4 Tips To Being a Better Call Center Boss

Lewis Robinson

Your professional aspirations have always included leading people. Since you were young, your strengths have rested firmly in your ability to train, coach and guide others. You are a natural-born leader, so getting that promotion and becoming a supervisor is something you have worked hard to do thus far. The call center is one aspect of the company that you feel confident in leading; however, you may find it difficult to get your employees behind your efforts. What can you do to be the best boss possible? Discover four strategies you can deploy to become a better boss.

1. Delegate Using the SMART System

Some people have difficulty letting go of work, especially when it comes to trusting others to complete tasks effectively. However, as a supervisor, you must lead by example and empower those you oversee to do more. The SMART approach to delegating work is something that has proven to work time and time again. It allows you to create actionable tasks and assign them to those willing and able to perform them successfully. It sets you and your team up for success rather than failure. The SMART system involves:

• Specific items that you can task to members of your team
• Measurable tasks allow you opportunities to coach employees and review their work
• Achievable goals will be set on an individual basis to ensure no one is in over their heads
• Relevant skills to the call center and the company must be the focus
• Time-sensitive tasks must be well laid out and deadlines implemented for tracking

Once your team understands their roles and your expectations, productivity and enthusiasm may increase.

2. Don't Micro-Manage Employees

Your reputation is at stake with each issue that crops up. When you delegate work, you want to make sure those you give it to complete it. When your boss sets goals for your team, you want to hit every single one. As a supervisor, yes, you want to watch what your employees are doing, but are boundaries that need setting. Micro-managing every aspect of a worker's day makes for a sour taste. Creating necessary to-do lists to check off, meetings that could be emails and spending too much time looking over shoulders will create an environment of fear. Your charges may start developing negative attitudes and impressions of you. Giving employees space and time to complete their work at arm's length is the best way to show them you believe they are capable.

3. Do Praise and Reward Hard Work

When a call center hits target goals involving turnover time, customer satisfaction surveys, and the like, you should praise those who lead the way. You may believe admonishing those who fall to the bottom is the proper track, but this is not the case. Praising those workers who go above and beyond in a public way demonstrates that you like to give credit where it is due. Developing a reward system that gifts those who hit targets with praise and prizes such as gift cards to restaurants, workwear or cash can motivate even those who seem the most skeptical of your leadership skills.

4. Don't Create Unnecessary Work

You want to create something special that will set you apart from other supervisors at your level in the company. You put your thoughts together and develop systems that you then deploy throughout your own team to test. This may work for a time, but if the new methods involve more work for your team members, they may hesitate to give it the green light. Busy work wastes time and zaps the energy from the tasks that need doing. While you may believe your idea will pan out, be open to accepting the feedback of those who are using it. If your team is not happy with the changes, it will prove a waste of time to roll out on a larger scale.

Remember that you are one person overseeing several. In a high-stress call center environment, you need to prepare yourself for the good and the bad. Becoming better at delegating and empowering your team will go much farther than controlling them.