Call Center Services - Keeping up with the growing demand

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By: Trevor Mulholland

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 Even centers that were state of the art a decade or so ago might be out of date and inadequate today.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 telophony 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 the Author:
Suntan-bed.com provides you with information on how to determine what the best commercial tanning beds are and where you can get your tanning bed supplies.

Ten Top Ways for Managers to Motivate Their People

Martin Haworth

Motivating people is a sure way to get the best from them - yet it is not something for a to-do list. Motivation comes from consistent cultural shifts from within.

Managers are the ones who can show behaviors which will make the difference and lead to a team of highly motivated individuals developing your business forward.

So to help start the ball rolling, here are ten top ways to get your people motivated. Ten small steps for you to start with. 

1. Recognize them
   Recognize your people as people, by saying 'Good Morning', checking that they're OK and taking a little time with them.
2. Challenge them
   People need stimulation at work, so to encourage growth, build on their achievement of one skill, with the introduction of another. Instruct, coach and then delegate the new task.
3. Encourage fun
   whilst it is a fine line between having fun and anarchy, it is worthwhile spending the time to understand, define and explore that boundary. Having fun is a great way to build team spirit. Checkout where everyone's 'fun' threshold is, respect it and then have a lot of laughs.
4. Listen - a LOT!
   Listening to your people builds rapport and a bond which in itself is powerfully motivational.
5. Encourage mistakes
   By stretching themselves, people sometimes get it wrong - and sometimes make gloriously powerful 'inventions' to move your business forward. By creating an environment where mistakes are not wrong but encouraged, you will find creativity soars. Even mistakes where things go wrong and cost money should not be wasted. Create value from these by really learning for the future…as Henry Ford once said "Bring me people who make mistakes" Make it a safe place!
6. Say Thank You
   It is surprising how much reward we all get from being recognized. The humble (if rare in some organizations), "Thank You" is a simple, yet very powerful way to recognize the efforts every one of your team puts in every day. Think of the last time someone said thank you to you and how great that made you feel.
7. Be Understanding
   This tip needs careful and skilful management and great managers can do it. Understand that your people are real people with emotions and experiences which impact on them. Being sympathetic to their needs, occasionally and not so often that it impacts your business, will bring great rewards and commitment. Do set ground rules for yourself which allow 'understanding', yet enable you to draw the line clearly and firmly when you need to. Be consistent and fair.
8. Get Out of Their Way
   By allowing your people to carry out 'the boss's work', you strongly build self-belief in your people. Be fair and don't just delegate the 'rubbish' jobs, but some of your fun jobs as well (and remember to choose individuals whose strengths match the task).
9. Share How You are Feeling
   By being a partner with your people and showing that you are a real person too, you will encourage others to take big steps with you. This works because understanding that you share hopes, fears and challenges in common with your people makes them feel a committed part of you, as well as your business - this is a powerful message which they share.
10. Reward
    Last but not least, pay appropriately. Whilst if you pay brilliantly, yet miss out 1-9 you may get short-term gain, it is unlikely to maintain motivation for more than a while. Conversely, if you pay badly, you may lose people because they simply can't afford to stay with you, however great it is. Striking a balance is the ideal. Don't forget to recognize with some fun rewards and as in No. 6, say thank you a lot. It will pay dividends and is free!

Copyright 2006 Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com.…helping you, to help your people, to help your business grow…© 2006Coaching Businesses to Success.

"Used by permission of www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com"

Call Center Morale Boosting Strategies

Call Center Games Will Improve Employee Morale and Boost Performance.  Check it out and get 2 Free Samples.

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

 

Selecting the Best Call Center Applicants

Drive performance witht he right tools.  Performance management that works:  Call Center Best Practices

Selecting the Best Call Center Applicants
By Roberto Bacasong

Choosing the best applicants to fit in your call center company will take certain considerations. The survival of your outsourcing company against strong competition in the market will depend on how competent your employees in catering to the concerns of your clients.

Selecting the potential applicants to be trained and employed should undergo strict process. If you want for the best then help yourself in hunting for persons who will qualify in handling your account. Human resource personnel are mostly in charge in interviewing the walk-in applicants who wish to get employed in your company. As the chief operating officer or simply hired as country manager of the company you work for proper documentation of the volume of applicants your office received should be recorded.

The fastest way to be employed easily is applying at any contact center industry. Every outsourcing company is accommodating applicants to fill in their vacant position. The applicants can browse jobs opening through online job companies offering services like this. A job advertised online is the convenient approach when applying for a job. Jobseekers can save time and money because companies are going to respond with their application within only few working days. Another way of searching job is viewing the listing under the classified ads of the national daily newspapers. Big contact center companies allocated budget in paying the commercial rates when posting for their jobs opening. Outsourcing companies spent huge amount of money in letting the public informed about available jobs.

When receiving volumes of bio data, resume, and curriculum vitae from the applicants, the personnel from the Human Resource Department will start selecting the potential jobseekers to schedule for interview. There'll be stages to be done to in hiring new employees.

