Brits Fed Up With Call Centers

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Wow, what a cool program this company is setting up.

I actually found this story on a  blog.  Here is an excerpt and a link to the entire story.

The U.K.-based insurance company, More Than announced that it now provides its customers with a free call center service that gives each customer his own personalized agent, a Personal Customer Manager (PCM). According to More Than, a customer receives the email address and direct phone number of his designated representative, thereby establishing a relationship with a single agent for his ongoing insurance needs and queries.

Read the entire story:  Brits Fed Up With Call Centers

 

Technorati Tags: call center service

Call Center Morale and Productivity

Trying to maintain employee morale in a call center can be tought at times.   And when morale is down so is productivity.   Creating positive competition among your teams is the best way to improve both morale and productivity results.

CSR love to compete against each other and coming up with creative ways to do that can be a challenge, until now.  I put together a video that you or members of your leadership team will want to see:

Motivate Your Team

Recent Call Center News

ATENTION:  This website and or domain name are for sales…..If you're interested visit my contact us page and drop me a note.

Ok, here is some call center news...

Poaching of call-center workers worries Davao chamber
Davao Today - Davao City,Philippines
… call center workers just outside their offices, by offering them higher salaries," one official said. DAVAO CITY — As major business process outsourcing …
See all stories on this topic

 

RCC provides a state of the art service to Chrysler Group
PRLog.Org (press release) - Bucuresti,Romania
Org) - Being known for Automotive Best Practice, Raya Contact Center was entrusted by Chrysler Group to provide call center services 24/7 for their …
See all stories on this topic

Enjoy!

Call Center Sales Results Can Improve…

Trying to drive call center sales can be a depressing thought!  With employee morale low at times, with pressure to raise the bar many floor managers can feel like giving up.

Ah, but I have a solutions.

There are steps you can take to help improve your call center results.  I've listed the steps below, but if you want the detail, you'll need to visit this article…Ten Actions You Can Take Right Now To Improve Your Center’s Sales Results

10 Steps To Improved Call Center Sales Results:

1. Put the Stack Rankings On A White Board
2. Eliminate Certain Negative Vocabulary
3. Eliminate Your Dead Weight
4. Raise Quota!
5. Increase the Amount of Real-Floor Coaching that Takes Place Every Day
6. Simplify Your Sales Training
7. Increase Agent Compensation
8. Start Shopping For Sales People, Not Nurturers
9. All The Evidence Is In The Calls
10. “Shape Up” Those Nurturing Floor Managers

To read the article from the original source please visit:  http://www.call-center-sales-training.com

 

Call Center Employee Professionalism

I am sad to say that good call center people are hard to come by.

For those that take great pride in your level of service, this is not for you…

But I just want to share an email I received yesterday evening from a visitor to this site…

CallCenterCafe.com is completely financed by me, in both time and money.   So, in an effort to help with my costs, I occasionally advertise different offers that I think people may be interested in.  Occasionally I get a lunatic that completely disagrees with this logic and let's me know how they feel.

…in my opinion we have choices.

We have choices what we do minute to minute, day to day and month to month.  If you don't like a TV show, change the channel, if you don't like your job, get a knew job.  If you don't like the web site you visited, click to somewhere else.  AM I wrong?

Ok, so here is the email I received (I did do this person a favor and withheld their name and email address but otherwise left the email intact.)   My big question is who does this employee work for and maybe they shouldn't be in customer service.  I would hate to have a problem, call an 800 number only to get this miserable soul.

Ok here's the email…(let me know what you think, leave a comment.)

THANKS BUT NO THANKS,

I will report you to the international illelegal practices court.

You do not run any call centers or bpos, neither does any belong to you.

You people are middle agents who make money while we people work .

Because you want liqour , and tobacco on a regular basis , you people are
in bad habbits

and make money out of illelegal business like  recruiting firms.

I will sent a report of your illelegal activities and trade to all the
leading news papers and news agencies in the

world. i will also report your illelegal activities which run on your
behalf to the supreme court of india.

also to central bureau of investigation .

thanks but no thanks …..

