Call Center Management On Target

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I thought the art of call center agent motivation was lost…until I read this article.

In many instances, call center managers don't have a budget to utilize when trying to help motivate their centers.  Pay is normally on the lower side, so the deck is already stacked against the managers.

So what to do?  Work Smart and Not hard.

The call center leadership team in this article understands what's important.

Here's the article:

Dell call center encourages casual comfort | Idaho Statesman Business

TWIN FALLS — Most managers would be furious if their employees were having a marshmallow fight or knitting on the job. But managers at the Dell Inc. call center in Twin Falls encourage a quirky and casual atmosphere, saying that it increases employee performance and job satisfaction.

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Call Center Agent Writes Nasty Resignation Letter

WOW!

Call Centers Are Always Fun!

Sometimes criticism comes hard and local.  I found this blog post very interesting and so I decided to pass it on to you.  I make no claims that this information is true and it only provides one side of the call center story.

So take heed and remember as your momma always use to say …there are always two sides to the story.

stream.elifoner.com

Customer Service agents making out in the halls, employee knife fights, and overflowing commodes are just some of the reasons listed in this flameout resignation letter for why customer service seems to suck so much sometimes. The author worked at a Hazlewood, MO call center for Convergys, one of the leading companies for outsourced call center support. Some of their clients include Comcast, Walmart, and SBC.

Read The Entire Post…

Technorati Tags: call center, call center outsourcing, call center agent

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Call Center Location Choice

You have heard this same story many of times…

Both UK and US customers are not satisfied with call center outsourcing offshore.

I found an interesting article at Business Week, Luring Customers With Local Call Centers, by Mark Scott.

His subtitle…"Finding that the cost savings of offshoring are offset by losses in client retention and satisfaction, British companies are moving support operations back home", says it all.

This is an interesting article. 

Here is another excerpt…

Luring Customers with Local Call Centers

It's no secret that there's something of a consumer backlash against offshore call centers. Some companies, including Dell (DELL) and US Airways Group (LCC), have even pulled some of their call center work back to the U.S. after complaints from customers about everything from foreign accents to the quality of support.

 

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Call Center Information Compiled

Hey you call center people!

Do you want to see some call center information combined with a squidoo lens?

Well then click on over and check out this new page…Call Center Information

It includes valuable information such as:

Learn the Simple Idea I used to Help Reduce Absenteeism from 19% to 3%, Increase Performance by 168% and Improve Quality from 82% to 98.6%

Tap Into The Best Leadership Practices of The Most Successful Companies, and Gain Access To 15 Critical Success Modules That Will Improve Performance and Develop Leadership At All Levels

Create Monthly One on One reviews for your employees on the fly.  Just answer the few short question and press "enter".

Easily Learn What All of The Top Performing Supervisors Already Know…

Whether You've Just Been Promoted or Just Want To Become More Effective, You Can Learn The "Best Practices" That Work.

 

Call Center Fraud

This is a little dated but very interesting.

Honestly this is a concern  in any call center even the US, however if it happens in the US it is most likely a single person buying something for themselves,  This looks like a mass organization.

Your thoughts?  Leave a comment below.

 

 

With so many US and UK citizens being the target from this [tag]call center[/tag fraud], this should be a concern especially in this day and age.

Call Center Services

Are your company's call center services all that they could be? Even centers that were state of the art a decade or so ago might be out of date and inadequate today. As technology expands, so do clients' expectations regarding communication. Nowadays, a client will normally expect to be able to contact a company representative more or less twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, either by phone, fax or email. Clients expect a quick response and courteous, efficient service regardless of how the communication is carried out.

Though the technology to support this level of service is readily available, it can be a challenge for call centers to keep up with. Moreover, the quality and scope of outgoing calls remains important, as global competition for clients is fiercer than ever.

Here are just some of the services that inbound and outbound call centers need to provide to be competitive in today's buisness world. Agents must be able to take orders, process transactions, respond to requests for services and information, and provide effective help for clients who are having problems with the company's products. A sort of 'help desk' is often necessary, with two or three tiers of agents who can respond to various requests and queries. Regarding the outbound function of the call center, market research, polling and sales calls are conducted on a near-constant basis. Supervisors are needed to monitor the agents, and outcomes of calls are tracked and reported by various means. Usually, this requires the call center to have on-site supervisor stations, as well as up-to-date means of tracking and reporting. These fairly traditional services are only the beginning; nowadays, a call center may also be required to respond to letters, faxes and emails, use computer telephony integration (CTI), and provide service through voice recognition programs for those times when the call center is 'closed'.

