to deepen their understanding of how changes in business affect call center operations. We hope that you benefit not only from this book’s collection of best practices, but also from the depth of knowledge that we’ve gathered through our combined half century of experience. The difference between this book and the variety of call center publications, seminars, and Web sites out there is that this book doesn’t offer a call center “theory of everything.” We share with you concepts and practices that have worked for us in our operations. We know that managers benefit from their mistakes as much as they do from their successes, and through these pages, you get the advantage of seeing what to do as well as what not to do.

Foolish Assumptions

If you work in the call center industry, this book gives you an easy-to-use and (we hope) easy-to-read reference guide to the effective operation of a call center. We make some assumptions about who you are and what you may be looking for in this book:

You’re a hotshot MBA tracking through your career, and you find yourself running a call center.

You’re an experienced call center manager, and you’re looking for some new ideas and perspectives.

You supply the call center industry and want to better understand your clients’ management perspective.

You work in marketing, finance, or human resources, so you have some contact with a call center and wonder what goes on in it.

You’re considering a career in call centers.

You’re working in a call center and want to advance your career by unlocking the mysterious, ancient call center secrets.

You’re looking for new material with which you can dazzle members of the opposite sex. (Okay, we don’t make any promises about this one.)

How This Book Is Organized

Call Centers For Dummies, 2nd Edition is organized in six parts (plus two appendixes), each covering a different aspect of the call center. Chapters within each part cover specific topics in detail. Each part contains concepts and definitions, interesting facts and anecdotes, and (in most cases) practical how-to suggestions pertaining to the topic. You can take any approach to tackling this book. Unless you’re a seasoned call center pro, however, you’ll probably get the most out of this book by starting with Part I.

Part I: From the Ground Up: An Overview of the Call Center

This part provides a good overview of many of the topics covered in more detail in later parts. Consider it to be a call center primer, with a little bit extra. If you’re just getting started or want a brief indoctrination in all things call center, you may find this part to be especially useful.

In this part, we also discuss planning a new call center and considering outsourcing, and we introduce a business model for building a call center and relate that model to the larger corporate mission and goals.

Part II: The Master Plan: Finance, Analysis, and Resource Management

This part looks at call center analysis, financial planning, and staffing. We provide a simple overview of how (and what) measures come together to drive a call center’s operational and financial performance.

Also in this part, we uncover some of the mysteries of how and why call centers perform the way they do, and we explore everything from forecasting to schedule creation and workforce management automation.

Part III: Making Life Better with Technology

Part III reviews call center technologies, including basic requirements, valuable enhancements, and home agent programs. We also cover a simple approach to recommending and justifying new technology, and we show you what this technology can do for your customers, your agents, and your call center.

Part IV: Creating High-Performance Teams

In this part, we cover recruiting; establishing job expectations; offering training, feedback, and support; and creating employee engagement. We also show you how to implement a simple five-step process that can guide the way you manage agents’ performance.

Part V: Ensuring Continuous Improvement

In Part V, we explore the call center process and how to manage and improve it. In addition, we examine policies, procedures, and the effects of legislation and employment law on call centers. We also give you the scoop on mastering change, as well as details on various quality programs and certifications for call centers.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

In this part (a For Dummies classic), we offer tips and techniques that we’ve collected from the call center industry. These quick hits can give a boost to your company’s revenue and efficiency, employee morale, and customer satisfaction. Even if you don’t read the rest of this book, check out this part!

Appendixes

Many industries use a language all their own, and the call center industry is no exception, so Appendix A provides a glossary of key call center concepts. Appendix B gives you access to support services such as call center associations, technology suppliers, and consultants.

Icons Used in This Book

We’ve placed several icons throughout this book to point out certain information, and these icons have the following meanings.

Material marked with the Tip icon provides a general recommendation about how you can improve your call center or run it more easily.

This icon flags any potential pitfalls that you may want to be careful to avoid.

This content is — you guessed it — the stuff we don’t want you to forget.

This icon designates information that you probably don’t need to know but may find interesting.

This icon points out real-world stories that we’ve experienced or that someone told us.

Where to Go from Here

We certainly invite you to curl up on a Saturday night with a nice cup of tea, hot chocolate, or whatever and read this book from cover to cover. We’re sure that you hard-core call center types will find it quite gripping — a real page-turner.

We suspect, however, that some of you may not have the desire or need to read this entire book straight through. We encourage you to find the part that interests you most and start there.

Part I

From the Ground Up: An Overview of the Call Center

In this part . . .

We answer the question “What is a call center?” and explore what makes a good (or bad) call center. If you just want to know how call centers work, are thinking about working in one, or have ever had any aspirations to start a call center of your own, this is the part for you.

In this part, we introduce a business model for building a call center and relate that model to the larger corporate mission and goals. We examine the organizational structure, exploring the roles you need to fill to ensure that the center performs according to its business model and goals. We also discuss the logistics of building a call center and some key factors to consider if you’re thinking about outsourcing your call center.

Chapter 1

A First Look at Call Centers

In This Chapter

Understanding what call centers are

Following the evolution of call centers

Knowing how call centers operate

Differentiating the good and bad aspects of the industry

For years, Réal’s mom has been asking him, “What is it you do, again?” Well, here it is, Mom: He works in a call center. In fact, he works in a lot of call centers. Okay, okay — you don’t know what a call center is. Well, this chapter explains it all.

Defining Call Centers

Here’s a basic definition of a call center: When you call, say, an airline, cable-television company, or bank, the person you deal with at the other end of the phone is a call center