Do you see my point?  Leave a comment…

 

Call Center Games Will Motivate Your Teams - Trial Version

Ok, all my peers think I'm crazy to let everybody take call center games for a test drive.

The trial version only last for a short period of time but you'll get an idea of how powerful this tool is for motivating your call center staff.

If your interested go to the Motivate Your Teams page and you'll see the download link about a 1/3 of the way down. 

If you decide to download it, please leave me a comment!

Thanks

Greg

How Your Agents "Sound" Affects the Success of Your Call Center

By Katherine M. Hart

 

Does that sound harsh? Yes, it does but in today’s world of increasing telephone communications, it is the truth. With the predominance of Call Centers taking over varied functions that influence many areas of the population on a day-to-day basis, the need for Vocal Empowerment in the Call Center is critical to both corporate profitability and individual employee success. The “sound of your agents” has a direct result on the degree of satisfaction that customers rate your company. Often customers equate poor vocal skills with intelligence, interest in problem-solving, and complete understanding of the situation of the caller.

Unfortunately, not just call center agents, but many of us live a vocal lie. Our voices - what we say and how we say it - does make the difference of whether we get the job, the next promotion, or even making it through the interview.

In the Call Center industry, managers grapple with performance measurements when metrics on some agents exceed minimum standards due to the need for repeated information and customer frustration with comprehension. Agent recruiters are always “listening” for clarity and good vocal skills in the next training class that is being assembled. Corporations continue to search geographic locations where dialect is minimal and the potential pool of employees is plentiful. I have seen that with proper short-term training and long-term coaching, call center agents can achieve proper vocal excellence.

Most people think that how they speak as an adult is part of their personality and not a physical skill set that they can change. That is not true. Through vocal coaching, the agent’s vocal ease and ability to be clearly understood without physical strain can be achieved. We learn our sound, our speech, and our vocal image from our environment. Fortunately, we can change that as easily as we first learned to speak. Improper vocal skills learned and uncorrected as a child trying to communicate with those in our world can be reversed.

Call Center Managers and Supervisors must invest in the vocal skills of all agents – whether they have discernible problems or not. Enhanced self-confidence and greater ability to concisely deliver the corporate message is an investment that will pay dividends for the agent, manager, and corporation.

There is no shame in needing this extra skill set to be learned and practiced. Many of the “basics” of education have been overlooked in the last several decades of progressive education. The skills of reading and comprehension are often discussed, but the lack of proper vocal training in pre-school and throughout elementary grades has all but disappeared from the curriculum. There are many training courses, schools and programs that address the needs of remedial reading and comprehension, math, etc., but there are only a handful of experienced vocal coaches that are training outside of the performing arts industry.

Most Call Centers budget for the latest in technology, and many purveyors of software for scheduling, scripting, up-selling, and process training for agents, but without the ability to properly speak and to be successful in vocally deliver the message, the desired results may not be attainable without utilizing the skills of a professional vocal trainer.

The ability to be able to speak with the proper vocal skills for 6-8 hour shifts does not entirely rest on the agents’ vocal skills or lack thereof. Part of poor vocal performance is related to physical posture, work-space ergonomics, and facility environment. With a brief evaluation of the call center facility, and by utilizing some fairly easy recommendations, in conjunction with formalized Vocal Training, can vastly improve the performance of the agents, but also will translate into greater employee satisfaction.

The ability to stave off high employee turn-over is an additional benefit of proper vocal training. By addressing the physical comfort and vocal performance, employees are more likely to stay within their current job.

The essence of Vocal Empowerment is made up of 5 Elements of Effective Voice: Interest, Clarity, Authority, Language, and Listening. When these skills are mastered and become second nature in daily speech, confidence and success follow.

Interest - Interest is an intellectual skill requiring that you orchestrate the rhythms of your sound.

Clarity - Clarity is a physical skill requiring the use of an active, exercised mouth.

