External call centers have always been very important for companies as they help to achieve several business objectives. For instance, inbound call centers help to keep the customer base strengthened whereas outbound call centers aid in securing high sales growth.
For both outbound and inbound call centers, the relationship with top-performing agents is extremely important as they play a pivotal role in delivering services in accordance with SLAs. Call center service providers see a direct impact on operations when there is a dip in agents’ performance.
To make sure that efficiency levels don’t fluctuate, call centers strive for improving agents’ performance.
Here’s how established inbound call center service providers improve their agents’ performance:
Table of Contents
Proper assessment of agent KPIs
KPIs (key performance indicators) are what enables inbound call center service providers to identify whether operations are being operated in the desired manner or not. Thanks to KPIs, call center managers know about those agentswho are continuously falling behind while doing their job and need additional training to improve performance levels. To put it simply, KPIs are the key to bettering agents’ performance.
The major KPIs on which prestigious inbound call center service providers keep a close eye are:
- First call resolution (FCR).
- Customer satisfaction.
- Hold times.
- Average answer speed.
- Average handle time.
- Number of waiting calls and active calls.
Real-time monitoring of customer conversations
For call centers, every piece of information is indispensable because that’s how continuous improvement can be secured. That why call transcripts are analyzed properly so that relevant information can be extracted and used to improve productivity levels.
Speech Analytics, a call center software, aids in gleaning valuable insights as it delivers full-text transcripts for each customer call in a jiffy. That’s it? Nope! This software scrutinizes call transcripts and pulls out those keywords and phrases whichcan empower agents to attain FCR (first call resolution).
Speech analytics is just an example, as there are many things you can do improve the productivity of support agents. Such as:
- Monitor live customer interactions with the aim of checking the reliability of call scripts.
- Provide an organized library of resolutions.
- Provide efficient CRM (customer relationship management) system so that the need of asking the same information repetitively could vanish for good.
Skills-based call routing
You can achieve perfection only when you are really good at your job. And the chances of achieving ideal results have always been low when you try your hands in something new. Thus, agents’ performance cannot be questioned if they were asked to handle those tasks which they have never done before. Hence, only those jobs should be given to agents in which they excel. For the very same reason, prestigious inbound call center service providers prefer skills-based call routing.
Owing to skills-based call routing, inbound call centers don’t only witness a consistent performance from their agents but also enjoy elevated CSAT score. This shouldn’t be difficult to understand because whenever customers reach to the right department, they are likely to get nonpareil solutions in an instant manner.
The tool that makes sure skills-based call routing is, ‘Automatic Call Distribution (ACD).’ This tool analyzes the purpose behind each incoming call and then decides which agent will be best to take care of the customer’s queries. In addition, this tool provides customers the option of callback, which notably dwindles the workload. Consequently, there is a rise seen in the agents’ performance. As per the contact center satisfaction index 2016, 3/4thof survey respondents stated that the callbackoption is very importantwith regards to assistance.
Communicate with low-performing agents
By and large, the problem of inconsistency occurs with newly joined and inexperienced agents because they don’t understand the value of customer relationships. Of course, terminating them from their respective position isn’t the solution because you will face the same problem with every new joinee. Plus, we aren’t saying that you shouldn’t entertain freshers during the hiring process, as once you unlock the hidden potential in them by providing appropriate training, then you are likely to gain so many perks in the later stages.
So, how to deal with low-performing agents? Simply put, communicate with them and ask about the reason why they are struggling to put high performance. This can really do the trick because sometimes agents have problem with their seniors or require additional training, but they don’t share their problem with management due to some reasons.
A simple conversation with service reps could give you an idea about what wrong is happening behind your back. After that, a few necessary steps are enough to enhance the performance of low-performing agents.
