Call Centre Managers call for higher levels of performance

Call centres are often the front line of customer service and the highly visible shop window of an organisation.

Driving and sustaining consistent top level performance, therefore, is key to success; generating revenue and keeping costs down whilst maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.

However many things can stand in the way of optimum service provision.

So, what are the biggest problems facing call centres today? And crucially, how can they be overcome?

Failure To Deliver = Customer Loss

Customer attrition is a huge problem for British call centres, with research from Genesys-EMG, Alcatel-Lucent revealing that a massive 73 per cent of UK consumers have – at one point or another – deliberately chosen to end their relationship with a goods or service provider.

The cost of such losses can be enormous. Indeed, Genesys estimates that UK businesses lose approximately £15.3billion every year because customers have either chosen to abandon the purchase they were originally making or have defected to a competitor.

Staff Performance and Attrition

It is well known that call centre work can be very monotonous due to the highly repetitive nature of the job. At the same time it can also be hugely stressful, thanks to ever increasing metrics and targets that have to be met at the same or lower costs.

The result is that call centres continually run the risk of their agents losing enthusiasm and becoming demoralised, which in turn can lead to absenteeism and ultimately attrition.

High staff turnover impacts negatively on call centre performance because every time a trained agent leaves, fewer are on hand to ensure an optimum level of service.

In addition to this, there are heavy costs associated with recruiting, hiring, training and developing new staff – not to mention the costs associated with the dip in productivity that is inevitable as new recruits battle to get up to speed.

At some point or another, most call centres will struggle to increase their performance levels, often reaching a plateau or, worse, finding that their adherence to targets is starting to drop away.

In an in-house environment, this can lead to frustration for both managers and front-line staff. And in the outsource arena, it can cause clients to question the third party’s capabilities.

Call Centre Technology

Today’s contact centres are awash with software, ranging from predictive diallers, CRM databases and workforce management tools, through to sales order processing platforms, credit card security applications and automated voice response systems.

As an example; most call centres use call distribution statistics to show the quantity of the calls handled, along with electronic monitoring to keep a tab on the quality. Usually there is a separate performance sheet for each agent, which is maintained by his or her respective team leader. This provides an analytical view of every call centre agent’s performance and the team/call centre’s as a whole.

In order to drive improvement call centre supervisors need to be able to drill down into individual agent performance.  When it first became available frequent call monitoring, better known as Sporadic Quality Monitoring (SQM), was much appreciated as it was regarded as the benchmark for quality consciousness.  Management promptly implemented SQM, and took it for granted that the customers were getting a quality service.  But, in reality, call centre agents failed to deliver on the promise.

First or One Call Resolution (FCR, OCR) is widely regarded as the holy grail for achieving customer satisfaction in the call centre. However, as today’s customers tend to ring with increasingly complex queries, it isn’t always possible to consistently provide that immediate answer.

If callers end up having to speak to several agents regarding a single enquiry, the customer experience becomes diluted and satisfaction levels plummet.

So, what’s the solution?

Using a performance based software tool has become absolutely paramount to the success of the call centre and its staff.   One such solution is Call Analyser, which combines real time voice recognition linked to call analytics along with intuitive training methodologies based on CRM tools, such as account and campaign management, calendar control and predictive dialling. This all helps with staff performance and motivation levels.  Delivering a bad experience is just as demotivating and frustrating as it is receiving one.  Call Analyser is a software tool that can help an agent perform and do their job effectively. In turn this contributes to building a happier working environment.

From the very first second your agents say ‘hello’, Call Analyser understands every word spoken on every call with your customers, and immediately responds by prompting them to say everything they need to during the live call, thereby offering immediate assistance to the call handler who is then more likely to ‘get it right, first time round’ – regardless of experience.

Call Analyser can be working for you within a matter of hours or days because we’ve already done the hard work for you. This also makes it an extremely affordable solution; on-site or cloud-based. The choice is yours…

Call Analyser offers a one stop solution to the demanding and ever growing needs of the call centre manager.

For more information on the Call Analyser suite of tools, please click here.