As an interviewee, you need to pinpoint the strength and weaknesses of the applicants. If you have big companies catering inbound and outbound services, chat support, web content writing, and technical support, ask first the applicant what position he or she applying for. If from the beginning of the interview, if the applicants answer your questions directly and clearly then they might be eligible to proceed to the next level. The interviewee should watch out the grammar and sentence construction of a particular applicant. The accent is not much under priority because the applicants will learn it during training period.

The interviewee should also observe the behavior of the applicant. If you see undesirable attitude from the beginning then it's an indication not to precede the application to avoid problem in the near future. However, as an interviewee you need to say it in a nice way. The hardest part of being in-charge for the selection process is turning down the applicants. However, you should not be affected with this because you are just doing your job in maintaining the company's policy in choosing for the competent employees.

In call center companies, attrition rate is one of the most concerns because people come and go. If you want your center to achieve its goal, the skills, aptitude tests, and abilities of every people employed are very important. There are so many challenges in call center industry today. Maintaining people and choosing the right one are serious matter.

At the beginning of the interview, you may notice that most of the applicants are showing their interests such as politeness, enthusiastic, and very responsive to the questions. However, once get hired these people often found out slacking off the floor and showing undesirable traits. This is the reason why contact centers often give competitive tests to have more access to the applicant's performance. For instance, from 10 applicants usually one or two were able to make it because of the stringent selection process.

The best way to select potential jobseekers are forming strategies, which could be used in the hiring process. At the end of the day, your company have selected new batch of people to be scheduled for training and placed under probationary status.*

Roberto L. Bacasong, 27, works as company writer for Call Center Philippines Unique Interaction

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Roberto_Bacasong
http://EzineArticles.com/?Selecting-the-Best-Call-Center-Applicants&id=978677

 

Call Center Best Practices, Work Smarter

As you know by now, I like to work smart and not too hard.

You can achieve call center performance with this philosophy if you adopt best practices from many of the top performing call centers in our industry.  Why re-invent the wheel?

Call centers require discipline and using proven performance systems you saves you many hours of frustration.  That is why I put together CallCenterBestPractices.com.

Many call center leaders fail to understand that a solid performance process comes down to two things:

1.  Consistency and

2. Adherence to your choosen process.

Do you have a process in place?

I decided to share some of the tools that I have used over the years as a call center consultant.  So, I put them on a site and packaged the information by providng two free downloads.  Basically, you sign up (it's free) and you get two free downloads that have worked wonders for me when it has come to performance management and call center goal attainment.

In addition, I share the details around 4 key processes I follow:

• Leadership is a Contact Sport - This complete leadership development program has 15 modules that hit the critical leadership skills necessary to be successful.  Use this highly acclaimed program to improve the results for your organization.  This program is great for developing your leadership team.
• Imagine Having a Software Program That Takes You Less Than 5 Minutes to Create a Highly Effective Goal Worksheet For Your Employees, Utilizing the Most Effective Goals Setting Format Available: SMART Goals.
• High Performance Management Process - This eBook defines clear steps for coaching and employee discipline.  The material is adaptable to any work environment and focuses on performance improvement.  Two paths provide ample options for the success of your employees and your management performance.
• Monthly Review Software - This simple software program produces one page reviews for your employees.  Simply answer questions in the wizard and the software helps you build a review that can be delivered each month.  This type of up to date feedback will motivate your workforce as well as offer directions for individuals not meeting their goals.  And your Human Resources Department will love it! 

These systems are known to drive call center performance and they can for you too.  Especially if you're willing to work smart and not so hard!

Remember sign-up is free!

Go To:  CallCenterBestPractices.com to get your free information.  Oh yeah, I have a 50% discount available for the upgrade if your interested.  I'm doing this to help me with my tax bill otherwise

Call Center Agent Performance Now Possible

I am pleased to announce that Call Center Games has been updated and released at CallCenterGames.com

Call Center Agent performance is a reality with this tool. 

The basic premise is that using fun competition you can drive performance to new levels.  This is a fact and I have personally used these tools to do just that.  If you're a call center leader then you'll want to learn more.

Head on over to CallCenterGames.com and get your free samples.  Test out our system and before you know it, your team'sw performance will be soaring.  The best part about it is that they will drive it and be happy to do so.

Call center performance can be a difficult  task to accomplish.  Why make it harder than it needs to be.  Work smart and achieve more.

Call Center Games is the answer

Tags:  [call center], [call center management], [call center performance], [call center outsourcing]

The Evolution of Call Centers

Call centers evolved around 30 years ago, in the travel and hospitality industry. The concept of call centers are giving way to "contact centers". Often, smaller companies cannot afford the high price of Helpdesk software, let alone the resources to fund a full time support center. Call centers gained wide acceptance, as companies began to learn that service is the key to attracting and maintaining customers. Call center help desk software is now available on a wide variety of platforms and salability.

Typical software functionality [Read more]

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 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.