The sound of phones ringing. Voices talking over each other. A hint of panic in the air. Sounds familiar, right? That’s how most contact centers are.
No wonder so many call center agents are on the brink of burnout.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. With the right call center management tactics, you can increase productivity while reducing employee turnover.
Are you ready to better manage your call center? Here are 10 call center management tips to save the day.
1. Encourage virtual brainstorming sessions
An effective way to promote teamwork and build an innovative culture is to hold brainstorming sessions.
For example, if you want to improve customer satisfaction scores or reduce call times, let your agents participate in the solution. They’re the ones fielding calls—they can give you some valuable insights to help improve your overall operation.
Instead of hosting your meetings only in physical locations, consider online meetings. While in-person brainstorming improves team collaboration, virtual brainstorming leads to more ideas.
Virtual settings make everyone feel included, regardless of location. They also make it easy for introverts to participate on their own terms.
Keep in mind: the key to successful brainstorming sessions lies in encouraging the free flow of ideas. You may have to break the ice yourself and plan discussion topics in advance to get the ideas flowing, but this preparation can go a long way in setting a positive tone.
In addition to these tips, you should also:
- Provide detailed instructions on the collaboration software of your choice before a meeting.
- Try different techniques like mind mapping, starburst or rapid ideation.
- Determine the rules of engagement before you begin.
- Encourage the use of emojis for online meetings or doodles for in-person sessions.
- Avoid dismissing ideas immediately as this can discourage participants.
2. Use a project management tool to track and delegate tasks
As a manager, it’s important to get a perspective on how agents handle customers. This includes support chats they have, those they have closed, and those that require your input.
To do this, use a project management app like Trello or Airtable to organize, delegate, and manage tasks. These apps are a great way to enable team collaboration and streamline your workflow. Simply integrate it with other applications in your tool stack, such as your CRM or analytics tool.
Project management software can also help you manage different teams separately. For example, use it to create different tables to manage each department’s budget and workload separately.
You can also create a knowledge base for agents in a new table. That way, they can easily find links to FAQs or support guides. Best of all, you can easily take a look at all of your team’s completed tasks for performance monitoring with these tools.
3. Use Social Listening to prevent customer problems from escalating
Social listening tools can help track and control customer complaints without your team having to endure a barrage of angry customers yelling over the phone.
These apps generate comments and posts that mention your brand, helping you determine customer impressions of your products and services. From there, you can better handle complaints and proactively address issues early.
Monitoring social activity around your brand also gives you deeper customer insights and more responsive tech support. Plus, it teaches your call center agents how to provide personalized and informed customer service.
4. Hand Fidget Cubes to agents for stress relief
We know—this might seem small compared to the other tips. But it works.
About 87% of call center agents report high stress in their workplace. Therefore, it is important that managers do their best to maintain a calm atmosphere. One way to do this is to hand out fidget cubes, fidget spinners, or other stress-relieving gadgets to agents.
These gadgets help manage stress when agents are dealing with particularly difficult customers. For some, fidget tools are also useful for reducing boredom.
The benefits of fidget cubes don’t stop there. They can also help improve focus and aid in emotional regulation.
With stress management in the hands of agents, they are less likely to succumb to impulsive behavior or redirect their frustration to those around them.
5. Integrate an IVR software into your system
Interactive Voice Recording (IVR) software integrates with your phone system to automate processes and improve the customer experience. He often delivers pre-recorded messages to greet callers and direct them to the correct department.
This software can also collect customer information and process transactions, reducing the overall workload for agents.
Integrating such a system into your call center structure is a good idea if you want to reduce wait time — which will ultimately lead to happier customers.
6. Measure the CSAT metric to identify areas that need improvement
You can measure your customer satisfaction score (CSAT) using surveys to:
- Understand the emotions of customers at a given moment
- Identify customer pain points on a call
- Track performance at the company or individual dealer level
- Find out how customers feel about an improvement or new feature in your system
Using these surveys, you can ask any question you want to know about a customer’s on-call experience.
For example, ask a broad question to understand how well the caller believes their question was resolved. Or, ask them more specifically if they think they had to wait too long.
You can use survey data to coach poor performers and reward high performers. CSAT surveys use a 1-10 rating system to measure service quality, so it’s very easy to determine who needs the most help on your team.
To get more accurate results from CSAT surveys, send them to your customers regularly, such as quarterly, monthly, or after each interaction.
7. Assess call volume and peak times to prevent overwork
Don’t forget to assess agent workload and overall call volume to keep agent burnout at bay. You can do this in several ways:
- Watch historical data analysis to check which days or times have higher call volume.
- Use real-time monitoring tools to spot sudden spikes in workload.
- Get agent feedback to find out if they’re burned out in the workplace.
After collecting data, you will be able to change system settings and route calls in a more balanced way.
At the end of the day, it’s important to make sure there’s a work-life balance for everyone in the contact center to improve your service quality. Give breaks to overworked agents and rewards to high performers. Set realistic expectations.
8. Use video in your standard operating procedures (SOPs)
All businesses need SOPs. From Day 1, you want to create and enforce clear guidelines about what you expect from your reps. These SOPs should clearly explain how agents should complete tasks, handle customers and behave in certain situations.
This way, not only will all agents behave and operate in a uniform manner, but you’ll also prepare them for unexpected challenges.
First, you’ll want to create your SOPs. Then take it a step further and create videos for your SOPs. Remember that not everyone learns best by reading giant walls of text and bullet points. With a call center, SOP videos can be especially useful, as they can even be used in part as a training tool to show agents how to respond to certain situations.
However, you don’t need to shoot full-on videos with actors. Even recording a simple Loom video that walks the agent through that policy can be helpful.
9. Create a performance control system that empowers agents
An integrated performance control system serves many purposes simultaneously. It allows you to give feedback to call center agents in order to improve overall performance. And it also gives your representatives a chance to speak up and express their thoughts and concerns.
That’s why we don’t call it a show review. Although feedback can be given during this time, it is not a one-sided meeting. Your rep should also feel empowered to talk about what’s going well, what’s not going well, and their general feelings about the job.
Make sure you really listen and acknowledge any concerns they bring to the table. You might get some valuable feedback that you can use to increase overall employee satisfaction.
And remember – happier agents mean happier customers.
If you have feedback about an employee, remember to offer it constructively. Your goal should be to ensure a productive environment and improve agents’ skills rather than reprimanding them.
