The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

"missing the importance of the team.. from bottom to top (including all managers as well)"

"Overscripting of responses, micro-managing third parties and ineffective Voice & Accent."

"Perhaps highly experienced people are not estimated/valued as much as they should be.These employees are a valuable tool to attrace new clients"

"not empowering people to do the jib they were hire to do. Trust your employees to do the job and provide coaching and mentoring where needed."

"Union is a big mistake in so many manufacturing industries and Maruti is facing this problem right now. Employee’s growth system is also one more mistake because in some industries, it is not there.
Employees and customers satisfaction is also a mistake.

"

"Some common mistakes are: i) Transaction indicators rather than customer satisfaction indicators, ii) Investment in technology without investing in people and knowledge iii) Internal perspective based on processes rather than the Customer perspective of the relationship."

"Not leveraging knowledge (or poorly implemented KM/KCS). Also, pay attention to IVR design, scripts, and voice (branding) -- poorly designed IVR's turn it into a customer 'avoidance' system."

"Entering the industry without a clue how the process works, business works and expecting that some agent from somewhere will pop giving us business that would give us 1000% profits from day 1"

"The errors are the lack of clear information and guidance to customers, when brindaos misinformation and also the mistakes we make with dual processor, this creates a lack of credibility in the service center."

"The most common mistake I hear about is managing to metrics. Some industry people spend way to much time talking about how to improve the number being measured, rather than the behaviour required to achieve it. To be a little more accurate, they probably talk about both, but provide mixed messages to their front line managers, who in turn, only think about the metric.
Improving behaviours - and training, coaching to these - will provide the measurable improvements being sought after."

"I think trying to pigeon-hole people in roles for extended periods of time. If you don't allow good people the opportunity to improve or move, then by the time they are looking for more responsibility, if they feel stifled, they may have no choice but to look outside the business for progression."

"i) Combining the sales and service effort. I know it is popular and more efficient, and it can be done effectively but often it is simply implemented without due diligence. The thing is the person who can provide the best customer service, may be a lousy sales person. It is a mistake to attach sales quotas to service in those situations.
ii) Making outsourcing decisions based purely on cost. Don’t underestimate the cause and effect. There are a lot of less tangible costs to outsourcing and while they are hard to put a dollar value on, in the end they will negatively impact customer service.
iii) Developing hiring practices and strategies based on high turnover rates. Spend some time and look at the reasons behind the high turnover and be innovative in the approach to retain new hires.
"

"Don't manage on volume and handling times. Respect your people. Don't stay in your ivory tower, be visible on the floor. Be a manager, as a manager you have to be there for your department. So communicate the performance, know your data, but create responsibilities on the floor. People are not stupid, if so you have hired the wrong people."

"talk time targets or First call resolution! can't have both successfully.
IVR - voice recognition. customers want to talk with the business earlier
Outsourcing(off shore) - i believe this shows your customers you really don't care enough about them, so we'll put your requests over here and blame some other poor company for our poor customer experience"

"lack of employee engagement, lack of trainings for employees and lack of recruitment process
"