Authority - Authority is an emotional skill that expresses your credibility about what you are speaking. Requiring self-confidence and cleanly executed emotional and physical choices.

Language - Language is the process of being able to respond to others with words and phrases which demonstrate interest, are clearly understood, and are informative, knowledgeable and helpful in evoking a sense of authority.

Listening - Listening is an act of respect and openness to others.

I am more convinced than ever with the global community that we all participate in, the need for clear and concise communications is vital to our continued ability to work together in an atmosphere of respect and trust.

When considering introducing Vocal Empowerment training, insist that training class uses interactive, job-centered exercises and techniques that meet every call center agent’s special performance needs in order to produce individuals who speak and move clearly with interest and authority. Demand that the vocal coaches and trainers have completed professional voice training and are able to illustrate before and after samples of their work and results. Request professional references. You are asking your agents to undertake a physical, emotional and challenging course. The trainers must be able to have a complete understanding of physical and vocal interdependence and be empathetic to the agents while still being able to effect a tremendous personal change to varying degrees for your staff members.

The success of your call center, the job satisfaction of your agent staff, and your company’s customer image are dependent on the ability to attain vocal empowerment for your employees.

Katherine M. Hart is President and Founder of Hartfelt Communications, a professional training and communications imaging company. Over the past 25 years, Ms. Hart has trained over 25,000 Call Center Agents, Corporate Executives, Politicians, Actors, Community Leaders. She has developed several programs including ICALL and the Communications Connection - a corporate communications training program to work with developing strong internal communications protocols that translate to greater customer satisfaction. For many other presentation, training, and vocal empowerment programs, please visit http://www.hartfeltcommunications.com Sign up for a monthly ezine-newletter "From the Hart" with vocal tips and communications essentials. To contact Katherine Hart for a recommendation from her network of professional voice-over artists to implement professional voice imaging in your company, please contact her at: khart@hartfelcommunications.com or call 312-786-1868

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Katherine_M._Hart
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-Your-Agents-Sound-Affects-the-Success-of-Your-Call-Center&id=517903

Call Center Morale Boosting Strategies

By Michael Russell

 

Morale is deceptively important in the running of an efficient call center. The reason it is deceptive is because while most bosses acknowledge the relationship between morale and productivity, few call center bosses are able to accurately pin down a decrease in productivity as being directly related to a lowered morale. The reason it is important is the same; namely that a higher morale means happier workers, which in turn leads to an overall increase in call center productivity.

What does it mean to have high productivity in a call center? Well for starters it means a higher level of customer focus, as call center agents with higher morale are going to sound more pleasant over the phone. It is human nature to unconsciously let feelings show through and in a job that involves a large amount of telephone conversation, it becomes easy to see how an unhappy worker can result in customer complaints and unnecessary headache further on down the road.

More than just customer focus, high morale in a specific worker can lead to that worker contributing to a more relaxed working environment, which in turn can have a positive morale effect on another worker. This worker then contributes to an even more relaxed working environment and so forth. Morale boosting can create a positive feedback cycle that benefits the whole staff of a call center, thereby making things easier for everyone involved.

So how can one increase the morale of their call center staff? The first step is in understanding what causes morale drops in the first place. Call center employment, as far as front line services go, is the ultimate emotional roller coaster ride. A worker can receive a compliment from one customer that makes them feel great and thirty seconds later be in tears from an angry client using harsh words against them. While it is impossible to avoid angry clients, attentive bosses can take steps that diminish the impact angry clients and other potential obstacles have on the morale of their staff.

The best morale boosters are ones that understand how humans work and think. Incentives are a good way to start; a bonus for achieving a milestone (such as working a certain number of hours without receiving a complaint) is something that will make a worker feel special, as well as let them know that their boss is looking after them directly.

Recognition is another important form of morale boosting that is frequently overlooked by call center administrators. Human nature is such that even a simple thank you can last a long time. Call center staff that have been working the phones a long time develop a confirmation bias that magnifies one type of call and diminishes another in their memory. If their bias is toward positive phone calls, then half the battle if done. If however it turns out to be toward negative phone calls, they will need help to keep their morale high.