However, that really is the point - a modern call center should never really be closed at all. Increasingly, clients may reside in different time zones, and they have the right to expect service at any time. Even within a given time zone, there is an expectation of constant availability. This, along with the proliferation of means of communication and the need to integrate and respond to information from various sources, adds to the modern call center's tasks.

The need for all of these services puts considerable pressure on the modern call center, not to mention the company itself! For this reason, some small and medium sized companies may find themselves unable to meet all of these demands for service on their own. Some companies may resist outsourcing their call center needs, perhaps feeling that the personal touch would be lost. According to call center service providers, however, they needn't worry - the modern call center is more than able to provide knowledgable, personal service to clients. It has been proven mathematically that a single large call center is more effective - in terms of cost and service - than multiple small centers. It is easy to understand why this makes sense.

The larger the call center, the more able it will be to provide the full range of services needed today. Some technological solutions are expensive to acquire and update, but if their cost can be absorbed by a large call center that services multiple companies, everyone can take advantage of the technology without having to individually acquire all the hardware and software. Moreover, in a large center, training and supervision becomes streamlined and effective. Individual agents gain expertise at a rapid pace; being exposed to a range of clients, their learning curve is huge.

All in all, there are many reasons to consider call center outsourcing, not the leas of which is the demand for an increasingly comprehensive range of call center services. Nowadays, companies really have no choice but to give clients what they want and need. A modern, fully equipped call center can help you do just that, at a reasonable cost and with updates available as often as you need them.

–About–
Prodialing strives to provide concise information concerning the high tech arena of callcenters, including call center services, predictive dialers, IVR and much, much more. See our website at ProDialing.com(http://www.prodialing.com).
Source: ArticleTrader.com

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Call Center Leadership - Work In Progress

Here is an outstanding call center in action.  If your busy wait to watch this but if you need a little chuckle then this will be worth watching.  Ask yourself, "are there any similarities in my call center?"

Enjoy!

 

Motivate your crew with Call Center Games

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Quality Call Center Software

Your company needs to pull ahead of the others. It is just a fact that the more quality work you can produce the more clients you will have. When it comes to call center software, this is just what you need to have. There are many different varieties of this software. You will find that quality is in most of them. But, what often times varies is the features in them. Ease of use is always something that is important to you and to your employees as well.

One of the best features of these new call center software programs is that you can implement and use them from any location. For example, you may want to encourage agents to work from home. This lowers your costs considerably. The call center software programs that do this, still allow you to monitor the quality of work provided at any and all times. It also helps with keeping your employees. You can have more since you don�t need them to be in the office as well. More agents mean more clients.

Or, if you are in need of another type of call center software program, you may benefit from using interactive voice response software. This software will allow incoming calls to be routed correctly, to the locations that you need them to go through the use of voice responses. This means that you will not have to have an agent answering phones and directing them. Again, this saves you money in the long run and makes things move smoother.

Call center software programs are available for any type of business. You will find that there are hundreds of options available to you. They can help you save money and keep your clients happy all the way around. By allowing your calls to become automated, you have also freed up human error. There are many reasons why you should use call center software in your business. Can you think of any not to?

–About–
Find more information and tips about call center by visiting http://www.dailycallcenternews.info
Source: ArticleTrader.com

Technorati Tags: Call center, all center software

Cutting Call Center costs

The call-center is theoretically the place with a lot of phones and people sitting next to each other talking at the same time. But does is this a call-center you should dream about? I'd prefer if my phone would ring just few times a day with a very particular questions, focused on my business or better sales-oriented question.

 

There is a lot you can do to cut your call-center expenses. But the first step is to measure them and measure the performance of your call-center. It's a good idea to start with running costs. How much does it cost to run a single seat? What if you will be outsourcing some questions to a more cheaper operator. More over, there are some questions [Read more]

Call Center Bloopers…

oops!

Sometimes your agents say the wrong things.

On occassion people remember.

Do you want some interesting, yet light-hearted reading?  When I first started out as a call center agent back in 1990 I remember that I said some really goofy things.

CallCenterScript.com has captured some recent bloopers in their recent article, entitled Filipino call center bloopers: I heard it from another agent

Call Center Fun Reading

Enjoy!

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