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Call Center Tips
October 27, 2006
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This week we think you will learn a lot about call center turnover and time management. We have also included some Hot industry news.

Attention Leaders seeking Personal Development!

We are excited to announce a new blog site just for you: The Right To Lead Success blog. It has the personal development resources you are looking for!

One of the great disappointments conventional managers and business owners face when they first use telemarketers is the amazing amount of employee turnover.

By comparison, if you want to hire someone to do customer service, especially if they’re experienced, you can expect them to be stable. They’ll probably last six months or a year or two, at minimum.

Hire somebody on Monday for telemarketing, and if they’re still aboard by Friday, throw a party! You just may have someone who will last a month, or wow, even two!

Am I exaggerating?

Sadly, I’m not.

Why is there such turnover?

time management
So many things to do, so many books to read, so much to study, so much you want to accomplish-and so little time!

You've heard the joke. "I try to take one day at a time, but lately several days have attacked at once."

Sometimes, that's how it feels if you don't practice proper time management. There's so much to do and you're already burning the candle at both ends, yet you never seem to finish everything you set out to do, everything you need to do.

The Spanish have a proverb that says, "Time is short, but wide." That means we all have the same twenty- four hours each day; it's what we do with it that matters. So what do you do when there's so much demanding your attention and seemingly not enough time to get it all done?

We are human, so we all make mistakes. Which of us didn't make a mistake last year? We know that we make mistakes, and when that happens in business on a regular basis, we are likely to get complaints. The first thing we need to understand about complaints is that they are not bad things.

Business: Can I help you sir?

Customer: I'd like to complain.

Business: Certainly, Sir. Would you like the standard ten minute complaint or do you want to go for the full half hour?

Apologies to Monty Python for the above.

The statistics seem to be as follows:
  • 96% of dissatisfied customers do not complain; they simply go elsewhere next time.
  • Of the 4% who do complain, if we handle their complaint well, between 50% and 74% will return. If we solve their problem instantly, however, 97% will return.
That means if a customer complains, at least 20 would have complained but couldn't be bothered. Not only that, if a customer complains and you solve their problem straight away, you are almost guaranteed that they will return to your business in the future.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - When customers pull up to the drive-through at two Lexington, Ky., Wendy's locations, the friendly voice asking "May I take your order please?" isn't coming from inside the restaurant.

It's coming from a call center.

Miami Management, which owns 16 Wendy's restaurants in central Kentucky, is one of a handful of fast-food businesses around the country experimenting with call centers as a way to improve drive-through service.

Miami Management is testing the concept at the Winchester Road restaurant in Lexington and the Keeneland Drive location in Richmond.

"We're trying to make it a much better experience for the customer," Brian Fields, director of operations for Miami Management, said during the noontime rush earlier this week.

He said the system improves accuracy, speed and courtesy.

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