Properly built communication with customers is the key to the success of any company. After all, not only do your staff need to answer questions promptly but there is also an efficient expansion of sales to be handled. And that’s exactly what makes the services of call centers today quite in demand.
Outsourced call centers (inbound or outbound, whatever) make a great solution for small companies that simply cannot afford to set up a full-on contact center. However, the crucial business-deciding point is how you manage an outsourced contact center. Management is the pillar of your business income generation and continuous development.
Personnel management is the major aspect of the call center, and it cannot be stressed more. After all, this type of company is primarily focused on people’s communication, so the quality of staff performance is paramount.
Operators are the main group of personnel in any call center. They are led by a senior operator. Ideally, such a person should sit in each row, which is six people or more. If there isn’t a person responsible for operating operators in each raw, miscommunication and other issues may arise.
This is especially relevant for outsourced call centers. They perform many tasks, and senior operators are the major go-to instance for operators. A senior operator is fully knowledgeable about the tasks that are performed by his colleagues, reducing the burden on supervisors. At the same time, each supervisor should manage no more than 15 operators.
All in all, it is important that you clearly understand the logical hierarchy of workers, which starts as follows.
Supervisors are the direct superiors of operators. They do not work on the line in some companies and engage in calls in some way in others (mostly, in outsourced facilities). Their primary task is to monitor the quality of operators’ work and regulate their workload.
The personnel training department and, specifically, business coaches are only partially integrated with the company's overall workflow. They train new employees, improve sales and telephone service skills, and monitor the quality of speech of employees who communicate with customers.
Business coaches participate in each stage of project preparation, as well as in the implementation process and monitoring of implementation. They are often attracted to writing scripts and optimizing call center performance indicators.
The IT department's employees interact with various enterprise levels and, on the other hand, have their own direct management. This department ensures the smooth operation of operators in terms of software and monitors the state of technical equipment.
One of the main issues of an outsourced call center team is the constant staff turnover. Operators often quit, so the human resources department usually has a lot of work to do. All employees who come to get a job are offered a survey, after which they are invited for an individual interview.
Personnel officers also design vacation and workaround conditions and process various applications. The personnel department reports directly to the call center's top management and to the project managers (in cases where people need to be selected for specific tasks).
Project managers are an integral part of a well-loaded outsourcing call center team. Thanks to them, it is possible to remove part of the load from supervisors and improve the quality of customer service.
You should also remember that supervisors probably used to work as operators, so direct communication with the customer should be entrusted to a manager who has the skills to organize interactions competently and slightly increase the average check for additional services.
The sales department in an outsourced call center is usually comprised of the most experienced operators. Some companies also hire a development manager who reports directly to the call center head. The larger the organization, the more people must work in the sales department.
As we have already mentioned, a lot depends on how well the staff performs in a call center. Many employees consider this work temporary, so the staff turnover in such organizations is quite high. For employees to want to stay in the call center for as long as possible, in addition to the size of their salaries and satisfaction with their workplace, employees are motivated by:
Experts also say that personnel in senior positions burn out much faster, as they have a wider range of responsibilities and are constantly in a seriously stressful situation so keep that in mind.
Picking a certain management style and improving the quality of corporate culture will also help reduce the turnover rate. If a friendly interaction between employees and management has been established, it will be much easier to keep employees.
Today, the KPI system is used to determine how well a particular employee performs his/her work most efficiently. If you manage an outsourced call center team, then you need to take into account such Key Performance Indicators:
To boost the effectiveness of your call center, each operator should be interested in career and personal growth. For this, they must understand the criteria by which their activities are evaluated. All of them should be objective enough not to raise questions. Therefore, employees should clearly explain why they get their salaries and bonuses.
The organization of automated customer service is an integral part of outsourced contact center management. Using specialized software, you can reduce the load on operators and minimize the call waiting time. On top of that, the advantages of introducing automation technologies include:
Automation also makes customer support cost-effective, which is especially important for small businesses. Our guide explains more about customer support for such companies.
The foundation of outsourced call center operations is individual customer service. To maximize the automation of the call center and operator control, various CRM systems are used. They allow you to fully control all the processes in the company, build sales funnels, and interact with customers more individually. Using such systems, one can:
To efficiently manage the employee’s working time, the so-called WFM system can be used. This is a separate module that can help handle:
When using such a system, improving the quality of work can be carried out due to the:
To answer the question of how to manage an outsourced call center properly, you should definitely pay attention to the audit. Indeed, without periodic inspections, it is impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of employees in depth.
As a rule, one of the management or supervisors receives an observation sheet or KLN containing the main evaluation parameters. Most of the time, more than one operator accounts for 3 to 6 test calls. After that, the results of this assessment are used to decide on a fair payroll.
It is necessary to analyze customer reviews and complaints regularly. Thus, you can identify both common problems and shortcomings of individual operators.
It is also important to measure customer satisfaction, which is a major indicator. You can also attract third-party experts who will analyze the quality of work and recommend eliminating weaknesses.
When managing an outsourced call center, it is important to remember that the main task is to correctly organize the work of a large number of people, optimize internal processes, and do everything to overcome employee turnover. A call center is a people-based business.
The high-quality training of operators, the correct construction of interaction within the team, and the establishment of clear quality criteria will help make the company truly successful.
At Simply Contact, we specialize in creating personalized customer support solutions that drive business growth and customer satisfaction. Let us help you elevate your customer experience and stand out from the competition.
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