An effective and successful call center starts at the top. If not managed correctly, things start to crumble quickly. But if you manage your call center with a steady hand, prioritizing efficiency and agent experience, your customers will feel the positive effects and be more satisfied as a result. Here are four of the biggest keys to top-notch call center management.

 

  1. Prioritize Thorough Onboarding

Agent turnover and absenteeism are big problems in the call center industry and both start with the onboarding process. If agents are not given a thoroughly comprehensive onboarding that leaves them feeling comfortable and confident with any customer situation that comes up, they will be much faster to quit or stop showing up. What makes onboarding effective? First, you need to make sure you are providing all the information that the agents need, on the company itself and on the types of situations they will be dealing with on a daily basis. And second, you need to make sure they are given adequate time to absorb this information as well as put it into practice, through exercises like role-playing and simulations that give them the opportunity to think on their feet and utilize the knowledge they have accumulated. It is only after both of these steps have been completed that agents are ready to hit the phones.

 

  1. Be Comfortable with Flexible Scheduling

Plenty of call centers have returned to an in-office model after being forced to go fully remote during the COVID-19 pandemic, but most have adopted some sort of hybrid model that offers agents the opportunity to work from home some days and in an office other days. While this does make scheduling slightly more complicated, plus makes it slightly more difficult for supervisors to supervise, your willingness as a manager to adopt a flexible hybrid scheduling model is going to go far, with the biggest benefit being a reduction in agent turnover rate. If agents know that a flexible schedule is possible and that it’s not going to be a fight for work from home days every week, they are going to be significantly more satisfied and more likely to stay with your company for longer.

 

  1. Offer Feedback of all Kinds

Agents, especially in inbound call centers, play an incredibly crucial role in customer satisfaction. Given that customer satisfaction is one of the biggest drivers of both business growth and customer retention, you never want to leave agents to their own devices for too long. Feedback is key, both critical and positive. If agents are doing well, they deserve to know! And if agents are repeatedly making errors that can be corrected, it is in the best interest of both your company and your customers to inform them. If you manage a large team, feedback does not always need to be given one-on-one—team meetings are a great venue to touch on some of the changes agents can make to do better as well as highlight the good work of certain agents or teams as a whole.

 

  1. Choose the Right Technology

The final key to excellent call center management is giving your team the tools they need to succeed—and that starts with the call center platform. If your team is using a hybrid or work from home model, a cloud-based call center software is ideal so that everyone has access to everything regardless of where they are physically located. Likewise, you should choose a platform that can be easily integrated with the other apps or software programs your agents need access to so that there is no lag time during calls during which they are toggling between different platforms. CallShaper’s cloud-based platform may be the one that fits the bill—contact us today to learn more.