And that is where recognition comes in. Finding a way to recognize workers on a regular basis for a job well done can really keep them in high spirits, allowing them to get through that next bad day with less effort than otherwise. Remember what I said above about the positive feedback high morale can generate? Recognition is a simple way to start that loop.

In conclusion, a good way to view call center morale is to think of it as a tool of the trade that is used to increase worker productivity. Call center administrators need to be savvy enough to realize the important relationship between worker morale and worker productivity. High morale is one of the most important aspects of a good call center and with it the sky is truly the limit to what workers can accomplish.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Call Centers

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Russell
http://EzineArticles.com/?Call-Center-Morale-Boosting-Strategies&id=456718

Is 2007 the Best Year for Call Center Outsourcing?

By Michael Rad

 

More and more and day by day, the need of having the answering service agencies has been increasing. Lots of companies are very happy with the collaboration with such agencies because they know for sure that their customers can get the answering service information any time they call, even if it is day or night. They can be informed about anything they are interested in, or can be advised on how they can get in touch with the person they want to speak with.

The biggest companies in the world have 24 hour answering service information any day of the week. It is not professional at all to not be able to answer to the phone calls, therefore the most successful business companies in the world have hired special agencies that have answering service information with the help of some human operators or some virtual receptionists.

These, can answer to any question the clients may have at some point, even if they have general requests regarding the company or a certain person in the company or even if it is about the products that are sold by the company in question.

Answering service information helps a great deal every business man in order that he keeps his clients happy and make new ones, without messing up his work schedules or his business appointments. The competition among these answering service agencies have recorded an increasing path lately. From time to time, managers consider that his employees need to attend new answering service courses that may offer them the news and new technology knowledge, when it comes to this job.

The sobriety, accuracy and the promptitude of the answering service information is very important to a customer when appealing to a public service like this one. More clients are attracted by the companies which have a very professional answering service information, because they know they can find the accurate answers they expects to get from these professional agents.

Recently, a whole new information technology has been developing due to the large number of relationships that business people have with one another or with their customers. Call center tips face out their clients by helping them to interact easier with the customers they have business with. A call center is an office provided with computers, a telephone set plugged in with a telecom switcher, used by specialized call center agents.

The computers may be independent or connected through a computer network to other centers. Call center tips manage with a very large number of purchaser demands by receiving and conveying them by telephone, faxes, emails or letters. Normally, the secretarial services, info lines, intermediary calls, telemarketing, inbound and outbound campaigns are offered by call center tips.

A lot of businesses are functioning throughout the help of these call centers, such as : different public service companies, hardware and software computer companies and so on. The call center people, specialized in using the telephones and computers in order to make phone calls for sales, information or research evidence, may also use several web sites sales by responding to some possible people who would be interested in buying products from those web sites.

Call centers tips are offering the best services for any kind of customers or business people. The general goal for every call center is to maintain their old clients and to make new ones by offering them the best and proper information they need being readily and secure.

In order to be very efficient, people who are employed in a call center are very well trained by graduating different professional courses, which give them the opportunity to be promoted or to progress in time. There are specific seminars which are recommended to be attended by the leaders or the ones with strategic charges in order to be taught how to develop a call center and what are the priorities in doing such a thing.

More resources from the author:
joc gratis online
Volvo 740 photos and pictures
film amuzant

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Rad
http://EzineArticles.com/?Is-2007-the-Best-Year-for-Call-Center-Outsourcing?&id=587258

Post Your Call Center Articles Here

Do you have stories to tell about the call center industry?

Do you know great techniques to improve call center performance?

This is your opportunity to get recognized.  CallCenterCafe.com is offering you the opportunity to post your stories and articles that relate to the call center industry.

To get started go to our contact us page and let us know you want to have a go.  We will contact you with more details.

This is a great opportunity to post your articles and promote your call center, training or leadership related business on a very high traffic call center site.

Have a great day and take action today!

Greg Meares