Fixing The Weak Links In The Customer Service Chain

by Christine Harrell⁽⁵⁴⁴⁾ Blue Star

Call center agents are key components in the web of service your company provides, but not all agents are created equal. Just as an engineer will find an inferior component in a product or an analyst will find an inefficient step in the manufacturing sequence, so must a contact center manager use call center reporting solutions to find the weak links in the customer service chain.

Measure Quality

You might rate a factory worker by the number of products assembled, or a data entry specialist by the number of documents processed. Evaluate call center workers in a similar manner by using computerized reporting solutions. You can see how many customers each agent handles, or how many sales are made, or how quickly calls are resolved. Reports show how much time agents spend on the phone, rather than just how much time is spent at a desk.

It's important to evaluate the statistics in some kind of context. Comparing the performance of a technical support agent to that of an order agent doesn't make sense, but comparing order agents against each other does. Be careful about using industry average figures as your organization has its own unique work environment. For example, your agents might take fewer calls per hour because their workloads include non-phone activities.

Using Reports To Motivate

Reporting solutions don't just provide data for managers. Displaying statistics on clearly-visible call center wallboards or agent desktop applications gives agents the power to adjust their own workloads. If call traffic builds up, agents can make a conscious effort to process callers more quickly until the queues are shorter. As traffic drops, agents can take time for other duties such as administrative tasks.

Data on individual agents can be sent to their desktops. It's difficult for agents to judge how many calls are coming through, but when agents can see they are falling behind, they are motivated to redouble their efforts. When call center displays are used as a component of team building, each agent works harder so as not to let down others in the department.

Using Reports To Correct

What about those agents who seem to have no motivation? Managers who see no change in an individual's performance may need to take more aggressive action. This could include listening in on calls to see if the agent is spending too much time chatting with the callers, or dealing with problems that should be transferred to other departments. And, yes, some agents just like to goof off and may need to be periodically reminded of quotas and other goals.

Some agents may simply not work out. Contact center jobs aren't for everyone. It might be time to find another position in the company for lagging workers. If it becomes necessary to terminate an employee, reporting solutions provide hard evidence the termination was fair.

Don't ignore the problem. Use modern reporting solutions to find and fix the problems in your contact center.

Author is a freelance copywriter. For more information about reporting solutions, please visit http://www.inovasolutions.com/.

Article submitted Wednesday, November 02, 2011 & read 8 times.

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