Creative Ways to Improve Your Call Center Department

Finnegan Pierson

Call centers have a mixed reputation across all industries. They are necessary to provide support and answers to customer questions. Managers face the challenges of keeping frustrated customers happy. Customers are frustrated as call centers have become more automated, and a caller will get lost in the phone system queue and hang up more times than not. Managers also face the challenges of keeping call center employees happy in a business where the employee will frequently deal with angry customers on the phone. The managers focus on developing creative and unique ideas to drive growth and improvement.

Call Centers Need Proactive Communications With Customers

The telephone has been a primary method for call center communications. Over the past decade, chat sessions have become an alternative. When a call center receives calls or chats, the center is in reactive mode. When the call center department partners with the sales team to drive proactive communications like email marketing, the call center can provide customers with valuable tips and tricks.

This proactive effort will help solve problems before they happen and minimize the calls to the call center. The positive impact of reduced calls will be less stress on the employees. A company will have problems with a disgruntled employee answering the customer calls. Call centers also struggle to keep employees in step with company product changes, and any extra time provides opportunities to train staff for future product releases.

Call Centers Need to Streamline Troubleshooting Methodology

When a customer contacts a call center, the agent answering the call is generally an entry-level employee. This employee follows a script of if-then scenarios to determine how to resolve the problem. As the decades have passed, more people have become tech-savvy and have tried many of the items that the call center agent suggests working through troubleshooting the problem. The time wasted on a script will further frustrate the customer.

A company should list items on their website that are general troubleshooting steps. These can also be sent proactively to the customer to respond to the chat sessions. If these are labeled as items to try before contacting us, the call center agent can ask first if they have tried everything on the list. If the customer replies yes, the agent can proceed to the next group of advanced questions. Handling a frustrated customer is tough, but proactive steps will help minimize frustration.

Call Centers Need Bonus Programs for Retaining Employees

Turnover is high in call center environments. Every person has their breaking point, and most people who leave a call center job will say the money is not worth the trouble of being yelled at by a customer or a manager. If a company sets up a bonus program to incentivize an employee to be paid extra for handling and resolving difficult calls, employees will invite the tough calls.

Giving the employee a personal stake in the future of the call center will drive quality improvements. A happy employee will produce better results. Employee stakes can also involve building team-based approaches and internal competitions. These competitions can be enjoyable to keep morale at a high level. The team support will help drive through challenging situations.

Call center managers face challenges with retaining employees and need to be creative in problem-solving the issues they face. It is costly to have turnover. It takes time to hire a new employee, train the employee, and realize the benefits of the hire. The call center manager needs to be proactive to drive continuous improvement and cannot accomplish this goal with the time spent dealing with turnover matters.

The mission statement of call center departments is to provide quality customer support and drive product satisfaction. Companies need to be creative with their call center approach to meeting this mission statement and solving management challenges as technology evolves. Customers will continue to demand a quicker turnaround on solving their issues.